Very, very few surprises among the rest of the major categories, which are below for your listing pleasure. I'll restrict my commentary to alarm, signified by "!"s:

BEST PICTURE

Avatar (!)
Up in the Air
The Hurt Locker
District 9
A Serious Man
The Blind Side (!)
Up
An Education
Inglourious Basterds
Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire

BEST DIRECTOR

James Cameron, Avatar
Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds
Lee Daniels, Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire
Jason Reitman, Up in the Air

BEST ACTOR

Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
George Clooney, Up in the Air
Colin Firth, A Single Man"
Morgan Freeman, Invictus
Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker

BEST ACTRESS

Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side
Helen Mirren, The Last Station
Carey Mulligan, An Education
Gabourey Sidibe, Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire
Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Matt Damon, Invictus (!)
Woody Harrelson, The Messenger
Christopher Plummer, The Last Station
Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones
Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Penélope Cruz, Nine (!!!)
Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air
Maggie Gyllenhaal, Crazy Heart (!)
Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air
Mo'Nique, Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire

BEST ANIMATED FILM

Coraline
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Up
The Princess and the Frog
The Secret of Kells (?)

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

Burma VJ
The Cove
Food, Inc.
The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
Which Way Home (?)

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

Ajami
El Secreto de Sus Ojos
The Milk of Sorrow
Un Prophète
The White Ribbon

BEST SCREENPLAY, ORIGINAL

The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
The Messenger*
A Serious Man
Up

BEST SCREENPLAY, ADAPTED

District 9
An Education
In the Loop*
Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire
Up in the Air

*Denotes the only no-one-saw-that-comings of the lot

For the full list, go to Oscar.com.

What if I told you about a major motion picture that said God is a myth? That its main character, living in a world in which people are incapable of lying, soothes his dying mother by saying she’s about to leave this life for a better place, where she’ll have a mansion and see all of her friends and be happier than she’s ever been?

Mum isn’t the only comforted dupe of the falsehood in the story: When her caretakers hear of this wonderful afterlife, word spreads fast, and soon the accidental prophet is telling the masses about heaven and hell—though there are no such terms for them yet—and exactly how you need to behave to avoid eternal damnation. To complete the fib, he preaches about “the man in the sky,” who he says is responsible for good things! Such as saving someone from drowning. But he’s also to blame for bad things, such as cancer.

And the even more subversive cherry? The people who believe him are largely portrayed as idiots.

One would imagine that such a film would generate howls of blasphemy from conservatives and Christians, à la The Golden Compass and The Da Vinci Code before their openings. But the movie described above is The Invention of Lying, released wide on Oct. 2 and seemingly on no one’s radar except fans of the British version of The Office.

Granted, actor, co-writer, and director Ricky Gervais’ film is fundamentally a big-studio romantic comedy—but Golden Compass was merely a big-studio kids’ flick, and it had groups from the Catholic League to the American Family Association drumming up a boycott (author Philip Pullman’s “real goal is to put a positive face on atheism,” the Catholic League said). On his blog, Gervais acknowledges that Lying has a bit of an edge: He calls it a “sweet Hollywood family rom-com; it just happens to be the first ever completely atheistic movie with no concessions.”

So why no protest? Critic James Berardinelli, who runs the Web site Reelviews.net, accuses the film’s distributor, Warner Bros., of intentionally hiding the religion subplot, writing in his review: “In an effort to limit controversy, the distributor, Warner Brothers, has decided to obscure the film’s unsubtle commentary about religious matters. You won’t find anything about it in the trailers; you have to see the movie to be exposed to it.” (Warner Bros. refused to comment.)

Beliefnet blogger Michele McGinty agrees, accusing the studio of “smug condescension” and trying to trick her into “paying to see a movie that insults me as a gullible sap.” (Unlike Berardinelli, McGinty has not seen the film, instead reacting to a review in the New York Post.)

Former church-group leader Phil Petree of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., said in an e-mail interview that Christians likely took a “Don’t feed the monkey!” approach. “The more we respond,” he mused, “the more publicity [the film] will get, and the more people will see that message.…In the end, by ignoring them, movies like The God Who Wasn’t There go largely [unnoticed] by the media and audiences in general and become dismal failures.”

“Dismal” may be a tad strong to describe The Invention of Lying’s initial two-week box office, but it’s not too far off the mark. Even with Hollywood A-listers such as Jennifer Garner, Tina Fey, Rob Lowe, and Jonah Hill, the film ranked fifth in its opening weekend, bringing in a paltry $7.4 million and dropping approximately 53 percent in its second week. (Its budget was $18.5 million.) Though that’s a slight improvement over Gervais’ first leading-man comedy, last year’s Ghost Town, you still gotta wonder if some pre-release Internet fisticuffs would have given it a Passion of the Christ-–like boost.

Another Beliefnet contributor, Nell Minow (the “Movie Mom”), believes that the film didn’t raise a ruckus because there’s not much for Christians to be upset about. “I don’t think the movie is anti-religion, even though Gervais is an atheist,” Minow says. “It’s not like Dogma or The Last Temptation of Christ, which attack the church head-on. Gervais’ character sort of makes up the idea of religion, and it is his fake religion that is the subject of the film, not an actual denomination. It’s more like Life of Brian.”

Plus, Minow adds, “I have not seen any bloggers objecting to the portrayal of Judaism in A Serious Man, though it is arguably as offensive as The Invention of Lying is to Christians. The Jewish characters are all grotesque—glib, fatuous, irreverent, remote. Is it because [writers-directors Ethan and Joel Coen] are Jewish that this is permissible?”

It’s likely as well that The Invention of Lying’s skewering of religion is permissible because Gervais is not exactly a household name this side of the pond yet. Or could it be we’re just gaining a sense of humor about spiritual questioning? Doubtful. On his blog, Gervais encourages those who do find the film funny to “enjoy it while you can. They won’t show it in Heaven."

Watch the film's trailer:

A Serious Man: Thumbs are largely up for the Coen brothers' latest, a dark and semi-autobiographical comedy about a Jewish family in the '60s Midwest.

Coco Before Chanel: Audrey Tautou may finally shake her Amelie pixiehood with this turn as the before-she-was-famous titular couturier.

Good Hair: Chris Rock's documentary about African-American hair — what's considered bad, what's considered good, and how expensive and time-consuming it is to trade one for the other.

Couples Retreat: Don't go to see this. Don't even queue it or wait for it to hit cable. Unless you're looking for reasons to stop liking Vince Vaughn, Jason Bateman, Jon Favreau, Malin Ackerman, Kristin Davis, or Kristen Bell.