81st Annual Oscar Nominations Announced

Here are the Predictions of who Will go Home Wih the Gold

Jan 22, 2009

Who will win, who will lose, and who will stay home in shame of having not even been nominated? Here are the predictions of who will walk away victorious come Oscar night

The nominations for the upcoming 81st Annual Academy Awards ceremony, which will be held on Sunday February 22, 2009, were announced today. Amidst the expected nominations were a few surprises and even a few disappointments. So who will walk home with the gold on one of, if not the, most glamorous nights in Hollywood and who will go home empty handed? Here are this critic’s predictions for who will take home the Oscar glory.

Actor in a Leading Role:

To the surprise of probably no one, Brad Pitt snagged a nod for the popular The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (which leads the Oscar race with 13 nominations to its name) as the title character who spends his entire life aging backwards. There was also no surprise for Oscar favorite Sean Penn’s nomination in Milk as Harvey Milk, the first openly gay politician in the U.S. Frank Langella, who, along with last year’s Staring Out in the Evening, in his old age, has been putting in the best work of his career. The one-time Dracula picked up a nomination for his portrayal of Richard Nixon in Frost/Nixon. Mickey Rourke, with the comeback of the year (maybe the decade) in The Wrestler, seems to be the likeliest to win as the Academy loves nothing more than a comeback. A surprise nomination went to Richard Jenkins for his quiet, career-defining performance in the independent The Visitor, taking the spot that many believed would go to Clint Eastwood’s aging racist in Gran Torino.

Actor in a Supporting Role:

Who would have thought that Robert Downey Jr. would have gotten a nomination for his hilarious work as a black Australian method actor in Ben Stiller’s big summer comedy Tropic Thunder? Well he did. He has no chance of winning, but, in a case such as this, the nomination seems to be a victory all in itself. He’s up against Josh Brolin’s angry senator in Milk, Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s morally questionable priest in Doubt, and Michael Shannon in Revolutionary Road. The favorite and sure winner in this category though is the late Heath Ledger who gave the performance of his career as Batman’s arch-nemesis The Joker in the brilliant The Dark Knight. Even if Ledger had lived, the award would have been his.

Actress in a Leading Role:

This category seems as though it could be a bit of a toss-up. Kate Winslet gets a nod for The Reader (the lesser of Winslet’s two performances in 2008) for which she won the Best Supporting Actress award at the Golden Globes. She’s up against Angelina Jolie’s distraught mother in Clint Eastwood’s The Changeling, Anne Hathaway’s recovering addict in Rachel Getting Married, Melissa Leo in the little seen Frozen River and Oscar vet Meryl Streep’s conservative nun in Doubt. Sadly absent from the list is Sally Hawkins for her brilliant, Golden Globe winning performance in Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky (which gets a nod for best original screenplay).

Actress in a Supporting Role:

Another toss-up. Marisa Tomei has a chance to redeem herself with The Wrestler after rumors have circulated for years about her fake win for My Cousin Vinny. Also up are Amy Adams’ impressionable nun in Doubt, Penelope Cruz for Woody Allen’s Vicky Christina Barcelona, Taraji P. Hensen for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Viola Davis for her brief but brilliant scene in Doubt. Davis seems to be the favorite, but the win could will once again probably go to the comeback.

Directing:

In a huge upset, Christopher Nolan is forgotten for his work on The Dark Knight, despite the fact that the award should have been his for the IMAX sequences alone. Still, it is nice to see Gus Van Sant getting recognition for Milk after having kept a relatively low profile on the indie scene, despite not having enough notoriety behind the film for the win. Along for the ride is David Fincher for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, whose past films has just been a step or three too far this side of conventionality for the Academy. Also up is Ron Howard for Frost/Nixon, Stephan Daldry (the least prolific of the bunch) for The Reader and Brit mastermind Danny Boyle for his crowd favorite award sponge Slumdog Millionaire.

Best Picture:

Once again, despite many predictions, The Dark Knight gets the shaft in the top award category, forfeiting to the less deserving but more award-tailored The Reader. Also not getting any love is Revolutionary Road or Doubt, which has a nomination in all four acting categories. However, also up are Frost/Nixon, Milk, Slumdog Millionaire and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. In the absence of The Dark Knight and the equally popular and well received Wall-E (enslaved by the Animation category), will voters vote for popularity with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button or go with the underdog in Slumdog Millionaire as they have in previous years with Crash and No Country for Old Men? Only time will tell.

Other Notable Nominations:

After being forgotten about a few years back in the Documentary category with Grizzly Man, Werner Herzog is up this year for his brilliant, haunting look at Antarctica, A Home at the End of the World. The animated, Golden Globe winning Waltz with Bashir seems poised to take the Foreign Film Category and it would be redundant to suggest that anything other than Wall-E even has a shot in the Animation category.

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