After much-anticipation, the nominees for 81st Academy Awards were announced today. For the most part, the list doesn’t really shine; some categories are as expected, some include surprises, and some just don’t make any sense at all.

First of all, the bright spot. After many, many months of wonder, debates, and arguments — Heath Ledger was indeed given his much-deserved Oscar nomination. Whether he’ll actually win or not is yet to be seen — he does have some very strong competition — but now that he has received the nomination, it would really be a perfect and poetic ending to an extremely sad story.

On the more negative side: the Best Picture category. Keep in mind that I haven’t seen any of these movies, so my opinions are strictly based on what I’ve heard about the various films that were thought to be in contention for a Best Picture nomination. Considering what I’ve heard, one can’t help but think that this year’s five is a little… boring. From what I’ve gathered, there were definitely other movies that could have replaced multiple nominees, so why did they not?

Continue reading for more, as well as the complete list of nominees.

The two movies in particular that have me scratching my head are Frost/Nixon and The Reader. Again, I haven’t seen these or the other movies, so they may be worthy of their spots, but it’s hard to see. When I first saw footage for Frost/Nixon, it looked like an extremely boring CNN special and I’m quite sure I may have nodded off just during the trailer. Is this movie really worthy of Best Picture, or does the Academy just nominate anything Ron Howard makes these days? On the same level, The Reader also looked incredibly boring, so why is it there? I know these movies have been nominated many times in other awards organizations, but this is the top dog here, things need to be perfectly chosen (not that they ever have been before) on this stage.

From what I’m lead to believe, movies like The Wrestler, Revolutionary Road, Doubt, and even Wall-E could have been nominated, and should be there over at least those two. Some people could surely make cases for those movies over even The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Milk as well. The very positive element here is of course, Slumdog Millionaire, which has been tearing its way through awards ceremonies and is easily this year’s dark horse and favorite among the bunch.

Instead of going silly on you and offering my useless positive and negative opinions on the rest of the categories, I’ll just leave it at those two points and move on to the rest of the nominees!

Oh, wait… ONE more thing. Where the shit is Bruce Springsteen!?

BEST PICTURE:

- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
- Milk
- Slumdog Millionaire
- The Reader
- Frost/Nixon

BEST DIRECTOR:

- Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
- Gus Van Sant, Milk
- Stephen Daldry, The Reader
- Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon
- David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

BEST ACTOR:

- Sean Penn, Milk
- Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
- Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
- Richard Jenkins, The Visitor
- Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

BEST ACTRESS:

- Kate Winslet, The Reader
- Melissa Leo, Frozen River
- Angelina Jolie, Changeling
- Meryl Streep, Doubt
- Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:

- Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt
- Josh Brolin, Milk
- Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
- Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road
- Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:

- Viola Davis, Doubt
- Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler
- Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
- Amy Adams, Doubt
- Penélope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY:

- Happy-Go-Lucky
- Frozen River
- Wall-E
- Milk
- In Bruges

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:

- The Reader
- Slumdog Millionaire
- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
- Frost/Nixon
- Doubt

BEST ORIGINAL SONG:

- Peter Gabriel/Thomas Newman — Down to Earth, Wall-E
- A.R. Rahman/Maya Arulpragasam — O Saya, Slumdog Millionaire
- A.R. Rahman/Gulzar — Jai Ho, Slumdog Millionaire

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE:

- James Newton Howard, Defiance
- Alexandre Duplat, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
- Thomas Newman, Wall-E
- A.R. Rahman, Slumdog Millionaire
- Danny Elfman, Milk

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE:

- Bolt
- Wall-E
- Kung Fu Panda

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM:

- Departures
- The Class
- The Baader Meinhof Complex
- Waltz With Bashir
- Revanche

BEST ART DIRECTION:

- The Duchess
- The Dark Knight
- Changeling
- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
- Revolutionary Road

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY:

- The Reader
- Slumdog Millionaire
- Changeling
- The Dark Knight
- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

BEST COSTUME DESIGN:

- Australia
- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
- Revolutionary Road
- Milk
- The Duchess

BEST FEATURE DOCUMENTARY:

- Encounters at the End of the World
- Man on a Wire
- The Betrayal
- Trouble the Water
- The Garden

BEST SHORT DOCUMENTARY:

- The Final Inch
- The Conscience of Nhem En
- Smile Pinki
- The Witness – From the Balcony of Room 306

BEST EDITING:

- Frost/Nixon
- Milk
- The Dark Knight
- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
- Slumdog Millionaire

BEST MAKEUP:

- Hellboy II: The Golden Army
- The Dark Knight
- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

BEST ANIMATED SHORT:

- Oktapodi
- Presto
- La Maison en Petits Cubes
- This Way Up
- Lavatory — Lovestory

BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT:

- Manon on the Asphalt
- The Pig
- New Boy
- Auf der Strecke (On the Line)
- Spielzeugland (Toyland)

BEST SOUND EDITING:

- Iron Man
- Slumdog Millionaire
- Wanted
- Wall-E
- The Dark Knight

BEST SOUND MIXING:

- Wall-E
- Slumdog Millionaire
- Wanted
- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
- The Dark Knight

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS:

- The Dark Knight
- Iron Man
- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

The 81st Academy Awards will air on February 22, 2009.