Oscar Nominations for 2008

I'm late on my Oscar nomination commentary. Here are the list of nominated films ordered by number of nominations. This doesn't include short films, foreign films or documentaries.

13 The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
10 Slumdog Millionaire
8 The Dark Knight
8 Milk
6 WALL-E
5 The Reader
5 Frost/Nixon
5 Doubt
3 Revolutionary Road
3 Changeling
2 Wanted
2 The Wrestler
2 The Duchess
2 Iron Man
2 Frozen River
1 Vicky Cristina Barcelona
1 Tropic Thunder
1 The Visitor
1 Rachel Getting Married
1 Kung-Fu Panda
1 In Bruges
1 Hellboy II: The Golden Army
1 Happy-Go-Lucky
1 Defiance
1 Bolt
1 Australia

I've seen all but the bold ones and should be able to catch them all before the awards on Feb 22nd. I've seen all the nominated films in just 7 of the minor categories and 2 of the major ones (Actor and Supporting Actress). But seeing The Reader will give me a few more.

I've not seen any of the 5 foreign films and in fact have only heard of two of them, Waltz with Bashir which is playing at one theater in the Boston area, and The Class, which is coming to the theater soon. I really liked Timecrimes, Mongol and Tell No One but none of them got nominated.

I've seen 2 of the 5 documentaries and the other 3 aren't in theaters and don't yet have a planned DVD release date. Of the 14 nominated shorts, I've seen just one, Presto which was in front of WALL-E. The Coolidge Corner theater will be showing some of the shorts in two weeks.

So what do I think of the nominations? For the most part ok. I'm still figuring out my favorite films of the year, but I'm not sure any of them are nominated for Best Picture, though the nominated ones are mostly in my top 10. I think WALL-E and The Dark Knight are my top two and are certainly deserving of Best Picture consideration.

David Fincher and Danny Boyle deserve directing nods, but so does Christopher Nolan for The Dark Knight. With the acting nominations I'm really glad that strong performances in small films did well, particularly Richard Jenkins in The Visitor; Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting Married and Penélope Cruz in Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

I don't think Brad Pitt deserved a nomination. How they attached his head to other bodies for most of the film was innovative but I found his performance to be one dimensional. It's also interesting that Michael Shannon got one for Revolutionary Road and the two leads, Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio didn't, even though they were leading contenders. Shannon's role was the most fun in the film, but I'm not so sure it deserves an acting nod. The four main roles in Doubt all got deserved nominations; should best casting director be a category?

I'm thrilled that In Bruges and WALL-E got original screenplay nominations.

More thoughts as I see more films. And yes I'll be running the oscar pool again and will send it out shortly. Let me know if you want to participate.