This year the highly prestigious film awards, the Academy Awards, are doing something they have never done in its entire 81 years of existence.

The Academy didn’t select the usual five nominees for best picture but an astounding 10. Does this mean that this year had a lot of highly acclaimed works of film art? Or has this year been so poor for Hollywood that they just need a large number to encourage more viewers? There is speculation either way, but the list it self is enough controversy to argue over.

The full list of nominees is as follows:

• The Hurt Locker
• The Blind Side
• An Education
• Inglorious Basterds
• Precious
• A Serious Man
• Up In the Air
• District 9
• Up
• Avatar

That’s right. Avatar, Up and District 9 are all on the nominees, which certainly surprised me. Disney/Pixar’s Up is the only animated movie to be nominated for best picture since 1991’s Beauty and the Beast. District 9 proved to be a deep, psychological sci-fi film that gained a lot of fans and hype from its advertising and its unique story-line.

My problem with the nominees this year, beyond there being 10 of them, is with James Cameron’s Avatar. I agree very much with my friend Kelton who blogged already about this movie, and I was nearly furious that it won best picture in the Golden Globes, but to be nominated for best picture of the Oscars?! Plus nine other nominations?!

must be a first for a sci-fi movie and for one with such loyal and rabid followers as Avatar. I liked Avatar, the images were spectacular and the CGI amazing. Beyond that, I wasn’t impressed. The story is old, (see: Fern Gully, Dances With Wolves, Pocahontas, etc…) the acting was sufficient, but not amazing and the writing could have been better.

The key plot piece called “Unobtainium” put me off right when I heard it. No one can say that Cameron couldn’t have changed that word and make the story more believable. I truly believe and know it will win an Oscar for best effects, which it deserves because it did change the game that movies are now playing.

Avatar revolutionized the realm of 3-D movies, but I feel like the judges are seeing amazing effects as cinematography art. The best picture award should go to the most artistic movie of the year, balancing great directing, acting, writing and filming. In my mind Avatar has got filming going for it, but even then, 60 percent of what you see is all CGI and effects.

Moving past Avatar, of the movies I have seen that are nominated, (Up, District 9, Up in Air, Inglorious Basterds, Avatar) I feel a sense of decline in overall quality of the nominees this year. I loved all of those movies, but I really don’t feel like they were up to par with past award winners.

Inglorious Basterds was a great film, I am always a fan of Quentin Tarantino’s style of directing, but I feel the awkward, suspenseful dialogues with Christoph Waltz made the film hard to watch at times, Up in the Air was well written and well acted but felt lacking once it was finished.

All in all, the list of nominees surprised me greatly, making me feel that the Oscar panel was including box-office smashes to fill places on the list. Having not seen half of the movies nominated, I cannot fairly judge if this was a good year for movies, but I do know that whoever wins this year will surely cause debate and talk among movie fans, which is exactly what the Academy Awards are for.

The 2010 Academy Awards will air Sunday March 7 at 8 p.m. central on ABC.