Awards Coverage: Academy Awards

Here's a rundown of some of the major Oscar categories. A complete nominee list can be found at http://www.academyawards.com. I'm pretty much satisfied with this year's batch of nominees. The Academy Awards have never actually nailed down the best of the best in my opinion, but on years when they come close I'm more or less happy. Excluding Dreamgirls for Best Picture and director Bill Condon for Best Director was the right move. It was an enjoyable film, but it was far from the best of the year. I feel more or less the same about The Queen which did sneak its way into Best Picture and earned veteran director Stephen Frears a nomination. I'm whole heartedly behind the campaign to make the brilliant Helen Mirren an Academy Award winner, but her performance is what sustains the fairly TV movie-esque film from beginning to end. As gifted as Frears may be, this was not his finest moment as a director and there were simply far more interesting directors working this year (like pleasant surprise nominee Paul Greengrass). However, the most wonderful surprise of this year's nominations was the universal recognition for Clint Eastwood and his masterful war epic Letters from Iwo Jima. Unfortunately, his cast got snubbed, but the film was represented in 4 categories. The same goes for the family fun road trip flick Little Miss Sunshine which has got to be one of the most delightful little films to squeeze into the persistently somber Best Picture race. Also making me very happy is the inclusion of Ryan Gosling in the Best Actor competition for his fine work in the little indie, Half Nelson. Not making me happy? The exclusion of Maggie Gyllenhaal's fine work in her little indie, Sherrybaby. And can we all sigh collectively at the nomination of Mark Wahlberg? The Departed apparently led a weird awards campaign that made the categorization of Leonardo DiCaprio and Jack Nicholson as lead or supporting actors unclear to many voters who must have split their votes between the two possible categories. How else do you explain Mark Wahlberg? How? It's also why Leo has his lead nomination for Blood Diamond instead. Apparently, he tried to pass off his role in The Departed as supporting work which didn't quite work out for him. Although, Wahlberg aside, the Supporting Actor category was an interesting shake up with the brilliant inclusion of Alan Arkin and Jackie Earle Haley being my favorite part of the shaking. I'm minorly angry over the limitation of nominations for both Children of Men and Pan's Labyrinth, but given their oddly low awards profile, I'm glad to see them at least pop up somewhere on the nominees list. And I'm just generally thrilled over the large quantity of nominations for Babel. I named it as my favorite film of 2006 in my top 10 earlier this month and I still stand by that.

BEST MOTION PICTURE OF THE YEAR

• Babel
• The Departed
• Letters From Iwo Jima
• Little Miss Sunshine
• The Queen

ACHIEVEMENT IN DIRECTING

• Alejandro González Iñárritu - Babel
• Martin Scorsese - The Departed
• Clint Eastwood - Letters From Iwo Jima
• Stephen Frears - The Queen
• Paul Greengrass - United 93

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

• Leonardo DiCaprio - Blood Diamond
• Ryan Gosling - Half Nelson
• Peter O'Toole - Venus
• Will Smith - The Pursuit of Happyness
• Forest Whitaker - The Last King of Scotland

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

• Penélope Cruz - Volver
• Judi Dench - Notes on a Scandal
• Helen Mirren - The Queen
• Meryl Streep - The Devil Wears Prada
• Kate Winslet - Little Children

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

• Alan Arkin - Little Miss Sunshine
• Jackie Earle Haley - Little Children
• Djimon Hounsou - Blood Diamond
• Eddie Murphy - Dreamgirls
• Mark Wahlberg - The Departed

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

• Adriana Barraza - Babel
• Cate Blanchett - Notes on a Scandal
• Abigail Breslin - Little Miss Sunshine
• Jennifer Hudson - Dreamgirls
• Rinko Kikuchi - Babel

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

• Sacha Baron Cohen & Anthony Hines & Peter Baynham & Dan Mazer - Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
• Alfonso Cuarón & Timothy J. Sexton & David Arata & Mark Fergus & Hawk Ostby - Children of Men
• William Monahan - The Departed
• Todd Field & Tom Perrotta - Little Children
• Patrick Marber - Notes on a Scandal

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

• Guillermo Arriaga - Babel
• Iris Yamashita - Letters From Iwo Jima
• Michael Arndt - Little Miss Sunshine
• Guillermo del Toro - Pan's Labyrinth
• Peter Morgan - The Queen

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM OF THE YEAR

• After the Wedding
• Days of Glory (Indigenes)
• The Lives of Others
• Pan's Labyrinth
• Water

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM OF THE YEAR

• Cars
• Happy Feet
• Monster House

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

• Deliver Us From Evil
• An Inconvenient Truth
• Iraq in Fragments
• Jesus Camp
• My Country, My Country