The past year has brought our country a slew of negative energy. We’re all holding our heads a little lower, and paying less attention to the miscellaneous intangibles such as film, and television. Or, are we? The truth is, despite the fact that Americans are spending less money going to the theatres, movies means just as much to us as they ever have. Escapism is a necessary evil that does more good for our collectively cluttered psyche than we’re likely to admit. That being said, it’s time to arbitrarily select this year’s best thespians, and the vehicles made to push their careers forward.

This year has certainly been a Curious Case in the history of American cinema. While it’s healthy advice to drink your Milk everyday, and abstain from frequent television-watching in order to find The Reader in you, every last one of us has some selective skeletons in our closet. They never found Hoffa, but they sure got to Nixon before his time came. Turns out that Slumdog Millionaire could have used a Frost-y brew to get him through the hardships bestows upon criminals of his unique stature.

That two paragraph monologue aside, I give up my take on this year’s Oscar picks:

Best Actress in a Leading Role:

Anna Hathaway – Rachel Getting Married
Angelina Jolie – The Changeling
Melissa Leo – Frozen River
Meryl Streep – Doubt
Kate Winslet – The Reader

This is Winslet’s year. This is her third nomination, and for those of you who have seen The Reader, it’s impossible to argue. Her stoically restrained ability to depict both passion and pain tug at the heartstrings more effectively than Emma Thompson in Howard’s End. This is a bold statement to be sure, but not nearly as bold as Winslet’s choice to play a recovering SS Guard with an affinity for underage dudes.

Yes, Streep was fantastic in Doubt, but let’s be honest—she’s always equally stunning/efficient in every role she takes on. It would be unfair to simply bow at her feet and admit her superiority. While it’s an achievement of epic proportions for a woman to become more of a mesmerizing onscreen presence as she trudges towards the elder regions of her life, it would be an injustice to ignore Winslet’s uncanny capabilities in a role Steep herself may have been too terrified to partake upon herself.

Best Actor in a Leading Role:

Richard Jenkins – The Visitor
Frank Langella – Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn – Milk
Brad Pitt – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke – The Wrestler

Sean Penn was fantastic in Milk. It was as daunting an artistic task as you could ask from the machismo-laden chain-smoking cinematic legend. An openly Gay activist-cum-Mayor of San Francisco whose meteoric rise led to the inevitable tragic conclusion as a result of the world’s not being ready for such an awesome display of blind belief. Jenkins performance transcends. The able-minded character actor stepped to the forefront in a role that required staunch grounded-ness amidst an unbelievable premise, and not many could have pulled it off as impressively. Langella was good, but I couldn’t help but wonder how much he pulled from SNL’s writers to more mimic the estranged former president than play him to a T.
“… And the Oscar goes to….” Mickey Rourke. The real-life… er, Boxer. Sure, he owes a lot to Aronofsky (who ever doesn’t?) for his superlative directorial instincts to bring a difficult-to-fathom character to life. But without Rourke, even the man who brought us The Fountain’s picture would have run dry.

Rourke is a revelation on so many levels. He plays an aged wrestler (the fake kind) whose back has been broken a countless amount of times under the pressure to stay huge, powerful, and larger than his empty life could ever be. He lives in a trailer home he can’t afford, has been separated from his lone love-child for a generation, and seeks endearing love from a stripper whose heart-of-gold has all but gone bankrupt under the excessive weight of balancing true mother hood with collecting singles from a horny clientele half her advancing age.

This isn’t an acting performance. This is Rourke displaying his owns demons without getting preachy, and saying, “Help me.” He’s as affably approachable as his character, and doesn’t make excuses. It’s as Oscar-worthy a display of art as you’re likely to see in a generation.

Best Actress in a Supporting Role:

Amy Adams – Doubt
Penelope Cruz – Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis – Doubt
Taraji P. Henson – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Maria Tomei – The Wrestler

Without a Doubt, the Academy sure loved that movie about the Nuns. Everyone in that film has been nominated as the greatest actor in the universe. I’m here to quell that spell by proclaiming Marisa Tomei’s portrayal of a disheveled single mother/stripper is the lone performance worthy of Oscar in 2009.

It’s been seventeen years since Tomei first entered our collective subconscious as that lovable Italian sex-pot in My Cousin Vinny. Young actresses at that level have one thing going for them: Their youth. Aside from the Streeps and Kidmans of the world, staying young is the key to cinematic success for the female set. Tomei is a pioneer in that she’s not only (egads!) 44 years old, but also willing to appear half naked on screen in a less-than-desirable setting in order to better display a character whose life has come up far shorter than she could have ever hoped it would.

Tomei has chops. She used them all as “Cassidy.” She’s had a hit-or-miss career since her first Oscar, and her performance in The Wrestler makes you wonder why. Being able to garner sympathy as a stripper with a single child and a troubled past is about as tough a job as Hollywood could realistically provide to mainstream audiences. Tomei shines bright enough to make audience ignore the murky waters through which her character wades on a solemn, daily basis. Bravo.

