Best Picture, Musical/Comedy
Mrs. Henderson Presents
Pride Prejudice
The Producers
Squid and Whale
Walk the Line
Best Director
Woody Allen, Match Point
George Clooney, Good Night, and Good Luck
Peter Jackson, King Kong
Ang Lee, Brokeback Mountain
Fernando Mereilles, The Constant Gardener
Steven Spielberg, Munich
Best Screenplay
Match Point
Good Night, And Good Luck
Crash
Munich
Brokeback Mountain
Best Actor, Drama
Russell Crowe, Cinderella Man
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Capote
Terence Howard, Hustle and Flow
Heath Ledger, Brokeback Mountain
David Strathairn, Good Night, and Good Luck
Best Actor, Musical/Comedy
Peirce Brosnan, The Matador
Jeff Daniels, The Squid and the Whale
Johnny Depp, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Nathan Lane, The Producers
Cillian Murphy,Breakfast on Pluto
Joaquin Phoenix, Walk the Line
Best Actress, Musical/Comedy
Judi Dench, Mrs. Henderson Presents
Keira Knightley, Pride & Prejudice
Laura Linney, Squid and the Whale
Sarah Jessica Parker, The Family Stone
Reese Witherspoon, Walk the Line
Best Actress, Drama
Maria Bello, A History of Violence
Felicity Huffman, Transamerica
Gwyneth Paltrow, Proof
Charlize Theron, North Country
Ziyi Zhang, Memoirs of a Geisha
Best Supporting Actress
Scarlett Johannsson, Match Point
Shirley MacLaine, In Her Shoes
Frances McDormand, North Country
Rachel Weisz, Contant Gardener
Michelle Williams, Brokeback Mountain
Best Supporting Actor
George Clooney, Syriana
Matt Dillon, Crash
Wil Farrell, The Producers
Paul Giamatti, Cinderella Man
Bob Hoskins, Mrs. Henderson Presents
Best Foreign Language Film
Kung Fu Hustle
The Promise
Merry Christmas
Paradise Now
Tsotsi
Best Original Score
Syriana
King Kong
Brokeback Mountain
Chronicles of Narnia
Memoirs of a Geisha
Anything can happen.
BEST PICTURE
Brokeback Mountain
Capote
Cinderella Man
The Constant Gardener
Crash
Good Night, and Good Luck.
King Kong
Memoirs of a Geisha
Munich
Walk the Line
BEST ACTOR
Russell Crowe – “Cinderella Man”
Philip Seymour Hoffman – “Capote”
Terrence Howard – “Hustle & Flow”
Heath Ledger – “Brokeback Mountain”
Joaquin Phoenix – “Walk the Line”
David Strathairn – “Good Night, and Good Luck.”
BEST ACTRESS
Joan Allen – “The Upside of Anger”
Judi Dench - “Mrs. Henderson Presents”
Felicity Huffman – “Transamerica”
Keira Knightley – “Pride & Prejudice”
Charlize Theron – “North Country”
Reese Witherspoon – “Walk the Line”
Whose year is it anyway?
]]>Every generation of Americans casts Israel in its own morality tale. For a time, Israel was the plucky underdog fighting for survival against larger foes. Now, as Steven Spielberg rolls out the publicity campaign for his new movie, "Munich," we see the crystallization of a different fable. In this story, the Israelis and the Palestinians are parallel peoples victimized by history and trapped in a cycle of violence.
In his rollout interview in Time, Spielberg spoke of the Middle East's endless killings and counterkillings. "A response to a response doesn't really solve anything. It just creates a perpetual motion machine," Spielberg said. "There's been a quagmire of blood for blood for many decades in that region. Where does it end?"
The main problem, he concluded, is intransigence itself. "The only thing that's going to solve this is rational minds, a lot of sitting down and talking until you're blue in the gills."
"Munich" the movie is a brilliant representation of this argument. Its hero, Avner, has been called in by Golda Meir to assassinate the terrorists responsible for the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics. Over the course of the movie, as assassination piles upon assassination, Avner descends into a pit of Raskolnikovian hell. Israelis kill Palestinians and Palestinians kill Israelis and guilt piles upon paranoia. Eventually, Avner loses faith in his mission, in Zionism, in Israel itself.
This is a new kind of antiwar movie for a new kind of war, and in so many ways it is innovative, sophisticated and intelligent.
But when it is political, Spielberg has to distort reality to fit his preconceptions. In the first place, by choosing a story set in 1972, Spielberg allows himself to ignore the core poison that permeates the Middle East, Islamic radicalism. In Spielberg's Middle East, there is no Hamas or Islamic Jihad. There are no passionate anti-Semites, no Holocaust deniers like the current president of Iran, no zealots who want to exterminate Israelis.
]]> There is, above all, no evil. And that is the core of Spielberg's fable. In his depiction of reality there are no people so committed to a murderous ideology that they are impervious to the sort of compromise and dialogue Spielberg puts such great faith in.Because he will not admit the existence of evil, as it really exists, Spielberg gets reality wrong. Understandably, he doesn't want to portray Palestinian terrorists as cartoon bad guys, but he simply doesn't portray them. There's one speech in which a Palestinian terrorist sounds like Mahmoud Abbas, but beyond that, the terrorists are marginal and opaque.
