Okay, so this is super-serious. What we expected to have happen for the ten Best Picture nominees is not at all what happened in real life. Instead of the inclusion of commercially popular films like The Hangover and even possibly Star Trek, we ended up with a shocking inclusion of A Serious Man-which deserves it, sorry haters!-and… The Blind Side. One thing: there’s not a single comedy in there. (Unless you count the Coen brothers, which, too dark to even be comedy.)

That there are two performances nominated from Invictus-Morgan Freeman as best actor and Matt Damon as best supporting-is a horror show.

More shockingly? This is the first time in like, ever, that Almodovar has gotten snubbed. (OK, except Bad Education, which was meh.) (Anyway, apparently, this we knew from the shortlist, but seeing it really happen is upsetting!)

8:44 The Ten Best Picture Nominees: Avatar, The Blind Side, District 9, An Education, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Precious, A Serious Man, Up, Up in the Air. WHOA.

8:43 a.m. NO ALMODOVAR FOR BEST FOREIGN PICTURE? WHAT?
8:43 am. Adapted: In the Loop! Yay! Annnnd no nomination for Dave Eggers.
8:43 a.m. Director: CAMERON v. BIGELOW! (v. Tarantino!)
8:42 a.m. Supporting: Damon, Harrelson, Plummer, Tucci and YAY INGLOURIOUS NAZI.
8:40 a.m. Penelope, Vera, Maggie, Anna, MO’NIQUE. Supporting!
8:40 a.m. Anne Hathaway: PANTSUIT.
8:38 a.m. “WE ARE ONE MINUTE TO AIR.”
8:36 a.m. I can’t believe everyone in Los Angeles stayed up all night and took extra meth to sit in this auditorium and talk to people they already know they hate.
8:34 a.m. This presentation has all the charm and timeliness of a high school choir recital.
8:33 a.m. Someone in L.A. who works in the media has a hacking cough! I bet it’s that queen from The Envelope.
8:32 a.m. PLEASE REMOVE YOUR VEHICLES FROM THE PARKING LOT BY 7 A.M. PST. Stupid media.
8:31 a.m. How are you all going to feel when Dave Eggers gets nominated for screenplay? Are you ready for Academy Awardâ„¢ nominated Dave Eggers?
8:30 a.m. OMG.

7:45 a.m. We are all-and by “all,” I mean, those of us who are not doing emergency surgery on babies in Haiti or reading some things called “books”-super-stoked about this morning’s Oscar announcements. Ten! Ten Best Picture nominees! Something something The Hangover something death cage-match something Inglourious Basterds! Let’s get crunk together on the validation of the careers of some liberal narcissists from the other coast!

Vulture started off the morning with the rumor that ABC accidentally pre-announced the Oscars. “A simple search of the word ‘oscar’ on ABCNews.com brings up a long list of results titled ‘2010 Oscar Nominations.’” Ha, that is because they had a bunch of interns prepare ready to post “This Person Won an Oscar” thingies that they can just hit publish on. That’s what they do at news organizations, you know-prewrite and hope it sounds good when it’s true to sort of true! (Except, apparently, in the event of the death of J.D. Salinger, which apparently took every obit desk in America by surprise?)

As far as best picture predictions go? We are co-signing this list, by Awl pal Natasha Vargas-Cooper, as a combination of should-be nominated and likely-to-be nominated.

1. Avatar
2. The Hangover
3. District 9
4. An Education
5. Inglorious Basterds
6. Precious
7. Hurt Locker
8. Blind Side
9. Up in the Air
10. Nine

Will we ever actually see, with our own eyes, The Blind Side? No. But apparently this weird, 80s-era take on American race relations is warming seats and/or hearts all over America.

Also? Like fully nearly any three of those movies could get dumped for STAR TREK. I know, right?

Last night’s Grammys caught up to Time’s Person Of The Year declaration from 2006 and so they were all about You. You had the opportunity to cover Lady GaGa’s “Poker Face” or Beyoncé’s “Halo” and appear as a member of a YouTubeMosaic. You had the power to select which song Bon Jovi would exhume from its well-worn back catalog. You had the opportunity to watch the shaggy-haired founder of a cool blogging platform that You might use cover the awards, even if he wasn’t 100% clear on who would be amenable to a red-carpet question about his service. And, most crucially, You were able to watch as the artists that You might enjoy were honored by the telecast-provided that the songs and albums You liked had come out before August 30.

And following the reactions to the Grammys last night on Twitter was simultaneously maddening and fascinating, thanks to both the nature of the reactions and CBS’ outmoded desire to cling to those 20th-century relics known as “time zones.” (I’m in Colorado at the moment, and the MST broadcast aired an hour behind the live action.)