Best Actor in a Supporting Role:

Josh Brolin – Milk
Robert Downey Jr. – Tropic Thunder
Phillip Seymour Hoffman – Doubt
Heath Ledger – The Dark Knight
Michael Shannon – Revolutionary Road

I am a huge Michael Shannon fan. From Groundhog Day, to Jesus’ Son to his mesmerizing turn as a teetering yuppie in Revolutionary Road, I’ve always thought the Steppenwolf Theater member would give us an Oscar worthy performance in his career.

I’m also a terrifically flamboyant Robert Downey Jr. fan. His deliciously hilarious turn as a paper-white-skinned, blue-eyed Australian playing a very black Vietnam soldier in Tropic Thunder was about as memorable a role as you’re going to see from anyone, ever.

That being said, we’re not surprised Hoffman was (again) nominated for his role in Doubt. Who could’ve seen that coming? If the Academy had its way (as I’ll say… again), the entire cast would be enshrined in gold, and a slew of tiny statuettes in their likeness would be presented at the Oscars from now on as opposed to “Oscar” himself. Brolin was good, but he was better in No Country for Old Men, and we all know how that nomination situation went.

Come on, now. This is Ledger’s year. He not only blew the competition away on a thespian-based level. He was so good as Joker we almost forgot about Nicholson’s timeless presentation of the same character twenty-years ago. The Dark Knight was shunned this year on so many levels. Nolan was miffed, the picture itself was miffed. The list goes on. To deny the late-Ledger his Oscar would be a crime not even the Joker himself would consider committing.

That brings up the posthumous tone ringing throughout Tinseltown since James Dean tried to pass a freighter on an remote California Highway. Hollywood loves it’s deceased. It only re-instills the legendary folklore America’s most pretentious region has ensconced itself in with since its forefathers brought it in with gusto at the onset of moving pictures.

To deny Heath Ledger his Oscar would be a joke. You don’t leave that up to an Academy of “film appreciators,” you simply leave it (being Oscar), to The Joker himself.

Best Picture

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

Not even close. Each of the films is great. Each has its own unique slant on how to present a major motion picture. However, with the exception of the guaranteed winner, each presents a harrowing story of underlying loss, spite, and self-depreciation. Each of these four give us beatific cinematic representations of how gorgeous inevitable failure can be. That being said, the winner is…

… Slumdog Millionaire. The Academy is laden with an impressionable bunch who are well aware what American wants to see represent the best in all of us. With our economical downfall getting headlines the country (and the world) over, they feel it’s in their best interest to give us the feel-good-story-of-the-year as our Best Picture for 2008/09.

I would’ve gone with… I dunno, The Dark Knight, or Revolutionary Road. Not only were neither of these films nominated, but they simply reveal the evils lurking beneath the surface of all cold-blooded, proud Americans, and no body wants to find out about those things, do they?

Best Song in a Motion Picture

“Jai Ho” – Slumdog Millionaire – A.R Rahman (Performed by Gulzar)
“O Saya” – Slumdog Millionaire – Maya Arupragasam and A.R. Rahman
“Down To Earth” – WALL-E – Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman (Performed by Peter Gabriel)

Last year’s Best Song winner was one of the most impressive folk songs written since Elliott Smith donned his awful, perfect white tux and followed Celine Dion onstage to perform “Miss Misery” in front of an awestruck audience of white-toothed celebrity. “Falling Slowly” reminded us what great singer/songwriters were capable of in terms of scribing a song that absolutely fits the feeling a film itself emits.

This year, Slumdog Millionaire is making an unforgiving run at Oscar, in many a category. Yes, the film was an impressive tale of overcoming odds, and the human spirit. Certainly, each of its two nominated songs illicit the same tension felt throughout the film’s feverish cadence, and adept storytelling. But, something’s missing.

What made “Falling Slowly” so great is that its slowed the pace of an already lucid film down and allowed its audience to actually get-to—know the characters through their buried pain, rather than through the swirling direction the story was going. That song eased us through their progression from a street-performer/maid-tandem, to full-fledged recording artists.

This year’s Oscar for best song should go to Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman (Wrote the score to American Beauty, and The Shawshank Redemption amongst several Oscar-nominated others) for their masterpiece, “Down to Earth.”

WALL-E is a CGI-infused tale of two robots finding “love” amidst dire circumstance. It’s as unbelievable a reality as we audience-members could imagine, but this song humanizes this story as well as the brilliant script does itself. It’s a smoothly lullaby-homage to love and what’s possible when we look past the chaos, and into our hearts.

The 81st Annual Academy Awards airs tonight at 8 P.M. EST, only on ABC.