Well folks, it's official now, this morning the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) announced their nominees for the best in film in 2008. Keep in mind that the Academy is the most prestigious organization in film, and to win an Oscar is the highest honor any film can achieve, so these nominations hold quite a bit of weight. As expected, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, because it is a technical acheivement as well as a solid acheivement artistically, scored the most Oscar nominations with 13, putting it in elite company with films like Gone With the Wind, From Here to Eternity, All About Eve, Mary Poppins, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Forrest Gump, Titanic, Shakespeare in Love, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, and Chicago as the only films in history to score 13 or more Oscar nominations. Seven of the 10 went on to actually win Best Picture. Slumdog Millionaire did very well with 10 nominations. This is especially remarkable considering it's not a special effects vehicle and was largely shot with a hand-held digital camera. All things considered, Slumdog Millionaire remains the front runner for the win. The other big story is that although The Dark Knight earned 8 nominations, only one was in a major category (Best Supporting Actor- Heath Ledger). It just goes to show that there still exists "genre-bias" on the part of the Academy in their snub of a film that they likely saw as a "comic book film." In the mind of this blogger, it really transcended that genre (despite a slightly shaky third act) and became something so much more than a comic book movie, a genre I personally don't particularly care for. Instead of The Dark Knight getting a Best Picture nomination, the late-surging Stephen Daldry film The Reader starring Kate Winslet in the lead role (yes lead, not supporting, I'm glad the Academy at least got that right) scored 5 nominations including the coveted Best Picture nod. This film has been threatening for a while, and in the end it got in. It should be an interesting night, and I'm going to go ahead and call a Slumdog Millionaire win, but I will also say that with Kate Winslet's 6th nomination at just 33 years old, the Academy is ready to finally honor her work with an Oscar for her performance in The Reader, a film that obviously the Academy supports. It should be an interesting race going down the stretch. Below is the run-down of all of the nominations...Best picture
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire
Best director
Danny Boyle - Slumdog Millionaire
Stephen Daldry - The Reader
David Fincher - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Ron Howard - Frost/Nixon
Gus Van Sant - Milk
Best actor
Richard Jenkins - The Visitor
Frank Langella - Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn - Milk
Brad Pitt - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke - The Wrestler
Best actress
Anne Hathaway - Rachel Getting Married
Angelina Jolie - Changeling
Melissa Leo - Frozen River
Meryl Streep - Doubt
Kate Winslet - The Reader
Best supporting actress
Amy Adams - Doubt
Penelope Cruz - Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis - Doubt
Taraji P Henson - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Marisa Tomei - The Wrestler
Best supporting actor
Josh Brolin - Milk
Robert Downey Jr - Tropic Thunder
Philip Seymour Hoffman - Doubt
Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight
Michael Shannon - Revolutionary Road
Best foreign language film
Revanche - Austria
The Class - France
The Baader Meinhof Complex - Germany
Departures - Japan
Waltz With Bashir - Israel
Best animated feature film
Bolt
Kung Fu Panda
Wall-E
Best adapted screenplay
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Doubt
Frost/Nixon
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire
Best original screenplay
Happy-Go-Lucky
Milk
Wall-E
In Bruges
Frozen River
Best original score
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Defiance
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire
Wall-E
Best original song
Down To Earth - Wall-E
Jai Ho - Slumdog Millionaire
O Saya - Slumdog Millionaire
Art direction
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Changeling
The Dark Knight
The Duchess
Revolutionary Road
Cinematography
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Changeling
The Dark Knight
Slumdog Millionaire
The Reader
Costume design
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Australia
Milk
The Duchess
Revolutionary Road
Best documentary feature
The Betrayal
Encounters at the End of the World
The Garden
Man on Wire
Trouble The Water
Film editing
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Frost/Nixon
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire
Make-up
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
Sound editing
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Iron Man
Wanted
Slumdog Millionaire
Wall-E
Sound mixing
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Wanted
Slumdog Millionaire
Wall-E
Visual effects
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Iron Man
So there it is. In terms of nomination tallies, below are the leaders in nominations...
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button- 13
Slumdog Millionaire- 10
The Dark Knight- 8
Milk- 8
Wall-E- 6
Doubt-5
Frost/Nixon- 5
The Reader- 5
The winners will be announced at the Oscar ceremony on February 22nd at 8pm on ABC. Up next: the Screen Actors Guild awards their nominees on Sunday. In the meantime, check out the BBC's coverage of Oscars 2009 by clicking here. Their coverage of the awards is always excellent.
14 comments:
Well, at least the batman actually had nomination everybody have expected: supporting actor
Again, why does everyone just expect comic books to be a bunch of fighting? "Watchmen" goes deeper than most NOVELS that I've read! And as far as Batman; "The Killing Joke", talk about a total complex moral-questioning paradox. Ok, so I haven't read that one, but I've heard and read many such things about it. Wow, both of those were written by Alan Moore...interesting. Sorry, back on the subject.
That is awesome with Slumdog Millionaire, I will hopefully see it this weekend. I've heard nothing but good things about the movie. I think in a way this sort of contradicts the Genre-Bias that you mentioned. I mean, it also got nominated for a lot of film technical stuff.
Why did Christopher Nolan not get a nomination for Dark Knight? That is ridiculous.
Wall E will win, no questions asked.
Personally I think it'll be pretty close with Benjamin Button and Slumdog Millionaire, and I'm really not sure about who has a better chance. I mean in my opinion, Benjamin Button looks a lot more interesting than Slumdog Millionaire. But I'm all about the happy-fantasy.
Iron Man has so got the visual effects award. Benjamin Button? Seriously?
I can't believe batman didn't get best picture! I think it was much better than benjamin button
miss persyn, to comment on your post...
i have read the killing joke and it is very well written (and again, it's rare that i would read such material)...
genre-bias hurts films like the dark knight in the major categories, never in the technical categories... films like the dark knight traditionally do quite well in the technical categories... last year the bourne ultimatum cleaned house in the techs...
i agree again on the christopher nolan snub... that nomination should have happened but didn't... but then again he didn't get nominated for memento in 2000 either, which for my money remains his masterpiece (the dark knight fell just short of a masterpiece for me, i still find the third act sloppy and i think the film lags a bit when ledger is not on screen...
don't knock the visual effects of benjamin button until you've seen it... it will probably win to tell you the truth... it's some of the most amazing, flawless cgi work i've seen
That sucks that the dark night didnt get the nomination for best film. i thought it was a pretty good movie with a good scripit and good acting. but your probably right by sayin that the academy is kind of biason the genres.
Bourne Ultimatum? Wow. I guess with movies I usually find myself focusing on the acting and directing, which I see now needs to change to a more broad perspective.
I love the elements of sound used in Wall E. On the way to TN over the break I actually just put on the headphones to the car's DVD player and didn't watch the movie. Just listened with my head against the window. I was very impressed.
I'm glad I don't read Batman comics (the only reason I know about the killing joke is because I tried to do a project on Alan Moore)because I tend to be picky about book characters to movie characters. But if Vanessa says that Ledger is an acurate portrayal I know it's true.
speaking of Vanessa:
WHERE'S MY MOVIE?!?!?!?
I KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE JENNINGS!
the list of nominations was pretty much expected now. there was no big surprise because we saw lists like this like a month ago. and now, i really do want to go see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Slumdog Millionaire
&& YAY for Bolt, Kung Fu Panda, Wall-E for best animated feature film :] i love these kinds of movies...sometimes. haha:]
andd is the japanese foreign film a scary/horror one by any chance?
Can anyone tell me the difference in award types for the oscars and the golden globes?
here's the plot of the japanese film miss dang: "When cellist Daigo Kobayashi finds himself unemployed, he returns with his wife to his hometown and answers an ad he believes has been placed by a travel agency. The available position, however, turns out to be with a company that prepares corpses for cremation--an elaborate ritual for which the stunned Daigo proves to have a surprising aptitude." so no, not a horror film... sounds interesting though, i don't know much about it.
to answer your question mr. pitts, in short, the oscars are more important, in fact the most important award in film. the globes are given out by a group called the hollywood foreign press association, which is a group of foreign journalists. the oscars are voted on by the actual industry (producers, directors, actors, cinematographers, special effects guys, etc.)
I really loved THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON!!!! great picture-i didn't even know that it was cgi(I thought it was make up;;;)
It had no awkwardness at all in the actings felt like i was living through the whole event
Awesome, Slumdog Millionaire got 10 nomitions. I still havn't seen The curious Case of Benjamin Button, but i want to.
Hm..so i really need to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Slumdog Millionaire. With the the nominations they recieved, they must be great movies.
wow! exciting! and interesting! I love that I actually know what is going on! I was really hoping to see Slumdog Millionare this weekend, but it was my dad's birthday and we went to see Underworld, because that's what he wanted. It was good. I enjoyed it, but still not the same as seeing a movie I know is a major, amazing film.
i am in complete shock that dark knight didnt get nominated for best movie. well ive never seen the others so i guess they must be really good. ha. kinda dissapointing tho.
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