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Babel Towers Above

Dreamgirls Receives Eight Nods but Not Best Picture

It was a good news/bad news sort of morning for the ladies of Dreamgirls, Bill Condon’s Golden Globe-winning musical receiving eight Academy Award nominations including nods for supporting actors Jennifer Hudson and Eddie Murphy, more than any other motion picture. But in one of the biggest surprises in Oscar history, the film was shut out in both Best Picture and Best Director categories, this once thought of frontrunner suddenly relegated to also-ran status in nearly the blink of an eye.

This omission makes what looked like a two-horse race between Condon’s musical and Alejandro González Iñárritu’s sweeping social commentary Babel (seven nominations) now wide open, Martin Scoresese’s The Departed (five nominations), Stephen Frears’ The Queen (six nominations), dysfunctional road comedy Little Miss Sunshine (four nominations) and, in a bit of  surprise, the second chapter of Clint Eastwood’s World War II double feature the Japanese language Letters from Iwo Jima (four nominations) making up the list of the five Best Picture candidates.

By and large, the acting categories played out as expected. For the women, Helen Mirren remained the clear frontrunner for The Queen, Judi Dench scored a nod for her ferocious work in Notes on a Scandal, Penélope Cruz received her very first nomination for Volver, Kate Winslet scored her fourth for Little Children and Meryl Streep tallied up a record fourteenth trip to the Kodak Theater for her turn in The Devil Wears Prada.

As for the guys, it is looking more and more like the contest for Best Actor is going to be between Forrest Whitaker and his galvanizing portrait of evil in The Last King of Scotland and the legendary Peter O’Toole of Venus who, with his eighth nomination, could up becoing most nominated actor in Academy history to not ever win an Oscar. Rounding out the category is Leonardo DiCaprio in Blood Diamond, Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness and, in a rather happy surprise, Ryan Gosling for the independent feature Half Nelson.

In the supporting categories, joining Murphy on the male side of things were Alan Arkin in Little Miss Sunshine, Jackie Earle Haley in Little Children, Djimon Hounsou for Blood Diamond and Mark Wahlberg for The Departed. Competing against Hudson are three other newcomers, Adriana Barraza, Rinko Kikuchi (both for Babel) and ten-year-old Little Miss Sunshine Abigail Breslin. Rounding things out is Cate Blanchett for Notes on a Scandal, her last appearance in the category resulting in a win for her work in Scoresese’s The Aviator.

Speaking of the legendary director, Scorsese has to be considered the man to beat in the Best Director category. His competition is fierce, however. Former two-time winner Eastwood (nominated for Letters from Iwo Jima) leads the pack chasing him, filmmakers Iñárritu, Frears and Paul Greengrass rounding out the pack. Greengrass’ nomination has to be considered a huge surprise, many in the Academy refusing to see his award-winning 9/11 docudrama United 93 because of the subject matter.

It was a happy day for the self-described Three Amigos Iñárritu, Pan’s Labyrinth auteur Guillermo del Toro and Children of Men visionary Alfonso Cuarón all saw their respective pictures pick up major nominations. In fact, with six nods Del Toro’s picture is the most nominated foreign film since Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon got ten back in 2000.

The omission of Dreamgirls in the Best Picture category might have been the biggest shocker but it was hardly the only one. Pedro Almodóvar’s Volver might have proven to be a godsend for star Cruz but it was strangely absent from the Best Foreign Film race, while Clint Mansell’s magnificent score for The Fountain was nowhere to be seen. Also, while Eastwood’s Letter from Iwo Jima scored big his American chapter Flags of Our Fathers was a relative no-show, picking up only two technical nods for Sound Editing and Sound Mixing.

As for the other categories, Pixar’s Cars, Warner Bros.’ Happy Feet and Sony’s Monster House all grabbed Best Animated Film nominations while Pan’s Labyrinth, Days of Glory (Indigènes), Susanne Bier’s After the Wedding, Germany’s The Lives of Others and Deepa Mehta’s Water made up the list of Best Foreign Language Film nominees. Up for Best Documentary, Al Gore’s global warming flick An Inconvenient Truth must be considered the early frontrunner, although strong competition will come from the chilling pedophiliac priest doc Deliver Us From Evil, the religious fundamentalist examination Jesus Camp and the Iraq War feature My Country, My Country. Another Iraq documentary, the little-seen Iraq in Fragments, rounds out the category.

Winners will be announced live during the Academy Awards telecast February 25 on ABC. Comedian Ellen Degeneress will host the proceedings, while all the fashion hits and misses will undoubtedly be before, during and after the ceremony on various channels again and again and again. For a complete list of nominees please check out http://www.oscar.com/. As per usual I, along with Movierfreak’s imperious webmaster Dennis Steven Landmann, will attempt to predict the winners. Check back February 21 to see what we come up with.