Oscar Watch 2008

Is this the worst Oscar year of my life?

Tonight I watched Elegy, an absolutely gripping movie featuring an incredible performance by Ben Kingsley, and I started to wonder to myself how this movie wasn't going to be nominated for an Oscar. Last year it wouldn't have even been a contender probably, but this year? I can't even think of anything that's been released that could possibly have been nominated last year for Best Picture, besides possibly Wall-E (but that will of course never be nominated).

It's late-ish November and pretty much all of the Oscar bait this year has either underperformed or gotten moved to 2009 (damn you the Road!), so unless Milk, Australia, the Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, and Reservation Road all turn out to be knockouts (and to be fair, that's totally possible, although unlikely) I have no clue what will be nominated.

All I know is I bet Warner Bros. is starting to gas up the machine, getting ready to start on a multi-million dollar campaign to get the Dark Knight nominated for Best Picture. They've got to be licking their chops as the one thing that could possibly get that movie past Titanic as the biggest box office earner of all time would be a bevy of Oscar nominations, and with each disappointing release it's growing increasingly likely.

That really blows my mind.

If someone suggested after Batman & Robin was released that someday a flick about the Caped Crusader could legitimately jockey for a Best Picture nomination, pretty much everyone would laugh hysterically.

Who's laughing now?