The fairytale story of the awards season just carries on rumbling. After collecting the greatest number of nominations at the Baftas, Slumdog Millionaire has bagged an astonishing ten at the Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director for Danny Boyle. Its closest rival, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, has squeezed out three more. Why David Fincher’s gruelling slice of charmless whimsy about a man who grows physically younger as he ages has captivated the Academies on both sides of the Pond is as inexplicable as the film itself.

But Danny Boyle’s modest feel good movie is still punching to terrific effect wildly beyond its weight with nominations in all the main categories apart from acting which is dominated by the Americans. John Patrick Shanley’s film Doubt, about a priest on the point of being disgraced, has four acting nominations including Meryl Streep for Best Actress, and Philip Seymour Hoffman for Best Supporting Actor. Candles are still being burned for Heath Ledger who is wins a posthumous Best Supporting Actor nomination for his deranged performance in The Dark Knight.

For the first time in an age there are few real shocks and surprises. The unprecedented number of British hopefuls merely reflects the fact that our industry is currently generating the best independent cinema in the world. Films like Frost/Nixon, written and adapted by Peter Morgan, have peppered the list with nominations. Indeed the Oscar 2009 nominees are almost a fascimile of the Bafta list with a few cosmetic changes to please the locals. Kate Winslet has been stripped of one of her Best Actress nominations for Revolutionary Road, but is still in the mix for The Reader. Indeed her husband Sam Mendes’s picture doesn’t feature at all in any of the categories that count. But he didn’t rack up many Bafta nominations either. There is no Best Actress nomination this time for Kristin Scott Thomas (I’ve Loved You So Long) who is replaced by Melissa Leo for her performance in Frozen River.

The other significant loser is Clint Eastwood who doesn’t make the cut in the Best Director sandpit. His film about a boy who turns up in Depression era Los Angeles, claiming to be Angelina Jolie’s son in The Changeling, is again ignored for Best Picture. Gus Van Sant replaces him in the Best Director slot with Milk, about the gay rights campaigner, Harvey Milk, which has received huge local support on the West Coast. The film’s higher profile on the nominations list has done Sean Penn’s chances no end of good in the Best Actor section, which still looks like being the bloodiest fight on the night. Young Dev Patel who already looks out of depth in the Bafta scrap for Best Actor has been dropped in favour of Richard Jenkins in Thomas McCarthy’s contemporary mystery, The Visitor.

Overall, the Oscar nomination list has been an exercise in cosmetic tinkering rather than any dramatic surgery. The only other obvious point to make is that British hopes have rarely been so prolific, plentiful, or better placed.

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