Usually the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences announces their nominations for the annual Academy Awards sometime after the Golden Globes have been handed out. This year, however, the nominees are being revealed a few days before the Globes take place.

This year brings with it the 85th Annual Academy Awards ceremony, and this morning all of the year’s nominations were made official.

You can check out all of this year’s Oscar nominees below, and be sure to share your thoughts on who is deserving, and who got snubbed.

A few days ago it was reported that Brett Ratner, who was chosen to produce the 84th annual Academy Awards along with Don Mischer, wanted Eddie Murphy to host this year’s Oscars. At the time, it was just Ratner’s choice for the job and multiple other candidates were said to be possibles, but now it’s a much more official selection.

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts Sciences made the announcement earlier today, confirming that Ratner’s choice was the one they liked best for the job. It’s no secret that the organization has been attempting to appeal to younger audiences the last few years, and obviously they’re hoping that the classic Eddie Murpy humor will shine brightly when the awards air on February 26, 2012.

Deadline has learned that when Brett Ratner, the director of such titles as X–Men: The Last Stand, Red Dragon, and all three Rush Hour flicks, meets with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences this Tuesday to discuss who he thinks would be a good choice to host the 84th annual Academy Awards, he’s going to push for Eddie Murphy. Ratner was chosen by the Academy in early August to produce the ceremony along with Don Mischer.

This doesn’t mean that Murphy is hosting for sure yet””only that his name will be in the mix with whomever Mischer also suggests. According to sources, Mischer has a plethora of “big names” interested in hosting that he’s talking to.

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science voters, lend us your eyes. Your attention is demanded!

In a Summer movie season dominated by gigantic science fiction and fantasy movies like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and Terminator Salvation, two much smaller sci-fi films from lesser-known foreign directors were the ones who stole all of the spotlights. Those two films were Neil Blomkamp’s District 9 and Duncan Jones‘ Moon.

Now that all of these movies have come, said their piece, and gone, it does not mean it has to be the last we hear of them. One fan of Moon has taken that a step further, and has begun a campaign to get Academy voters to take notice of Sam Rockwell‘s performance and give it the attention it deserves, hopefully resulting in a Best Actor nomination. The movie, director Duncan Jones, and Rockwell have all been praised numerous times for the film, and it’s difficult to over-look the performance as it is right up on par with Tom Hanks’ nominated work on Cast Away. Rockwell has been around a long time and has given a lot of memorable performances, including some that were the only watchable part of certain films that we’ve seen over the years. So whether he wins a spot on the ballot or not, the man absolutely deserves to be considered.

Days after making the brave and surprising move to double the amount of Best picture nominees from 5 to 10 (Read: 2010 Academy Awards To Include Ten Best Picture Nominees), the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science has also decided that if there’s not a song worthy enough of an Oscar, then no Oscar will be given for Best Original Song.

Basically, this new rule states that if a song does not receive a minimum average score of 8.25 during the nominations voting, then it will not be considered for nomination. If not one song is given this minimum average score, than the category will just not be presented at the 82nd Academy Awards ceremony. If only one song gets the 8.25 average score, then that song and the next highest-rated song to it will be the nominees; if only two songs are deemed worthy, then, again, there will be only two nominees. This is also new as the minimum number of nominees used was three prior to this.

This is the second consecutive change made to the Best Original Song category. The year before last’s ceremony included a sickening three nominees from the movie Enchanted up against the lonely (and eventual winning) nominee from the movie Once — this was then changed to only allow a movie a maximum of two songs nominated.