'Benjamin's' Golden Age

13 Noms? Film Turns Oscar's Head, Leaves Us Scratching Ours

Benjamin Button's case grows curiouser still: thirteen Academy Award nominations?

Distill! Agonize! Defend! Rationalize!

"There wasn't anyone on the crew who didn't immediately feel this film was special," said Eric Barba, who shares the nomination for the many meticulous visual effects in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," a strange (but not too strange) and weird (but not too weird) fable in which Brad Pitt plays a man who is born old and dies young.

The people who made it all felt it, but the office Oscar pool is scratching its collective head. Thirteen, really? But look closer: Perhaps "Benjamin Button" is a big-budget love story with just the right combination of qualities that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences routinely admires. The film is the centerpiece in an awards season that feels more comfortable than daring. Along with "Button" (nostalgic Americana, epic romance), the Best Picture nominees include:

"Milk," this year's dutiful, timely biopic with a tried-and-true star -- Sean Penn, up for Best Actor -- and eight nominations total.

"Slumdog Millionaire," with 10 nominations, a popular hit that has a charming, foreign-ish feeling with creative, moving subtitles -- plus Bollywood-style dancing!

"Frost/Nixon," this year's dose of thinky, political, adapted-from-the-stage fare, which garnered five nominations.

Finally, yesterday's crack-of-dawn Oscar nominations from Beverly Hills, Calif., offered a by-the-book "surprise" with the inclusion of "The Reader," which has a Holocaust hook and comes from a previously nominated director working with a top-notch British cast. Sounds like Oscar bait, but no one expected "The Reader" to get a Best Picture nod, along with nominations for director Stephen Daldry, actress Kate Winslet, screenwriter David Hare and cinematographers Chris Menges and Roger Deakins. It's the fourth Best Actress nomination for Winslet, who won a Golden Globe for the same part, only as a supporting role.

Let the head-scratching begin!

Hard-bitten Oscar fans can -- and will -- quibble all they like before the Feb. 22 awards ceremony.

But to work the phones and nag the publicists in the dawn's early light was to tap into that rare glimmer of Oscar love, when actors and filmmakers and technicians roll out of bed and discover their lives have momentarily changed.

May we interest you in something sweet and local in this "Benjamin Button" bonanza?