The 81st Annual Academy Awards is the pinnacle of a seam bursting awards season in 2009. As the climax to the award season, we have seen our fair share of winners and the choices this year at the Golden Globes and Baftas as well as other award ceremonies have given the public and industry a hint of what’s to come in this year’s Oscars.

Taking place on 22nd February the Oscars are hosted, this year, by Hugh Jackman, following the less than successful stint by Jon Stewart last year. We know that Jackman, recently seen in epic Australia, is multi talented – great actor, great dancer, great singer, easy on the eye but can he handle the Oscars? It remains to be seen – many a comedic talent have failed miserably in front of an Oscars’ audience.

Take a look at the nominees in the major categories this year – everyone has an opinion and we, here at The Ballagh Advertiser, are no different. Here are some of our thoughts – severely abridged or the Advertiser might turn into an Oscar special.

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

Best Actor
Richard Jenkins – The Visitor
Frank Langella – Frost/Nixon
Seann Penn – Milk
Brad Pitt – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke – The Wrestler

Best Actress
Anne Hathaway – Rachel Getting Married
Angelina Jolie – Changeling
Melissa Leo – Frozen River
Meryl Streep – Doubt
Kate Winslet – The Reader

Best Supporting Actor
Josh Brolin – Milk
Robert Downey Jnr – Tropic Thunder
Philip Seymour Hoffman – Doubt
Heath Ledger – The Dark Knight
Michael Shannon – Revolutionary Road

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams – Doubt
Penelope Cruz – Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis – Doubt
Taraji P. Henson – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Marisa Tomei – The Wrestler

The two big contenders, in my opinion, for best film this year are, undeniably, Slumdog Millionaire and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Slumdog Millionaire has been the darling of this season, winning best film at a number of awards and earning its director, Danny Boyle, many best director accolades in turn. Why has everyone fallen for this Slumdog? A truly original tale, which breaks your heart and uplifts simultaneously. Boyle and his young cast excel at every turn in the story of a young uneducated slumdog, Jamal, who is suspected of cheating in India’s version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire and must tell his life story to prove how he knew all the answers. Boyle has made some truly spectacular films in his career – cult classics such as Trainspotting and has also made some mistakes – I’m still trying to forget The Beach. Slumdog shows him at his best, where he can do no wrong.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a fantasy film, which is grounded in reality – David Fincher pulls off the impossible. Fincher, well known for his thrillers Seven and Zodiac, has been underestimated in the past, never given the praise he deserves as a director. Benjamin Button is the magical tale of a man who is born with the withered body of old man and ages backwards. The one constant in his life is his love for dancer, Daisy, played by Cate Blanchett (who was cruelly denied a best actress nod for her role). The film explores timelessness, age and that one moment in life when everything falls into place. The cast, including an excellent turn by Taraji P. Henson as Benjamin’s adoptive mother (who deserves an Oscar for her maternal role), as well as marvellous special effects merely adds to the film’s wonder. A contender definitely – enough to level the Slumdog, we’ll see.

The Oscars are renowned for upsets. Could one of the other three nominees, unexpectedly, snatch the prize? Ron Howard’s Frost/Nixon – the retelling of the historic interview in 1977 of former President Richard Nixon by David Frost has been largely overlooked this season. And we don’t know why. Is it because the other films are so much more than Frost/Nixon could deliver? Or because the subject matter, while engaging, is more suited to television drama than the big screen? Milk has a powerhouse in Sean Penn and its great ensemble cast. A biopic that educates and engages, director Gus Van Sant delivers a film that is essentially character based with a touching love story between Penn’s Harvey Milk and James Franco’s Scott Smith. It is a triumph for all involved. The Reader can be seen as an uncomfortable film – the story of a brief affair between a schoolboy and the older woman, only for him to encounter her again years later on trial for her role as a SS guard in Auschwitz. Stephen Daldry, as a director, is known for his stunning, melancholic visuals and he does not disappoint. The cast, with the exception of a somewhat stilted Ralph Fiennes, is excellent. It has moments of true magnificence such as the courtroom scenes but there are also moments, which are not so. The film is ultimately let down by these moments.

Will this year be Kate Winslet’s year? A 5- time loser at the Oscars since her first nominated for Marianne in Sense and Sensibility, she is undoubtedly one of the finest actresses out there. At this year’s Golden Globes she won 2 awards – one for best supporting actress in The Reader and best actress in Revolutionary Road. At the Baftas she was nominated against herself – both roles up for best actress! So far, the signs look good – Golden Globes, no problem; Baftas, easy peasy. But the Oscars?

Many have questioned the Academy’s decision to ignore her housewife in suburban drama Revolutionary Road and instead opt for the unrepentant former Nazi in The Reader. It is not a role that usually wins the Oscar accolade. We also have to consider that best actress is a tough category this year. Meryl Streep is a legend – an actress nominated more times than we have had hot dinners and her role in Doubt is certainly powerful; Anne Hathaway surprised us all in Rachel Getting Married – this could confirm her reputation as a dramatic actress; Angelina Jolie in Changeling is a force to be reckoned with while Melissa Leo is the classic under-dog. Is Kate Winslet doomed to be the Martin Scorsese of her generation? Forever nominated and then the Academy finally relents and awards her for a mediocre role as Scorsese with The Departed. And before fans of The Departed rise up in indignation – I’m not disputing that The Departed was a good film but Scorsese has directed better such as Goodfellas and The Aviator and he deserved the Oscar for those gems.

Mickey Rourke is staging the comeback of the century with his role as a washed up wrestler in the aptly titled The Wrestler. True, he never actually left the world of film but Rourke’s career fell into a downturn in the 1990s and he never recovered the status he held in the 1980s – this is the man who was hailed as the next Marlon Brando. A misguided career in boxing and even more misguided foray into plastic surgery left the once quite good looking Rourke as a misshapen mess. Roles in Once Upon A Time in Mexico and Sin City brought him into the public eye once more but he still had not regained dramatic leading man status. The Wrestler signalled this return. Already winning best actor at the Golden Globes and the Baftas, the Academy is sure to follow suit. Academy aside he is the public’s choice for the gong. All the hype around Mickey Rourke has, however, overshadowed the other actors in the category. You find yourself almost wishing they were in another category, another year because each deserves an Oscar for their extraordinary performances. Two of my favourites are Brad Pitt and Sean Penn. Last nominated for Twelve Monkeys in 1996, Brad Pitt thoroughly deserves his best actor nod for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – his third collaboration with director, David Fincher. Pitt is undeniably at his best in this film. The role is complex and he pulls it off almost effortlessly. Sean Penn shines as Harvey Milk from his ascent into politics to his relationship with lover, Scott Smith. Penn is an Academy favourite winning for Mystic River in 2004, his intensity as an actor makes him a threat in any category.

There is no doubt that best supporting actor will go posthumously to Heath Ledger for his role as the Joker in The Dark Knight. Again, the wave of support surrounding the late actor has overshadowed the other nominees in the category but this support, in my opinion, is truly deserved. Many cynics, I could call them something a lot worse, have attributed the onslaught of awards, including the Golden Globe and Bafta, to Ledger’s untimely and tragic death – award guilt so to speak. This is utter rubbish and to say, or even hint at, such a thing is not only wrong but also completely unfounded. Ledger was an extremely talented actor from skateboarding maestro in Lords of Dogtown to gay cowboy in Brokeback Mountain. The Dark Knight was merely the next step in this talent. Ledger’s take on the twisted, sadistic and psychotic Joker outstrips Jack Nicholson’s rendition is every sense. Evil, corrupt, insane and terrifying. Enough said.