You might recall the recent wave of publicity behind sound mixer Kevin O'Connell and his 19th nomination last year for "Apocalypto," along with his partner, Greg P. Russell.  The chatter is back this season as the duo was nominated for their final collaboration, "Transformers" -- nomination numbers 20 and 12 respectively.  They actully have a really good shot at finally taking the award this time around, as their only true competition might be the creativity of "No Country for Old Men."  But, as Russell told me last month, at least there isn't another musical in their way this season.

Martin Grove of The Hollyood Reporter has a huge write-up on the contenders and their history with Oscar.  Co-nominee Peter J. Devlin (two nods to his credit) is also featured.  Here's a look:

Academy members, whose final ballots are starting to turn up in their mailboxes, will now have another chance to consider O'Connell, Russell and Devlin's work. Looking at the sound trio individually, O'Connell's 20 nominations go back to 1984 and "Terms of Endearment." Among his noms are those for "A Few Good Men," "Twister," "The Rock," "Armageddon," "Pearl Harbor," "Spider-Man" and "Spider-Man 2," all of which are shared with Russell except for "Twister." Among Russell's 12 noms going back to 1990 and "Black Rain," all of which are shared with O'Connell, are "Con Air," "The Mask of Zorro," "The Patriot" and "Memoirs of a Geisha." Devlin's twin nominations for "Transformers" and "Pearl Harbor" are both shared with O'Connell and Russell.

And later:

Looking back at all those noms he's amassed over the years, O'Connell observed, "One of the things about being nominated 20 times and never winning is it's given me a little bit of a voice to the world as to what we do. I've been talking to radio stations. I've been doing TV interviews and a lot of print interviews. I believe the more the world realizes what we do, the more exciting it is for people because everyone at home has their home theater and their 5.1 sound, but they don't know why they have it. They have it because of what we do. We're the guys who create that. We create the 5.1, which is six channels of sound -- 10,000 tracks boiled down to six. And that is not technical. That's all artistic."

Check out the rest!

Earlier: Yours truly gets Greg P. Russell's view of things (Jan. 23) [Red Carpet District]