Sure, the Oscars are important, but they hardly ever honor horror films. The Scream Awards are fine, but they're geared toward modern horror. What's a classic horror fan to do? Luckily, there's the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards (or the "Rondos"), put together by David Colton over at the Classic Horror Film Board (no relation to Classic-Horror.com). Each year, classic horror fans nominate dozens of horror/sci-fi/fantasy films, television shows, DVDs, magazines, books, and websites to win a handsomely sculpted bust of horror actor Rondo Hatton.

Today, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced their nominees for the 80th Academy Awards (aka the Oscars). Although the Academy rarely honors the horror genre outside of Best Makeup, this year they've recognized Johnny Depp's turn as the murderous title character in Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd with a nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role. The film also received nominations for Best Art Direction (Dante Ferretti, Francesca Lo Schiavo) and Best Costume Design (Colleen Atwood). Congratulations to all nominees.

Let's take a second to review the process of listing "best movies". The only word that can really be used to describe the process is "arbitrary." In the case of the AFI's "100 Best" lists, the American Film Institute's "experts" -- over 1,500 "leaders from the creative community", including directors, writers, actors, cinematographers, and editors -- vote from a list of 400 nominated films on which 100 are the very best. The film must be feature-length and American.

The BAFTA awards (the British equivalent of the Oscars) have nominated the romantic zomedy Shaun of the Dead for two of its top awards. Producer Nira Park is up for the The Carl Foreman Award For Special Achievement By a British Director/Producer OR Writer In Their First Feature Film, and the film itself has been nominated for Best British Film.