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Brokeback Mountain Leads Oscar Nominations
By Rich Drees
January 31, 2006-
Brokeback Mountain, director Ang Lee’s tale of forbidden love
between two modern day cowboys, continues its sweep through the
major film awards by capturing 8 nominations for the 78th
annual Academy Awards this morning, including nods in the Best
Actor, Best Supporting Actor and Actress, Best Director and Best
Picture categories.
The nominations were announced by Motion Picture Academy president
Sid Ganis and actress Mira Sorvino at the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn
Theater in Beverly Hills, California.
Rounding out the nominations for Best Picture are nods for Capote,
Crash, Good Night, And Good Luck and Munich.
Interestingly, the Academy’s five choices for Best Director - George
Clooney (Good Night, And Good Luck), Paul Haggis (Crash),
Lee, Bennett Miller (Capote) and Steven Spielberg (Munich)
- match the five nominees selected by the Directors Guild for their
own awards presented this past weekend.
Generally held to be a strong indicator as to who the Best Director
Oscar will go to, the Directors Guild Awards and the Oscars have
only disagreed five times in the past 35 years. However, one of
those times was in 2001 when Lee’s DGA Award-winning Crouching
Dragon, Hidden Dragon was passed over for an Oscar in favor of
Steven Soderbergh’s Traffic.
Although Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon each earned acting
nominations for their work in the Johnny Cash bio-pic Walk The
Line, the film itself - though considered a likely choice for a
Best Picture nominee – did not receive a nomination.
Brokeback
Mountain’s
Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhall and Michelle Williams received Best
Actor, Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress nominations. The film
also received nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay,
Cinematography and Best Original Score.
In addition to its Best Picture and Director nominations, the
ensemble drama Crash received nominations for Best Supporting
Actor for Matt Dillon, Best Original Screenplay, Film Editing and
Original Song.
In addition to his nomination for Best Director, actor George
Clooney received a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his role in
Syriana and shared a co-nomination for Best Original
Screenplay with Grant Heslov for Good Night, And Good Luck.
Good Night, And Good Luck also received nominations for Best
Actor for David Strathairn’s portrayal of newsman Edward R. Murrow,
Art Direction and Cinematography.
Also receiving Best Actor nominations are Philip Seymour Hoffman for
Capote and Terrence Howard for Hustle & Flow. Rounding
out the Best Actress nominees are Dame Judi Dench for Mrs.
Henderson Presents, Felicity Huffman for Transamerica,
Keira Knightly for Pride & Prejuidice and Charlize Theron for
North Country. Other Best Supporting Actor nominees are Paul
Giamatti for Cinderella Man and William Hurt for A History
of Violence. Also garnering Best Supporting Actress nominations
are Amy Adams for Junebug, Catherine Keener for Capote,
Frances McDormand for North Country and Rachel Weisz for
The Constant Gardener.
You can read the complete list of Academy Award nominations
here.
The 78th annual Academy Awards will be presented on March
5.
Discuss the 2006 Academy Award nominations at the FilmBuffOnLine
Discussion Boards
here.
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