'Brokeback' rounds up 8 Oscar noms
'Brokeback' atop Oscar-hopeful hill with eight noms
Feb 1, 2006
With eight nominations, Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain," Focus Features' tale of two love-struck ranch hands, was king of the rodeo as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced its nominations Tuesday morning for the 78th Annual Academy Awards.
In a year that saw smaller, politically charged, indie-flavored films triumph over bigger studio entertainment, "Brokeback" joined the select circle of best picture nominees that also includes Bennett Miller's "Capote," an account of how Truman Capote researched and wrote "In Cold Blood"; Paul Haggis' "Crash," an intersecting drama about race relations in Los Angeles; George Clooney's "Good Night, and Good Luck," a re-creation of CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow's face-off with Sen. Joseph McCarthy; and Steven Spielberg's "Munich," an investigation into the battle against terrorism as seen through the response to the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics.
Each of the best picture nominees also earned a best directing nomination for their helmers. It is the first time since 1981 that the two categories have matched exactly.
For Spielberg, even though his directing nom was his 11th career nom and sixth in the category, the morning's news left him especially elated: Sight unseen, pundits had proclaimed "Munich" an Oscar lock early in the season. But a barrage of critical attacks on the film that preceded its late-December opening as well as its failure to pick up a best picture nom at the Golden Globes appeared to endanger its chances.
"I think the biggest obstacle in our path was the armchair warriors who blogged badly about the film before even seeing it," Spielberg said. "The idea of the picture is a hot-button topic. But we lit a fire on purpose to get people talking."
On the other hand, "Brokeback," though labeled early on by many in the media as the "controversial gay cowboy movie," nimbly sidestepped controversy to become this season's dominant awards player, having picked up wins from the Globes, the Producers Guild of America and the DGA.
"We never pitched or marketed the controversy," said James Schamus, Focus co-president as well as producer of the movie. "We unequivocally kept the film front and center, and audiences responded to it as a movie." Having already grossed more than $51 million in a carefully calibrated rollout, "Brokeback," Schamus said, "is already a crossover success."
"Brokeback's" principal cast all figured in the acting heats. Heath Ledger, who plays the taciturn Ennis Del Mar, was nominated for best actor; Michelle Williams, who plays his long-suffering wife in the film, was recognized in the best supporting actress category; Jake Gyllenhaal, who plays his lover Jack Twist, was nominated for best supporting actor.
In addition to Ledger, the best actor nominees are Terrence Howard, who plays a would-be rapper in "Hustle & Flow"; Philip Seymour Hoffman, who inhabits the real-life character of Truman Capote in "Capote"; Joaquin Phoenix, who sings as Johnny Cash in "Walk the Line"; and David Strathairn, who appears as newsman Murrow in "Good Night." All are first-time nominees except for Phoenix, who was nominated for his supporting role in "Gladiator" in 2000.
Phoenix's co-star in "Line," Reese Witherspoon, who plays Cash's wife, June Carter Cash, was nominated for best actress along with Judi Dench, who appears as an upper-crust Brit who opens a nudie review in "Mrs. Henderson Presents"; Felicity Huffman, who transforms herself as a preoperative transsexual in "Transamerica"; Keira Knightley, who stars as Elizabeth Bennet in "Pride & Prejudice"; and Charlize Theron, who plays a miner who files a sexual harassment suit in "North Country." Huffman, Knightley and Witherspoon are Oscar rookies. Theron took the best actress award for "Monster," her one other nomination in 2004, while Dench is an red-carpet pro, receiving her fifth nomination overall and having won an Oscar for her supporting performance in "Shakespeare in Love" in 1998.
In addition to earning directing and writing nominations for "Good Night," Clooney appeared on the best supporting actor list for his role as a CIA operative in "Syriana." He is the only directing nominee ever to be nominated in one of the acting categories for a different film.
The supporting actor field also includes Matt Dillon, who plays a racially insensitive cop in "Crash"; Paul Giamatti, who plays the corner man to boxer James J. Braddock in "Cinderella Man"; William Hurt, a chilling mob boss in "A History of Violence"; and "Brokeback's" Gyllenhaal. Hurt is the one Oscar winner of the bunch, winning best actor in 1985's "Kiss of the Spider Woman." The rest are first-time nominees.
For best supporting actress, the Academy nominated Amy Adams, who plays a pregnant young Southerner in "Junebug"; Catherine Keener, as novelist Nelle Harper Lee in "Capote"; Frances McDormand, who plays a union organizer in "North Country"; Rachel Weisz, who appears as a risk-taking activist in "The Constant Gardener"; and "Brokeback's" Williams. Again, new talent prevailed: Adams, Weisz and Williams are first-time nominees. Keener picked up her second nomination, while McDormand, who picked up the trophy as best actress in 1996's "Fargo," earned her fourth nomination.
For best original screenplay, the nominees are "Crash," screenplay by Haggis & Bobby Moresco, story by Haggis; "Good Night," by Clooney & Grant Heslov; "Match Point," by Woody Allen; "The Squid and the Whale," by Noah Baumbach; and "Syriana," by Stephen Gaghan.
