Saturn Nominations announced

The complete list of Saturn award nominations can be found here. Dark Knight has more nominations than any other film. I’ll include some of my own thoughts below.

Of the three “Best Science Fiction Film” nominees I’ve seen (Incredible Hulk, Indiana Jones 4 and Iron Man) I’d go with “Iron Man” for the win. The only “Best Fantasy Film” I’ve seen was Twilight, and I wasn’t impressed. If the Academy Award response is any indication, Benjamin Button will walk away with that one. I’m not a horror fan, and didn’t see any nominees. For the “Best Action/Adventure/Thriller Film” category, I’d say “The Dark Knight” is a given. For Best International Film, I’m betting on “Slumdog Millionaire,” although I haven’t seen any of the nominees; I’m just looking at Oscar precedents. I’ve only seen two Animated Film nominees, but I’d take “Wall-E” over “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” in that case.

For the acting nominees, things are a little closer. Again, I’ve only seen three “Best Actor” nominees, so I’d go with Robert Downey Jr. for “Iron Man,” though I hear Brad Pitt did a great job in Benjamin Button. Of the six best actress nominees, I’ve only seen two; neither Gyllenhaal (“Dark Knight”) nor Paltrow (“Iron Man”) struck me as award level performances, though both were good. Supporting Actor for Heath Ledger is a given, and I wasn’t award level impressed with either of the Supporting Actress nominations I saw. I haven’t seen a single young actor performance, but going by reputation, I’d bet on Dev Patel from “Slumdog Millionaire.”

For the Best Director award, I’d say Nolan for “Dark Knight.” For Best Writing, I’d pick “Dark Knight” over “Iron Man” for the entries I’ve seen, but I wouldn’t rule out Eric Roth’s Benjamin Button or JMS’ Changeling based on reputation, either. For music, I’d again go with “Dark Knight” over “Iron Man” of the two nominees I’ve seen. For costuming, I’ve only seen two, and I’ll take “Dark Knight” over “Indiana Jones 4.” Of this list, “Changeling” and “Australia” made the Oscar nominations list, so they’re strong contenders as well. The Best Makeup award is also filled with “Dark Knight” and stuff I haven’t seen yet, again including Oscar winner “Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” Going by the Ben Button footage I’ve seen in ads, I’d have taken the Two-Face makeup job over an old Brad Pitt in a heartbeat. For Special Effects, I’d again go with “Dark Knight.”

For the Best Network Television Series, I’ve only caught portions of the seasons for any of the nominees. Based on what I’ve seen, I’d go with “Supernatural.” For Best Syndicated/Cable Television Series, I’d go with “Battlestar Galactica,” assuming current broadcasts are of the same quality as the past. (I’m following that one on DVD.) I haven’t seen any of the “Presentation” nominees, and I haven’t seen enough of the TV acting awards to comment. (My work schedule pretty much limits TV viewing to the stuff I’ve reviewed here.)

For the DVD awards, I haven’t seen any of the “Best DVD Release” nominations, as I tend to avoid direct-to-DVD stuff. In fact, the only DVD categories I’m familiar enough to weigh in on are the “Best DVD Classic Film Release” (where I’d go with Casablanca) and “Best Retro Television Series Release on DVD” (where I’d go with Columbo: Mystery Movie Collection 1990.)