Finding Austin in the Academy Award Nominations

Last year, the Austin connections at the Oscars were easy to spot: actress Sandra Bullock and musician Ryan Bingham, both of whom brought home the little gold guys. This year, Austin is a little less obvious in the Academy Award nominations, but you can still find local connections if you poke around a bit. Let's hope some of these folks walk away with awards next month:

• John Hawkes: Supporting Actor, Winter's Bone -- Hawkes (pictured at right) started his career in Austin before his role in this excellent movie, which played SXSW 2010. You can find him in a couple of Austin-shot movies, too: he's in Eve's Necklace and going back a few years, plays a liquor-store clerk in From Dusk Til Dawn.
• Dogtooth: Foreign Language Film, Greece -- One of the film's producers is Athina Rachel Tsangari, a filmmaker who divides her time between Greece and Austin. She was an executive producer on Bryan Poyser's film Lovers of Hate, and her 1997 film The Slow Business of Going won a Texas Filmmakers Production Fund grant in 1997. Dogtooth played SXSW in 2010.
• True Grit: 10 nominations including Best Picture and Directing -- This Western was partially shot in Austin, as well as in nearby Granger. In addition, co-director Joel Coen attended grad school at The University of Texas at Austin (after which he and Ethan Coen shot Blood Simple in Austin). (Mike's review)
• Country Strong: Original Song ("Coming Home") -- This movie is partially set in Austin, although it wasn't shot here. The film's writer/director, Shana Feste, is an alumnus of UT. (Mike's review)
• In addition, many of the nominated films played either SXSW or Austin Film Festival in 2010. AFF 2010 animated short winner The Lost Thing is nominated in the Animated Short category, as is another AFF 2010 selection, The Gruffalo. (Thanks to David Gil Jr. at AFF for the heads up.)

If we missed any other Austin connections in the Academy Awards nominations, please let us know in the comments.