2009 Academy Award Nominations

The Dark Knight didn’t make the cut in the “big” Academy Award categories…save for the totally expected (and deserved) Best Supporting Actor nod for the late Heath Ledger…and neither did Clint Eastwood (I haven’t seen Gran Torino but a lot of critical buzz seemed to have it anointed to pick up Best Picture, Actor, and Director nominations) but Brad Pitt and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button scored big with 13 nominations.

Joining Benjamin Button in the Best Picture sweepstakes are Frost/Nixon (featuring Best Actor nominee Frank Langella), Milk (with Best Actor nominee Sean Penn), The Reader (starring Best Actress contender Kate Winslett), and the little-engine-that-could Slumdog Millionaire. The directors for these five films…David Fincher, Ron Howard, Gus Van Sant, Stephen Daldry, and Danny Boyle…are vying for Best Director honors.

Star power should be in abundance at the Oscar ceremony as the four acting categories features the likes of Meryl Streep (her 15^th nomination for her role in Doubt), Angelina Jolie (Changeling), Robert Downey, Jr. (Tropic Thunder), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Doubt), Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona), and this movie season’s comeback kid Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler) and his co-star Oscar winner Marisa Tomei.

Bruce Springsteen won the Best Song category at the Golden Globes with his song from The Wrestler but he failed to pick up an Academy Award nomination in a Best Original Song category that, for some reason, features only three candidates: “Down to Earth” from Wall-E and two songs from Slumdog.

Pixar’s charming Wall-E seems to be the one to beat in the Best Animated Feature category that also features Bolt and Kung Fu Panda.

As none of the Best Picture nominees are real blockbusters I would guess that the ratings for the Academy Awards broadcast (on Sunday February 22^nd) won’t be significantly reversing the downward trend they’ve been on of late…but hey I’ll be watching :-)

The 80th Annual Academy Awards

A big night for the Coen brothers…three Oscars (Best Picture, Best Director(s), Best Adapted Screenplay)…and their movie, No Country for Old Men, on a sedate, kind of uninspired Academy Awards night.

The show itself was okay…Jon Stewart was pretty good (not great but he had a few nice moments) as the host…with decent enough musical numbers, relatively brief acceptance speeches, and perhaps a few too many montages (I’m guessing they put them together in case the writers’ strike was still going on and they needed to fill a lot of time and decided to go on and use them anyway.)

Everything about the 80^th Academy Awards show was…okay…nothing particularly memorable but nothing especially bad either. And hey they got it done in less than 3 ½ hours…gotta give ‘em credit for that :-)

Heath Ledger

Heath Ledger, the 28-year-old Australian actor perhaps best known for his star-making turn in the 2005 film Brokeback Mountain, has died in Manhattan. He was found dead in his apartment (some reports cite possible drug causes.) Ledger is going to be seen as The Joker in the upcoming Batman film, The Dark Knight (see below).

Katharine Hepburn

Today would have been the Great Kate’s 100^th birthday. Meryl Streep, Denzel Washington, or Jack Nicholson notwithstanding, they don’t make movie stars like Ms. Hepburn anymore (yeah, I know that’s a cliché but that doesn’t make it any less true.)

She was a shimmering, ever-engaging presence in her movies…from her Academy Award winning turns (Morning Glory, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, The Lion in Winter, and On Golden Pond) to her delightful comic turns (Bringing Up Baby, The Philadelphia Story, Adam’s Rib) to effortlessly holding on her own onscreen with great actors (Spencer Tracy, Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, Peter O’Toole, John Wayne, Henry Fonda)…and an plain-spoken, irascible, and unapologetic embracer of the concept of living her life on her own terms.

Happy Birthday, Kate.