And the Nominees Are…

NOMINEES

Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role
The nominees are: Judi Dench (Mrs. Henderson Presents), Felicity Huffman (Transamerica), Keira Knightley (Pride & Prejudice), Charlize Theron (North Country) and Reese Witherspoon (Walk the Line)

Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role
The nominees are: Amy Adams (Junebug), Catherine Keener (Capote), Francis McDormand (North Country), Rachel Weisz (The Constant Gardener) and Michelle Williams (Brokeback Mountain)

Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
The nominees are: Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote), Terrence Howard (Hustle & Flow), Heath Ledger (Brokeback Mountain), Joaquin Phoenix (Walk the Line) and David Strathairn (Good Night, and Good Luck)

Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role
The nominees are: George Clooney (Syriana), Matt Dillon (Crash), Paul Giamatti (Cinderella Man), Jake Gyllenhaal (Brokeback Mountain) and William Hurt (A History of Violence)

Achievement in Directing
The nominees are: Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain), Bennett Miller (Capote), Paul Haggis (Crash), George Clooney (Good Night, and Good Luck) and Steven Spielberg (Munich)

Best Motion Picture of the Year
The nominees are: Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Crash, Good Night, and Good Luck and Munich

Best Foreign Language Film of the Year
The nominees are: Don’t Tell, Joyeux Noël, Paradise Now, Sophie Scholl — The Final Days and Tsotsi

Best Documentary Feature
The nominees are: Darwin’s Nightmare, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, March of the Penguins, Murderball and Street Fight

First things first, there weren’t too many surprises. The nods for Brokeback Mountain for best picture, best director, best lead actor, best supporting actor, best supporting actress and best adapted screenplay were all expected. As were the multiple nominations for Capote and Good Night, and Good Luck.

I was surprised to see how well Crash did — an utterly overrated movie, though I will admit that Matt Dillon deserves his supporting actor nomination for his scene with Thandie Newton trapped under her car. (Sorry, if that spoils it for anyone, but the film is called Crash.)

I’m thrilled to see Amy Adams nominated for best supporting actress for Junebug, a smart, quiet movie that flew under the radar, though for my money it offered as thoughtful, fresh and nuanced a view of family dysfunction as The Squid and the Whale.

One unexpected choice was William Hurt for best supporting actor in A History of Violence, a film that was otherwise shutout, save for an adapted screenplay nod. And Terrence Howard is an edgy choice for best actor in Hustle & Flow. I’m sure he will look lovely in his tuxedo on Oscar night, but I think he’s going to lose out to Philip Seymour Hoffman for Capote.

One final observation: gay is clearly the new disabled when it comes to Oscar-nominated roles. After Charlize Theron’s win for Monster, everyone seems to be signing on to play gay or transsexual characters to give them credibility and reach, the way that playing autistic (Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man) or disabled (Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot) used to. This year, four gay or transsexual roles are nominated — Brokeback’s Ledger and Gyllenhaal, Capote’s Hoffman and Transamerica’s Felicity Huffman. (Actually, it’s five roles, if you believe the rumours about Harper Lee…)

Oh thank God, Rachel. I was dreading that this space would be used to crow rapturously over the Crash nominations when that movie was a didactic load of crap; I feel like I’ve spent the year telling everyone who’ll listen that the emperor has no clothes. I mean, OK, good performances, but in the service of a totally absurd product that insulted my intelligence. I take that movie’s ongoing success really personally, for some reason. Possibly the reason is that it sucked.

Apart from that, I have to say this was a pretty good batch of nominees. I was shocked that the Academy didn’t overlook the luminous and heartbreaking Amy Adams in Junebug in the supporting actress category. And while I also thought Catherine Keener was great in Capote, she was even better in The 40 Year-Old Virgin — but, as usual, comedies get ignored unless they’re set in a period when everyone wears Empire gowns and amuse themselves by taking walks around the drawing room. (Speaking of which, Judi Dench’s and Keira Knightley’s best actress nominations for unchallenging, unspectacular British puddings get a big old eye-roll from this precinct, and go to show that if you can be an Oscar contender for speaking posh and twinkling, there really aren’t that many good roles for women.)

It’s nice that Paul Giamatti has been nominated at last (for Cinderella Man), after two consecutive snubs for American Splendor and Sideways; it’s even nicer that he got the nomination when his Oscar-winning/tabloid darling co-stars Russell Crowe and Renée Zellweger were ignored.

I’m delighted as well that George Clooney, with his nomination hat trick, will definitely be showing up at the ceremony, undoubtedly looking better in his tuxedo than anyone there.

I can barely think of any snubs: I’d have liked to see Jeff Daniels (The Squid And The Whale), Geoffrey Rush (Munich) and Ralph Fiennes (The Constant Gardener) in the mix, and — honestly — at least a screenplay nomination for The 40 Year-Old Virgin. But given that the Oscars are being distributed here on earth and not in an alternate dimension where I am queen, I’m satisfied.