Gaghan, a winner in 2000 for "Traffic," landed a spot in the original screenplay category even though he submitted "Syriana" in the adapted category and the Academy reclassified it without his knowledge. Meanwhile, the prolific Allen earned his 21st nomination and 14th in this category for his drama about infidelity and murder among the British privileged class.
For adapted screenplay, the nominees are "Brokeback," by Larry McMurtry & Diana Ossana; "Capote," by Dan Futterman; "Gardener," by Jeffrey Caine; "Violence," by Josh Olson; and "Munich," by Tony Kushner and Eric Roth. For McMurtry, it's a particularly long stretch since his last Academy nomination -- he was nominated for co-writing the adaptation of his novel "The Last Picture Show" in 1971.
Among distributors, companies that fielded both a thriving specialty arm and a varied studio release slate fared the best.
Focus Features -- thanks to its winning troika of "Brokeback," "Pride" and "Gardener" -- led the pack with 16 noms, while its parent company Universal Pictures took home 12 noms from such films as "Munich," "King Kong" and "Cinderella Man." The closest competition came from the combined strength of Warner Bros. Pictures with eight noms and its specialty films unit Warner Independent Pictures with eight.
For the four-year-old Focus, co-president David Linde said: "If we have done anything right, it is that we empowered people with strong perspectives to do what they were trying to accomplish. We trusted Ang Lee, ('Gardener's') Fernando Meirelles and ('Pride's') Joe Wright with the perspective and vision of the movie they went out and did."
In the animation race, the Academy steered clear of CGI animation and nominated Hayao Miyazaki's traditionally animated "Howl's Moving Castle" and two stop-motion animation films, Tim Burton and Mike Johnson's "Tim Burton's Corpse Bride" and Nick Park and Steve Box's "Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit."
While Pixar Animation Studios did not release a feature this year, it still has a couple of horses in the race. Pixar produced the best animated short film nominee "One Man Band," from Andrew Jimenez and Mark Andrews, and Pixar's creative chief John Lasseter also played a role in encouraging Disney's Buena Vista distribution arm to release the films of Japanese master Miyazaki.
The hit "March of the Penguins" earned a spot in the docu category, along with "Darwin's Nightmare," "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," "Murderball" and "Street Fight."
For foreign-language film, the Academy nominated Italy's "Don't Tell," France's "Joyeux Noel," Palestine's "Paradise Now," Germany's "Sophie Scholl -- The Final Days" and South Africa's "Tsotsi."
Winners will be announced March 5 at ceremonies broadcast by ABC from the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland.
In a year that saw smaller, politically charged, indie-flavored films triumph over bigger studio entertainment, "Brokeback" joined the select circle of best picture nominees that also includes Bennett Miller's "Capote," an account of how Truman Capote researched and wrote "In Cold Blood"; Paul Haggis' "Crash," an intersecting drama about race relations in Los Angeles; George Clooney's "Good Night, and Good Luck," a re-creation of CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow's face-off with Sen. Joseph McCarthy; and Steven Spielberg's "Munich," an investigation into the battle against terrorism as seen through the response to the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics.
Each of the best picture nominees also earned a best directing nomination for their helmers. It is the first time since 1981 that the two categories have matched exactly.
For Spielberg, even though his directing nom was his 11th career nom and sixth in the category, the morning's news left him especially elated: Sight unseen, pundits had proclaimed "Munich" an Oscar lock early in the season. But a barrage of critical attacks on the film that preceded its late-December opening as well as its failure to pick up a best picture nom at the Golden Globes appeared to endanger its chances.
"I think the biggest obstacle in our path was the armchair warriors who blogged badly about the film before even seeing it," Spielberg said. "The idea of the picture is a hot-button topic. But we lit a fire on purpose to get people talking."
On the other hand, "Brokeback," though labeled early on by many in the media as the "controversial gay cowboy movie," nimbly sidestepped controversy to become this season's dominant awards player, having picked up wins from the Globes, the Producers Guild of America and the DGA.
"We never pitched or marketed the controversy," said James Schamus, Focus co-president as well as producer of the movie. "We unequivocally kept the film front and center, and audiences responded to it as a movie." Having already grossed more than $51 million in a carefully calibrated rollout, "Brokeback," Schamus said, "is already a crossover success."
"Brokeback's" principal cast all figured in the acting heats. Heath Ledger, who plays the taciturn Ennis Del Mar, was nominated for best actor; Michelle Williams, who plays his long-suffering wife in the film, was recognized in the best supporting actress category; Jake Gyllenhaal, who plays his lover Jack Twist, was nominated for best supporting actor.
In addition to Ledger, the best actor nominees are Terrence Howard, who plays a would-be rapper in "Hustle & Flow"; Philip Seymour Hoffman, who inhabits the real-life character of Truman Capote in "Capote"; Joaquin Phoenix, who sings as Johnny Cash in "Walk the Line"; and David Strathairn, who appears as newsman Murrow in "Good Night." All are first-time nominees except for Phoenix, who was nominated for his supporting role in "Gladiator" in 2000.
Phoenix's co-star in "Line," Reese Witherspoon, who plays Cash's wife, June Carter Cash, was nominated for best actress along with Judi Dench, who appears as an upper-crust Brit who opens a nudie review in "Mrs. Henderson Presents"; Felicity Huffman, who transforms herself as a preoperative transsexual in "Transamerica"; Keira Knightley, who stars as Elizabeth Bennet in "Pride & Prejudice"; and Charlize Theron, who plays a miner who files a sexual harassment suit in "North Country." Huffman, Knightley and Witherspoon are Oscar rookies. Theron took the best actress award for "Monster," her one other nomination in 2004, while Dench is an red-carpet pro, receiving her fifth nomination overall and having won an Oscar for her supporting performance in "Shakespeare in Love" in 1998.
In addition to earning directing and writing nominations for "Good Night," Clooney appeared on the best supporting actor list for his role as a CIA operative in "Syriana." He is the only directing nominee ever to be nominated in one of the acting categories for a different film.
The supporting actor field also includes Matt Dillon, who plays a racially insensitive cop in "Crash"; Paul Giamatti, who plays the corner man to boxer James J. Braddock in "Cinderella Man"; William Hurt, a chilling mob boss in "A History of Violence"; and "Brokeback's" Gyllenhaal. Hurt is the one Oscar winner of the bunch, winning best actor in 1985's "Kiss of the Spider Woman." The rest are first-time nominees.
For best supporting actress, the Academy nominated Amy Adams, who plays a pregnant young Southerner in "Junebug"; Catherine Keener, as novelist Nelle Harper Lee in "Capote"; Frances McDormand, who plays a union organizer in "North Country"; Rachel Weisz, who appears as a risk-taking activist in "The Constant Gardener"; and "Brokeback's" Williams. Again, new talent prevailed: Adams, Weisz and Williams are first-time nominees. Keener picked up her second nomination, while McDormand, who picked up the trophy as best actress in 1996's "Fargo," earned her fourth nomination.
For best original screenplay, the nominees are "Crash," screenplay by Haggis & Bobby Moresco, story by Haggis; "Good Night," by Clooney & Grant Heslov; "Match Point," by Woody Allen; "The Squid and the Whale," by Noah Baumbach; and "Syriana," by Stephen Gaghan.
Gaghan, a winner in 2000 for "Traffic," landed a spot in the original screenplay category even though he submitted "Syriana" in the adapted category and the Academy reclassified it without his knowledge. Meanwhile, the prolific Allen earned his 21st nomination and 14th in this category for his drama about infidelity and murder among the British privileged class.
For adapted screenplay, the nominees are "Brokeback," by Larry McMurtry & Diana Ossana; "Capote," by Dan Futterman; "Gardener," by Jeffrey Caine; "Violence," by Josh Olson; and "Munich," by Tony Kushner and Eric Roth. For McMurtry, it's a particularly long stretch since his last Academy nomination -- he was nominated for co-writing the adaptation of his novel "The Last Picture Show" in 1971.
Among distributors, companies that fielded both a thriving specialty arm and a varied studio release slate fared the best.
Focus Features -- thanks to its winning troika of "Brokeback," "Pride" and "Gardener" -- led the pack with 16 noms, while its parent company Universal Pictures took home 12 noms from such films as "Munich," "King Kong" and "Cinderella Man." The closest competition came from the combined strength of Warner Bros. Pictures with eight noms and its specialty films unit Warner Independent Pictures with eight.
For the four-year-old Focus, co-president David Linde said: "If we have done anything right, it is that we empowered people with strong perspectives to do what they were trying to accomplish. We trusted Ang Lee, ('Gardener's') Fernando Meirelles and ('Pride's') Joe Wright with the perspective and vision of the movie they went out and did."
In the animation race, the Academy steered clear of CGI animation and nominated Hayao Miyazaki's traditionally animated "Howl's Moving Castle" and two stop-motion animation films, Tim Burton and Mike Johnson's "Tim Burton's Corpse Bride" and Nick Park and Steve Box's "Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit."
While Pixar Animation Studios did not release a feature this year, it still has a couple of horses in the race. Pixar produced the best animated short film nominee "One Man Band," from Andrew Jimenez and Mark Andrews, and Pixar's creative chief John Lasseter also played a role in encouraging Disney's Buena Vista distribution arm to release the films of Japanese master Miyazaki.
The hit "March of the Penguins" earned a spot in the docu category, along with "Darwin's Nightmare," "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," "Murderball" and "Street Fight."
For foreign-language film, the Academy nominated Italy's "Don't Tell," France's "Joyeux Noel," Palestine's "Paradise Now," Germany's "Sophie Scholl -- The Final Days" and South Africa's "Tsotsi."
Winners will be announced March 5 at ceremonies broadcast by ABC from the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland.
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