OSCAR NOMINATIONS 2009

Richard Harbaugh / ©A.M.P.A.S.

Most nominated films

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (13 nods)
Slumdog Millionaire (10)
Milk and The Dark Knight (8)

The Oscar record-tier

Meryl Streep, nominated for Doubt, ties Katharine Hepburn's 12 best actress nominations.

Streep has been the overall Oscar record-holder for acting since 2002, when she received her 13th nomination (for best supporting actress in Adaptation). She currently has 15 Oscar nominations — including two wins — under her belt.

Posthumous Oscar nomination

Heath Ledger for his Joker in The Dark Knight, exactly one year after his death.

Double Oscar nominations

Not Kate Winslet — but Doubt, with two performers competing against one another in the best supporting actress category: Amy Adams (right) and Viola Davis.

The big comeback

Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler.

The Oscar comebacks (acting/directing, 10 years or more between nominations)

Robert Downey Jr. (best actor nominee for Chaplin in 1992; best supporting actor nominee for Tropic Thunder)

Brad Pitt (best supporting actor nominee for 12 Monkeys in 1995; best actor nominee for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)

Gus Van Sant (best director nominee for Good Will Hunting in 1997; best director nominee for Milk)

Glaring Oscar Omissions

The Dark Knight for best picture, while Christopher Nolan, despite his Directors Guild and Writers Guild nominations, was nowhere to be found in the directing and screenplay (with Jonathan Nolan) categories.

Clint Eastwood for best actor in Gran Torino, which is supposed to be his last appearance in front of a movie camera. Eastwood also failed to make the cut as best director for either Gran Torino or Changeling, and as best songwriter for his "Gran Torino" ditty.

Jan Troell's Everlasting Moments, the Swedish foreign-language film entry that seemed made to order for the foreign-language voters' tastes: it's a period piece about social issues from a prestigious veteran director. Somehow, it didn't make the cut. (The Italian submission, Matteo Garrone's Gomorrah, was a glaring omission when the list of foreign-language semi-finalists was announced.)

Sally Hawkins — the Los Angeles and New York critics, and National Society of Film Critics, and Berlin Film Festival and Golden Globe winner — was ignored by the Hollywood Academy just as she had been ignored by the British Academy. Apparently, Academy voters found enough room for only one little-known actress, and that slot was given to Melissa Leo for Frozen River.

Waltz with Bashir in the best animated feature category. Ari Folman's Israeli-made anti-war documentary was, however, included in the best foreign-language film shortlist. (Last year, Persepolis got a best animated feature nod, but was snubbed in the foreign-language film category. Pretty soon some great movie will end up omitted from both categories because one group will assume the other will be voting for it, the other group will assume the same, and the unlucky film in question will end up shut out.)

Bruce Springsteen's "The Wrestler" took the Golden Globe, but wasn't considered good enough by the Academy's music branch members.

Cate Blanchett could have been included along with the other Curious Case of Benjamin Button nominees — but she wasn't. Had it been a weaker year for actresses, Blanchett would surely have landed a nomination even if only because just about everybody else in the film did as well.

Kate Winslet most likely would have received two best actress nominations — for The Reader and Revolutionary Road — if double nominations weren't a no-no in the same acting category. It's strange that enough Academy members opted to vote for Winslet as a lead actress in The Reader — therefore nullifying her sure-to-have-been nomination as best supporting actress* in that film — instead of going for their usual farce of voting for lead performers in the supporting categories (e.g., Philip Seymour Hoffman in Doubt, Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight, and in previous years, Ethan Hawke in Training Day, Julianne Moore in The Hours, etc.).

Just as strange was the fact that more Academy members picked Winslet's performance in The Reader rather than her equally acclaimed role in Revolutionary Road, for which she had been expected to nab a best actress nomination.

In any case, good for Penélope Cruz: now, the best supporting actress Oscar is most likely hers.

* After Barry Fitzgerald was nominated for Going My Way in both the best actor and best supporting actor categories back in 1944, the Academy banned such double nominations. (Fitzgerald won as supporting actor.) From then on, if a performer garnered enough votes to be included in both categories, he or she would be shortlisted in the best actor/actress category while the supporting nomination would be discarded.

Other notable omissions: Kristin Scott Thomas for I've Loved You So Long (above); Charlie Kaufman for the Synecdoche, New York screenplay; Leonardo DiCaprio for Revolutionary Road; Woody Allen for the Vicky Cristina Barcelona screenplay; and Valkyrie, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Quantum of Solace, and The Incredible Hulk in the technical categories.

Also, Dev Patel as best supporting actor for Slumdog Millionaire; James Franco as best supporting actor for Milk; Debra Winger and Rosemarie DeWitt as best supporting actresses, and screenwriter Jenny Lumet for Rachel Getting Married; Nick Schenck for the Gran Torino screenplay; and Standard Operating Procedure and I.O.U.S.A. as best documentary feature.

Plus — in any category — Last Chance Harvey, Nothing But the Truth, Body of Lies, and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.

All those and the 46 submitted but nomination-less songs — two of which could also have made the cut (up to five could have been nominated) though the Academy music branch opted to select only three songs this year.

(Check out Oscar's "preferential voting" procedures, in use since 1936.)

And finally…

My Oscar predictions were somewhat — but not totally — off the mark. Personally, I think Academy members were the ones way off the mark for not including The Dark Knight among the top films of 2008.

And a friend just now remarked that the Academy should come up with a special category for the likes of Brangelina.