Discussing time zones is probably a lost cause, so let’s instead talk about what happens when you throw “pop music” in 2010 open to the masses, who are increasingly defining said term based on the contents of their iTunes library, an RSS reader, and not much else. You have the people who thought that the award-laden Taylor Swift was only famous because of Kanye West interrupting her during her Video Music Awards speech. (Never mind that her two albums have sold some 10 million copies combined to date-and a lot of those sales happened way before September’s incident.)

You had the people who actually claimed that “MGMT was robbed” of its Best New Artist award. You had the people who fervently believed that it would be radically revolutionary for The Lonely Island’s “I’m On A Boat” to win the Best Rap/Sung Collaboration*. You had everyone hating the Black Eyed Peas, pretty much universally. All that hate didn’t stop “I Gotta Feeling” from re-entering the iTunes Store’s top 10 this morning.

Here’s the thing about the Grammys, which people seem to not understand in the name of Making A Statement About How They Have Better Music Taste Than Everyone Else: There’s no way that they can’t be out of touch with the majority of music fans.

Let us briefly review the rules, which the awards ceremony helpfully provides on its official site:

Recording Academy members and record companies enter recordings and music videos released during the eligibility year….
Reviewing sessions by more than 150 experts in various fields are held to ensure that entered recordings meet specific qualifications and have been placed in appropriate fields….

First-round ballots are sent to voting members… To help ensure the quality of the voting, members are directed to vote only in their fields of expertise….

In craft and other specialized categories, final nominations are determined by national nomination review committees comprised of voting members from all of The Academy’s Chapter cities.

Final-round ballots are sent to voting members… the finalists determined by the special nominating committees are also included in this ballot. In this final round, Recording Academy members may vote in the four general categories and in no more than eight (8) of the 29 fields.

And then the results are announced, with most of them being unveiled as the red carpet fills up with disastrously dressed honorees.

This is a long process involving lots of people, many of whom have, let’s say, been in the music business for a long time. And it’s one that starts way early-for consideration in yesterday’s ceremonies, nominated songs and albums had to be commercially released before Aug. 31. (Yes, five months ago!) The out-of-touchness is in part a result of the early deadline, which itself is partially because music is such a sprawling media, particularly when compared with those media honored by the Emmys and the Oscars. (In 2008, more than 115,000 albums were commercially released!)

This sheer amount of available stuff also contributes to some cocooning by the old-guard members who still dutifully cast ballots-hence a live version of Hall & Oates’ “Sara Smile” being nominated for Best Pop Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocals (it lost to “I Gotta Feeling”), or a live album by Eric Clapton & Steve Winwood getting a Rock Album nod (Green Day won), or the Metal category consistently being dominated by old-guard types like Judas Priest (this year’s winner) and Metallica.

On the other side, you have the newer voters who might be a little more exploratory than their biz-lifer brethren; the Best New Artist nu-alt logjam of MGMT, the Silversun Pickups and the Ting Tings, for example, pretty much ensured that the Zac Brown Band, who are well-known enough to market their own barbecue rub (it’s available at Cracker Barrel), would walk away with the golden gramophone last night.

But letting people know that the Grammys are the result of an ever-more-imperfect process that’s the equivalent of trying to pick the Greatest Pine Needle out of the White River National Forest does little to tamp down the white-hot rage that erupts when people feel their musical taste is being ignored.

And apparently getting people to argue is quite the way to get them to tune in, even if they’re a couple of hours behind their East Coast pals. Ratings for the telecast were way up, and Twitter’s trending topics were lit up with Grammy references last night.

Can’t wait for the great Susan Boyle vs. Vampire Weekend debates of 2011 to start.

* I am thrilled beyond belief that The Lonely Island’s consumerism-hop parody “I’m On A Boat” did not snag the Best Rap/Sung Collaboration Award, despite the groanings of Internet types who somehow found it so weird that a song spawned by a General Electric-produced TV show would be noticed by people in the real world. Call me a fun-hater, but note that T-Pain, who appears on the track, even seemed horrified by the honor; he told Ryan Seacrest, “It’s more amazing that a lot of my stuff don’t get nominated for Grammys, then a mockery of the art is nominated. It’s weird.” I’d say it’s more “patently offensive” than “weird,” myself.

Maura, Maura, Maura!

