The British Academy of Film and Television Arts, a.k.a. BAFTA, announced its final nominees. Mostly it mirrors what pundits are predicting for the Oscar race, but it does confirm one lingering doubt I’ve had and it’s not about “Doubt.”

This is the last list, the last stop before the Oscar nominations are announced Jan. 22. The overall membership of BAFTA includes several hundred voters who are also members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Ever since BAFTA changed its voting dates to correspond with the rest of the awards season, it has been an interesting factor in trying to predict Oscar patterns.

“Slumdog Millionaire” and “The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button” lead in overall nominations with 11 each and are nominated for best picture along with “Milk”, “Frost/Nixon” and “The Reader.” Almost every pundit out there now is predicting that the fifth slot in the Oscar race will go to “The Dark Knight,” which received nine BAFTA noms but all except Heath Ledger’s supporting actor nod were in technical categories. No screenplay, no directing, no picture. This runs against the grain of the DGA, PGA and WGA nominations, which all named “Dark Knight” and seemed to be pointing toward a certain best picture nomination.

Yet in BAFTA, it’s the British-tinged “The Reader” that has gotten those nominations, five overall including Stephen Daldry for directing and David Hare for writing. This (The Reader) is the movie that has cropped up again and again in conversations I have had with Academy members, not “The Dark Knight.”

My guess has been that “Dark Knight’s” key support is with the technical branches of the Academy and that they could put it over the top as best picture. That scenario was also possible in BAFTA but didn’t happen, and “The Reader” prevailed, much like “Atonement” last year, which had been ignored by all the guilds only to rebound, winning best picture at BAFTA and a surprise best picture nomination at the Oscars after the onetime front-runner was all but dumped by the pundits.

Can this happen again, with the beneficiary being the Harvey Weinstein love child, “The Reader”? It’s an intriguing thought — and one that’s viable if you talk to enough Oscar voters. One major Oscar consultant who takes his own poll has also discovered little support for “Dark Knight” in the picture category and many “Reader” mentions.Are we both getting it wrong? Perhaps. Time will tell. Could Weinstein’s insistence on putting “The Reader” in the race this year against much initial objection (particularly from producer Scott Rudin, who took his name off) actually pay off big time?

“The Reader” seems even stronger at BAFTA than “Milk,” which did get a best picture mention but was snubbed for Gus Van Sant’s direction and gained only three other nominations, including a minor makeup nod in addition to original screenplay and, of course, Sean Penn. “Milk” looks like the weakest link in the British race.

Incidentally the Brits correctly ruled Kate Winslet’s performance in “The Reader” is a lead, so she is competing against her own performance in “Revolutionary Road” for best actress against Angelina Jolie, Kristin Scott Thomas and Meryl Streep. Oscar rules prohibit two nominatons in the same acting category so the newly minted double Golden Globe winner will just have to hope the Academy falls for her supporting “Reader” campaign the same way the Hollywood Foreign Press did.

Just for the record, while BAFTA went with hometown favorite “Atonement” for best picture last year, it correctly foreshadowed all four Oscar acting winners, Daniel Day-Lewis, Javier Bardem, Marion Cotillard and Tilda Swinton, the latter two getting a big boost as pundits had predicted Julie Christie and Amy Ryan to win instead. Oscar followed suit. Hmmmmmm.

I would also note the resurgence of another film largely forgotten by pundits, and that’s Clint Eastwood’s terrific “Changeling,” which nabbed a very impressive eight BAFTA nominations, including those for Eastwood’s direction, the original screenplay and Angelina Jolie for best actress, a category that snubbed supposed faves Anne Hathaway in “Rachel Getting Married,” Melissa Leo in “Frozen River” and England’s own Golden Globe winner and critics darling Sally Hawkins in “Happy Go Lucky,” which got a total of zero nominations, quite surprising for a Mike Leigh film, doncha think?

“Happy Go Lucky” was released in Britain way back on April 18 so had been completely played out when awards season hit. Was it a victim of its own early release date there or were they just not that into you, Sally?

BAFTA also wasn’t that into Woody Allen, whose widely praised and WGA-nominated script for “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” was snubbed by less-talked-about possibilities, “In Bruges,” “I’ve Loved You So Long” and the aforementioned “Changeling.”

As for “Rachel Getting Married,” although it played the London Film Festival in October, it isn’t scheduled for release in the U.K. until next week but apparently Hathaway’s performance is eligible this year as she was on BAFTA’s initial longlist. One film that was disqualified is Eastwood’s late inning Oscar vehicle, “Gran Torino,” which hasn’t opened in the UK. There’s been lots of talk of a late surge for “Torino” at the Oscars by members watching it — and LOVING it — just as voting was taking place, making it, like “The Reader,” a genuine possibility to knock a Dark Knight out the Big One too. Or not.

And getting back to OUR Academy Awards, the balloting closed officially Monday. How many voters waited until the very last minute to get their ballots in? According to a spy for a studio with one very big dog in the race, there were approximately 81 ballots hand-delivered to the Pricewaterhouse offices in Los Angeles before the 5 p.m. deadline. That’s way down from last year, when around 500 were supposedly dropped off on the last day, which would mean Oscar voters had it much more together this year than last.

How does this spy know all this? They coyly planted paid studio watchdogs to hang out at PW and watch all the messengers come in with the specifically colored envelopes that indicated Academy ballots.Source: LA Times Blog

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