The Academy Awards(R) 2006

What: The Academy Award Nominees 2006
When 1st Seen: 31 January 2006
Time: 5:50 a.m.

At 5:30 a.m. PST, I awoke to learn the nominations for this year’s Oscars. I did not want to go up and turn on the television, I wanted to find out on-line. At approximately 5:50 a.m. the Academy of MPA&S posted the nominees on their web site—wish they would have said that would be the web-posting time so I could have gotten 20 more minutes of sleep. In any case, I wanted to take this time to congratulate the voting members of the Academy for this year’s slate of nominees. You have restored my faith in your abilities to nominate and recognize the best movies of the year. I do disagree with your nomination of Capote and would have liked to see King Kong, The Chronicles of Narnia, Cinderella Man, or Memoirs of a Geisha in its spot, but I can accept one variation in your thinking from mine. The films you selected for Best Picture are all very important and incredible films, Capote included--though I didn’t like it as much because I, unlike everyone else in the world, could not stand Philip Seymour Hoffman’s mumbling portrayal which sunk the film for me since he’s the entire point of the film. I also think you narrowed the lists for the actors very appropriately. There can only be five nominees, and there were well more than five stand-outs in the four acting categories. My only disagreement in the acting categories was, as much as I adore Judi Dench and think she was entirely deserving, I would have substituted Ziyi Zhang for her. Finally, I was thrilled to see that, for the first time in a really long time, your nominees for Best Director and Best Motion Picture categories made sense. How could a movie be one of the best and not have one of the best directors? So this time, all five of the directors of the best film nominees were nominated. Finally, I wish to congratulate all of the well-deserved nominees and also take this time to make my very first predictions on the major categories.

Key: predicted to win / should win

Best motion picture of the year

• Brokeback Mountain (Focus Features)


• Capote (UA/Sony Pictures Classics)


• Crash (Lions Gate)


• Good Night, and Good Luck. (Warner Independent Pictures)


• Munich (Universal & DreamWorks)

Note: Brokeback and Munich were both great films. The scale and scope here, though, has to go to Munich.

Achievement in directing

• Brokeback Mountain (Focus Features) Ang Lee


• Capote (UA/Sony Pictures Classics) Bennett Miller


• Crash (Lions Gate) Paul Haggis


• Good Night, and Good Luck (Warner Independent Pictures) George Clooney


• Munich (Universal and DreamWorks) Steven Spielberg

Note: Same logic as Best Picture

Performance by an actress in a leading role

• Judi Dench in Mrs. Henderson Presents


• Felicity Huffman in Transamerica


• Keira Knightley in Pride & Prejudice


• Charlize Theron in North Country


• Reese Witherspoon in Walk the Line

Note: This is a really difficult category this year because the women were all amazing in their own way. Felicity Huffman’s role was the most difficult to play, however, show I feel she deserves the edge. How many people saw this film? The subject matter was incredibly controversial, and I worry many voters will see her as a television actress which is incredibly unfair. Ms Dench has already won as has Ms Theron. The Academy does like to spread the wealth in this category except when Meryl Streep is up. This leaves us with Ms Witherspoon and Ms Knightley. I give the edge her to Knightley vs. Witherspoon only slightly. Both were outstanding performances. The body of Ms Knightley’s incredible work in a very short period of time, her incredible range, and her future to contribute to the body of great film work is, perhaps, a bit better. So, I give her the edge, although this could exactly why she loses since the voters may see her as having the potential for many, many more nominations.

Performance by an actress in a supporting role

• Amy Adams in Junebug


• Catherine Keener in Capote


• Frances McDormand in North Country


• Rachel Weisz in The Constant Gardener


• Michelle Williams in Brokeback Mountain

Note: Catherine Keener is the gem of Capote in my book. Her portrayal of Harper Lee was the only think I liked about the movie. In this crowd, here acting job is probably only really equalled by Frances McDormand who is stunning in North Country as a dying miner. Still, I feel Rachel Weisz has got to win or there will be a near complete snub of The Constant Gardner which deserves some recognition this year.

Performance by an actor in a leading role

• Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote


• Terrence Howard in Hustle & Flow


• Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain


• Joaquin Phoenix in Walk the Line


• David Strathairn in Good Night, and Good Luck

Note: I think Heath Ledger will win this award, but Joaquin really deserves it between the two. Mr. Ledger was great, Mr. Phoenix was brilliant. Brokeback Mountain is a more important film, so give it Best Picture and focus this award on the best acting.

Performance by an actor in a supporting role

• George Clooney in Syriana


• Matt Dillon in Crash


• Paul Giamatti in Cinderella Man


• Jake Gyllenhaal in Brokeback Mountain


• William Hurt in A History of Violence

Note: This one is almost as difficult as supporting actress. I look to history on this award and see that the Academy usually uses these to supporting categories to recognize unrecognized films. Everyone knows that Cinderella Man was one of the best films of the year. They erred in releasing it in the summer and lost a lot of the spectacle. Was it as good as the rest of the nominees for best picture? Sure, it was as good as Capote wasn’t it? Ah, but it was a boxing movie and we just had all the award go to Million Dollar Baby. The curse of the similar genre—the makers ofAnnapolis should have thought of this and chose to focus on the Naval Academy swim team instead if they had Oscar hopes. In any case, in my view Jake Gyllenhaal deserves this award. He was hands down better than Heath Ledger in the film, and I already said Heath was great. He carried this movie. It was a shame to pitch him as the supporting actor, however I understand the studio’s logic. They’d rather have two nominations than one and Heath has more screen time because it takes a lot more footage to get the story of someone who never says anything across than someone who never stops talking. Anyway, Jake may well lose out to Paul Giamatti because otherwise there will be no awards for Cinderella Man. My dark horse award of all the nominations would be to give this award to Matt Dillon, though, because Crash also deserves an award, and if you want to award someone for acting comebacks and acting way beyond previous expectations, Matt Dillon would be the clear winner.

Best animated feature film of the year

• Howl’s Moving Castle


• Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride


• Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Note: Here is one where the choices are so obvious that both the Academy voters and I should be in complete agreement. Did you not see Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride? Well, see it. It is amazing. Of course, I have no idea why Chicken Little didn’t get nominated. You have slots for five films? Or Robots? Or Madagascar? If you put Chicken Little in there, I’d probably have to go for it. I have no clue why it wasn’t more successful. It was hilarious and ingenious nearly to the degree of Monster’s Inc—you put the name Pixar on the same movie and you earn another $100 million on it, as it was it earned, according to The-numbers.com, $133.5 million domestic and $258.5 million worldwide which wasn’t too shabby. Robots also was quite good and deserved, at least, a nomination. I did not see Madagascar, but I heard it was great. So, I don’t know what is up with these other nominations. I think the Academy fell asleep on this one. If you are going to go and create a special category for animated motion pictures because you worry that soon one will beat the a movie with real actors in it for Best Picture, then why would you not nominate five and include some of the best animated films of the year? This makes no sense.