In case you missed it: “A self-described ‘Jewish music label and promotion company’ in the United States has begun marketing a version of the traditional Arab headdress complete with blue embroidered stars of David, the symbol of the state…. Erez Safar, the company’s founder and director, said the scarf, which also bears the Hebrew slogan ‘Am Israeli Chai’ (‘The Nation of Israel Lives’), was created ‘for the unity it creates among Jews’.” Can you guess where in the United States these are being made? I bet you can!

People are making movies out of nothin’ at all these days. This I admire! And yet am obviously concerned that the Oscar-winning Talking Butt Movie Era of the Future is nearly upon us. For instance, people seem extremely excited about “Frozen,” which opens on Friday and in which three people are stuck on a ski lift. Yes. It is apparently the “Piranha” of chair lift movies! From the less commercial side of the world, there is also a new film called “Rubber,” by Mr. Oizo/Quentin Dupieux. In it, “Robert, a tire that has been abandoned in the desert, suddenly comes to life, for no reason. He learns how to get around, explores the desert and discovers in himself a passion for destroying insects and various lost items.” Later Robert learns to explode people’s heads. I mean, I guess people were probably really nervous when someone was like, “I’m going to make a movie about this one shark that terrorizes a beach!” And also “This guy finds an ear then has sexy sex with this lady but lives happily ever after.” And I guess “Rapey thug gets deprogrammed with classical music.” But shouldn’t I be a little nervous?

But don’t worry about Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission: “For the first time in recent history, the lobbying, grassroots and advertising budget of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has surpassed the spending of BOTH the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee.”

Harper’s has just posted-in what reads to me as a big extending of the middle finger to the New York Times, in light of this morning’s Times piece on Harper’s– Renata Adler’s fantastic “A Court of No Appeal,” from 2000, which addresses her interactions with the Times in specific and also the idea of a media contretemps in general. It is a must-read if you have never had the pleasure.

The monks of Buckfast Abbey — a pleasant Benedictine order in Devon, England — are rejecting suggestions that their Buckfast Tonic (a highly-caffeinated, 30 proof fortified wine) is playing a role in the nation’s epidemic of drunken violence. The Scottish constabulary have noted the connection: “Buckfast Tonic Wine was mentioned in 5,638 crime reports from 2006 to 2009, Strathclyde Police said. One in 10 of those offences were violent and the bottle was used as a weapon 114 times in that period.” While the monks’ statement

What is clear is that there are serious, social problems in some parts of Scotland and that in some of these parts there are people who abuse alcoholic drinks, including Buckfast Tonic Wine. Deplorable as these are, it is hard to see how one product with only a small percentage of the market can be held responsible for all the social ills of such an area. This seems a rather rapid leap of logic. Has anyone considered that the misuse of this wine by some could be seen as a symptom rather than a cause of such problems?

seems eminently reasonable, you have to admit that looks like a pretty irresistible bottle, sure to arouse the bloodlust of Knifecrime Island’s savage receptacle-wielders. Maybe they should add a “Not For Glassing” label to the bottom.

Fox News wonders if President Obama BOWED BEFORE the mayor of Tampa, FL. I am also wondering something: Do I laugh or cry? I’m leaning toward laugh, but when you think of the sheer pile of toxic bullshit built piece by piece on tiny mounds of crap like this, I can see the case for the other alternative.

Dear New York magazine,

My baby. My baby! Recently my baby had some tests. My baby is 2.5 months old. My baby! Sometimes my baby seems different than other babies. My baby should have be accepted to a very good college in the year 2025. My baby likes yams and dislikes all loud noises that are not the sound cows make. My baby has good arm strength but bad color-name recognition. My baby! Last night I had a dream that my baby had a prehensile tail, and when I woke up, I confess that I wished it was true. Oh, sometimes I think my baby is really listening to me when I read to it in Russian, but then I see that my baby is staring just past the top of my head, at the mirror. Does my baby recognize my baby in the mirror? I think my baby is terrified of faucets, and so I try not to turn them on. Ever. My baby came out of a human being and it is all I can think about, that the baby was made out of people, not bought from people. Do I want another baby as well? Would that be twice as much baby, or really more like thrice? Would I be betraying my baby? What if I had another baby and something was wrong with my baby? What would I do then? What if secretly something is wrong with this baby that I already have? And I am about to find that secret out-maybe later today even, or it could be tomorrow, or possibly sometime in the middle of next week? What will I do for my baby then?

Sincerely,

A Parent
Brooklyn, New York

“President Obama, The public wants to know why Marijuana is illegal. Not just the “stoner kids”, or the cheech and chong old guys but everyone is asking this question now. Please answer!”

Your president is answering questions from the citizenry live on YouTube right now! What a proud moment it is for all of us here in America!