Best Documentary, Short Subjects: The Conscience of Nhem En; The Final Inch; Smile Pinki; The Witness from the Balcony of Room 386.
Best Short Film, Animated: La Maison en Petits Cubes; Ubornaya istoriya – lyubovnaya istoriya; Oktapodi; Presto; This Way Up.
Best Short Film, Live Action: Auf der Strecke; Manon sur le bitumen; New Boy; Grisen; Spielzeugland.
All in all, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button got the most number of nominations at 13 followed by Slumdog Millionaire with ten. The Dark Knight took eight just with the technical nods and Heath Ledger’s for Supporting Actor, which could have meant that the Academy did not want to have two mainstream movies vying toe-to-toe for the major AND technical categories so they picked the one friendlier to them. Milk is up for seven nominations, WALL-E received six, and Frost/Nixon and The Reader each received five.
Article comments
1 - El Bicho
Good, thorough write-up.
I don't see why Slumdog is a likely front runner. It was made outside of Hollywood. If you take into consideration the voting body and some of the aspects you mention, The Reader has much more going for it, and I would put CCoBB ahead as well. The Oscars are not much different from high school and the voters are going to pick friends over strangers. Milk was good but certainly not Top Five of the year.
"at least the Academy did not make the same silly mistake that the Golden Globes and SAG did."
The organizations do not decide what category an actor gets nominated in. That's determined by the producers who submit them.
"I wonder if she will make a reference to that in her speech if she wins."
Considering Gervais already did this at the Golden Globes, I doubt it.
"this category would have been even stronger with the inclusion of Waltz with Bashir"
It's not that it sufficed, but then it couldn't have competed in the Best Foreign Language category. It's a silly rule, but it is what it is.
I would be curious about why the Song was limited to three. People would tune in for Miley and Bruce.
2 - El Bicho
According to AP, "An academy spokeswoman says songs need to earn a score of at least 8 and a-quarter out of ten to be nominated and the songs by Cyrus and Springsteen scored less than that."
Ouch.
3 - Robert M. Barga
your entire post is simply a fanboy of dark night
it was a good movie, and Heath was a good actor. The only thing it was worthy of is best supporting actor (heath) but he is dead, so he doesn't really deserve it
4 - John
Hmm, I would be careful with the wording of "but he is dead, so he doesn't really deserve it." Could be open to misconstruing.
5 - El Bicho
"he is dead, so he doesn't really deserve it"
All else can you take it other than uninformed? Did Peter Finch not deserve his Oscar? Should they disqualify The Reader sine two of the producers have died? How exactly does someone 'deserve' an Oscar?