Looks like I picked the worst possible photo to accompany my Jan. 9th post ("Best Picture Oscar nods might be locked up"). With this morning's announcement of nominees, it turns out The Dark Knight wasn't Best Picture material after all. But, surprisingly to many, The Reader was. And The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was the biggest winner of all.

Here are the nominees in the 6 major categories (along with a tally of which ones I predicted correctly):

Best Picture
✔ The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
✔ Frost/Nixon
✔ Milk
✘ The Reader
✔ Slumdog Millionaire

Best Director
✔ Danny Boyle - Slumdog Millionaire
✘ Stephen Daldry - The Reader
✔ David Fincher - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
✔ Ron Howard - Frost/Nixon
✔ 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
✔ Robert Downey Jr - Tropic Thunder
✔ Philip Seymour Hoffman - Doubt
✔ Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight
✘ Michael Shannon - Revolutionary Road

Best Supporting Actress
✘ Amy Adams - Doubt
✔ Penélope Cruz - Vicky Cristina Barcelona
✔ Viola Davis - Doubt
✔ Taraji P. Henson - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
✔ Marisa Tomei - The Wrestler

For a complete list of nominees in all categories, go to Oscar.com.

Besides The Reader stealing nods from The Dark Knight for both Best Picture and Director, perhaps the biggest snub occured in the Best Song category, where Bruce Springsteen failed to earn a nomination for his song "The Wrestler" from the film of the same name. Considered the favorite to win a gold statue after a Golden Globes victory, The Boss lost out to two songs from Slumdog Millionaire and one from WALL•E, as only 3 nominations were handed out in a category that usually has 5.

Another surprise is that Benjamin Button, not Slumdog Millionaire, earned the most nominations with 13. Slumdog received a still-impressive total of 10, and is likely still the favorite to take home the Best Picture crown, though one has to wonder if it's losing momentum after it's young star, Dev Patel, failed to get a nomination in the Supporting Actor category.

Fans of British filmmaker Mike Leigh were probably smarting this morning after his Happy-Go-Lucky star Sally Hawkins was left out of the Best Actress race despite earning several critics awards and a Golden Globe.

Another surprise Best Actress nominee was Kate Winslet. The fact that she was nominated wasn't the surprise. It's which movie she was nominated for that turned heads. Most pundits predicted she'd get a nod here for Revolutionary Road and a Supporting Actress one for The Reader. Instead, it was her Reader performance that landed her in the Best Actress category, while her turn in Revolutionary Road went unrecognized.

* * *

So with nominations officially handed out, who are now the favorites to win? Vegas oddsmaker John Avello at The Wynn Hotel & Casino already has his picks...

Picture: Slumdog Millionaire
Director: Danny Boyle
Actor: Mickey Rourke
Actress: Kate Winslet
Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger
Supporting Actress: Viola Davis

* * *

Based on the tally above, I correctly predicted 23 of the 30 nominations in the top 6 categories. And since I did have Kate Winslet in the Best Actress race and predicted a nomination for her performance in The Reader, albeit in the wrong category, I'm going to go ahead and take half credit for that one. So how did I fare compared to previous years? See for yourself...

2005: 19 of 25
2006: 21 of 25
2007: no predictions
2008: 20 of 25
2009: 23.5 of 30 (19.5 of 25 in top 5 categories)*

* 2009 was the first year I made predictions in the Best Director category.