The people who vote on the awards for the Visual Effects Society are the actual experts on the subject, which may explain why they've made some unusual choices for their nominees this year. Iron Man leads the pack in nominees, which is to be expected, but it's leaps and bounds ahead of The Dark Knight, which was widely considered Iron Man's equal in spectacular effects this year.

Like I said, we have to trust them-- they're the experts. Competing against Iron Man for the group's top prize, visual effects in a visual effects driven motion picture, are The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, and, of all things, Cloverfield. The J.J. Abrams monster movie was also singled out for best single visual effect of the year, the Statue of Liberty crash and the Woolworth Tower collapse. Floating in that category as well is a nomination for Benjamin Button for an effect called "Benjamin's Secret." Does anyone have a clue what that could be referring to?

You can check out the full list of nominees at Variety, including a whole bunch of categories for things I don't understand. Visual effects wizards: they're not like us!