Academy Award nominations are in...

[typhonsentra]

Performance by an actor in a leading role

* Richard Jenkins in The Visitor (Overture Films)
* Frank Langella in Frost/Nixon (Universal)
* Sean Penn in Milk (Focus Features)
* Brad Pitt in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Paramount and Warner Bros.)
* Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler (Fox Searchlight)

Performance by an actor in a supporting role

* Josh Brolin in "Milk" (Focus Features)
* Robert Downey Jr. in "Tropic Thunder" (DreamWorks, Distributed by DreamWorks/Paramount)
* Philip Seymour Hoffman in "Doubt" (Miramax)
* Heath Ledger in "The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.)
* Michael Shannon in "Revolutionary Road" (DreamWorks, Distributed by Paramount Vantage)

Performance by an actress in a leading role

* Anne Hathaway in "Rachel Getting Married" (Sony Pictures Classics)
* Angelina Jolie in "Changeling" (Universal)
* Melissa Leo in "Frozen River" (Sony Pictures Classics)
* Meryl Streep in "Doubt" (Miramax)
* Kate Winslet in "The Reader" (The Weinstein Company)

Performance by an actress in a supporting role

* Amy Adams in "Doubt" (Miramax)
* Penélope Cruz in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" (The Weinstein Company)
* Viola Davis in "Doubt" (Miramax)
* Taraji P. Henson in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.)
* Marisa Tomei in "The Wrestler" (Fox Searchlight)

Best animated feature film of the year

* "Bolt" (Walt Disney), Chris Williams and Byron Howard
* "Kung Fu Panda" (DreamWorks Animation, Distributed by Paramount), John Stevenson and Mark Osborne
* "WALL-E" (Walt Disney), Andrew Stanton

Achievement in art direction

* "Changeling" (Universal), Art Direction: James J. Murakami, Set Decoration: Gary Fettis
* "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Art Direction: Donald Graham Burt, Set Decoration: Victor J. Zolfo
* "The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.), Art Direction: Nathan Crowley, Set Decoration: Peter Lando
* "The Duchess" (Paramount Vantage, Pathé and BBC Films), Art Direction: Michael Carlin, Set Decoration: Rebecca Alleway
* "Revolutionary Road" (DreamWorks, Distributed by Paramount Vantage), Art Direction: Kristi Zea, Set Decoration: Debra Schutt

Achievement in cinematography

* "Changeling" (Universal), Tom Stern
* "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Claudio Miranda
* "The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.), Wally Pfister
* "The Reader" (The Weinstein Company), Chris Menges and Roger Deakins
* "Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight), Anthony Dod Mantle

Achievement in costume design

* "Australia" (20th Century Fox), Catherine Martin
* "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Jacqueline West
* "The Duchess" (Paramount Vantage, Pathé and BBC Films), Michael O'Connor
* "Milk" (Focus Features), Danny Glicker
* "Revolutionary Road" (DreamWorks, Distributed by Paramount Vantage), Albert Wolsky

Achievement in directing

"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.), David Fincher

* "Frost/Nixon" (Universal), Ron Howard
* "Milk" (Focus Features), Gus Van Sant
* "The Reader" (The Weinstein Company), Stephen Daldry
* "Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight), Danny Boyle

Best documentary feature

"The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)" (Cinema Guild), A Pandinlao Films Production, Ellen Kuras and Thavisouk Phrasavath

* "Encounters at the End of the World" (THINKFilm and Image Entertainment), A Creative Differences Production, Werner Herzog and Henry Kaiser
* "The Garden" A Black Valley Films Production, Scott Hamilton Kennedy
* "Man on Wire" (Magnolia Pictures), A Wall to Wall Production, James Marsh and Simon Chinn
* "Trouble the Water" (Zeitgeist Films), An Elsewhere Films Production, Tia Lessin and Carl Deal

Best documentary short subject

* "The Conscience of Nhem En" A Farallon Films Production, Steven Okazaki
* "The Final Inch" A Vermilion Films Production, Irene Taylor Brodsky and Tom Grant
* "Smile Pinki" A Principe Production, Megan Mylan
* "The Witness - From the Balcony of Room 306" A Rock Paper Scissors Production, Adam Pertofsky and Margaret Hyde

Achievement in film editing

* "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall
* "The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.), Lee Smith
* "Frost/Nixon" (Universal), Mike Hill and Dan Hanley
* "Milk" (Focus Features), Elliot Graham
* "Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight), Chris Dickens

