The Golden Globes have been handed out, and the last of Oscar ballots are to be postmarked by today. So, that’s it, the nominations for the 81st Academy Awards are being figured out as we speak, and campaigning is over until the official contenders are announced on January 22. Hopefully a few Academy members took notice of our unlikely last-minute suggestions, but it’s more probable that we’ll be looking at an unsurprising crop of films represented in the major eight categories. As you’ll see after the jump, we predict that two heavily-buzzed supporting performances will be snubbed. Of course you’re likely to disagree with these foreseen omissions. In fact, we welcome all you readers to make your own predictions in the comments section — what you think will be nominated, not what you want nominated. And on Monday, January 19, SpoutBlog will feature a post highlighting the best of these comments and predictions.

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Last week, Entertainment Weekly confirmed with Warner Bros. that the studio would be campaigning for a nomination for Heath Ledger specifically in the supporting actor category, putting to rest all the speculation and suggestions that he could contend for the Best Actor Oscar. Now all the awards pundits seem to agree that Ledger is a definite lock for a posthumous nomination. As for The Dark Knight’s hopes for other categories, though, it’s still up in the air as to how many nominations the comic book movie might garner.

While its predecessor, Batman Begins, only received one Oscar nomination, for Wally Pfister’s cinematography, there’s at least some likelihood that The Dark Knight could be recognized in as many as a dozen categories. That’s about as many as it’s legitimately eligible for, anyway, and in a year that keeps looking slimmer and slimmer in terms of Oscar-worthy pictures, there’s no reason to completely deny The Dark Knight’s full capability. Unfortunately, it’s a popular genre picture, so regardless of how critically acclaimed it is, and regardless of how the Academy has historically lauded similar titles, there will be a lot of doubt and debate concerning this movie’s prospects all the way up until January 22, when the nominations are announced.

Yesterday, John Foote of In Contention, commented on the increasing chances of The Dark Knight in such a lackluster Oscar season. In some ways, though, it’s not just about onetime Oscar hopefuls turning out to be hopeless; it’s also the constant problem of so much Oscar bait being held away from viewers and voters until the last possible second. Even those films that end up being fairly good can be disappointments after so much premature awards season hype. Sure, audiences have short attention spans and typically a film released midyear is easily forgotten by voting time, but a movie as memorable, as successful and as well-made as The Dark Knight can come out in the summer and easily be in the forefront of voters’ minds as an easy and deserving fallback. Therefore so many Oscar bloggers shouldn’t suddenly be surprised to see that The Dark Knight’s hopes for multiple Oscar nominations is “brightening” or “shaping up.” It’s always been a contender. Let’s break down its chances, category by category, after the jump:

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• Here’s another reason for the Academy to heavily nominate The Dark Knight: it may just be the incentive potential viewers need to make sure to convert their TVs to digitial in time for the Oscar telecast, which airs only five days after the big signal switch occurs. At least there’s already a good excuse in place, though, in case the show’s ratings are a disappointment.
• The effects of Black Monday included media company stock plunges, but there doesn’t seem to be too much worrying at U.S. movie studios. The Indian film industry, however, appears to be feeling a major crunch.
• Ben Affleck has found his directorial follow-up to Gone Baby Gone in an adaptation of Chuck Hogan’s crime novel “The Prince of Thieves.” Affleck will rewrite and also star in the film, retitled The Town. Hopefully he’ll also find room to cast his brother and Donnie Wahlberg, who narrated the “Prince” audio book. Also: Cheech Marin has finally found his directorial follow-up to Born in East L.A.
• No longer to be pegged as simply a rom-com star, Katherine Heigl enters the next phase of her career by signing on for an action-comedy (with some rom-com elements, however) titled Drawn Together.

• Michael Douglas will portray Liberace in a biopic written by Richard LaGravenese (The Fisher King) and directed by Steven Soderbergh, which is only slightly less bizarre than the news two years ago that Nicolas Cage was to produce and star in a Liberace film written by the partners in parody Aaron Seltzer and Jason Friedberg (Disaster Movie). Soderbergh’s project will also involve his Ocean’s series producer, Jerry Weintraub, and Matt Damon, who will portray Liberace’s purported lover, Scott Thorson.
• The second deal announced this week regarding a sci-fi version of The Fugitive: this one is titled Karma Coalition, and it’s different from the Tuesday-announced project, in that it involves the end of the world rather than time travel, and it’s written by the lead singer of an indie rock band (Shawn Christensen of stellastarr*).
• Please tell me the Bugaloos are next! Just as Kevin reported from Comic-Con, the Sid and Marty Krofft show Sigmund and the Sea Monsters will indeed be made into a feature film from Universal, which also recently adapted the Kroffts’ Land of the Lost.
• By rereleasing The Dark Knight in January, Warner Bros. plans to make sure Academy voters don’t forget about Heath Ledger’s posthumous Oscar nomination.

Though I first buzzed about an Academy Award nomination for Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight more than a month before his death, I now want to take it all back. I feel all the talk of Ledger’s posthumous Oscar chances will cloud my mind when I finally do see it, and it will probably also cloud the Academy’s judgment, too. Six months from now, when the nominations are announced on January 22 (coincidentally the one-year anniversary of Ledger’s death), if Ledger is not recognized for his role as The Joker, there will surely be an uproar — actually, Hollywood might just up and self-implode.

I’m not the only one annoyed by all the Oscar buzz. Terry Gilliam, who directed Ledger in The Brothers Grimm and the upcoming The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, is calling “bullshit” on the whole thing, particularly against Warner Bros., which Gilliam accuses of exploiting Ledger’s death and chance of a posthumous Oscar for publicity purposes. Considering most Oscar campaigns for live actors are really just part of movie marketing, he has a good point.

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