And the Winner is...

I'm a little disappointed by the nominations for the Academy Awards this year. I typically don't give a rat's behind who wins these things, because mostly any movie/music/tv award shows involve the respective industries patting themselves on the back. Who cares?

This year I was interested though, mostly because of all the buzz around The Dark Knight. Would this finally be the year that a superhero movie broke the mold and actually won a Best Movie award?

Well, the nominations are up, and The Dark Knight is up for a couple, though not for best movie.

• Actor in a Supporting Role: Heath Ledger
• Art Direction
• Makeup
• Sound Editing
• Visual Effects
• Cinematography
• Film Editing
• Sound Mixing

8 is not enough, in my opinion.  Anyway, I probably would have classified Heath Ledger's Joker as a leading role, just because he was the movie. Regardless, it will be nice if he wins. Nobody else who is up for that award, save Philip Seymour Hoffman, was even close.

Other tidbits I'm interested in:

Frost/Nixon is up for 5 awards including best actor in a leading role and best picture. I hope it wins both. It was a very, very good movie. If you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend it. 

Mickey Rourke is also up for best actor. I have not seen The Wrestler, but Darron Aaronofsky is my personal favorite director. Nothing he has ever done has been less than sublime. I have no doubts that The Wrestler is a damn fine movie and that Mickey Rourke did a tremendous job. I wouldn't mind seeing him win either.

The best animated movie of the year was definitely Wall-E, and the Academy is showing the love with a total of 6 nominations including Best Animated Movie. It should win that one easily.

I was completely blown away to see that Tropic Thunder was nominated in the Best Supporting Actor category - Robert Downey Jr. Movies like this usually don't see nominations, so this should be interesting. Not that I think he stands much of a chance against Heath Ledger, but sure.

The one category that completely took me off guard was the Best Original Score. None of the nominated movies (Wall-E, Slumdog Millionaire, Milk, Defiance, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) had scores that were that impressive. As it is, I think I'll root for Wall-E, just because that movie is awesome.