Stats and facts

From Variety:

• With his eighth acting nom, for "Venus," Peter O'Toole is a winner either way. If he wins, great; if not, he goes down in the record books as the actor with the most noms without a win (he was previously tied with Richard Burton).
• With her 14th nom, Meryl Streep ("The Devil Wears Prada") furthers her lead for most nominated actor ever. Runners-up are Jack Nicholson and Katharine Hepburn, with 12 apiece.
• Kevin O'Connell, nommed for sound mixing in "Apocalypto," scores his 19th nom. He furthers his status as the Academy's most nominated individual who, so far, hasn't won. Distant runners-up are composer Alex North and art director Roland Anderson, at 15 each.
• "Dreamgirls" is the first live-action film to have three of its songs nominated. Two animated films can lay claim to the same record: "The Lion King" in 1994 and "Beauty and the Beast" in 1991.
• "I Need to Wake Up" from "An Inconvenient Truth" is the first song from a docu to be nominated since "More" from "Mondo Cane" was up for the award in 1963.
• Alan Arkin has gone 38 years since his last nom --1968's "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" -- the same amount of time Jack Palance spent between "Shane" in 1953 and "City Slickers" in 1991. Henry Fonda is still the title holder at 41 years between acting noms.
• With "Little Children," Kate Winslet, 31, becomes the youngest actress to garner five noms. She has made 19 movies. Previous record holder was Olivia de Haviland, who secured her fifth at the age of 33. By that time -- 1950 -- she had made 33 films.
• Ten-year-old Abigail Breslin, should she win the supporting actress trophy, will tie Tatum O'Neal as the youngest Oscar winner. O'Neal, however, at the time of her win at the 1974 ceremony, was six months younger than Breslin will be in February.
• Gary Rydstrom received his 14th nomination Tuesday. His "Lifted" is up for animated short, marking the first time he has been nominated outside the the sound and sound editing categories.
• Only two nominees are competing against themselves: Henry Krieger is up for three songs and Alan Robert Murray could win in sound editing for either "Letters From Iwo Jima" or "Flags of Our Fathers."
• The 71 letters, collected into 12 words, appears to make "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" the longest title of a film ever nominated for an Oscar. In the fiction category, it easily topples the 54 letters of "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" and in the land of docs, edges out the 65-letter "Forever Activists: Stories from the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade" from 1990.

From Oscarwatch:

• From Phil Welsh:If Forest Whitaker takes home the Best Actor Oscar, it will be only the third time in Oscar history that the film possessing the year's Best Actor was not nominated for any other award. The other three times were 1987 when Michael Douglas won for Wall Street, 1968 when Cliff Robertson won for Charly, and 1950 when Jose Ferrer won for Cyrano de Bergerac.
• From Phil Welsh: If Jennifer Hudson and Eddie Murphy take home the Best Supporting Actress and Actor awards, it will be only the second time in Oscar history that a film possessed two acting winners while not being nominated for best picture. The other time? 1963 when Patricia Neal and Melvyn Douglas won Actress and Supporting Actor for Hud, which was left off the nominees list.
• From Adam: The best pictures have a total of only 26 nominations. That's the smallest number since1932/33(6th Oscars). In fact, this is the smallest number of nominations since there was a "Best Picture" category, before that there was "Outstanding Motion Picture".
• From Adam: Only once since the first Oscar ceremony (1927/1928) that none of the "Best Pictures/Outstanding Motion Pictures" have a cinematography nomination.

From The Envelope:

• Never before in Oscar history has the film with the most nominations failed to reap a bid in the best-picture race. ("Dreamgirls" has eight, but not the top one.) A few films have had more noms and didn't get a best-pic bid (nine each for "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" in 1977 and "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" in 1969), but other movies had more noms. "The Turning Point" topped "Close Encounters" and "Anne of the Thousand Days" had more than "Horses."
• This year there's a breakthrough number of black nominees in the acting races (five): Forest Whitaker ("Last King of Scotland"), Will Smith ("Pursuit of Happyness"), Eddie Murphy and Jennifer Hudson ("Dreamgirls") and Djimon Hounsou ("Blood Diamond"). This ties the previous record set in 2004 when Jamie Foxx scored two noms ("Ray," "Collateral") plus there were bids for "Hotel Rwanda" stars Don Cheadle and Sophie Okonedo and Morgan Freeman ("Million Dollar Baby").
• It's a big, breakthrough year for Latinos at the Oscars, with such Latin-helmed pix like "Babel," "Pan's Labyrinth" and "Volver" in the derby, even "Children of Men." Also, actresses such as Penelope Cruz ("Volver") and Adriana Barraza ("Babel"). Our forums poster "OJODIAMANTE" has made a list of the Latin nominees in all categories.

Latin Movies:
- Babel (Alejandro Gonzales Iñárritu) Best Picture Nominee
- Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro) Best Foreign Picture Nominee
- Children of Men (Alfonso Cuarón)
- Volver (Pedro Almodovar)
Latin Actresses
- Penélope Cruz (Volver)
- Adriana Barraza (Babel)
Latin Director
- Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu - (Babel)
Latin Art Director
- Eugenio Caballero - (Pan’s Labyrinth)
Latin cinematography Directors
- Guillermo Navarro (Pan’s Labyrinth)
- Emmanuel Lubezki (Children of Men)
Latinos in a film editing
- Alex Rodriguez & Alfonso Cuarón (Children of men)
Latin Writters in music for Motion Picture(Original Score)
- Gustavo Santaolalla (Babel)
- Javier Navarrete (Pan’s Labyrinth)
Latinos in Best live action short film
- Javier Fesser & Luis Manso - “Binta and the Great Idea (Binta Y La Gran Idea)”
- Borja Cobeaga - “Éramos Pocos (One Too Many)”
Latinos in sound mixing
- Fernando Camara (Apocalypto)
Latinos in Adapted screenplay
- Alfonso Cuarón & David Arata (Children of Men)
Latinos in Original Screenplay
- Guillermo Arriaga (Babel)
- Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth)