I just realized that it has been produced by Sidney Pollack and Anthony Minghella.

Sure there were other factors, but these two were pretty well-liked and big industry personalities and both died last year (Minghella, in particular, unexpectedly so) - I think now that this played a role as well.

It's really odd when you think that just a few months ago, The Reader was destined to be a 2009 release, with Scott Rudin pulling his name off the film. By that tiny little twist of fate, the history of the AMPAS was altered and now trivia books will ask: What film surprised many by being a Best Picture Nominee over the beloved comic book film The Dark Knight?

This is going to go down AS one of the worst nominees ever in the history of film.

Actually, I think it will. I mean, well there are a lot of shit nominees, so maybe not. But this is definitely the worst since Crash.

You shouldn't be happy. It's going to receive about ten times more hate than Shakespeare in Love / Crash got after their upsets. It's going to be one of the most hated movies of the decade, in fact. At least by the internet community and those who follow the Oscars (most of my friends didn't know that Dark Knight was expected to get nominated).

For that reason, I'm hoping I don't like it, because it would suck to see a good film get all the hate this is facing.

59 on MC? Yeah, it's up there with Ghost now.

Thing is..had The Reader thrown Frost/Nixon or Milk out of the race many would be surprised, but it'd end up as *shrug* whatever.

But now, with it having thrown out TDK or WALL-E out of the final five....it'll get more shit than Shakespeare in Love did. FAR more shit.

We can hope it upsets Slumdog and wins BP now.

Wall-E wasnt in the running. It threw TDK out.

In the end only people on the internet care. People in general love TDK for what it is - an entertaining superhero crime film. The whole awards thing just sours things if its focused on too much.

Is there a rule against talking about who you voted for? I'm curious if we'll actually hear from disgruntled WALL-E/TDK voters, even if its anonymous.

No idea. But i'd rather hear what they had to say than watch the awards show itself.

There's nothing that backs this up actually. WALL-E got six noms overall (more than any other animated flick since Beauty and the Beast I think) and among them a Screenplay nod which TDK did not get.

3 of which were for song.

There isnt. Wall-E was free to get as many noms as it could. But Best Pic was always going to be extremely difficult thanks to the Best Animated film category. It just dilutes its chances.

Yeah and I agree, but with both not nominated there's no way to tell which exactly was snubbed. These two both look possible.

Even if an animated film eventually gets nominated for BP, it's chances of winning are almost impossible.

Surely you'd have enough voters decide to vote for that film in Best Animated while voting for another film they enjoyed for Best Picture to prevent one from ever winning. Unless they pulled it from Best Animated.

Considering TDK missed out on Screenplay and Wall-E had the Animated Feature barrier, I wouldn't be surprised if our sixth place movie was something like Revolutionary Road or Doubt, boring as that sounds. It doesn't seem like TDK/Wall-E came that close to sneaking in.

I didn't think Dark Knight was a safe bet for Adapted Screenplay anyway. I predicted it would get in for Picture and Director but miss Screenplay, mostly as a way for the Academy to throw The Reader a bone outside of Winslet and a tech nod or two.

Given the strength with which it appeared in the tech categories (counting only nominations outside of the major eight categories, it was only one off Benjamin Button), I think there was probably enough support that it just barely missed the cut, but we'll never know and it doesn't matter since it's not in the big five.

As for The Reader: Whatever. It's definitely not deserving, and my least favorite of all the nominees since I started following the races six years ago (though I still liked it), but it's only going to be a small footnote a decade from now, while The Dark Knight (and the also snubbed WALL-E) are still remembered very fondly. Even if Dark Knight had gotten in and one of the other four nominees had been knocked out, I still wouldn't be happy with The Reader being nominated. There's a reason why I was glad not to have Weinstein in the race in the past three years.

Pretty much. Most people I've talked to seemed somewhat surprised that I thought TDK had a really good chance at a nomination, so I doubt it's gonna sour many people outside of the internet community, other than those that always complain that the movies they see don't get nominated.

We'll never know.


But considering Revo Road didn't get a screenplay nod or a Best Actress nod, that's unlikely.


Considering TDK and WALL-E got 8 and 6 noms respectively...I'd say they were definitely #6 and #7.

[sarcasm]The hate for The Reader is simply the end result of the deep rooted anti-semitism among TDK fanboys - - any film that explores the holocaust is automatically exempt from criticism![/sarcasm]

I'd say Doubt was #6 and The Dark Knight #7. Actor/actress support for Doubt was clearly through-the-roof.

And yet it never got any BP noms anywhere really. Not at the Globes or the BAFTA even and didn't even make NBR's Top 10.

The Dark Knight didn't receive BP nominations from the Globes or the BAFTA either, though. But I s'pose you have me with NBR.