Kathmandu

Three hundred and eleven movies contested the Oscar nominations — 16.5 per cent higher than last year and the first time in 32 years that over 300 movies were vying for the prestigious Oscar nominations.

Here are some interesting bits about this year’s Oscar: “The Oscar Academy mailed 5,798 nomination ballots for the78th Academy Awards (Oscar Awards 2006) to voting members of the Oscar Academy. The Academy informed that completed ballots must reach PricewaterhouseCoopers by 5 pm on January 21, 2006. Those nomination ballots received after the deadline will not be eligible. PricewaterhouseCoopers has been assigned the task of tabulating all nomination and final award ballots. The firm will ensure that all elements of the balloting process are conducted perfectly. Before mailing the ballots, PricewaterhouseCoopers runs a verification to ensure there are no duplicate ballots. Each nomination ballot is numbered.”

Now here’s what the nominations turned out like:

Best actor

Philip Seymour Huffman in Capote, which is about Truman Capote and the writing of an unnerving best seller called In Cold Blood.

Terrence Howard in Hustle And Flow, which is about a pimp and his string of sex workers.

Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain, a story about two cowboys who fall in love. Ledger is a bit of surprise because everyone thought Jake Gyllenhaal was expected to be the cowboy nominated.

Joaquin Phoenix in Walk The Line, a biopic about country and western singer Johnny Cash.

David Strathairn in Good Night And Good Luck another biopic about a radio anchor Ed Murrow who takes on anti-Communist lunatic Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Best Actress

Judi Dench in Mrs. Henderson Presents, a story about an impresario who presents nude shows when they weren’t permitted.

Felicity Huffman in Transamerica, which is a story about sex change.

Keira Knightley in Pride And Prejudice, the Jane Austen novel’s best adaptation yet.

Charlize Theron in North Country, which is a story of a mineworker who leads a sexual-harassment lawsuit against male coworkers.

Reese Witherspoon in Walk The Line playing Johnny Cash’s wife and some say the likely Oscar winner.

Best Picture

Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Good Night And Good Luck, which we’ve talked above and…

… Crash reviewed in this column on the December 3, as being a mind boggling story about a number of people of different ethnicities who are thrown together in Los Angeles.

Munich, which is by Steven Spielberg and is about the Olympic massacres in the 70’s. Spielberg released the movie at the last possible moment so that he could meet the rule that says: “The movie must open in a commercial theatre, for paid admission, in Los Angeles County between January 1, 2005, and midnight December 31, 2005, and run for seven consecutive days”.

Best Director

Ang Lee for Brokeback Mountain

George Clooney for Good Night And Good Luck

Bennett Miller for Capote

Paul Haggis for Crash, and

Spielberg for Munich.

Space prohibits elaboration but watch for George Clooney in Syriana, Paul Giamatti in Cinderella Man and William Hurt in A History Of Violence as supporting actors.

And for Amy Adams in Junebug, Catherine Keener in Capote, Frances McDormand in North Country, Rachel Weisz in The Constant Gardener and Michelle William in Brokeback Mountain.

You now have a working list of must movies add to it Memoirs Of A Geisha, which tied for a nomination as best picture with Crash, Good Night And Good Luck with six nominations each.

Happy viewing.