The 81st Oscar nominations came with some surprises up its sleeve this morning, snubbing the year’s biggest film and finding room for smaller performances.

The Dark Knight, the second-largest-grossing movie of all-time, was left off the Best Picture list in favour of a list of critical favourites that include Slumdog Millionaire, the little movie that could. Slumdog, which won the Golden Globe earlier this month, also garnered nominations for adapted screenplay and for director Danny Boyle. In all, it got nine nominations.

The other nominated pictures are The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which led the pack with 13 nominations, along with Frost/Nixon, Milk — which had eight nominations — and The Reader. All the Best Picture directors were also nominated.

The Reader, a post-Holocaust drama about the love affair between an older woman and a young man, was a surprise inclusion because of its controversial subject matter. It also won a Best Actress nomination for Kate Winslet, who had earlier won the Supporting Actress award at the Golden Globes. Winslet had been touted as a possible Best Actress nominee for the acidic 1950s drama Revolutionary Road, but she and co-star Leonardo DiCaprio were snubbed, as was the movie itself.

Joining Winslet in the Actress category was Melissa Leo, star of the well-received but decidedly small drama Frozen River. She’s going up against Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting Married, Angelina Jolie in Changeling, and Meryl Streep in Doubt.

It was a good day overall in the Jolie household: husband Brad Pitt, who ages backwards as Benjamin Button, was also nominated, along with Mickey Rourke, the comeback kid, who won the Golden Globe for his portrayal of an over-the-hill wrestler in The Wrestler. Frank Langella, who played Richard Nixon in Frost/Nixon, and Sean Penn, as the gay politician Harvey Milk in Milk, are joined by longtime character actor Richard Jenkins, the star of another small but much-loved movie The Visitor.

The supporting categories also were filled with unexpected names. The Supporting Actress nominees included favourites Marisa Tomei as a stripper in The Wrestler and Penelope Cruz as an angry wife in Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona, but also Amy Adams as the innocent nun and Viola Davis as the mother of a boy who may have been abused, both in Doubt, along with Taraji P. Henson, another surprise for her turn as the adoptive mother of Pitt’s character in Benjamin Button.

The supporting actor nominations were headed by the favourites, the late Heath Ledger, as the evil Joker in The Dark Knight and Philip Seymour Hoffman as a priest who may or may not be a child abuser, in Doubt. But the rest of the list showed a tendency for the Academy to take chances: Josh Brolin as the conflicted politician in Milk, Robert Downey Jr., performing in blackface as a method actor in Tropic Thunder, and Michael Shannon as the mentally ill intruder in Revolutionary Road, the only major award for that movie.

The Quebec movie The Necessities of Life, which was on the short list for Best Foreign Film, did not make the cut.

The nominations for the 81st Annual Academy Awards:

BEST PICTURE

BEST ACTOR

BEST ACTRESS

BEST ACTOR – SUPPORTING

BEST ACTRESS – SUPPORTING

BEST DIRECTOR

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

Canwest News Service

“The Dark Knight” has earned two more nominations to it’s list of honours.

The Dark Knight has added to its critical laurels with two new nominations announced today.

The Writers Guild of America has nominated the Batman Begins sequel in the category of best adapted screenplay, alongside The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Doubt, Frost/Nixon, and Slumdog Millionaire.

The WGA’s nominees for best original screenplay include Milk, Burn After Reading, The Wrestler, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and The Visitor.

In related news, the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) have named their finalists in the feature film category of the 23rd Annual American Society of Cinematographers Outstanding Achievement Awards competition. The nominees are Roger Deakins, ASC, BSC (Revolutionary Road and The Reader), Anthony Dod Mantle, BSC (Slumdog Millionaire), Chris Menges, ASC, BSC (The Reader), Claudio Miranda (The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button) and Wally Pfister, ASC (The Dark Knight).

The recipient will be named during the awards celebration here at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel on February 15.

Finally, The Dark Knight also made the longlist for the British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs), with 13 nominations: best film, adapted screenplay, director (Christopher Nolan), makeup & hair, visual effects, sound, editing, costume design, production design, cinematography, music, leading actor (Christian Bale), and supporting actor (Heath Ledger). The BAFTAs will be awarded February 8 in London.

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Can it be true? Is Bruce Wayne really dead? Read on to find out.

After 70 years of fighting crime in Gotham City, Bruce Wayne’s run as Batman has come to an end.

DC Comics released issue No. 681 of the comic Batman on Wednesday, entitled Batman R.I.P.

It marks “the end of Bruce Wayne as Batman,” Grant Morrison told comic book news Web site Comic Book Resources. “What I am doing is a fate worse than death, things that no one would expect to happen to these guys at all.”

In the book, Batman appears to die in a fiery helicopter crash. The Dark Knight was trying to stop an enemy called the Black Glove who had stormed Wayne Manor and destroyed the Bat Cave.

The comic is action-packed with Batman fighting through an army of enemies while trying to stop the Black Glove.

After the explosion, in one of the comic’s final panels, one of Batman’s sidekicks, Nightwing, is seen standing on a rooftop holding Batman’s cape and cowl in his clenched fist.

Speculation had been running rampant prior to Wednesday’s release of the comic about whether he would be killed or whether he would retire as the caped crusader.

Rumour-mongers were also speculating about whether another character from the Batman mythos, such as Robin, will take over the Batman mantle.

Killing off superheroes has become a popular practice among comic book companies.

Marvel Comics wrote a storyline in 2007 that ended with Steve Rogers, a.k.a Captain America, being shot and killed by an assassin. Captain America’s sidekick, Bucky, has since taken over as the hero. The storyline involving Rogers death saw sales of Captain America related comics soar.

Wayne made his first appearance as the Dark Knight in issue No. 27 of Detective Comics in 1939. He was created by comic book artist Bob Kane.

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Yet, another Batman casting rumor.

Speculation on the villains for the next Batman film is coming thick and fast, with the U.K.’s Daily Telegraph throwing two new stars into the mix.

The paper, quoting “unnamed sources,” says that Warner Bros. have targeted Johnny Depp to play The Riddler, and Philip Seymour Hoffman to take the role of The Penguin.

According to their source: “Producers are convinced that the role of The Riddler is perfect for Depp. Johnny’s a pro. He’ll be able to take direction and still make the character his own. And what better Penguin is there than Philip Seymour Hoffman?”
This comes off the back of the rumour we heard earlier this week that Angelina Jolie is interested it the role of Catwoman.

Bat-fans will remember that Jim Carey was the last actor to have a crack at playing the Riddler in Batman Forever, whilst Danny De Vito portrayed the villainous penguin in Batman Returns.

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Rumor has it that Angelina Jolie is after the catwoman role in the next Batman flick.

Could Angelina Jolie be after the role of Catwoman in the next Batman film?

That’s what Julie Newmar — the actress who played the feline anti-hero in the original TV show — has been saying to the press.

This highly dubious piece of gossip came from a comment she made to the New York Daily News (and was picked up by comicbookmovie.com), in which she apparently said: “Angelina would own the part. My industry friends tell me [she] has made inquiries about the role. I can understand how it would pique her interest.”

The chances are this is a case of the over-active Dark Knight rumour mill churning out another piece of baseless gossip, but what would you think if the news was true?

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