It’s that time of year again when the red carpet starts getting hoovered, celebs start glueing their mouths together in an attempt to shed those vital pounds and designers pull out their most extravagant creations to be paraded on international television. Oh and some awards for some films are given out.

Yes, that’s right, the Oscar nominations have been announced and for once it’s a pretty good spread – no Lord of the Rings or Titantics scooping the lot here, just a wide selection of very talented actors, great directors and impressive films to choose from.

A pick of some of the contenders:
The British contingent seemed to have made its mark on the Academy this year, with Kate Winslet, Judy Dench, Peter O Toole, Helen Mirren and Stephen Frears all up for a little golden man.

Genius Alejandro Gonzalez is up for Best Director for Babel, against directing veteran Martin Sorcese, Clint Eastwood, Stephen Frears and Paul Greengrass.

The truly awesome Pan’s Labyrinth (see Stranger review here) is justly nominated for Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Music and Best Foreign Language Film, and Best Original Screenplay (in our eyes it should win all of those).

And when it comes to best actor, Will Smith will be In Pursuit of Happ’y’ness, Forest Whitaker wants to be the Last King standing and Leonardo DiCaprio… god damn there’s no clever play on words for Blood Diamond.

For the full list of Academy Award nominees check out www.oscar.com and don’t forget to spend the early hours watching it all live on the 25 February.