Try, try though I might, I’ve never become inured to the prim liberal orthodoxies of Academy voters — the bias for Prestige Entertainments over knockabout comedies and lurid melodramas (arguably what Hollywood does best). And so I find myself getting all cranky that A History of Violence, the most potent and affecting film of 2005, didn’t make the final cut for best picture. Similarly, Michael Haneke’s wickedly disturbing Caché wasn’t even accorded an invite for best foreign film.

And yeah, I too was surprised that Crash did so well, picking up six nominations. It came out so long ago. Nobody saw it. The DVD version was remaindered at Blockbuster a couple of months ago. Still, it’s got that liberal humanism vibe that all the other best picture candidates — Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Good Night, and Good Luck and Munich — have.

But this is the second year in a row where all the big awards nominations went to movies that hardly anybody took the trouble to see. Put the box office for Brokeback Mountain ($32.1 million US) and Munich ($33.8 million US) together and you don’t have near what Cheaper by the Dozen 2 raked in ($74.7 million US). It’s getting so the Oscars are like the Genies, an awards show for stuff nobody has seen. If Brokeback Mountain wins everything, will everyone watching at home feel like they’ve wandered into someone else’s office party?

Caché was disqualified from best foreign-language film due to some arcane eligibility rules — because its dialogue and setting are French, but it was submitted by Austria. Who cares? The Academy. Why? Who freaking knows.

As for movies getting recognized without huge box office, I’d say part of the reason for that is the conventional wisdom (bucked by Crash, as you mention, Stephen) says that in order to be an awards contender, your movie must be released in the last third of the year — preferably the last month of the year, or even what is very nearly the last day of the year (see Match Point’s official release date of December 28). To build buzz, you also have to release your movie on four screens continent-wide, then 12 screens, then in 12 cities, and so on. If Brokeback Mountain had been released on more than 3,000 screens in its first weekend, the way Cheaper By the Dozen 2 was, maybe it could have competed financially, but film distribution (frustratingly) doesn’t work that way.

I agree Stephen, it’s not exactly Oscar’s year of the blockbuster — but were there any box office hits that you think deserved to be nominated? King Kong? Myeh. Narnia? Nah. War of the Worlds? Yawn.

Box office-wise, I think Brokeback far exceeded expectations and the Bill O’Reilly and Michael Medved-generated controversy around the film probably makes everyone feel like they saw it, even if they didn’t. That said, I’m guessing it will win for best picture and best director, but lose in the acting categories. Just a hunch.

I don’t know if it speaks to film in general — it was the year of Dukes of Hazzard and Monster-in-Law, after all — but Crash aside, it’s been a particularly good year for smallish films tackling big, political issues. And not in the usual sentimental, everyone’s-a-hero, triumph of the ordinary man (again, Crash aside) kind of way. I don’t imagine this will translate much into the Oscar ceremony itself — which tends to be as tightly scripted as a George W. Bush event. But with Jon Stewart hosting, George Clooney on deck and a nomination for the Palestinian film Paradise Now, who knows?

Ooh, King Kong: ignoring it in the major categories was at least one thing the Academy definitely did right. I swear, if I had to hear one more fan-wanking rant from a Lord of the Rings obsessive to assure me that the giant monkey’s failure to appear until halfway through the movie was “building the sense of dread for an explosive payoff” and not “boring,” I don’t even know what.

Unless the haute couturists at the House of Escada swathe Keira Knightley in Saran Wrap or Jon Stewart absolutely kills, I’m betting that 2006 Oscar night will be a virtually buzzless TV event. I quite admired Brokeback Mountain, but its evident restraint and tastefulness (it still felt like a New Yorker short story to me) made the first half a struggle to get through. Only Heath Ledger’s performance really connected.

And yeah, Rachel, though it was an hour too long, I thought King Kong was a richer conception than Good Night, and Good Luck, Munich, and Crash. As mentioned, some quite nice films came out in 2006. (There are always a few, fortunately.) I loved The Squid and the Whale and Junebug. There were also some brilliant performances this past year. As mentioned by Tara, Jeff Daniels was achingly human as the blinded-by-anger failed writer in The Squid and the Whale. And did anyone notice how wonderful Claire Danes was in Shopgirl?

Still, Oscar night is supposed to involve us as movie-goers. It’s supposed to be our party — our night of the year. This year it’s going to be more fun as a wide-open, guess-who-wins office pool than a celebration of movies.

Oh well, we’ll make it fun anyway. The Kentucky Derby of show biz award shows always makes for a great horse race, as long as you don’t take it too seriously and bet at the $2 window.