Oscars

2005 Nominations Tally

After adding quick reactions to all the categories that I predicted nominations in, and before moving towards guessing who the winners might be in a month's time, there is just one thing left to do: tallying the nominations.

Brokeback Mountain was the expected frontrunner with 8 nominations, followed by Crash, Good Night... and Memoirs of a Geisha each with 6 nominations. I would add however that none of Geisha's nominations are in the major categories quite properly reflecting that the movie's merits do not lie in acting, directing or the screenplay. With 5 nominations Capote, Munich and Walk the Line round up the leader's group.

The rest of the crowd includes Constant Gardener, King Kong and Pride and Prejudice with 4 nods (King Kong unfortunately shares the fate of Geisha, with nominations only in technical categories); 3 nominations for Chronicles of Narnia and War of the Worlds. 2 nominations for A History of Violence, Cinderella Man, Hustle and Flow, Mrs Henderson Presents, Syriana, North Country, Transamerica. Finally, there are 11 other movies which each got one nomination and I will not list them since it is unclear if they take pride in that nomination or they are ashamed for not getting more. Actually, one movie that will take lots of pride in its nomination is Junebug with Amy Adams perhaps second favorite in her category.

Who got left out? As always, too many to count. I would mention Sin City who deserved at least a few technical nominations, Upside of Anger with two great acting performances, 2046 who some thought would be the dark foreign horse to compete in the big categories this year.

But all this is said and done and we know the Oscars are 80% politics and sometimes artistic merit. Time to move on to the second part of the game - predicting the winners!