Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Today, the nominees for the 78th Academy Awards were announced in Los Angeles, California.
Best Picture nominees this year are Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Crash, Good Night, and Good Luck., and Munich. The director of each of these films received director nominations. Nominees include George Clooney (Good Night, and Good Luck.), Paul Haggis (Crash), Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain), Bennett Miller (Capote), and Steven Spielberg (Munich). This is the first time since 1981 that every Best Picture nominee also received a nod for Direction.
Brokeback Mountain leads this year’s Oscar pack overall, with eight nominations. Brokeback is followed by Crash, Good Night, and Good Luck., and Memoirs of a Geisha, who each earned six. Capote, Munich, and Walk the Line each received five nominations. King Kong, Pride and Prejudice, and The Constant Gardener picked up four nominations, while Cinderella Man, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and War of the Worlds pick up three. A History of Violence, Hustle & Flow, Mrs. Henderson Presents, North Country, Syriana, and Transamerica each received two nods each.
Best Animated Feature Film nominees are Howl’s Moving Castle, Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride, and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. None of these films used primarily CGI-animation, the first year this can be claimed, since the 2001 creation of the award category. Corspe Bride marks both Tim Burton and Mike Johnson’s first nominations. Wallace & Gromit’s Steve Box is celebrating his first nomination, while co-producer Nick Park has three Oscars for Best Animation Short, a fourth nomination, of which he lost to himself in 1990. Hayao Miyazaki won the Best Animated Feature award in 2002, for Spirited Away.
Uniquely neither animation powerhouse, Disney or DreamWorks, is directly nominated in the category. Disney’s Buena Vista Entertainment distributes Miyazaki film Howl’s Moving Castle, while DreamWorks distributed Wallace and Gromit, animated by Aardman Animations.
Best Foreign Language Film nominees include Italian film Don’t Tell, France’s Joyeux Noël, Palestine’s Paradise Now, Germany’s Sophie Scholl – The Final Days, and South Africa’s Tsotsi. Italy has been up for an Oscar 27 times, France 34 times, and Germany has had six nominations. This is only South Africa’s second nomination, with the first coming last year, and Palestine’s first ever Academy Award nomination.
Nominees for Best Documentary Feature are Darwin’s Nightmare, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, March of the Penguins, Murderball, and Street Fight. March of the Penguins, produced in France, actually grossed more than any of the Best Picture nominees, the first time in history such an occurrence has happened.
The top 19 films in box office received a total of only 14 nominations, with a majority of these in the categories of Visual Effects, Sound Mixing and Sound Editing.
Perhaps one of the most interesting stories for Hollywood as a whole, is the tremendous success of Participant Productions in its first year of operation. eBay founder Jeff Skoll‘s movie house produced nominees Good Night and Good Luck. (6), North Country (2), Syriana (2), and Murderball (1). The company aims to fund feature films and documentaries that promote social values while still being commercially viable.
The 78th Academy Awards presentation will be held on Sunday, March 5.
- Philip Seymour Hoffman – Capote
- Terrence Howard – Hustle & Flow
- Heath Ledger – Brokeback Mountain
- Joaquin Phoenix – Walk the Line
- David Strathairn – Good Night, and Good Luck
- George Clooney – Syriana
- Matt Dillon – Crash
- Paul Giamatti – Cinderella Man
- Jake Gyllenhaal – Brokeback Mountain
- William Hurt – A History of Violence
- Judi Dench – Mrs. Henderson Presents
- Felicity Huffman – Transamerica
- Keira Knightley – Pride & Prejudice
- Charlize Theron – North Country
- Reese Witherspoon – Walk the Line
- Amy Adams – Junebug
- Catherine Keener – Capote
- Frances McDormand – North Country
- Rachel Weisz – The Constant Gardener
- Michelle Williams – Brokeback Mountain
- Brokeback Mountain
- Capote
- The Constant Gardener
- A History of Violence
- Munich
- Crash
- Good Night, and Good Luck
- Match Point
- The Squid and the Whale
- Syriana
- Good Night, and Good Luck
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
- King Kong
- Memoirs of a Geisha
- Pride & Prejudice
- Batman Begins
- Brokeback Mountain
- Good Night, and Good Luck
- Memoirs of a Geisha
- The New World
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
- Memoirs of a Geisha
- Mrs. Henderson Presents
- Pride & Prejudice
- Walk the Line
- 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
- Cinderella Man
- The Constant Gardener
- Crash
- Munich
- Walk the Line
- The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
- Cinderella Man
- Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
- Brokeback Mountain
- The Constant Gardener
- Memoirs of a Geisha
- Munich
- Pride & Prejudice
- In the Deep – Crash
- It’s Hard Out Here For a Pimp – Hustle & Flow
- Travelin’ Thru – Transamerica
- Badgered
- The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation
- The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello
- 9
- One Man Band
- Ausreisser (The Runaway)
- Cashback
- The Last Farm
- Our Time is Up
- Six Shooter
- King Kong
- Memoirs of a Geisha
- War of the Worlds
- The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
- King Kong
- Memoirs of a Geisha
- Walk the Line
- War of the Worlds
- The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
- King Kong
- War of the Worlds
Friday, June 2, 2006
Two women, one of them about to give birth, were shot dead by US forces as they rode in a car headed toward a maternity hospital in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, according to witnesses and Iraqi police Capt. Laith Mohammed.
Nabiha Nisaif Jassim, 35, and her 57-year-old cousin, Saliha Mohammed Hassan, were killed by the gunfire, according to the Associated Press. Jassim, a mother of two, was pregnant with her third child; doctors at a nearby hospital tried unsuccessfully to save the baby.
Khalid Nisaif Jassim told reporters that he was rushing his sister to the hospital for childbirth. “I was driving my car at full speed because I did not see any sign or warning from the Americans. It was not until they shot the two bullets that killed my sister and cousin that I stopped.
“God take revenge on the Americans and those who brought them here,” he added. “They have no regard for our lives.”
A US military statement released Friday disputed the account. “A local national sedan entered a clearly marked prohibited area near coalition troops at an observation post,” the statement read. “As the vehicle neared the troop location and failed to stop despite repeated visual and auditory signals, disabling shots were fired into the vehicle. The vehicle stopped, changed direction, and quickly departed the area.”
The e-mailed statement to the Associated Press also expressed regret for the loss of life, noting that “coalition forces go to great lengths to prevent them.”
The Washington Post reported that the women’s bodies were “wrapped in sheets and lying on stretchers outside the Samarra General Hospital before being taken to the morgue, while residents pointed to bullet holes on the windshield of a car and a pool of blood on the seat”.
The US military has increased the number of investigations into charges of misconduct against US troops, most notably following the alleged mass murder of as many as 24 civilians in the town of Haditha, west of Baghdad. Initially, 15 civilians and eight insurgents were reported dead in gunfire following a roadside bombing that killed a US Marine. Military spokesman Major-General William Caldwell said, “there are three or four (investigations) at least at this time” and that they are in “the first stages.”