And because there is no evil, Spielberg gets the Israeli fighters wrong. Avner is an American image of what an Israeli hero should be. The real Israeli fighters tend to be harder and less sympathetic, and they are made that way by an awareness of the evil implacability of those who want to exterminate them.
In Spielberg's Middle East the only way to achieve peace is by renouncing violence. But in the real Middle East the only way to achieve peace is through military victory over the fanatics, accompanied by compromise between the reasonable elements on each side. Somebody, the Israelis or the Palestinian Authority, has to defeat Hamas and the other terrorist groups. Far from leading to a downward cycle, this kind of violence is the precondition to peace.
Here too, Spielberg's decision to tell a story set in the early 1970's makes "Munich" a misleading way to start a larger discussion.
In 1972, Israel was just entering the era of spectacular terror attacks and didn't know how to respond. But over the years Israelis have learned that targeted assassinations, which are the main subject of this movie, are one of the less effective ways to fight terror.
Israel much prefers to arrest suspected terrorists. Arrests don't set off rounds of retaliation, and arrested suspects are likely to provide you with intelligence, the real key to defanging terror groups.
Over the past few years Israeli forces have used arrests, intelligence work, the security fence and, at times, targeted assassinations to defeat the second intifada. As a result, the streets of Jerusalem are filled with teenagers, and the political climate has relaxed, allowing Ariel Sharon to move to the center.
Recent history teaches what Spielberg's false generalization about the "perpetual motion machine" of violence does not: that some violence is constructive and some is destructive. The trick is knowing the difference. That's a recognition that comes from reality, not fables.
Dear Journalists, Editors, Marketing and Publicity representatives --
Due to an incomplete eligibility mailing to the National Board of Review screening committee, and in fairness to all eligible films, filmmakers and actors, the NBR is postponing its Awards announcement until Monday morning, December 12th.
In consideration of the incomplete nature of the 2005 eligibility list and with apologies, NBR screening committee members have been asked to disregard the previously sent eligibility list and to review the complete list of screened films. Each film, each director and each performer is eligible in all categories. NBR screening committee members will receive and submit new ballots considering all 2005 qualified films, directors and performers.
We are sorry for the inadvertent omissions and the delay in announcing the 2005 National Board of Review of Motion Pictures Awards.
Sincerely,
Gary Springer
Press Representative for the NBR
And...
Earlier... Roger Friedman, breaking news on the problems that led to this.
]]>Cinderella Man DVD tagline...
"The odds were against him... his comeback was incredible... and the story is true."
Oscar nominee Seabiscuit's ad theme...
"The horse is too small, the jockey too big, the trainer too old, and I'm too dumb to know the difference."
]]>Some Academy members have received Walk The Line and In Her Shoes, but not The Family Stone.
]]>
Good show. Nominations for Capote, Breakfast on Pluto, and Junebug are legitimate possibilities... even for phillistines like us.
]]>The winners?
Sony Classics – 12 nominations
Magnolia – 7 nominations
Sam Goldwyn – 6 nominations
Focus Features – 6 nominations
Warner Indie – 6 nominations
The Weinstein Company – 3 nominations first month out
The losers?
Miramax – 0 nominations
Lions Gate – 4 nominations… Crash relegated to Best First Feature and a Matt Dillon nod
IFC Film – 2 nominations… Miranda July’s film was a natural lock that was locked out of the top categories.
Paramount Classics – 1 nomination… Terrence Howard and nothing else for Hustle & Flow, Mad Hot Ballroom or Asylum
Picturehouse – 1 nominations… Cinematography for the ‘shoulda been a lock” Last Days
The most telling evidence of the need for this event to split out its awards a bit more effectively between the haves and the have-nots is the nomination chart.
The Squid & The Whale - 6
Brokeback Mountain - 4
Capote - 4
Good Night, And Good Luck. - 4
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada - 4
The top number of nods… all in Best Picture… all featuring movie stars and former Oscar nominees/winners in front of or behind the camera… three studio financed… 4 released by Dependents, with a lot of Sony support for Goldwyn on the 5th.
And now, the Independent Spirit Awards, circa 2000… all under $10 million… only one with movie stars… all pick-ups.
Nine Lives - 3
Transamerica - 3
Crash - 2
Junebug - 2
Lackawanna Blues - 2 (which with due respect does not belong as a qualifier… it is a TV movie)
Me and You and Everyone We Know – 2
Room – 2
The War Within – 2
You make the call.
None of this diminishes the quality of the work in the nominated films. It just makes one wonder why this event is even needed when it’s primary beneficiaries are all chasing every other award in town with well-funded campaigns.
In total, he offers 13 possibles. Three are mentioned on page one (Huffman/Zhang/Knightley). Three more are mentioned on the next two pages (Danes/Kilcher/Witherspoon) and then, on page four, six more candidates (Dench/Diaz/Aniston/Allen/Zellweger/Theron/Paltrow).
So, In Her Shoes, Rumor Has It, Cinderella Man, and Proof are back in Oscar contention for Best Actress? Seems like a long stretch to anyone who isn't doing favors for publicists... or at least trying to find someone to fill Globes slots.
The Best Actress race for Oscar is, at best, eight deep.
Flooded? No.
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