Oscar nominations: All you need to know

Venn diagrams never lie, so it seems Philip Seymour Hoffman is due an Oscar come March.

But what of the best actress? In that category, nobody quite manages to straddle the famous/gay intersection (stop laughing at the back, please). Therefore, the decision is sure to be based on the likelihood of tears at the podium. So it won't be Reese Witherspoon: her jaw is too square for a wobbly chin moment. Nor Keira Knightley: if she was to let any more water out of her body she'd shrivel up and die. So my money is on Felicity Huffman, who managed to convey a suitable amount of teary dignity at the Golden Globes without ever smudging her mascara. Very classy for a pre-operative transexual.

But, what of the music category? Only three songs are nominated this year. Three! And you will be able to recall none of them.

Best music (song)
In the Deep - Crash
It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp - Hustle and Flow
Travelin' Thru - Transamerica

See what I mean?

The strange thing is, there was a great deal of good music in last year's films. The Life Aquatic, to pick my favourite example, had a whole raft of David Bowie songs covered by Seu Jorge. I'm not sure if the award rules allow cover versions - but these acoustic reworkings (sung in Portugese) are sublime, putting a whole new twist on old classics. Surely they were original enough to be considered?

Elsewhere, Alanis Morisette delivered one of her most listenable records of recent years for the closing credits of the Narnia film. And how about Team America: World Police? "Montage" or "I'm So Ronery" would have been worth a nod (moreso than South Park's Blame Canada, which was Oscar nominated a couple of years ago). And, after last year's decision to make Beyoncé sing all of the nominated songs in a selection of increasingly awful frocks, we'd pay good money to see Mariah Carey's version of "Everyone has Aids".

Still, kudos to the Academy for roundly ignoring 50 Cent's ' film'.

Venn diagram via Hanasiana

Full list of nominees

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