|
Dreamgirls, Babel Leads Oscar Noms
By Rich Drees
January 23, 2007- Although shut out of most of the major award
categories, the musical Dreamgirls lead the Academy Award
nominations today with eight nominations, while the drama Babel
earned seven nominations including Best Picture.
The Academy Award nominations were announced this morning at the
Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Los Angeles by Academy president Sid Ganis
and actress Selma Hayak.
You can read the complete list of nominees
here.
Other nominees for Best Picture include Martin Scorsese’s crime
drama The Departed, Clint Eastwood’s World War II epic
Letters From Iwo Jima, the indie road-trip comedy Little Miss
Sunshine and the Royal family drama The Queen.
A critic and box office favorite, Dreamgirls surprisingly did
not capture a Best Picture, Director, Actor or Actress nomination.
The film did receive Best Supporting Actor and Actress nods for
Eddie Murphy and newcomer Jennifer Hudson. The movie also won
nominations for Art Direction, Costume Design, Sound Mixing and
three slots for Best Original Song.
This is director Scorsese’s seventh Oscar nomination, having been
passed over for the award for his films Raging Bull (1980),
The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Goodfellas (1990),
The Age of Innocence (1993), Gangs of New York (2002)
and The Aviator (2004). Scorsese’s The Departed also
earned a Best Supporting Actor nomination for Mark Wahlberg as well
as nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay and Film Editing.
Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s Babel pulled seven
nominations including Best Picture, Director, two Supporting Actress
nods, Original Screenplay, Film Editing and Original Score. Fellow
Mexican director Guillermo del Toro’s adult fantasy Pan’s
Labyrinth scored six nominations including Best Foreign Language
Film, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Art Direction, Score and
Makeup.
Surprisingly, though The Departed star Leonard DiCaprio was
nominated for a Best Acting Oscar, it was for his role in the less
critically well received Blood Diamond. DiCaprio is vying for
the award against Ryan Gosling, Peter O’Toole, Will Smith and Forest
Whitaker.
Two time Oscar winner Meryl Streep’s turn as the fiercely demanding
boss in The Devil Wears Prada has earned the actress her 14th
Academy Award nomination, further securing her record as the most
nominated actor ever.
Interestingly, many of the films named in the major categories are
low-budget films with Notes On A Scandal, The Last King Of
Scotland and Little Miss Sunshine all costing under $8
million a piece. Letters From Iwo Jima cost a reported $15
million.
Mel Gibson’s tale of the decline of the Mayan Indians Apocalypto
earned nominations for Make Up, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing. The
nod for Sound Editing makes 19 nominations for editor Kevin
O’Connell, though he has yet to win an Oscar statue.
The 79th Annual Academy Awards
ceremony will take place on Sunday, February 25, 2007 at the Kodak
Theater in Los Angeles. |
