Video: Pegnews film guys in Oscar preview mode

by Alex Bentley, John P. Meyer

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Alex and John pick their favorites from among this year's Academy Award nominees. And it isn't pretty. (At least, they aren't.)

Alex and I sat down at the office Tuesday morning (Feb. 17) and shared our thoughts about the nominees for this year's Academy Awards.

Amazingly, we carried on for a good twenty minutes - and this after we'd agreed to forgo discussion of the more esoteric categories, such as set design, costuming, makeup and sound mixing.

('Course, our combined knowledge of those filmmaking areas would not have taken up more than a couple additional minutes of talk time - speaking purely for myself - JM.)

There's a glitch in the middle of the first recorded segment which I'm told must have had something to do with someone's cell phone doing its transmitting and/or receiving thing in the vicinity of the videocam - please excuse it, and I hope to God I wasn't saying something particularly cogent or amusing at the time. (Probably not.)

For the benefit of those who haven't kept up with our published reviews over the past year, here is a list of the nominees under discussion, linked to our original reviews (or, in the case of individuals, to our interviews with them). The links will only show up at the first mention of the film (or person).

You will note that the order in which we discuss the categories on camera is reversed from the order in which they are presented here - the better to build up to a big and exciting finish. (In theory.)

BEST PICTURE

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Frost/Nixon

Milk

The Reader

Slumdog Millionaire

BEST DIRECTOR

Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire

David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon

Stephen Daldry, The Reader

Gus Van Sant, Milk

BEST ACTOR

Richard Jenkins, The Visitor

Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon

Sean 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

Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight (Also reviewed by Alex, here)

Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder

Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt

Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Amy Adams, Doubt

Penélope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona (also reviewed by Alex, here)

Viola Davis, Doubt

Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Frozen River, Courtney Hunt

Happy-Go-Lucky, Mike Leigh

In Bruges, Martin McDonagh

Milk, Dustin Lance Black

WALL-E, Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon, Pete Docter

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Eric Roth

Doubt, John Patrick Shanley

Frost/Nixon, Peter Morgan

The Reader, David Hare

Slumdog Millionaire, Simon Beaufoy

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

Bolt

Kung Fu Panda

WALL-E

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

Changeling

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

The Dark Knight

The Reader

Slumdog Millionaire

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)

Encounters at the End of the World

The Garden

Man on Wire

Trouble the Water

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

The Baader Meinhof Complex (Germany)

The Class * (France)

Departures (Japan)

Revanche (Austria)

Waltz with Bashir (Israel)

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Alexandre Desplat

Defiance, James Newton Howard

Milk, Danny Elfman

Slumdog Millionaire, A.R. Rahman

WALL-E, Thomas Newman

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

''Down to Earth,'' WALL-E

''Jai Ho,'' Slumdog Millionaire

''O Saya,'' Slumdog Millionaire

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

The Dark Knight

Iron Man

* Review coming this Friday, on the day of its North Texas opening (Feb. 20)

Mike Bullock served as camera operator on this shoot. And key grip. (Though we didn't pay him scale, as he's not union.)

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