Best foreign language film of the year

* "The Baader Meinhof Complex" A Constantin Film Production, Germany
* "The Class" (Sony Pictures Classics), A Haut et Court Production, France
* "Departures" (Regent Releasing), A Departures Film Partners Production, Japan
* "Revanche" (Janus Films), A Prisma Film/Fernseh Production, Austria
* "Waltz with Bashir" (Sony Pictures Classics), A Bridgit Folman Film Gang Production, Israel

Achievement in makeup

* "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Greg Cannom
* "The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.), John Caglione, Jr. and Conor O'Sullivan
* "Hellboy II: The Golden Army" (Universal), Mike Elizalde and Thom Floutz

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)

* "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.),Alexandre Desplat
* "Defiance" (Paramount Vantage), James Newton Howard
* "Milk" (Focus Features), Danny Elfman
* "Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight), A.R. Rahman
* "WALL-E" (Walt Disney), Thomas Newman

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)

* "Down to Earth" from "WALL-E" (Walt Disney), Music by Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman, Lyric by Peter Gabriel
* "Jai Ho" from "Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight), Music by A.R. Rahman, Lyric by Gulzar
* "O Saya" from "Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight), Music and Lyric by A.R. Rahman andMaya Arulpragasam

Best motion picture of the year

* "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.), A Kennedy/Marshall Production, Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall and Ceán Chaffin, Producers
* "Frost/Nixon" (Universal), A Universal Pictures, Imagine Entertainment and Working Title Production,Brian Grazer, Ron Howard and Eric Fellner, Producers
* "Milk" (Focus Features), A Groundswell and Jinks/Cohen Company Production, Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen, Producers
* "The Reader" (The Weinstein Company), A Mirage Enterprises and Neunte Babelsberg Film GmbH Production, Nominees to be determined
* "Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight), A Celador Films Production,Christian Colson, Producer

Best animated short film

* "La Maison en Petits Cubes" A Robot Communications Production, Kunio Kato
* "Lavatory - Lovestory" A Melnitsa Animation Studio and CTB Film Company Production, Konstantin Bronzit
* "Oktapodi" (Talantis Films) A Gobelins, L'école de l'image Production, Emud Mokhberi and Thierry Marchand
* "Presto" (Walt Disney) A Pixar Animation Studios Production, Doug Sweetland
* "This Way Up", A Nexus Production, Alan Smith and Adam Foulkes

Best live action short film

* Auf der Strecke (On the Line)" (Hamburg Shortfilmagency), An Academy of Media Arts Cologne Production, Reto Caffi
* "Manon on the Asphalt" (La Luna Productions), A La Luna Production, Elizabeth Marre and Olivier Pont
* "New Boy" (Network Ireland Television), A Zanzibar Films Production, Steph Green and Tamara Anghie
* "The Pig" An M & M Production, Tivi Magnusson and Dorte Høgh
* "Spielzeugland (Toyland)" A Mephisto Film Production, Jochen Alexander Freydank

Achievement in sound editing

* "The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.), Richard King
* "Iron Man" (Paramount and Marvel Entertainment), Frank Eulner and Christopher Boyes
* "Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight), Tom Sayers
* "WALL-E" (Walt Disney), Ben Burtt and Matthew Wood
* "Wanted" (Universal),Wylie Stateman

Achievement in sound mixing

* "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.), David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce and Mark Weingarten
* "The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.), Lora Hirschberg, Gary Rizzo and Ed Novick
* "Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight), Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke and Resul Pookutty
* "WALL-E" (Walt Disney),Tom Myers, Michael Semanick and Ben Burtt
* "Wanted" (Universal), Chris Jenkins, Frank A. Montaño and Petr Forejt

Achievement in visual effects

* "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton and Craig Barron
* "The Dark Knight" (Warner Bros.), Nick Davis, Chris Corbould, Tim Webber and Paul Franklin
* "Iron Man" (Paramount and Marvel Entertainment), John Nelson, Ben Snow, Dan Sudick and Shane Mahan

Adapted screenplay

* "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Screenplay by Eric Roth, Screen story by Eric Roth and Robin Swicord
* "Doubt" (Miramax), Written by John Patrick Shanley
* "Frost/Nixon" (Universal), Screenplay by Peter Morgan
* "The Reader" (The Weinstein Company), Screenplay by David Hare
* "Slumdog Millionaire" (Fox Searchlight), Screenplay by Simon Beaufoy

