WASHINGTON, Jan 23: Oscar has a thing for "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" -- the film fable about a man who is born old and dies young received 13 Academy Award nominations, including best picture, a best actor nod for star Brad Pitt and a best director nomination for David Fincher The Washington Post reported.
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- Related story: Frost/Nixon [break]
Other nominees for best picture: "Milk," the biopic about gay rights pioneer Harvey Milk; "Frost/Nixon," the dramatic retelling of the 37th president´s 1977 television interview; "The Reader," a meditation on war crimes; and "Slumdog Millionaire," a love story in Mumbai about a TV game show contestant.
Best actor nominations also went to Sean Penn for "Milk"; Frank Langella for "Frost/Nixon"; Richard Jenkins for "The Visitor"; and Mickey Rourke for "The Wrestler."
Pitt and his partner Angelina Jolie will both be up for Oscars at the February 22 awards ceremony: She has been nominated for best actress for her role as the mother of a kidnapped boy in "The Changeling."
Best actress nominations also went to Anne Hathaway for "Rachel Getting Married" and Melissa Leo in "Frozen River." Kate Winslet got her sixth Oscar nomination today for "The Reader." Meryl Streep got her 15th Oscar nomination for her role in "Doubt."
Heath Ledger, who died a year ago today from a drug overdose, will be up for best supporting actor for playing the Joker in "The Dark Knight." Other nominees for best supporting actor are Josh Brolin for "Milk," Philip Seymour Hoffman for "Doubt" and Michael Shannon for "Revolutionary Road." Robert Downey Jr. also received a nomination for the comedy "Tropic Thunder," in which he plays an over-the-top method actor who dons blackface for a role as a soldier in Vietnam.
Best supporting actress nominations went to Amy Adams in "Doubt," Penelope Cruz in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," Viola Davis in "Doubt," Taraji P. Henson--a native of the District and a 1995 graduate of Howard University--in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" and Marisa Tomei in "The Wrestler."
In addition to Fincher, director nods went to Gus Van Sant for "Milk," Stephen Daldry for "The Reader," Danny Boyle for "Slumdog Millionaire" and Ron Howard for "Frost/Nixon."
Reached by phone in Manhattan this morning, Howard said he was thrilled for the picture´s nomination (and his own second nomination for best director) and pleased that the story of Richard Nixon´s interview with David Frost found an audience, "given how difficult it is to market a movie like this one, as tough a movie [to sell] as you can imagine. . . . It´s just so much more than visiting a moment in history. It addresses something that´s always important -- the need for transparency in a democracy."
The screenplay categories feature many Oscar favorites and prominent playwrights. For adapted screenplay, John Patrick Shanley and Peter Morgan were both nominated for shepherding to the screen their Broadway smashes "Doubt" and "Frost/Nixon." Fellow playwright David Hare is up for adapting the Bernhard Schlink novel "The Reader." Simon Beaufoy, who was nominated in 1998 for "The Full Monty," was cited for "Slumdog Millionaire," based on the novel "Q & A" by Vikas Swarup. And "Benjamin Button" was represented by Eric Roth (who won the same award in 1995 for the structurally similar "Forrest Gump") and Robin Swicord.
For Original Screenplay, two surprises: Irish playwright Martin McDonagh (who won an Oscar for Best Live Action Short in 2006) was nominated for "In Bruges," an existential caper starring Colin Farrell; Courtney Hunt, in her feature directorial debut, was cited for "Frozen River." The category is rounded out by Dustin Lance Black for "Milk," statueless Academy darling Mike Leigh for the British bit of whimsy "Happy-Go-Lucky" (his sixth nomination), and a trio of writers/creators -- Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter and Jim Reardon -- for coming up with "Wall*E," the first half of which has no dialogue.
