81st Annual Academy Award Nominations
Benjamin Button Becomes Not-So-Curious Oscar Frontrunner

David Fincher’s time-bending generational saga of a man who ages backwards The Curious Case of Benjamin Button emerged as the immediate front-runner to win the 81^st annual Academy Award for Best Picture receiving 13 total nominations including nods for Best Director David Fincher, Actor Brad Pitt, Supporting Actress Taraji P. Henson and Adapted Screenplay. Close behind with ten total nomination was the indie underdog darling Slumdog Millionaire, but with no acting nods it seems the films chances at walking away with the year’s top honor must now be considered relatively slim.

Brad Pitt in Paramount Pictures' The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Also doing quite well were fellow Best Picture nominees Milk, Gus Van Sant’s biography of the slain titular San Francisco civil rights leader with eight total nominations and Frost/Nixon, Ron Howard’s journalistic post-Watergate drama of truth and consequences. In something of a surprise, the Holocaust coming of age melodrama of memory and regret The Reader rounded out the nominees, the film taking home five nominations including a somewhat startling nod for Kate Winslet for Best Actress.

As announced by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Sid Ganis and Oscar-winner Forest Whitaker, the nominations provided plenty of shockers, not the least of which was the exclusion of the year’s most popular phenomenon The Dark Knight in the Best Picture category. The film did receive eight nominations, however, including a posthumous nod to the late Heath Ledger for Best Supporting Actor for his titanic portrait of evil as The Joker.

Other shocking omissions included the complete absence of Clint Eastwood’s much-lauded Gran Torino and the exclusion of potential Best Actress nominees, both once considered shoe-ins, Kristin Scott Thomas for I’ve Loved You So Long and Sally Hawkins for Happy-Go-Lucky. That latter Mike Leigh comedy didn’t walk away entirely empty-handed, the British filmmaker receiving his sixth career nomination for composing the film’s Original Screenplay.

Some of the more pleasant surprises included Michael Shannon as Supporting Actor for his spellbinding turn in Revolutionary Road, Melissa Leo (Best Actress) and first-time writer/director Courtney Hunt (Best Original Screenplay) garnering deserving notices for the intimate Frozen River and Martin McDonagh getting a welcome Original Screenplay nod for his eccentric comedic drama In Bruges. Best of all was the inclusion of Hollywood veteran Richard Jenkins in the Best Actor category for his subdued, superbly nuanced work in The Visitor, easily my personal favorite male performance of 2008.

Joining Jenkins in the category were the aforementioned Pitt, Sean Penn for Milk, Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler and Frank Langella in Frost/Nixon. Along with Winslet and Leo, the Best Actress category includes record 15-time nominee Meryl Streep for Doubt, Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting Married and Angelina Jolie in Changeling. As of right now, the frontrunners here have to be Rourke and Winslet, but with so many high-caliber performances for the first time in ages both categories still have to be considered at least somewhat up in the air.

In addition to Leger and Shannon, Best Supporting Actor nominations went to Josh Brolin in Milk, Robert Downey, Jr. in Tropic Thunder and Philip Seymour Hoffman in Doubt. Rounding out a wide-open Supporting Actress category (mainly thanks to Winslet’s The Reader nod coming for Best Actress) were Henson, Penélope Cruz in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Marisa Tomei in The Wrestler and Amy Adams and Viola Davis for Doubt.

Up for Best Animated film are Pixar/Disney’s spectacular WALL•E (receiving six total nominations, including Best Original Screenplay), DreamWorks’s Kung Fu Panda and Disney’s Bolt. Best Foreign Film nominees are Germany’s The Baader Meinhof Complex, France’s The Class, Japan’s Departures, Austria’s Revanche and Israel’s animated Waltz with Bashir. Best Documentary Feature nominees are The Betrayal (Nerakhoon), Encounters at the End of the World, The Garden, Man on Wire and Trouble the Water.

The 81^st Annual Academy Awards will be presented February 22 at a ceremony at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood carried live by the ABC television network.

