- 2 January, Los Angeles: Despite a box-office surge in December thanks to the success of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and King Kong, total revenue for the year is expected to fall below $9 billion for the first time since 2001 and finish 5 percent below last year's total, with attendance down 6 percent, the Associated Press reported Sunday. The wire service said that the drop was the largest in 20 years. In Europe, the drop was even more severe. The German publication Deutsche Welle reported Sunday that the box office was down a whopping 20 percent in Germany and 10 percent in France, Spain and Italy. However, it said, ticket sales in the U.K. were about the same or slightly higher than in 2004, thanks in large part to a heavy output of locally produced movies. -- IMDb
- 4 January, Los Angeles:
 The Writers Guild of America on Wednesday named its nominees for the year's best screenplays, with surprise hit comedy The 40 Year-Old Virgin joining such Oscar® hopefuls as Good Night, and Good Luck and Brokeback Mountain. The Guild represents U.S. screenwriters, and each year its award nominees are among those who also compete for Oscars®. Virgin, written by Judd Apatow and Steve Carell, was nominated for best original screenplay alongside political drama Good Night, and Good Luck, which was written by George Clooney and Grant Heslov, and the race and class drama Crash, written by Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco. Joining them were Cinderella Man, by Cliff Hollingsworth and Akiva Goldsman about a Depression-era boxer's comeback in the ring, and independent film The Squid and the Whale, from newcomer Noah Baumbach, about two boys dealing with their parents' breakup.
In the category for best adapted screenplay, the Writers Guild nominated Brokeback Mountain, by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, about a gay romance between two cowboys that spans several decades. Brokeback became an early favorite in this year's awards race in Hollywood after it earned seven Golden Globe nominations, more than any other film, in December. Other films crowding the adapted screenplay category included thriller A History of Violence, written by Josh Olson, and Capote, about the famed author Truman Capote and written by Dan Futterman. Also in that grouping were oil and politics drama Syriana from Stephen Gaghan, and another thriller, The Constant Gardener, by Jeffrey Caine, based on a novel by John Le Carre.
On Tuesday, the Writers Guild announced its documentary nominees, which included the runaway hit March of the Penguins. Other documentary contenders were Cowboy Del Amor, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, The Fall of Fujimori and Street Fight. -- Reuters
- 4 January, Los Angeles:
 The Producers Guild of America chose the cowboy romance Brokeback Mountain, the film biographies Capote, Good Night, and Good Luck, and Walk the Line, and the ensemble drama Crash as contenders for its top honor, the Darryl F. Zanuck producer of the year award. The nominations continue an awards-season trend toward intimate, independent stories over big-studio productions. While the Writers Guild often nominates such smaller pictures, the Producers Guild tends to embrace splashier movies, including recent winners such as The Aviator, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and Chicago. This time around, the Producers Guild overlooked such acclaimed blockbusters as Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and King Kong (2005).
Studios did rule the Producers Guild choices for best animated film. Nominees were Chicken Little, Madagascar, Robots, Tim Burton's Corpse Bride and Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Wererabbit. Wednesday's nominations came a day before Hollywood's most prominent trade groups, the Screen Actors Guild and the Directors Guild of America, were to announce their nominees for 2005's best film achievements. The flurry of guild picks were the last major film nominations before Academy Awards nominees are announced Jan. 31. The Producers Guild presents its awards Jan. 22, while the Writers Guild honors will be handed out Feb. 4. -- AP
- 4 January, Melbourne: Members of the Australian film industry have expressed guarded optimism about plans by an international group of actors, directors, producers and investors to create a new major Australian film studio aimed at producing big budget blockbusters. The group was assembled by Bangkok-based investment company Mullis Capital Independent, with the goal of raising as much as $100 million for film productions. One of those backing the project, Simon McKeon, executive chairman of the Melbourne office of investment bank Macquarie Bank, told the Australian Associated Press, "A studio in the U.S. is all about sustainability. It's not just revolving around just one film. We have never really done that in this country before. It requires uncompromising focus on the best that the industry has to offer. If we do that, the funds will flow -- and the returns." -- IMDb
- 5 January, Los Angeles:
 The Screen Actors Guild announced its nominees for its 12th Annual Awards. Ang Lee's gay cowboy romance, Brokeback Mountain, led the feature film categories with four nominations. The complete list of feature nominees:
· Actor: Russell Crowe in Cinderella Man; Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote; Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain; Joaquin Phoenix in Walk the Line; and David Strathairn in Good Night, and Good Luck.
· Actress: Judi Dench in Mrs. Henderson Presents; Felicity Huffman in Transamerica; Charlize Theron in North Country; Reese Witherspoon in Walk the Line; and Ziyi Zhang in Memoirs of a Geisha.
· Supporting actor: Don Cheadle in Crash; George Clooney in Syriana; Matt Dillon in Crash; Paul Giamatti in Cinderella Man; and Jake Gyllenhaal in Brokeback Mountain.
· Supporting actress: Amy Adams in Junebug; Catherine Keener in Capote; Frances McDormand in North Country; Rachel Weisz in The Constant Gardener; and Michelle Williams in Brokeback Mountain.
· Ensemble cast: Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Crash, Good Night, and Good Luck and Hustle & Flow.
The Screen Actors Guild represents film and television actors, and because actors make up a large voting group for Oscars®, the SAG honors are considered a key indicator of which actors may win Oscars®. This year's list of nominees for best movie cast featured five low-budget movies, continuing a trend this year in which many major motion pictures have been shunned by award voters. Moreover, several films that had been expected to compete for awards were shut out of SAG nominations including director Steven Spielberg's Munich and effects-filled King Kong.
Later on Thursday, the Directors Guild of America gives out its nominations, and they also are expected to narrow the list of Oscar® contenders. The SAG awards will be given out in Los Angeles on January 29. The ceremony will be telecast on cable TV networks TNT and TBS.
- 5 January, Beverly Hills:
 Jon Stewart has been set to host the 78th Academy Awards telecast, producer Gil Cates announced today. This will be Stewart's first stint as Oscar® host. "My wife and I watch him every night," Cates said. "Jon is the epitome of a perfect host -- smart, engaging, irreverent and funny." Academy President Sid Ganis echoed Cates' enthusiasm. "I'm very excited," he said. "Stewart is a superb choice -- witty, current, intelligent and charming. What a terrific addition to our roster of great hosts!"
The host of Comedy Central's multiple Emmy- and Peabody-winning "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," Stewart has transformed "The Daily Show" into one of America's most influential and popular television shows. Stewart and the writers of "The Daily Show" also authored America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction at the end of 2004. The book, which was recently awarded the Thurber Prize for American Humor, was a staple on The New York Times best sellers list for 46 consecutive weeks, including 15 consecutive weeks in the #1 position.
"As a performer, I'm truly honored to be hosting the show," said Stewart. "Although, as an avid watcher of the Oscars®, I can't help but be a little disappointed with the choice. It appears to be another sad attempt to smoke out Billy Crystal."
The ceremonies honoring 2005 achievements in motion pictures will be held on Sunday, March 5, 2006. The 78th Annual Academy Awards Presentation will be broadcast live from the Kodak Theatre by the ABC Television Network, beginning at 5:00 p.m. PST. -- Full story: A.M.P.A.S.
- 5 January, Los Angeles:
 Directors Guild of America Vice President Betty Thomas today announced the five nominees for the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film for 2005. "What makes the DGA award truly meaningful to directors is the knowledge that only this award is decided solely by their peers -- the men and women who know the passion and energy that go into each production," said Thomas in announcing the nominations. "My congratulations to all five nominees for demonstrating how vision, when combined with skill and talent, can result in remarkable achievements on the screen." The five nominees for this year's DGA Award:
· George Clooney for Good Night, and Good Luck
· Paul Haggis for Crash
· Ang Lee for Brokeback Mountain
· Bennett Miller for Capote
· Steven Spielberg for Munich
-- DGA
- 5 January, Cannes:
 Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai, who won the Cannes Film Festival's best director award in 1997 and who received nominations in 2000 and 2004, has been named president of this year's Cannes jury. He will be the first Chinese filmmaker to head the panel. In a statement, Wong said, "Each city has its own language. In Cannes, it is the language of dreams. Yet it is difficult to judge one's dream much less compare it to another. There is an old Chinese saying: 'One can never expect the wind, but should always keep one's window open.' Along with my fellow jurors, I look forward to sharing the dreams created by some of the most gifted talents in contemporary cinema. And our goal will be to keep our windows open as wide as possible." The 59th annual festival is scheduled to take place 17-26 May 2006. -- Festival-Cannes.fr
- 7 January, New York: Just like the sneaky, tiny terror of modern literature himself, Truman Capote's biopic caused a ruckus at a National Society of Film Critics powwow today. Capote pulled off a shockeroo come-from-behind victory to win best picture after 6 ballots conducted during the longest voting conclave in memory -- 5 and a half hours -- while 26 critics gathered at Sardi's restaurant in New York City. Other winners include David Cronenberg for A History of Violence (3 ballots) as Best Director; Philip Seymour Hoffman for Capote (first ballot) as Best Actor; Ed Harris, Best Supporting Actor for A History of Violence (2 ballots); Reese Witherspoon Best Actress for Walk the Line (3 ballots); Amy Adams Best Supporting Actress for Junebug (2 ballots); Grizzly Man as Best Nonfiction Picture; Faith Akin's Head-On as Best Foreign-Language Picture; Noah Baumbach's screenplay for The Squid and the Whale; and 2046 for Best Cinematography (Christopher Doyle, Kwan Pun-leung, Lai Yiu-fai). -- Full article: Tom O'Neil, The Envelope
- 7 January, Los Angeles: Steve Pond, writing for The Envelope, explains the Oscar® nomination ballot process used by PricewaterhouseCoopers. He breaks it down to 8 steps/criteria:
· They don't need no stinkin' computers.
· One-sixth plus one vote -- that's all you need.
· Somebody has to like you best or you're out.
· Trust your feelings, Luke.
· Tiny little pictures deserve love too.
· It's better to be loved by few than liked by many.
· The system can even be used to mess with critcs' lists.
· Don't worry, it gets easier.
Read his detailed explanation of the whole process at The Envelope. Pond teams with Chrys Wu at The Envelope to walk us through the Best Picture nominating ballots in another article at The Envelope.
- 10 January, Santa Monica:
 The producers of Brokeback Mountain added more awards to their collection this evening as the film was voted best film of the year at the Broadcast Film Critics Assn.'s 11th annual Critics' Choice Awards. The film's director, Ang Lee, also won the best director award. Co-star Michelle Williams tied with Junebug's Amy Adams for best supporting actress. The best actor award went to Philip Seymour Hoffman for his performance in the title role of Capote. Reese Witherspoon claimed the best actress award for her performance in the Johnnie Cash movie, Walk the Line. And Paul Giamatti was named best supporting actor for his role in Cinderella Man. Use this link to view a complete list of the Critics' Choice winners for 2005. -- IMDb
- 11 January, New York: Michael Haneke's French import
 Caché, which has been showing in New York and Los Angeles, goes into limited release in selected theatres across the country today.
 - 11 January, Beverly Hills: Director-producer-writer Robert Altman has been voted an Honorary Award by the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The Award, an Oscar® statuette, will be presented at the 78th Academy Awards Presentation on March 5, 2006. The Honorary Award will be given to Altman to honor "a career that has repeatedly reinvented the art form and inspired filmmakers and audiences alike." Altman has directed 37 films, produced 27 and written 16 of them. He has received five Academy Award nominations for directing -- for M*A*S*H, Nashville, The Player, Short Cuts and Gosford Park -- as well as two additional nominations as a producer of Best Picture nominees Nashville and Gosford Park -- but has never taken home the Oscar®. "The board was taken with Altman's innovation, his redefinition of genres, his invention of new ways of using the film medium and his reinvigoration of old ones," said Academy President Sid Ganis. "He is a master film maker and well deserves this honor." -- Full article: A.M.P.A.S.
- 14 January, Beverly Hills:
 Shelley Winters, the forceful, outspoken star who graduated from blond bombshell parts to dramas, winning Academy Awards® as supporting actress in The Diary of Anne Frank and A Patch of Blue, has died. She was 85. Winters died of heart failure early today at The Rehabilitation Centre of Beverly Hills, her publicist Dale Olson said. She had been hospitalized in October after suffering a heart attack. -- Full story: AP
 - 16 January, Beverly Hills: A heady mix of political drama and romance -- both gay and straight -- won major Golden Globe Awards on Monday with Brokeback Mountain earning the best film drama prize and Walk the Line best musical or comedy.
Brokeback walked off with four Golden Globes, more than any movie, including best director for Ang Lee, screenplay and song. The movie entered the show a favorite among its rivals after having been nominated in a leading seven categories, and it now becomes a clear front-runner for Oscars®.
But Walk the Line, about the long love affair between singers Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash, may be a close No. 2. It earned three Golden Globes and won trophies for stars Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon as best actor and actress in musical or comedy, respectively.
Felicity Huffman was named best actress in a film drama playing a man on the verge of a sex change in Transamerica, and Philip Seymour Hoffman was named best film actor in a movie drama for his role as author Truman Capote in Capote. Early in the evening George Clooney was named best supporting actor in a film playing a veteran CIA agent in Middle East oil drama Syriana, and British actress Rachel Weisz was named best supporting actress in a film drama for her portrayal of a social activist in Africa in thriller The Constant Gardener. The Palestinian film Paradise Now, which looks at why suicide bombers take their own lives and kill others, was named best foreign language film.
Golden Globe winners are chosen annually by about 85 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and are widely watched as a measure of which movies will later vie for Oscars®, the top U.S. film honors voted on by some 6,000 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. -- Full article: Bob Tourtellotte, Reuters
- 18 January, Park City:
 The Sundance Film Festival kicks off tomorrow with a slate of 120 movies that highlight independent filmmaking and seek to distance the festival from the commercialism that has surrounded it in recent years. Backed by Robert Redford's Sundance Institute for film, the festival has become the top event for U.S. independent filmmakers and last year, it expanded the show to international movies. This year, the 10-day-long celebrity and commercial carnival will again be in Park City, Utah, the mountain town east of Salt Lake City where the festival is held. But the movies, led by opening night's Friends with Money from director Nicole Holofcener, will not reflect the circus of life, so much as they will everyday life. Some dramatic works winning early buzz are Forgiven, a story of a small-town politician embroiled in a scandal written and directed by Paul Fitzgerald, and Stephanie Daley, about a woman who denies killing her child and the psychologist hired to judge her legal competency, written and directed by Hilary Brougher. -- Full story: Bob Tourtellotte, Reuters (Sundance web site)
- 18 January, Berlin: Indian producer Yash Chopra, Hollywood cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, and American visual artist Matthew Barney (the husband of singer/actress Björk) are among those added to the jury at this year's Berlin Film Festival, the Berlinale. It had previously been announced that British actress Charlotte Rampling would preside over the panel. Other jurors include South Korean actress Lee Young Hae, Dutch director Marleen Gorris, German actor Armin Mueller-Stahl, and veteran Hollywood producer Fred Roos. Selection for the Competition programme of the 56th Berlinale is nearly complete. Out of the total of 26 films, 23 have been confirmed. Besides the nine films that had already been announced, 14 more films have been confirmed, including 11 world premieres. The festival will open on 9 February with Marc Evans' drama Snow Cake, in which Alan Rickman and Sigourney Weaver play the lead roles. -- IMDb (Berlinale web site)
- 19 January, London:
 No views might have been bad news for Munich. With most voters of the so-called British Oscars® reportedly unable to watch Steven Spielberg's docudrama about the aftermath of the terrorism-marred 1972 Summer Olympics because of a DVD screener snafu, the movie was absent from Thursday's nominee field. Hometown favorite The Constant Gardener had better luck with the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). The U.K.-produced John Le Carre thriller led the way with 10 nominations, including one for Best Film. Golden Globes favorite Brokeback Mountain added more notches to its belt with nine nods, including ones for its usual suspects -- Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams and director Ang Lee. Crash, an all-star parable about racism in Los Angeles, also scored nine nominations.
Though on the downside of its own theatrical run, Good Night, and Good Luck remains a hot ticket on the awards show circuit. George Clooney's take on CBS Newsman Edward R. Murrow is up for six BAFTAs, including Best Film and Best Director. Clooney is a double nominee for Best Supporting Actor, for his role as CBS news producer Fred Friendly in Good Night and, as was his golden lot at the Globes, for his paunchy turn in Syriana. In addition to Good Night, and Good Luck and The Constant Gardener, the BAFTA Best Film field is rounded out by Brokeback Mountain, Crash and Capote.
Other top nominees are Pride & Prejudice and Memoirs of a Geisha, with six each. This is Geisha's best award-show showing yet. Like the Oscars®, the BAFTAs honor the craft fields, enabling the sweeping Geisha to pick up nominations for cinematography, production design and costume design.
The 2006 Orange British Academy Film Awards will be handed out on 19 Feburary. -- Full story and a complete list of the nominees: Joal Ryan, E!Online (BAFTA web site)
- 23 January, Los Angeles: Coming down the stretch towards the Oscars® on March 5, Brokeback Mountain increased its lead Sunday night by winning top honors from the Producers Guild of America. ("No film is even second," remarked Time magazine film critic Richard Corliss in the current edition.) Diana Ossana and James Schamus received the Darryl F. Zanuck producer of the year award. The PGA also handed out its first animated feature award to Claire Jennings and Nick Park for their Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Wererabbit, released by DreamWorks. After winning most of the top awards from critics' groups, Brokeback now begins to compete for the guild awards (Writers, Screen Actors & Directors), usually the most accurate predictors of Oscar® winners, since many of the guild members are also members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. -- IMDb
- 23 January, Park City: Little Miss Sunshine, the film that has generated the most buzz -- some say the only buzz -- at the Sundance Film Festival, was bought by Fox Searchlight over the weekend for a reported $10 million following intense bidding. Daily Variety reported that the Fox specialty unit also agreed to pay the producers ten percent of the film's gross. "This is what Sundance is all about," Searchlight President Peter Rice told the trade publication after signing the deal. "The film got a rapturous response. People broke into applause during the movie, and people were crying and laughing. For first-time directors, the film is made with such an assured hand." -- IMDb
- 23 January, Cannes: The Cannes Film Festival announced over the weekend that it had chosen Sony-Columbia's The Da Vinci Code, based on the Dan Brown best-seller and starring Tom Hanks, to open the festival on May 17. The film, directed by Ron Howard, will screen out of competition. Meanwhile, the conservative Catholic group Opus Dei, which figures prominently in the Dan Brown tale, has threatened to take legal action against Columbia and the film's producers. In a statement, the group said: "To present a member of Opus Dei as a killer when we devote our lives to helping others is unfair. We are also pained at how Opus Dei is presented as a secretive cult. This film portrays us as criminals who have kept secret a lie for 2,000 years. This isn't true." A spokesman for the group later denied that Opus Dei would pursue legal action against the film. -- IMDb
- 28 January, Los Angeles:
 Taiwanese filmmaker Ang Lee won the top prize from the Directors Guild of America on Saturday for his work on Brokeback Mountain, the film that has already swept many key awards. Lee beat out George Clooney for Good Night, and Good Luck, Paul Haggis for Crash, Bennett Miller for Capote and Steven Spielberg for Munich.
The DGA Award winner and the Oscar® winner for director have matched in 51 of the last 57 years, including last year, when Clint Eastwood won both trophies for Million Dollar Baby. Lee was one of the exceptions, winning the DGA Award in 2001 for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but losing on Oscar night to Steven Soderbergh for Traffic. (Soderbergh had also directed Julia Roberts to a Best Actress-winning performance in his second director's nomination that year, Erin Brockovich.)
Oscar® nominations will be unveiled on Tuesday, with the winners announced during the 78th annual Academy Awards on March 5. -- Full article: Reuters
- 29 January, Park City: Two films examining immigrant life in America, the Hispanic teen drama Quinceanera and the Sudanese refugee documentary God Grew Tired of Us, won top honors Saturday at the Sundance Film Festival. Quinceanera, written and directed by Wash Westmoreland and Richard Glatzer and featuring a cast loaded with newcomers and unknowns, won both the festival's jury prize and the audience award for U.S. dramatic films, the latter chosen in voting by Sundance movie-goers. Starring Emily Rios in a striking film debut as a girl ostracized by her family after she becomes pregnant shortly before her 15th birthday, Quinceanera offers a culture-clash portrait of Los Angeles' Echo Park area, traditionally a Hispanic neighborhood that has become a trendy enclave.
Christopher Quinn's God Grew Tired of Us, which follows three Sudanese boys adjusting to life in the United States after the bloody civil war in their homeland, received both the jury prize and audience award for U.S. documentaries.
Another immigrant story, the Mexican film De Nadie, won the audience award for world-cinema documentary. Directed by Tin Dirdamal, the film traces a Central American woman's 1,300-mile journey north in search of a new life in the United States. A special jury prize for independent vision was awarded to director So Yong Kim's In Between Days, about a newly arrived Korean girl trying to find her place in America. -- Full story: David Germain, AP
- 31 January, Beverly Hills: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the Oscar® nominations for films released during 2005. As expected, Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain led all contenders with 8 nominations. However, it was closely followed by the other four Best Picture nominees, Capote (5 nominations), Crash (6 nominations), Good Night, and Good Luck (6 nominations) and Munich (5 nominations). So, it looks like this year's Awards can go one of two ways: Either Academy voters will give Brokeback a sweep of all the major Awards, or they'll distribute their praise over a wide list of excellent films. Use this link to view our list of all the nominations.
- 4 February, Los Angeles: The writers of Brokeback Mountain. the sweeping tale about the longtime forbidden romance between rugged ranch hands, won best adapted screenplay Saturday night at the 58th annual Writers Guild Awards. The screenplay was written by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana and based on a short story by Annie Proulx. The film received a leading eight Oscar® nominations. The writers of the ensemble drama Crash, which follows the lives of a cast of characters over a chaotic 36-hour period in Los Angeles, won for best original screenplay. The screenplay was written by Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco based on a Haggis story.
- 4 February, Los Angeles: Forget all the high-tech computer-generated stuff. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, produced using the claymation technique introduced in animated movies nearly a hundred years ago and popularized 60 years ago in George Pal's "Puppetoons," swept the 33rd annual Annie Awards this evening. The film received 10 awards, including best feature, beating the computer animated films Chicken Little and Madagascar. Creators Nick Park and Steve Box received the directing awards. -- IMDb
- 9 February, Berlin: The 56th annual Berlin International Film Festival opens today (Thursday) with a screening of Snow Cake -- particularly appropriate since it is snowing in Berlin -- starring Alan Rickman and Sigourney Weaver, who are expected to be on hand for the screening at the Berlinale Palast. Among the 26 films participating in the Golden Bear competition are Robert Altman's A Prairie Home Companion and Sidney Lumet's Find Me Guilty. A vastly enlarged European Film Market is opening concurrently with the festival, with about 250 exhibitors -- up from 165 a year ago. -- IMDb
- 13 February, Beverly Hills:
 Fifteen of the 20 nominees in the acting categories were among the more than 100 nominees from 24 categories who gathered at noon for the traditional pre-Academy Awards fete when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honored this year's Oscar® contenders at its annual Nominees Luncheon on Monday at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.
From the Leading Actor and Actress categories Philip Seymour Hoffman, Terrence Howard, Heath Ledger, Joaquin Phoenix, Felicity Huffman, Keira Knightley, Charlize Theron and Reese Witherspoon attended. Amy Adams, Catherine Keener, Michelle Williams, George Clooney, Matt Dillon, Jake Gyllenhaal and William Hurt represented the supporting categories.
This was the 25th time that the Academy has hosted the Nominees Luncheon. The first was held on March 9, 1982. -- A.M.P.A.S.
- 18 February, Berlin:
 A moving drama about the lasting impact of the systematic rape of Bosnian women by Serb soldiers during the Balkans conflict was the surprise winner of the Berlin Film Festival's top prize on Saturday. The low-budget Grbavica, by Sarajevo director Jasmila Zbanic, took the Golden Bear for best film at the conclusion of the 56th Berlin festival, in keeping with the annual event's reputation for showcasing hard-hitting, arthouse cinema. -- Full article: Reuters
 - 20 February, London: Brokeback Mountain, already a hot favorite for next month's Hollywood Oscars®, was the big star of the night at the British Film Academy awards on Sunday, scooping four BAFTAs. The gay cowboy love story won the coveted Best Film Award, Ang Lee was picked as Best Director, Jake Gyllenhaal was chosen as Best Supporting Actor and it also won the Best Adapted Screenplay statuette. "I didn't have a specific message. I wasn't trying to push any political issues. We are dealing here with love," Lee told Reuters Television before accepting his award. Gyllenhaal, flabbergasted by his triumph, shook his head in astonishment and said: "Who would have thought this would happen... It moved me like no other love story I have ever seen," he said of the film for which he is also Oscar-nominated. The film, which had taken Lee seven years to bring to the screen, faced tough competition in a strong year from Capote, The Constant Gardener, Crash and Good Night, and Good Luck to be picked as Best Film.
Philip Seymour Hoffman took home the Best Actor BAFTA for his mesmerising portrayal of writer Truman Capote in Capote and Reese Witherspoon was selected as Best Actress for her role in the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line. -- Full story: Paul Majendie, Reuters
- 22 February, Beverly Hills:
 78th Academy Awards® Telecast producer Gil Cates and production designer Roy Christopher revealed the set design of the March 5 Oscar telecast.
"When designing the Oscars, I try to make the current show as different from the year before as possible," said Christopher. "Last year's show was distinguished by a hi-tech, 'cutting-edge' style. So this year, there's nothing hi-tech - it's a no-holds-barred return to classic Hollywood glamour, paying homage to old movie theaters." "I wanted to celebrate the movies and to include great movie houses and screens," said Cates. "So Roy went back to the classic ornate movie houses for his inspiration, which, I think, is superbly reflected in the final design."
"I have always loved the movie theaters of the '30s, '40s and '50s," Christopher said. "The man who designed many of them was S. Charles Lee, who was remarkably imaginative and architecturally daring, making movie theaters in styles ranging from the ornate Hollywood baroque to the sleek art-moderne. His spaces were exciting places that upon entering made you feel that something extraordinary was going to happen."
This is the 17th time that Christopher has designed the Oscar set, 11 with telecast producer Gil Cates. Christopher has received 35 Emmy nominations, 16 of them for his work on the Oscar telecast, for which he has won six Emmy Awards. -- Article and photo from A.M.P.A.S.
 - 22 February, Beijing: Calling it "one of the more bizarre orders" from China's film and broadcast watchdog, Daily Variety reported today (Wednesday) that henceforth movies and TV shows featuring live humans together with animated figures are banned in China. The trade publication cited a report appearing in the government-operated Xinhua News Agency that referred to an order by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television issued on Feb. 15. The order stated that "human live-action, so-called animation pieces will not receive distribution or distribution licenses." The reason, the order said cryptically, was that such films jeopardize "the broadcast order of homemade animation and mislead their development." -- IMDb
- 2 March, New Delhi: An Indian film maker has attempted a world record by finishing a 74-minute feature, loosely based on Terri Schiavo's protracted right-to-die battle that gripped the United States in 2005, in 2 hours and 14 minutes. Engineer-turned-director Jayaraj's Atbhutam (Wonder) tries to capture the drama of mercy-killing in the last hour-and-a-half in the life of a US-based Indian-born playwright suffering from pancreatic cancer. The record-breaking attempt has been forwarded to the Guinness Book of World Records with authentication letters from Ramanaidu, himself listed as the most prolific producer with 110 films, and an official from the Andhra Pradesh state government, who were present for filming. -- Full story: Madhu Soman, Reuters
- 2 March, Los Angeles:
 Two rancorous lawsuits were filed in Los Angeles Wednesday by persons involved in the production of Crash, which is nominated in six Oscar® categories, including best picture. One the the lawsuits was filed by Bob Yari, an independent film financier, who charged that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Producers Guild of America unlawfully denied him a producer's credit on the movie, thereby preventing him from receiving "the ultimate professional acclaim, and the accompanying creative and economic benefits, to which his labors entitle him." Yari was reportedly the first person to agree to invest in Crash and to arrange other financing. Neither the academy or the Producers Guild would discuss the lawsuits.
Separately Cathy Schulman and Tom Nunan, two of the producers of Crash, charged that Yari failed to pay them more than $2 million in fees connected with the movie. "This action arises from the dark underbelly of Hollywood," their lawsuit said, "where an outsider, armed with enormous wealth from a career in another field, can insinuate himself into position to take recognition and money away from the people actually responsible for the creation and execution of profitable and award-winning entertainment content." Yari called the complaint "a shameful misrepresentation of the facts." -- IMDb
- 3 March, New York:
 One of the features on this evening's "ABC World News Tonight" raised the question of whether Oscar®-nominated films reflect the taste of the average filmgoer or the more liberal taste of Hollywood film professionals. The story pointed out that the combined gross box-office receipts of the five films nominated for Best Picture for 2005 do not total one-half of the receipts of last year's most popular film, Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith. Let's look at the performance of past Best Picture winners at the box office and see how they measured up against the top-grossing movies of their year of release.
Of the 27 Best Picture winners since 1979 (the year that the IMDb began tracking the top-grossing films of each year), 5 were the #1 grossing films during their year of release; 5 BP winners placed #2-#5; 4 placed from #6 to #10; and 13 did not place in the top 10. Of the 14 winning films that did place in the top 10, nine of them were released in the first twelve years that we're examining (1979 to 1990); in the 15 years since 1990, only 5 BP winners placed in the top 10. This would seem to bear out ABC's thesis that the Academy has begun to focus on smaller, independent, less "popular" films over the past few years.
In an interview used in the story, film historian Robert Osborne pointed out that the 6,000+ voting members of the Academy are moviegoes just like everyone else. He stated that the Academy recognizes what it deems to be outstanding achievement in the industry, not what is necessarily popular with the public. We can only be grateful that he did not get further into the whole "art versus commerce" argument.
Finally, almost all of the moviegoers whose comments were used in the ABC News story stated that they had not seen any of this year's Best Picture nominees. It follows that, since so many of the acting, directing, writing and craft nominations were from those nominated films, that the majority of the filmgoing public did not see any of them either.
- 5 March, Los Angeles:
 In addition to accusations of being out of touch with "middle America" (see story above), the Academy can now add accusations of being out of touch with the entire film industry. In a surprise upset, Crash snatched the coveted Best Picture Award from Brokeback Mountain, a film that everyone in Hollywood -- and the rest of America -- expected to win the Oscar®. Never before in Academy history has a film that has been selected as Best Picture by virtually every major trade and critics' organization not won Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Crash's upset provided a dramatic climax to an Awards Ceremony in which the only other memorable high point was the selection of "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" (from Hustle & Flow) as Best Original Song. The theme of the evening was "A Return to Glamour," and the lavish stage setting harkened back to an earlier Hollywood Age. Chuck Workman's montage tributes highlighted Westerns, biographies, films-noirs, "issues" films and epics. But this year's nominated films were, for the most part, produced by independent companies, not the big Hollywood studios that dominated the Oscars® in years past.
Explore TheOscarSite's coverage of this year's Awards by returning to the home page and using the links there. You may want to pay special attention to our page on this year's Ceremonies. As far as we've been able to determine, this is the only place on the Internet where you can see who won, who lost and who presented the Awards. It's a lot quicker than watching your TiVo and skimming through all those commercials!
- 10 March, Puertollano, Spain:
 Pedro Almodóvar premieres his latest film, Volver, starring Penélope Cruz, Carmen Maura, Lola Dueñas, Blanca Portillo, Yohana Cobo, Chus Lampreave, Antonio de la Torre, and Carlos Blanco. Volver is Almodóvar's passionate tribute to the community of women -- living and dead -- who nurtured him. Through the transformative power of his art -- carried on the wings of Alberto Iglesias' exhilarating score -- we feel their presence. After making the circuit of international film festivals, the film is scheduled to be released in the US by Sony Pictures Classics later this year in November.
 - 28 March, London: Marlon Brando's first screen test, made in 1947 for Rebel Without a Cause, a film made eight years later with James Dean in the starring role, has been discovered. In an interview with the London Times, Darwin Porter, author of the biography Brando Unzipped, said, "Screen tests preserved of the great stars are usually pretty awful... This one had me mesmerized. I would have done everything to hire him. From the moment Brando enters the room in the test, he is lightning on legs. There is a magnetic appeal to him, as he is at the peak of his physical beauty and virile power -- both as a man and an actor." The screen test opens with a shot of a clap board bearing the movie's title and Brando's name plus the following details: "Age: 23, height: 5'10'', weight: 170, hair: brown, experience: stage 3 years."
The rare footage will be included as an extra in a DVD set of films based on works by playwright Tennessee Williams that features a restored A Streetcar Named Desire (1951, which starred Brando), Baby Doll (1956), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1962), Sweet Bird of Youth (1962) and The Night of the Iguana (1964). Scheduled to be released on May 2, and priced at $48.29, you may use this link to pre-order the 8-disc deluxe set. -- IMDb
- 7 April, New York:
 The Writers Guild of America has released its list of the top 101 greatest screenplays. Heading the list is Casablanca (1943), by Oscar®-winning twins Julius J. & Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch, based on the play "Everybody Comes to Rick's" by Murray Burnett and Joan Alison. In the second spot is Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo's The Godfather (1972), based on Puzo's novel. The remainder of the top 10, in descending order: Chinatown, by Robert Towne; Citizen Kane, by Orson Welles & Herman J. Mankiewicz; All About Eve, by Joseph L. Mankiewicz (based on "The Wisdom of Eve," a short story and radio play by Mary Orr); Woody Allen's Annie Hall; Sunset Blvd., by Charles Brackett & Billy Wilder; Paddy Chayefsky's Network; Some Like It Hot, by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond; and Coppola & Puzo's 1974 sequel, The Godfather, Part II
. Visit wgaeast.com to view the rest of their list.
 - 13 April, New York: After debuting as a small festival focusing on independent films and intended to attract people to lower Manhattan following the trauma of 9/11, Robert De Niro's Tribeca Film Festival is turning into a showcase for major studio releases. On Wednesday, the festival announced that it will premiere the Tom Cruise thriller Mission: Impossible III on May 3. In a statement, Jane Rosenthal, co-founder of the festival, said, "Having the support of Tom Cruise and Paramount is a gift to us and the community." The festival had previously announced that it would open with Universal's United 93, about the 9/11 flight that crashed in Pennsylvania before reaching its target in Washington, and that it would also screen Warner Bros.' big-budget Poseidon on May 6. In reporting on the big-budget films' presentation at the festival, Daily Variety commented today that it reflects the "fact that de Niro and Rosenthal, while Gotham [New York]-based, are Hollywood power players who can use clout to get pics that other fest programmers can't." The previous Mission: Impossible sequel opened in 2000 at the Cannes Film Festival, which this year runs almost in tandem with Tribeca. -- IMDb
- 13 April, Tokyo: In the apparent belief that if music can enhance emotional scenes in movies, odors can only intensify the experience, a Japanese company is adding seven different smells to parts of The New World when it opens in Tokyo next month. Unlike Mike Todd Jr.'s Smell-o-Vision, which had critics holding their noses when it was introduced in 1960, the new service from NTT Communications Corp. will not try to match the fragrances being emitted under theater seats to the objects on the screen. Instead, the scents are intended to enhance the senses, a floral perfume to accompany a love scene, a mixture of peppermint and rosemary for a sad one, etc. (One wag suggested that the entire movie ought to be accompanied by the smell of roast turkey.) The company is also producing a $620 home version that can be synchronized with DVDs. -- IMDb
- 17 April, Beverly Hills: The 79th Annual Academy Awards will be held on Sunday, February 25, 2007, Academy President Sid Ganis announced today. The telecast will again originate from the Kodak Theatre at the Hollywood & Highland Center in Hollywood, and will be televised live by the ABC Television Network.
The 2006 show was moved to the first Sunday in March to avoid going head-to-head against NBC's broadcast of the Winter Olympics' closing ceremonies. Ganis announced the key Oscar® dates, noting that the February show means nominations and the balloting process will take place earlier than they did this year. Oscar® nominees will be announced Jan 23. Final ballots will be mailed Jan. 31 and will be due Feb. 20.
-- A.M.P.A.S.
- 20 April, Cannes:
 The Cannes Film Festival has announced the 19 films that will be in competition for the prestigious Palme d'Or. As previously announced, Ron Howard's The Da Vinci Code (US) will open the Festival, out of competition, on 17 May. Competing for the top prize in feature films (in directors' alphabetical order) will be Pedro Almodóvar's adventure-comedy Volver, featuring Penélope Cruz and Carmen Maura (Spain); Andrea Arnold's first film, Red Road (UK); La Raison du plus faible, written by, directed by and featuring Lucas Belvaux (France); Rachid Bouchareb's Indigènes (France); Iklimler, directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Turkey); Sofia Coppola's historical drama Marie-Antoinette (US); Juventude Em Marcha, written and directed by Pedro Costa (Portugal); El Laberinto del Fauno (Pan's Labyrinth), written and directed by Guillermo del Toro (Spain/Mexico); Bruno Dumont's Flandres (France); Nicole Garcia's Selon Charlie (France); Quand j'étais chanteur, directed by Xavier Giannoli and featuring Cécile De France and Gérard Depardieu (France); Alejandro González Iñárritu's Babel, with Cate Blanchett, Brad Pitt and Gael García Bernal (US); Laitakaupungin valot, written and directed by Aki Kaurismäki (Finland); Richard Kelly's Southland Tales, with The Rock, Seann William Scott and Sarah Michelle Gellar (US); Fast Food Nation, Richard Linklater's ensemble piece that features Patricia Arquette, Luis Guzmán, Ethan Hawke, Sara Hickman, Greg Kinnear, Kris Kristofferson, Avril Lavigne and Esai Morales (US); Ken Loach's The Wind That Shakes the Barley (France/Ireland/UK); Lou Ye's Summer Palace (China); Nanni Moretti's Il Caimano (Italy); and Paolo Sorrentino's L'Amico de famiglia (Italy). The Festival closes on 28 May with another film shown out of competition: Tony Gatlif's Transylvania (France).
This year's jury for feature films consists of Chinese director Wong Kar Wai, President, actresses Monica Bellucci, Helena Bonham Carter and Ziyi Zhang, actors Samuel L. Jackson and Tim Roth, and directors Lucrecia Martel, Patrice Leconte and Elia Suleiman. -- Official web site (English): www.festival-cannes.fr
- 22 April, Dallas:
 The 36th Annual USA Film Festival begins in Dallas next weekend, 28 April, and continues through 4 May. During the week, the Festival will exhibit thirty-four features, documentaries, short films and tributes. Highlights include Aurora Borealis (2005, US) - James C.E. Burke's drama features Joshua Jackson, Donald Sutherland, Louise Fletcher and Juliette Lewis; C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005, Canada) - The official Canadian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 2005 Academy Awards, Jean-Marc Vallée's drama chronicles the extraordinary lives of ordinary people in search of love and happiness in the 60s and 70s Montreal; Wristcutters: A Love Story (2006, US) - Goran Dukic's fantasy is set in a strange afterlife way station that has been reserved for people who have committed suicide.; The Big White (2005, Multi-national) - In a film remniscent of the Coen brothers, Mark Mylod directs this story of an Alaskan travel agent (Robin Williams) who has his eye on a frozen corpse, which just happens to be sought after by two hitmen (Tim Blake Nelson and W. Earl Brown). Also features Holly Hunter, Giovanni Ribisi and Woody Harrelson; Brooklyn Lobster (2005, US) - Danny Aiello heads the cast of this comedy/drama that is written and directed by Kevin Jordan. Based on true events, it's set in Giorgio's Lobster Farm, a seafood tradition in Brooklyn for over 65 years; Edmond (2005, US) - William H. Macy stars in David Mamet's adaptation of his stage play that tells the story of one man's descent from upstanding citizen to violent sociopath. Directed by Stuart Gordon, the film also features Joe Mantegna and Julia Stiles; The Lost City (2005, US) - Set in Havana, Cuba, during the 50s, a club owner (Andy Garcia) is caught in the turbulent transition from the oppressive regime of Batista to the Marxist government of Fidel Castro. Garcia directs this film, which also features Dustin Hoffman and Bill Murray; Pope Dreams (2006, US) - Written and directed by Patrick Hogan, this is a coming-of-age tale about a young man (Phillip Vaden) at one of life's crossroads; and Reinas (Queens) (2005, Spain) - A romantic comedy written and directed by Manuel Gómez Pereira, in which five mothers cope with the drama that surrounds their gay sons at a mass wedding. -- Official web site: www.usafilmfestival.com
- 25 April, New York:
 Crash, which received the Oscar® for best movie of the year, crashed and burned when it came to the MTV Movie Awards. The movie received not a single nomination in any category. Instead, the list of nominees for best film included King Kong, Sin City, Batman Begins, The 40-Year Old Virgin, and Wedding Crashers. (Brokeback Mountain also didn't make the list of nominations for best film, either, but Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger, the film's stars, were nominated for "best kiss.") MTV made numerous changes in its award categories, becoming the first to drop gender divisions in the acting categories. Instead nominees were grouped under the category "best performance." An award will also be presented to the top student filmmaker. The awards show will take place in Culver City on June 3 and air on MTV five days later. -- IMDb
Use this link to view all the MTV Movie Awards nominees.
- 8 May, New York: Argentine director Tristan Bauer's Iluminados por el fuego (Blessed by Fire), won the top award at this year's Tribeca Film Festival. The film, about the lives of soldiers who fought in the Falklands War, won the Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature. Another war-themed film, Deborah Scranton's The War Tapes, with footage shot in Iraq by members of the New Hampshire National Guard, won the award for best documentary feature. -- IMDb
- 18 May, Cannes:
 France, which plays a vital part in the plot of The Da Vinci Code -- it's where the story begins, with a murder at the Louvre -- played a vital part in the promotion of the movie Wednesday night as it opened at the Cannes Film Festival, with its stars and director providing the essential flash. As the BBC observed, "Premieres are not about films, they are about the stars." And indeed, things appeared to go far better at the official screening than they did a day earlier at a press preview, when many critics laughed and jeered during several serious scenes and made no attempt to disguise their contempt for it as they left the theater. But, as Daily Variety commented in today's (Thursday) edition: "The Cannes aud[ience] is a tough crowd. ... International critics and reporters often arrive on the Croisette with appetites for the latest auteur masterpiece, not a Hollywood tentpole." Meanwhile, Reuters reported that advance ticket sales have been strong in advance of Friday's official opening of the film. The online ticket seller Fandango said The Da Vinci Code accounted for 78 percent of its sales, and MovieTickets.com said it has already sold 10 times more tickets to Code than it had for Mission: Impossible III at this time two weeks ago. All the while, the relentless hype for the movie continues, with television shows and newspapers running endless features about claims made in the movie about the divinity of Christ -- or lack of it -- and religious protests being mobilized in seemingly every country where movie theaters and Christian churches coexist. -- IMDb
- 18 May, Cannes:
 Summer Palace, the only Asian film selected for the Cannes Film Festival competition, is being withdrawn after being rejected by Chinese censors. The film had reportedly been accepted by festival officials before it was submitted to the country's Film Bureau. At a news conference, Nai An, the film's producer, said that director Lou Ye was returning to Beijing in hopes of winning a reversal of the film board's decision. The film, about a student couple separated following the 1989 pro-democracy protests, could still be shown out of competition. The film bureau denied that content had anything to do with the decision, saying "it has technical problems" with light and sound. In 2000 Lou was barred from making films for two years when he entered his film Suzhou he (Suzhou River) in several film festivals without receiving state approval. But, in 2003, his Purple Butterfly was shown in competition at Cannes. -- IMDb
- 25 May, Charlotte: Paul Newman says that he wants to make one last movie, and he wants to make it with Robert Redford. The 81-year-old Newman told reporters Wednesday at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte, NC, where he is attending Friday's premiere of Disney-Pixar's Cars, "Redford and I are working on something, but it's not by any means a slam dunk. ...We're working on a script very hard." He emphasized that it was not going to be a sequel to the 1969 classic Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid since the characters that he and Redford played die at the end. Asked by one reporter which of his films he would recommend to a kid who wasn't acquainted with his work, he replied, "The Silver Chalice," his 1954 debut. "Then he'd know what bad really was." -- IMDb
- 29 May, Cannes:
 Veteran British director Ken Loach has won the Cannes Film Festival's top Palme d'Or award for his film about the Irish Civil War, The Wind that Shakes the Barley. Loach's films had been selected for the Cannes competition seven times previously, but he had never won, and critics had regarded Barley as a darkhorse possibility at best to win the prestigious film honor. Loach, an outspoken critic of the Anglo-American occupation of Iraq, accepted the award by remarking, "Maybe if we tell the truth about the past, we can tell the truth about the present. ... The wars that we have seen, the occupations that we see throughout the world -- people finally cannot turn away from that. It's very exciting to be able to deal with this in films, and not just be a complement to the popcorn." Critics had expected Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar's Volver to take the Palme; as it turned out, the jury awarded Almodóvar the festival's Best Screenplay award and gave the entire female cast of the movie, led by Penélope Cruz, its Best Actress award. (The male cast of the French film Indigenes won the Best Actor award.) After the ceremonies, Almodóvar told reporters, "If you're presenting a movie in Cannes and you see that you are the favorite, this is a curse. You're not going to get the Palme d'Or." The Grand Prix award, considered the runner-up prize to the Palme d'Or, went to another anti-war film, Flandres, from French director Bruno Dumont. Alejandro González Iñárritu took the Best Director award for his film, Babel, starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. -- IMDb
- 15 June, Los Angeles:
 Frank Capra's 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life, starring Jimmy Stewart, has been voted the most inspirational film of all time in balloting by the American Film Institute. The rest of the Top Five: 2. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962); 3. Schindler's List (1993); 4. Rocky (1976); 5. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). The vote was conducted among 1,500 filmmakers, actors, critics and other movie professionals. Use this link to view the list of the top 100 most inspirational films.
 - 15 June, Venice: Veteran actress Catherine Deneuve has been named to head the jury at this year's Venice Film Festival. In a statement, Venice artistic director Marco Mueller and Biennale president Davide Croff remarked, "Her magical charisma and her knowledge of cinema will give serenity and balance to the jury." The festival organizers also announced that the festival, which runs from 30 August to 9 September, will host the world premiere on 7 September of Kenneth Branagh's English-language adaptation of Mozart's The Magic Flute. -- IMDb
- 17 June, Shanghai:
 The 9th Shanghai International Film Festival opened on Saturday, drawing Hollywood stars to China's financial capital as the country's cultural life begins to catch up with its economic boom. Jackie Chan, Nicole Kidman, Luc Besson, Andie MacDowell and Liam Neeson were among those due at the 1930s-era Shanghai Concert Hall. So too was 29-year-old Zhou Xun, star of The Little Chinese Seamstress and this year's The Banquet.
The opening ceremony will include a screening of 2005's The White Countess, a love story about a blind American diplomat and a Russian refugee living in 1930s Shanghai written by Kazuo Ishiguro and directed by James Ivory. Seventeen films will vie for the Golden Goblet, the festival's top prize. Among those on the shortlist are two Chinese offerings, The Music Box, by late Shanghai director Chen Yifei, and The Forest Ranger, directed by Qi Jian.
Under Mao Zedong's rein Shanghai's cosmopolitan image as the "Pearl of the East" ended and its vibrant film industry was stifled by ideological zeal that stamped out bourgeois offerings in favor of more socialist realist fare. While Chinese cinema has witnessed a revival in the post-Mao era, the content of local movies is still vetted by government censors and the numbers of foreign films approved for distribution is tightly controlled. -- Reuters
- 5 July, Beverly Hills: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which has often been accused of being an old-man's club that is out of touch with the sensibilities of young filmmakers, has invited 120 actors, directors, producers, composers and other young industry members to fill the vacancies of those who have died or retired. Among those invited to join the group that hands out the Oscars® each year is the 12-year-old actress Dakota Fanning. Others include actors Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Joaquin Phoenix, Dolly Parton, Keira Knightley and Rachel Weisz; German director Werner Herzog; composer Dario Marianelli; producer Cathy Schulman; screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière; and Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. -- IMDb
Use this link to see the full list of those invited to join AMPAS.
- 10 July, Los Angeles:
 Box office records became so much cannon fodder for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest over the weekend as the Disney sequel opened to a stunning $132 million. It broke the previous record for a three-day weekend set by Spider-Man in 2002 with $114.8 million. It was even greater than the record for a four-day weekend, set by X-Men: The Last Stand, which garnered $122.9 million over the Memorial Day holiday. Its $55.5-million gross on Friday represented the biggest single-day take in box-office history. The $100.2 million it took in by the end of Saturday represented the biggest two-day gross. (It also became the fastest film ever to cross the $100-million mark.) Its $31,945 per-theater average was the biggest ever for a wide release, even though it played in 4,133 theaters (about 8,500 screens), the fourth-widest release in history. -- IMDb
- 12 July, Beverly Hills: Six new governors, three of them serving for the first time, have been elected to represent their branches on the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Eight incumbent governors were reelected.
Newcomers to the board are Rob Epstein, documentary branch; Mark Goldblatt, film editors; and James L. Brooks, writers. Returning to the board after a hiatus are Paul Mazursky, directors; Mark Johnson, producers; and Bill Taylor, visual effects.
Incumbent governors reelected to another term are Ed Begley Jr., actors branch; Jeannine Oppewall, art directors; Caleb Deschanel, cinematographers; Tom Sherak, executives; Bruce Broughton, music branch; Cheryl Boone Isaacs, public relations; Jon Bloom, short films and feature animation; and Kevin O'Connell, sound.
Each of the Academy's 14 branches is represented by three governors who may serve up to three consecutive three-year terms. Terms are staggered so that each branch elects or reelects one governor each year. -- A.M.P.A.S.
 - 20 July, Los Angeles:
 A Sunset-Strip movie company, headed by the granddaughter of Charlie Chaplin, was actually a money-laundering front for an international drug-smuggling operation, according to federal authorities. The alleged criminal activities of Limelight Films were reported today in the Los Angeles Times, which said that Limelight principals Bruno D'Esclavelles and Alexandre De Basseville were arrested during a sting operation in Arlington, VA last month. In a brochure, the company described itself as having "a desire to promote worldwide talented individuals who treasure cinema and cherish the creative spirit of Charlie Chaplin." Kiera Chaplin, the 23-year-old granddaughter of Charlie, who was once engaged to De Basseville, was serving as president of the company. She has not been charged. -- IMDb
 - 4 August, Los Angeles: An online auction of an Oscar® statuette expected to sell for more than $100,000 was cancelled on Friday after investigators discovered it was a "high quality" counterfeit, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences said. The statuette, being offered by Chicago firm Mastro Auctions, had been billed as the statuette won in 1944 by director Leo McCarey for his work on the Bing Crosby film Going My Way. The firm said the best director's Oscar was expected to fetch more than $100,000.
Mastro Auctions brought the Oscar® to the Academy to be authenticated after McCarey's daughter, Mary McCarey Washburn, said she still had all three of her father's Oscar® statuettes.
The Academy has strict rules inhibiting the sale of Oscars® -- but they came into effect in 1951, making Oscars® awarded before that year valuable auction items.
Academy executive administrator Ric Robertson said the "McCarey" statuette was made up of two mismatched parts, including an authentic Oscar base. The statuette's top weighed a pound more than an authentic one. Robertson said there were indications the individual who consigned the statuette to the auctioneers may have been misled at the time he acquired it. He said the Academy would attempt to identify those who had unlawfully reproduced its copyrighted award, and that it would pursue its legal options if those efforts were successful. -- Reuters
- 10 August, London:
 The Last King of Scotland, starring Forest Whitaker and James McAvoy, has been selected to open the 50th London Film Festival on Oct. 18. The film, being distributed by Fox Searchlight, tells the story of the relationship between former Ugandan president Idi Amin, played by Whitaker, and a Scottish doctor, played by McAvoy. In a statement, festival director Sandra Hebron said, "The Last King of Scotland is a perfect opening night film for us: a compellingly original British feature from an imaginative and talented young director" (Kevin Macdonald). -- IMDb
 - 16 August, Houston: Twenty thousand Houston residents have signed a petition aimed at preventing their city's oldest film venue, the River Oaks Theater, from being demolished by developers, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The petition drive was begun after it was reported that Weingarten Realty Investors Inc. planned to tear down the 1939 theater, currently operated by Landmark Theaters, and replace it with a Barnes & Noble bookstore. The plans are part of a larger development proposal, the WSJ report indicated. "It's a developer's town," David Bush, spokesman for the Greater Houston Preservation Alliance, told the Journal. "But the opposition is out in front on this issue." -- IMDb
- 16 August, Beverly Hills:
 Sid Ganis was re-elected president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Tuesday night by the organization's Board of Governors. This will be his second consecutive term in the office. Ganis is now in his 20th year as a governor representing the Public Relations Branch.
In addition, Robert Rehme, an Executives Branch governor and past Academy president, was re-elected first vice president; Music Branch governor Arthur Hamilton was re-elected to a vice president post; Sound Branch governor Donald C. Rogers was elected to a vice president post; Actors Branch governor Tom Hanks was elected treasurer and Actors Branch governor Kathy Bates was re-elected secretary. -- A.M.P.A.S.
- 18 August, Los Angeles: Those gift baskets that Oscar® presenters receive from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are taxable income, the IRS warned Thursday. On the heels of the IRS announcement, the Academy said it would eliminate the gift baskets, which reportedly are now worth about $100,000. The exact amount will be known when the recipients of the baskets receive a tax form in a few weeks listing the fair market value. Today's Los Angeles Times observed that the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences has informed this year's Emmy presents that their gift bags are also taxable. The newspaper pointed out that other film festivals present expensive gifts to celebrities. IRS Commissioner Mark V. Everson told the Times: "There was an awful lot of publicity about the ever-increasing value of these baskets. ... And somebody said, 'Why don't we do something about this?' It was just so clearly taxable we felt we had to step in." -- IMDb
- 30 August, Venice:
 The Venice Film Festival opens today with the world premiere of The Black Dahlia, a sepia-tinted throwback to 1940s Hollywood based on a grisly real-life murder that remains unsolved to this day. Starring Scarlett Johansson, two-time Oscar® winner Hilary Swank and Josh Hartnett, Brian de Palma's heavily stylized adaptation of a James Ellroy novel kicks off 11 days of movies, stars and parties along the fashionable Lido beach front.
The highly anticipated movie is one of four major U.S. productions in Venice this year that focus on true murder stories from the 1940s, 50s and 60s. Hollywoodland, a film starring Diane Lane, Adrien Brody, Ben Affleck and Bob Hoskins, looks at the mysterious death of "Superman" TV star George Reeves in 1959. And Bobby, directed by Emilio Estavez and starring Sharon Stone, Anthony Hopkins, Demi Moore and Lindsay Lohan, examines the assassination of Robert Kennedy in 1968. Both films are in competition. Exhibited out of competition is Infamous, Douglas McGrath's take on the life of crime writer Truman Capote featuring Sandra Bullock, Daniel Craig and Gwyneth Paltrow.
 The Venice Biennale, the world's oldest running film festival, is used to imitators. But this year, the upstarts are just a little too close to home. The city of Rome's decision to launch a festival of its own just two months after the venerable Venice Mostra has erupted into a full-blown spat that mirrors centuries-old rivalries between the Eternal City and the Most Splendid Republic.
A gentlemanly truce broke this week when the director of the Venice film festival gave an interview saying the nascent Rome festival was performing a service to films overlooked by Venice and Cannes by giving them a venue. By the time the comment reached the ears of the Rome festival directors, the Rome lineup had become "leftovers" -- to the ire of the founders of the new festival. They called the alleged comment "an incredible offense to the filmmakers who are showing their work in Rome."
The Venice Film Festival issued a statement denying that their director had ever used a word as offensive as "leftovers." But the fact remained: The films being shown at Rome "are films that neither we nor Cannes wanted." Take that, Nicole Kidman, who opens the Rome festival on Oct. 16 with the world premier of Fur, a film combining biography and fictional romance based loosely on the life of photographer Diane Arbus.
There were early signs that the Rome festival was causing strains in the lagoon city. For the first time in festival history, all of the films competing for the Golden Lion are world premieres.
The Venice Film Festival was the brainchild of a count who was trying to draw American visitors back to the island following the depression. He set up a film projector in the gardens of the Excelsior Hotel in 1932, and the film festival was born. Jealousies arose nearly instantly.  "This is a story that began in the 1935, when people in Mussolini's circle took notice of the festival and said, 'Why are they doing this in Venice and not in Rome. This is the capital of fascism.' That is what began this ridiculous war," said Tullio Kezich, a film critic for the Milan daily Corriere della Sera who is covering his 60th Venice film festival this year. The pull of Rome only grew with the rise of Cinecittà, the studios built by Mussolini in 1937 where such greats as Federico Fellini and Vittorio De Sica produced their best films. By comparison, the Lido island that hosts the Venice festival is little more than a dormitory for visitors to Venice during most of the year. Still, Kezich contends no spat would have erupted had the Rome festival directors not decided to time their festival so close to Venice's. "No one can stop Rome from having its festival, because all of the world has copied Venice. There are thousands of festivals. Why not Rome? The problem is the timing, that it is taking away the media attention from Venice," Kezich said. "If they had done it in March, no one would have taken notice."
Italy's Culture Minister, former Rome Mayor Francesco Rutelli, has stepped in to calm tempers. "Our job is to give value to both festivals with a rational calendar," Rutelli told reporters on Wednesday. "Two film festivals are a bounty of riches, not a problem." -- Edited from articles by Mike Collett-White, Reuters and Colleen Barry, AP
- 30 August, Edinburgh:
 Brothers of the Head, a fake documentary about conjoined twins who become rock stars in the 1970s, has won the top award at the Edinburgh Film Festival. The film was written by science fiction writer Brian Aldiss and directed by Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe, who previously had made straight making-of documentaries about movies and are included as "extras" in DVD packages. The audience award went to Kevin Smith's Clerks II. -- IMDb
 - 4 September, