The following are the nominees for the 2006 Academy Awards telecast, scheduled to air on ABC affiliate WQAD-TV at 7 p.m. on Sunday, March 5. (Note: Boldface denotes Mike's projected winner in each category.)
Best Picture
Brokeback Mountain
Capote
Crash
Good Night, & Good Luck.
Munich
Crash wouldn't surprise me; no film's selection would bother me. Yet the anticipated Brokeback-lash never happened, and the film is the biggest box-office hit among the nominees here, which never hurts a film's Best Picture odds. It also happens to deserve the prize. That doesn't hurt, either.
Best Director
George Clooney, Good Night, & Good Luck.
Paul Haggis, Crash
Ang Lee, Brokeback Mountain
Bennett Miller, Capote
Steven Spielberg, Munich
A lock. Bet the mortgage. Bet the children.
Best Actress
Judi Dench, Mrs. Henderson Presents
Felicity Huffman, Transamerica
Keira Knightley, Pride & Prejudice
Charlize Theron, North Country
Reese Witherspoon, Walk the Line
Bet the neighbors' children.
Best Actor
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Capote
Terrence Howard, Hustle & Flow
Heath Ledger, Brokeback Mountain
Joaquin Phoenix, Walk the Line
David Strathairn, Good Night, & Good Luck.
Ledger could sneak a win, and it would be a deserved one, but Truman Capote is the role of Hoffman's life, and everyone seems to know it.
Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams, Junebug
Catherine Keener, Capote
Frances McDormand, North Country
Rachel Weisz, The Constant Gardener
Michelle Williams, Brokeback Mountain
And at your Oscar party, you are allowed to slug anyone who starts singing the victor's name to the tune of "Edelweis."
Best Supporting Actor
George Clooney, Syriana
Matt Dillon, Crash
Paul Giamatti, Cinderella Man
Jake Gyllenhaal, Brokeback Mountain
William Hurt, A History of Violence
Because it's a serious field of Oscar contenders, and we're gonna need a funny speech. Of course, Giamatti's would be pretty amusing, too... .
Best Original Screenplay
Crash, Paul Haggis & Bobby Moresco
Good Night, & Good Luck., George Clooney & Grant Heslov
Match Point, Woody Allen
The Squid & the Whale, Noah Baumbach
Syriana, Steven Gaghan
Ah, the screenplay categories, where the year's second-best pictures - and often more deserving ones - finally get some love. (Think Sideways, Lost in Translation, Traffic, L.A. Confidential, Fargo, Pulp Fiction, The Piano... need I continue?) So it's Crash vs. Good Luck for this prize, and Haggis (who wrote last year's Million Dollar Baby yet did not receive a Best Screenplay Oscar) and Moresco look pretty unstoppable.
Best Screenplay Adaptation
Brokeback Mountain, Larry McMurtry & Diana Ossana
Capote, Dan Futterman
The Constant Gardener, Jeffrey Caine
A History of Violence, Josh Olson
Munich, Tony Kushner & Eric Roth
If McMurtry and Ossana don't win this, all bets are off for the rest of the night.
Best Foreign Language Film
Don't Tell, Italy
Joyeux Noel, France
Paradise Now, Palestine
Sophie Scholl - The Final Days, Germany
Tsotsi, South Africa
I haven't seen any of them, so what the hell do I know? Only that the Paradise Now reviews are great. And the film won this category at the Golden Globes. And the subject matter is timely. And Palestine has never had a film nominated in this category before, which seems like a slight. Well, look at that. I guess I do know some stuff... .
Best Animated Feature
Howl's Moving Castle
Tim Burton's Corpse Bride
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Say, "Cheeeeeeeeese!"
Best Cinematography
Batman Begins, Wally Pfister
Brokeback Mountain, Rodrigo Prieto
Good Night, & Good Luck., Robert Elswit
Memoirs of a Geisha, Dion Beebe
The New World, Emmanuel Lubezki
I feel really unsure about this one, but we don't have a Braveheart-y, Titanic-y epic in the race this time, and those Wyoming landscapes are gorgeous; if you can't vote with Scale in this category, always vote with Pretty.
Best Original Score
Brokeback Mountain, Gustavo Santaolalla
The Constant Gardener, Alberto Iglesias
Memoirs of a Geisha, John Williams
Munich, John Williams
Pride & Prejudice, Dario Marianelli
Again, I'm probably going with my heart over my head on this one; the safe money is on Iglesias for Gardener or Williams for Memoirs. But in an unusually subtle race this year - and that's with two John Williams entries! - I'll again back Brokeback, as Santaolalla's plaintive guitar chords linger in the memory nearly as much as Lee's images do.
Best Original Song
Crash, "In the Deep," by Kathleen "Bird" York & Michael Becker
Hustle & Flow, "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp," by Jordan Houston, Cedric Coleman, and Paul Beauregard
Transamerica, "Travelin' Thru," by Dolly Parton
I bet Dolly's speech would be almost as entertaining as Clooney's inevitably will be, but "In the Deep" had true contextual impact, and I'm guessing voters - leaning toward Brokeback in the Picture and Director categories - will also want to load Crash up with as many other Oscars as they can.
Best Film Editing
Cinderella Man
The Constant Gardener
Crash
Munich
Walk the Line
Case in point.
Best Documentary Feature
Darwin's Nightmare
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
March of the Penguins
Murderball
Street Fight
And you thought Reese would be the night's cutest winner.
Best Art Direction
Good Night, & Good Luck.
Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire
King Kong
Memoirs of a Geisha
Pride & Prejudice
I hate Memoirs of a Geisha. Freakin' hate it. It's destined to win something.
Best Costume Design
Charlie & the Chocolate Factory
Memoirs of a Geisha
Mrs. Henderson Presents
Pride & Prejudice
Walk the Line
I'm afraid it's gonna win this one, too. Sari.
Best Make-Up
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe
Cinderella Man
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
Did you know this was the first of the six Star Wars films where the visual effects weren't cited? I'm predicting a consolation win in this category instead, but still... ouch. The movie wasn't that bad... .
Best Visual Effects
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe
King Kong
War of the Worlds
... and considering they found room for the shaky Narnia effects... . Of the three choices here, I'm actually rooting for the War of the Worlds guys, but until human actors start performing with the wit and realism of Peter Jackson's CGI creations, his movies will always reign in this category.
Best Sound Mixing
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe
King Kong
Memoirs of a Geisha
Walk the Line
War of the Worlds
The other nominees are certainly louder, but Chicago won this, and Ray won this, so I'm guessing that musicals have an edge here.
Best Sound Editing
King Kong
Memoirs of a Geisha
War of the Worlds
Flip a coin. I mean, flip a weird, three-sided coin. Mine came up War of the Worlds.
Best Documentary Short Subject
The Death of Kevin Carter: Casualty of the Bang Bang Club
God Sleeps in Rwanda
The Mushroom Club
A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin
Cue the really depressing Oscar speech.
Best Live Action Short Film
Ausreisser (The Runaway)
Cashback
The Last Farm
Our Time Is Up
Six Shooter
To the eventual winner in this category: Congratulations, but after I hear your name announced, I won't be listening to your speech. I will be refreshing my drink. Nothing personal.
Best Animated Short Film
Badgered
The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation
The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello
9
One Man Band
"Mike, are you still at the bar... ?"
