Fresh Loaf

The bar at the Fork & Screen

I wasn’t sure I was cut out for spending a Saturday watching all five best picture nominees back-to-back in a Buckhead dinner theater. This was the kind of activity reserved for trekkies or Star Wars and Lord  of the Rings fanatics. But work demands sacrifices, and since I’m in charge of CL’s Oscar live-blog tonight, I figured I owed it to y’all to have seen more than Pineapple Express and Slumdog Millionaire. As it turns out, I’m pretty good at sitting, watching and eating for hours on end. Allison Keene, aka the Televangelist, who came along too, ain’t too bad either. The AMC Buckhead Fork & Screen proved a decent venue, if a bit cold and noisy. But once I got my coffee and we figured out how to adjust our seats, things went fairly smoothly. When I sat down today to do my recap, Allison had already turned one out. So rather than tell you the same things twice, I’ll leave you with Allison’s tales of German indiscretions, fanny fatigue, and four out of five recommendations (with which I concur)…:

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This is no joy in Gotham City this morning following the Academy Award nominations. Heath Ledger earned the expected, posthumous Best Supporting Actor nod for The Dark Knight, but that’s the only major award garnered by the downbeat Batman film, which happens to be the second-highest grossing film ever made. The Producers, Directors and Writers Guilds all nominated The Dark Knight, but the Academy, never one to eagerly embrace genre films, shut it out of the Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay categories while giving it eight nominations overall.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Milk and Slumdog Millionaire all earned major nominations, including Best Picture, as expected. Button got the most total nods, at 13, with Slumdog the runner-up, with 10.

So what took the Dark Knight’s “slot?” Apparently The Reader, the post-Holocaust drama starring Kate Winslet (pictured). Not only did Oscar give it nominations for Best Picture, Best Director for Stephen Daldry and Best Adapted Screenplay, Kate Winslet triumphed over herself in Revolutionary Road. The studios had campaigned for Winslet as Supporting Actress in The Reader and lead in Revolutionary Road, but Academy instead gave her lead nomination and snubbed Revolutionary Road in the rest of the major categories, except Michael Shannon as supporting actor.

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SHEET STORM: Kate Winslet (left) and David Kross star in Stephen Daldry's 'The Reader.'

In a typical act of award-season positioning, the Weinstein Company is pushing Kate Winslet’s performance in The Reader as a Best Supporting Actress contender, presumably so she won’t compete with herself for Best Actress for her work in Revolutionary Road (which opens in Atlanta on Jan. 9). Even if Winslet signed off on the plan, the tactic does a disservice to her career-best performance in The Reader, one of the year’s most challenging and intellectually rich dramas. (more…)

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Max Arbes and CL’s Curt Holman chat about movies opening this holiday season that have Oscar buzz surrounding them, including Doubt, I’ve Loved You So Long, The Reader, and Valkyrie.

Air Loaf is broadcast weekdays on 1690 WMLB-AM at approximately 8:10 a.m., 12:20 p.m. and 6:20 p.m.

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