Best Art Direction
Nominees:
*Avatar, Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg (art directors); Kim Sinclair (set decorator)
Nine, John Myhre (art director); Gordon Sim (set decorator)
Sherlock Holmes, Sarah Greenwood (art director); Katie Spencer (set decorator)
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, David Warren and Anastasia Masaro (art directors); Caroline Smith (set decorator)
The Young Victoria, Patrice Vermette (art director); Maggie Gray (set decorator)
Why doesn't the Academy change the name of this category? It's misidentified and outdated. The people who create the sets, and often the overall look of a film, have been called production designers for the past 40 or 50 years; their assistants are the art directors, and the folks who choose the slip covers are the set decorators. No slip covers in Avatar, but its visionary design, whoever was responsible for it, should win here.