Oscar Nominations Announced: Button gets 13, Slumdog Gets 10! Dark Knight has 8!

Hello World Family,
Well, the Oscar nominations are out and most of the films you and Falcon and Dove have been discussing since the beginning of November are in the mix.

On the one year anniversary of his death, Heath Ledger gets a nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. There are seven additional noms for The Dark Knight including Visual Effects, Film Editing, and Cinematography, to name a few. This was the number one film at the box office for 2008, and it should be honored for the hard work and superb acting that came out of this project.

Slumdog Millionaire is rocking and rolling! Falcon and Dove consider this to be the front runner for Best Picture, although the films selected are top notch: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Milk, Frost/Nixon, and The Reader round out the category. This will be a bit of a horse race, and all of these films are excellent! See them all at matinee if you can.

Some surprises:

Kate Winslett did get her Best Actress nom, but in The Reader. Falcon and Dove discussed this on the blog and in our podcasts that we thought she might get a Best Actress and a Best Supporting Actress nom, and that possibly The Reader would go Best, rather than Supporting. That is exactly what happened...but she only got one nomination. She is endearing and strong in this film, we think she is a frontrunner to get the win, even with Meryl Streep in Doubt. Anne Hathaway is in the mix, and we are so happy to see her there.
Revanche from Austria got in the Best Foreign Film finals, and we are glad to see that one rise to the top. It will have some serious competition from the animated Golden Globe winner,Waltz With Bashir.

Courtney Hunt's original screenplay is nominated for the film Frozen River. We are so proud of you! It will have some heavy competition from Martin McDonagh for In Bruges (Falcon just saw this film and it is hysterical), and Dustin Lance Black for Milk.
Pete Docter getting a nom in this category for WALL-E surprised us greatly, especially considering some of the 'plot' was considered a bit controversial (and cruel) by some. Ironically, that probably helped it. Our opinion: it wasn't that good, and there are a lot of original screenplays that could have made the cut in place of this one.

Tropic Thunder nominations for OSCARS? Well, we guess it's good to have a sense of humor, too.

Falcon and Dove are not surprised that Gran Torino didn't get one of the top main category nominations...wasn't even on our radar. There were lots of excellent films this year, so the competition was just too stiff for something like that to be in top consideration.

Michael Shannon for Best Actor in a Supporting Role was a nice surprise. He is with a tough group, including Heath Ledger.

Milk got a ton of nominations in many categories across the board, including Best Costuming. It should be. We hope this film gets a couple of Oscars before the night is over on February 22, 2009.

Art Direction is an extremely difficult category, maybe the toughest of the entire year. Changling, The Dark Knight, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Revolutionary Road and The Duchess are all competing for top honors. Yikes! We are glad that we won't have to decide the winner, otherwise there would be five Oscars handed out right here. Can we have a tie?

Falcon and Dove wanted Taraji P. Henson to be part of the final group for Best Supporting Actress, and she made it!!! This is a world class performance in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The range she had to play was extreme, and she is with some very talented actresses in this category, but we believe she has a chance to win.

Let us know who you think will win. We will discuss more about these nominations as the date approaches. Again, if you can, see some of these incredible films.

Personally, Falcon and Dove thinks there should be an "Oscar Season" discount on nominated films on weekdays so that more people could go to see quality films with their families.

As an aside...this is far from an Oscar nom, but if you get a chance, go see Hotel For Dogs in theatres with your kids. This is a fun, heartwarming film full of talented teens and a variety of great dogs. This film shines a light on the issue of homeless pets, and a portion of the movie ticket purchase goes to help shelters.

Next post: After nearly 8 months of periodically looking at this list, narrowing and agonizing over choices...in celebration of their forty years (almost 41 now) of progressive rock music, we will have our YES Top 40.

I am sure we will get some feedback about that one: which songs made it, which didn't and why...

Enjoy the rest of this great week, World Family!

Peace,
Falcon and Dove