Complete List of 2009 Academy Award Nominations:

• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• Frost/Nixon
• Milk
• The Reader
• Slumdog Millionaire

• Richard Jenkins (The Visitor)
• Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon)
• Sean Penn (Milk)
• Brad Pitt (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
• Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler)

• Josh Brolin (Milk)
• Robert Downey Jr. (Tropic Thunder)
• Philip Seymour Hoffman (Doubt)
• Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)
• Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road)

• Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married)
• Angelina Jolie (Changeling)
• Melissa Leo (Frozen River)
• Meryl Streep (Doubt)
• Kate Winslet (The Reader)

• Amy Adams (Doubt)
• Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona)
• Viola Davis (Doubt)
• Taraji P. Henson (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
• Marisa Tomei (The Wrestler)

• Bolt
• Kung Fu Panda
• WALL•E

• Changeling
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• The Dark Knight
• The Duchess
• Revolutionary Road

• Changeling, Tom Stern
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Claudio Miranda
• The Dark Knight, Wally Pfister
• The Reader, Chris Menges and Roger Deakins
• Slumdog Millionaire, Anthony Dod Mantle

• Australia, Catherine Martin
• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Jacqueline West
• The Duchess, Michael O’Connor
• Milk, Danny Glicker
• Revolutionary Road, Albert Wolsky

• David Fincher (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
• Ron Howard (Frost/Nixon)
• Gus Van Sant (Milk)
• Stephen Daldry (The Reader)
• Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire)

• The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)
• Encounters at the End of the World
• The Garden
• Man on Wire
• Trouble the Water

• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Greg Cannom
• The Dark Knight, John Caglione, Jr. and Conor O’Sullivan
• Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Mike Elizalde and Thom Floutz

• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall
• The Dark Knight, Lee Smith
• Frost/Nixon, Mike Hill and Dan Hanley
• Milk, Elliot Graham
• Slumdog Millionaire, Chris Dickens

• The Baader Meinhof Complex
• The Class
• Departures
• Revanche
• Waltz With Bashir

• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Alexandre Desplat
• Defiance, James Newton Howard
• Milk, Danny Elfman
• Slumdog Millionaire, A.R. Rahman
• WALL•E, Thomas Newman

• “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

• The Dark Knight, Richard King
• Iron Man, Frank Eulner and Christopher Boyes
• Slumdog Millionaire, Tom Sayers
• WALL•E, Ben Burtt and Matthew Wood
• Wanted, Wylie Stateman

• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce and Mark Weingarten
• The Dark Knight, Lora Hirschberg, Gary Rizzo and Ed Novick
• Slumdog Millionaire, Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke and Resul Pookutty
• WALL•E,Tom Myers, Michael Semanick and Ben Burtt
• Wanted, Chris Jenkins, Frank A. Montaño and Petr Forejt

• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton and Craig Barron
• The Dark Knight, Nick Davis, Chris Corbould, Tim Webber and Paul Franklin
• Iron Man, John Nelson, Ben Snow, Dan Sudick and Shane Mahan

• Eric Roth & Robin Swicord (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
• John Patrick Shanley (Doubt)
• Peter Morgan (Frost/Nixon)
• David Hare (The Reader)
• Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire)

• Courtney Hunt (Frozen River)
• Mike Leigh (Happy-Go-Lucky)
• Martin McDonagh (In Bruges)
• Dustin Lance Black (Milk)
• Andrew Stanton and Jim Reardon (WALL•E)

- portions of this article republished curtesy of the SGN in Seattle

Additional Links

• 2009 Academy Awards Nomination Preview by Sara Michelle Fetters
• 2008 Recap by Sara Michelle Fetters
Interview with Happy-Go-Lucky writer/director Mike Leigh by Sara Michelle Fetters
Interview with Milk director Gus Van Sant and writer Dustin Lance Black by Sara Michelle Fetters
Interview with Milk actors Josh Brolin, James Franco, Emile Hirsch and Allison Pill by Sara Michelle Fetters
Interview with The Visitor actor Richard Jenkins by Sara Michelle Fetters
www.oscar.com - The Official Homepage of the 81st Academy Awards