And The Winner Is... (Best Picture)

Early Tuesday morning in Los Angeles the 82nd Academy Award nominations were released. To my disgust Moon did not receive a single nomination, but I wont further rant about that here. Rather I would like to talk about my prediction for best picture and a few surprises that I noticed when looking through the nominees.
This is the first year that the Academy nominated ten best pictures. This years nominees include Avatar, The Blind Side, District 9, An Education, The Hurt Locker, Inglorious Basterds, Precious, A Serious Man, Up, and Up in the Air. Obviously Avatar was going to be nominated. Any movie with that type of hype and sheer income would be bound for at least a nomination. The Hurt Locker, Inglorious Basterds, and Up in the Air were all expected to receive a nomination. The movies that really surprised me for being nominated were The Blind Side and District 9. Now I haven't seen The Blind Side yet, but just by seeing the trailers, it did not seem to me to be an Oscar type movie. What surprised me about District 9 Being nominated was the fact of the budget that this movie was made on. D9 was made on a budget of $30 million. Sure that's a lot of money but that is nothing compared to the budget of Avatar which was approximately $237 million. I guess if I had to pick a winner for best picture I would give it to The Hurt Locker. The Hurt Locker tells the story of a bomb squad in Iraq. This film is not only relevant but was well made. Sure people are gonna want to see Avatar win, but take away the special effects and it wouldn't have been anything special.
I guess we will have to wait until March 7 to see who brings home the title and I'm sure my opinion will change before that dead line but for now I am sticking with the Hurt Locker.