I've seen all five nominees now and none of them strike me as truly great films. At this point my personal pick would go to Milk.
Yes, I think much of the films emotion is from the current societal zeitgeist and therefore won't age well (assuming progress for homosexuals continues at least slowly in the right direction). But at least it made me feel something, which none of the other four did.
My ranking of the five would be:
Milk
The Reader
Frost/Nixon
Slumdog Millionaire
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
I'll say again that if those are the best five "Oscar bait" movies of 2008 then it was the perfect opportunity to swing mainstream or really break the mold and get The Dark Knight, Wall-E, and Man on Wire some serious chance.
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