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.

As you may have noticed, when the academy announced "The Reader's" nomination, it had a big "TBD" sign next to the film, meaning that the academy hasn't settled the issue of which of the film's four listed producers are eligible to accept the Oscar if the film were to win. Upset over the scrum of producers who showed up on stage when "Shakespeare in Love" won for best picture a decade ago, the academy has a bizarre rule limiting a film to three producers, a rule that caused a furor when the academy arbitrarily disqualified two of the five "Little Miss Sunshine" producers when that film was up for best picture in 2007.

"The Reader's" producer credit issue is even more sensitive, since two of its four producers--filmmakers Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack--died last year before the film's release. The other two producers are Donna Gigliotti (one of the scrum of producers who won for "Shakespeare in Love" and a former USA Films production chief who made "Traffic" and "Gosford Park") and Redmond Morris, a veteran line producer and production manager who is a longtime Neil Jordan collaborator. After a lengthy vetting process, the Producers Guild recently recommended to the academy that all four producers share credit. But the academy isn't taking the PGA's advice, insisting that one of the four be excluded. Insiders say Morris will be the one to go, with Gigliotti and her late colleagues remaining the producers of record.

Interestingly, Morris didn't initially have a producer credit. But after Rudin took his name off the picture, Morris went to the Producers Guild and requested the credit, with Rudin's backing. Believing Morris had done ample work to merit the credit, the PGA approved him. By the time "The Reader" was released in December, his name was in the producer's credit box along with Gigliotti, Minghella and Pollack. As it stands, "The Reader" will end up as a true rarity--a film with three producers, all of whom have won Oscars.

Because four producers were listed on the credits form submitted for Oscar® consideration and Academy rules allow for only three producers – except in “a rare and extraordinary circumstance” – to be nominated and potentially receive Oscar statuettes, a meeting of the executive committee was necessary. In the end, the committee determined that the circumstances of “The Reader” – in which the two original producers (Minghella and Pollack) both died partway through the process – met its definition of “rare and extraordinary” and that all four submitted individuals should be named as nominees.

press release from the AMPAS

In addition to continuing to share with you my regular updates from the Academy member we're calling "Deep Vote" -- see memo one, memo two, memo three and memo four -- I am continuing to reach out to numerous other voters with whom I interact to try to get some new and hard data on the Oscar race as it enters its final days. While I openly acknowledge that it would take a much larger sample of conversations than I -- or anyone -- is having in order to formulate any statistically sound conclusions from these interactions, I still find them immensely interesting, and I hope you do too.

BRANCH: Acting
AGE: 60 to 70
NOTES: "I do not understand one winner -- how do you make that choice? ... I think it's unfortunate we have to choose one..., I always heard that A-list people often give their ballot to their publicists or whatever who get together at lunch and say, 'Who do we like? Well, he was very nice to me at the party,' and that's how they vote. It's garbage."

FINAL BALLOT INFORMATION PROVIDED

BEST PICTURE: "The Reader"
"I thought 'The Reader' was exemplary. I thought it was magnificently shot and directed -- flawlessly. I thought both of those performances are outstanding performances. I think the script -- I love the sophistication. That's a bad word -- the substance of that thing is just... you know, it's not about the flashiness and the money you throw at it. It's individual performances telling a story that is larger than the event. This isn't a Holocaust event; this is the maturation of that entire culture and the healing of that wound.... I think that 'Slumdog' is a marvelous film, beautifully done.... I think it is a Bollywood story in its entirety, sweetly done with very sweet people.... I saw the movie in a theater, I came out, and a number of people -- because they recognized me -- said, 'What'd you think of the picture?' I said, 'Yeah, I liked it.' They said, 'Yeah, it was wonderful! Is India really like that?' We have so little understanding of how people live in this world, and I think that was the revelation.... I think it's wonderful. But 'The Reader' -- his dilemma, his cowardice, his courage to look again and to realize that that judgment and suppression is destroying his ability to be alive, and to take his daughter back to that church, and tell the truth about his own cowardice -- I thought f-ck, that's good."
BEST DIRECTOR: Stephen Daldry ("The Reader")
BEST ACTOR: Sean Penn ("Milk")
"Sean's unique. Mickey, you know, bless his heart -- it's stunning, and it's great, and it's wonderful. But you want to talk about an actor? Sean Penn -- that's an actor. That's a transformation, that's embodying it, that's no holds barred."
BEST ACTRESS: Kate Winslet ("The Reader")
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Heath Ledger ("The Dark Knight")
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: David Hare ("The Reader")

Meh, for all we know The Dark Knight came in 7th or 8th for total votes.

But this is an actual vote for Best Picture, not a hypothetical look at what could have been.

Alex Y. thought it was the best of them all!

I'm not sure I follow you.

I think the Reader has the most meat of the noms and is better overall than Milk and Button. I have no problem with its inclusion

Don't be silly, The Reader ain't winning anything except for Actress.

That didn't help The Pianist to win Picture. And I'd say Slumdog is a stronger contender even than Chicago was.

I love Danny Boyle's movie. It's breathtaking. It's a shame they're going to come in second.

Weinstein’s first salvo was to home in on the Academy’s aging Jewish population. Although he’s been trying to get all voters to see the movie, it’s no coincidence that he has screened The Reader at such Jewish cultural hot spots as the Skirball Center in Los Angeles and the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan, places where one is likely to find older voters with a deep connection to films about the Holocaust. ”When I went to a screening, I was one of about four people who didn’t have blue hair,” says one Academy member and former campaign engineer. ”And I was the only WASP.”

Weinstein also invited Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel to The Reader’s New York premiere, and courted an endorsement from the Anti-Defamation League, a group whose mission is to call attention to anti-Semitism … Weinstein says, ”It must have been the hand of Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack, because Elie Wiesel asked to see me after the screening and he hugged me and said how much he loved the movie.” (Wiesel, through his agent, declined to comment.)