Original screenplay

* "Frozen River" (Sony Pictures Classics), Written by Courtney Hunt
* "Happy-Go-Lucky" (Miramax), Written by Mike Leigh
* "In Bruges" (Focus Features), Written by Martin McDonagh
* "Milk" (Focus Features), Written by Dustin Lance Black
* "WALL-E" (Walt Disney), Screenplay by Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon, Original story by Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter

Great job academy, you nominated The Reader, both a box office disaster and a critical bomb over Dark Knight or Wall-E. I can understand the bias against those two kinds of movies but if you are going to nominate something "Serious" shouldn't it at least be a decent movie? If something like Gran Torino, Doubt, or Wrestler (The last of which I still need to see) had gotten the nod I'd be less upset. And speaking of Gran Torino..... no nominations whatsoever.... and Changeling (The other Eastwood movie) got three. At the very least I hope Slumdog wins Best Picture, another "Crash" would just be too much.

[mg1942]

Originally Posted by typhonsentra

Great job academy, you nominated The Reader, both a box office disaster and a critical bomb over Dark Knight or Wall-E. I can understand the bias against those two kinds of movies but if you are going to nominate something "Serious" shouldn't it at least be a decent movie? If something like Gran Torino, Doubt, or Wrestler (The last of which I still need to see) had gotten the nod I'd be less upset. And speaking of Gran Torino..... no nominations whatsoever.... and Changeling (The other Eastwood movie) got three. At the very least I hope Slumdog wins Best Picture, another "Crash" would just be too much.

See?
It's no secret that only pretentious movies get nominated.

[Sazelyt]

I hope the Slumdog Millionaire wins the best picture. Quite powerful movie.

[SeedFreedom]

Ledger is a shoe-in for best supporting actor. As much as i liked dark knight, and as great as it was at the box office, it wasn't the best written show of 2008.

How Benjamin button gets 13 nods astounds me.

Also i hope WALL-E gets best animated movie

[james0246]

There were, as usual, some pleasant and some unpleasant surprises. I was quite happy that Melissa Leo was nominated for "Frozen River" (Misty Upham should have also been nominated), as well as
Michael Shannon's nomination for his performance in "Revolutionary Road" (probably the best part of the entire boring film). Richard Jenkins in "The Reader"was also a little shocking, but in retrospect, I should have guessed that the performance would have been nominated (I'm glad Kate Winslet was nominated for "The Reader" and not the overly dramatic "Revolutionary Road"). The list for Foreign Film was quite good, even great (there were some great Foreign Films released in America this year).

But, sadly enough, the few pleasant surprises never seem to outweigh the unpleasant surprises.

I guess I shouldn't be that surprised that "Benjamin Button" did so well, but come one, Best Picture, Director and Actor. This film was little more than a "dark" remake of "Forrest Gump" (Man with unique disability navigates through history in the attempt to understand his place in the world, all the while searching for his childhood love, etc). About the only truly good bit of acting in this film was Taraji P. Henson's performance (which received a nomination, even if it was an undeserved nomiation), and even that was drastically distorted by a screenplay which could barely acknowledge the trials and tribulations of Queenie as an African American living in a pre-Civil Rights movement America (History, overall, was treated quite lackadaisically in the film).

(Sorry for the rant to any fans of the film. The directing was good (not great), and some of the set-pieces were quite wonderful. And, of course, the Make-up and Special Effects were quite extraordinary, even if I felt they took away from the acting.)

Also, special mention has to go out to address the tragedy of the nomination of Angelina Jolie in "Changeling." What an awful mistake. (I can get past Streep's nomination for her lackluster performance, and even Anne Hathaway's nomination for her massively over-the-top performance, but Angelina Jolie...that just doesn't sit well.)

And, of course, the lack of inclusion for "Wall-E" and/or "Dark Knight" (especially "Wall-E") for any promienent awards (besides Ledger's posthumous nomination) was quite shocking (I fully expected "Wall-E" to be nominated for Best Picture).

Sorry for the rants and rages. I am sure we all have our opinions of the many varied performances and films, so please do not take my comments too seriously.

[Mystique]

The power of a death of a good actor affecting votes?
I'm placing bets on how many dark knight will scoop from it's nominations, maybe 60% of them?
(Will count them later and check out the others when not so intimidated by list)

[typhonsentra]

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/1d7...p-from-fgump44

[GuidoHunter_Toki]

Originally Posted by SeedFreedom

Ledger is a shoe-in for best supporting actor. As much as i liked dark knight, and as great as it was at the box office, it wasn't the best written show of 2008.

How Benjamin button gets 13 nods astounds me.

Also i hope WALL-E gets best animated movie

I thought Benjamin Button was a great movie, but I can assure you it won't win half of those awards its been nominated for.

Anyways my biggest beef this year is Gran Torino. Nothing, really?

[Shadow Kira01]

I am going to make a guess..

WALL-E will probably win the best animations award.

[easygame]

Oh no,it's too long to understand what you were saying. I'm a new English learner

[StoneCloud]

I'm so pissed that Gran Torino didn't get nominated for anything. It was better than all the other films nominated for best picture (granted I have only seen Slumdog Millionaire on that list). The academy once again proves that they love any movie that has to do with gay people (Milk). It just kills me to see such crap films being nominated for awards while great films (Gran torino) are just pushed aside because the Academy doesn't like a film for whatever reasons.

In my opinion Gran Torino is the best film made in the last 5 years. Though I loved The Departed, No Counrty for Old Men, Children of Men, etc.; Gran Torino had an amazing story that had real meaning and was genuinely enjoyable. Though I feel the Academy has done a good job with nominations for the past few years, I am thoroughly disappointed in their lack of good judgment this year.

[typhonsentra]

The academy only loves the gays to a certain point though. Remember, they refused to give it to Brokeback a few years back and instead gave it to the wretched, laughably (Literally in my case) bad mess that was Crash.

[james0246]

Additionally, there was probably a bit of backlash against "Gran Torino" specifically due to the fact that Eastwood has been nominated (or considered) so often in the last few years. So, I wouldn't be surprised if the voters had decided to give Eastwood a rest, even if "Gran Torino" was one of the better films of the year. Honestly, I would have preferred if Eastwood had been nominated for his acting, at least of the two Eastwood films of this year (if the voters were to nominate one actor from the films it should have been Eastwood himself).

[typhonsentra]

But the other Eastwood movie got nominated for three awards and was nowhere near as well received critically or at the box office when compared to Gran Torino.

[Shadow Kira01]

Honestly..

Although I can almost predict the winners, I don't like any of the nominated films.

[StoneCloud]

yeah I sort of agree. The only film I'm rooting for is Slumdog at this point. I'm gonna see the Wrestler tomorrow so that might change but for now Slumdog's got my vote

[Sorrow-K]

The Wrestler didn't even get nominated, which really surprised me.

I've only seen three of the nominated films, but of them, Frost/Nixon is my favourite so far. I had a few issues with Slumdog, and james0246 has pretty much nailed what I thought of Benjamin Button. Both were great films, both deserved to be nominated, but neither is the winner, in my eyes. Based purely on what I've heard (and not what I've seen, since I haven't seen it), The Reader is an odd nomination. Milk will be strong. Hell, I think Milk will go in as the slight favourite. Excuse the cynicism (I haven't seen it yet, and everything I've heard about it has been positive), but it does sound like an "Academy-friendly" film.

Certainly, this year's crop of films is no where near as good as last year's.

[StoneCloud]

Very true. There were also fewer good films to pull from this year if you ask me. But even so I feel the Academy made some bad decisions with nominations. For example Best Original song, this year they cut it to 3 songs and give 2 of those spots to Slumdog. Granted I thought the soundtrack to Slumdog was good, it certainly didn;t deserve 2 nominations. and the biggest insult is that Springsteen didn't get nominated. I mean come on, the Boss of all people?

[mit7059]

I was annoyed but not entirely surprised that Gran Torino was not nominated for anything. I thought it should have gotten the nod for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor. That being said I think it would have only had a real chance in Best Actor, Clint Eastwood was amazing. The movie had such a personal feel for me but being filmed in my hometown, parts only blocks away from where I grew up maybe my vision is clouded.

The reason why I'm not surprised it didn't get a nomination though is that honestly Hollywood doesn't like Detroit, in fact Hollywood hates everything to do with Detroit. Hollywood doesn't want to give any nod to Detroit because they want to blame Detroit for pollution and wants Detroit to feel guilty for being the home of the auto industry nevermind the thousand upon thousand of miles Californians drive every year in their smog filled cities.
There's no chance that the academy would give the nod to a movie that shows the despair of a city that they, like the rest of the country has abandoned, condemned and left to bleed in the corner.

[Kaioshin Sama]

Originally Posted by mg1942

See?
It's no secret that only pretentious movies get nominated.

Seems to be the case doesn't it? Never mind that Dark Knight is as multi-layered as they come so that the social scientist can enjoy it just as much as the person that is there to see the latest Blockbuster, unless it is marketed as one of those pretentious movies it's not getting Oscar consideration.

I really want to see Gran Torino and potentially The Wrestler since I've heard a lot of good things about it.