After failing to get a nomination for the 'Best Foreign Film' Oscar, the animated version of Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis was one of three films nominated in the 'Best Animated Feature' category.  Persepolis, which won the 'Jury Prize' at the Cannes Film Festival, joins Brad Bird's Ratatouille from Pixar and Sony's penguin sports mockumentary Surf's Up in vying for the 'Best Animated Feature' Oscar. 

At this point it appears that Ratatouille, with its combination of critical acclaim and muscular worldwide box office ($620 million), has the inside track especially since it also received nominations for 'Best Screenplay' and 'Best Score.'  In addition to those three prestigious nods, Ratatouille also received nominations in the Sound Editing and Sound Mixing categories as did Paramount's Transformers.  Transformers was also nominated in the 'Achievements in Visual Effects' category along with The Golden Compass and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.

This year the Academy has displayed a penchant for the serious and the suspenseful with Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood and the Coen brothers' No Country for Old Men each receiving eight nominations.  But with the writers' strike still going on, it's too early to predict confidently that the February 24th Oscar telecast will even take place in its usual overly long fashion.