For the first time in years, thoughtful, serious dramas dominated selections at the expense of blockbuster productions, writes MICHAEL DWYER, Film Correspondent
QUALITY WON out as a high standard was set in the nominations for the 81st Academy Awards, announced in Los Angeles yesterday. Thoughtful, serious dramas dominated the selections at the expense of blockbuster productions. All the publicity generated by their Academy recognition is expected to give the frontrunners a significant commercial boost and to help them find a much wider audience than they might have reached.
The only big-budget film to figure among the five nominations for best picture was The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Based on a short story by F Scott Fitzgerald, it stars Brad Pitt as a man reversing in age from his 80s. It led the field with 13 nominations.
The exhilarating Mumbai-set Slumdog Millionaire, which features no well-known actors and was without a US distributor last summer, received 10 nominations.
Next came the Batman film The Dark Knightand the quietly powerful US gay rights drama Milkwith eight nominations each.
Heath Ledger, who died a year ago yesterday at the age of 29, was nominated as best supporting actor for his remarkable performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight. He is the seventh actor to receive a posthumous Oscar nomination. Of the other six, the only winner was Peter Finch for Network(1976).
Meryl Streep made Oscar history when she received her 15th nomination for her commanding portrayal of a stern nun in Doubt, breaking her own record as the most nominated actor since the inception of the Academy Awards.
Collecting her sixth nomination for The Reader, Kate Winslet is, at 33, the youngest performer to receive so many Oscar nominations for acting roles.
Directed by Stephen Daldry, The Readeris in contention for the best picture Oscar with Gus Van Sant's Milk,Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon, Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaireand David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The same five films were nominated in the best director category.
In one of the few surprises, The Dark Knight, which had been hotly tipped for best picture and best director, was not nominated in either category. The Academy voters may well have felt that the film has been amply rewarded at the box-office, where it has earned just under a billion dollars.
The effects-driven action extravaganza Iron Manhad to be content with nominations for sound editing and visual effects, while similarly lavish action movies such as Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulland the James Bond adventure Quantum of Solacefailed to receive any nominations. The hugely profitable Sex and the Citywas also excluded.
Among the more notable omissions were Clint Eastwood ( Gran Torino) and Benicio Del Toro ( Che) in the best actor category, Kristin Scott Thomas ( I've Loved You So Long) and Sally Hawkins ( Happy-Go-Lucky) in the best actress line-up, and 18-year-old Dev Patel as best supporting actor for Slumdog Millionaire.
Eastwood also failed to be nominated in the best original song category for his Gran Torinotitle song, as did Bruce Springsteen for his title track on The Wrestler, which won him a Golden Globe earlier this month.
At 71, respected stage and screen actor Frank Langella received his first Oscar nomination for his authoritative yet melancholy portrayal of former US president Richard Nixon in Frost/Nixon. Richard Jenkins, who is 61, got his first Oscar nomination for his touching performance as a lonely college lecturer in The Visitor.
Langella and Jenkins are among the five nominees for best actor, along with Mickey Rourke in his comeback role in The Wrestler, former Oscar winner Sean Penn as murdered gay San Francisco politician Harvey Milk in Milk, and Brad Pitt for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Pitt's partner Angelina Jolie, an Oscar winner for Girl, Interrupted(1999), is shortlisted in the highly competitive best actress category for Changeling.
There was a fourth acting nomination for Doubtwhen Philip Seymour Hoffman, who plays a Catholic priest suspected of sexually abusing a student, was shortlisted in the best supporting actor category.
The timely Israeli animated documentary, Waltz with Bashir, is one of the front-runners for the best foreign-language film Oscar, along with French entry The Class, which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes last year. The other nominees are The Baader Meinhof Complex(Germany), Departures(Japan) and Revanche(Austria).