Thursday 22 January 2009

Nomination day

This year's Oscar nominations are announced today at 1.30pm UK time, 5.30am LA time. I'm not normally 100% accurate in my predictions, since I tend to go by my heart rather than my head on occasions such as these, but I'm prepared to give it a go and choose on what I think the Academy will plump for. At least in the top six categories: Film, Director, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress.

Best Film
The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire
Frost/Nixon

Best Director
Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight)
Clint Eastwood (Gran Torino)
Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire)
Gus Van Sant (Milk)
David Fincher (The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button)

Best Actor
Sean Penn (Milk)
Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon)
Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler)
Richard Jenkins (The Visitor)
Clint Eastwood (Gran Torino)

Best Actress
Kate Winslet (Revolutionary Road)
Sally Hawkins (Happy-Go-Lucky)
Kristin Scott Thomas (I've Loved You So Long)
Meryl Streep (Doubt)
Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married)

Best Supporting Actor
Philip Seymour Hoffman (Doubt)
Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)
Michael Sheen (Frost/Nixon)
Eddie Marsen (Happy-Go-Lucky)
Josh Brolin (Milk)

Best Supporting Actress
Marisa Tomei (The Wrestler)
Viola Davis (Doubt)
Penelope Cruz (Vicky Christina Barcelona)
Rosemarie DeWitt (Rachel Getting Married)
Lena Olin (The Reader)

Oscar predicting isn't an exact science and these are not necessarily my favourites, but we'll see how well (or how badly) I did later.

5 comments:

Gerard said...

As much as I actually enjoyed the film (midway through doing a writeup now, in fact), I'll be way disappointed if Eastwood scores a director's nom for Gran Torino. Would much rather see McQueen, Mendes, Stanton (it's about time an animation director was given some cred) or Aronofsky instead.

Not long now til we'll know who's made the cut...

Mark Salisbury said...

I agree with you, but the Academy loves Clint.

Gerard said...

They sure do. And who can blame 'em? I'm yet to see Changeling (we get that after Gran Torino - dumb) but am looking forward. In fact, I'll be really surprised if GT scores anything, really, save for maybe an original song nomination?

Mark Salisbury said...

That's what makes this year so fascinating and unpredictable, don't you think. Even as I was typing The Dark Knight as contender for Best Film I was thinking to myself, I'm not sure...

But, as you say, all will be revealed soon enough.

Gerard said...

It really has been an odd year, with very few obvious forerunners and a high number of very, very good prestige titles all squabbling for a spot on the ballot. Dark Knight would be supercool to see get some love, but like you, I'm just not sure. I just saw Revolutionary Road tonight and would love to see that get a bit of love (any film that kicks the shit out of me that hard and is so impeccably crafted = winner, by me), and I'd also really hope The Wrestler would score a few nods aside from Rourke, though oddly, it's not looking too likely.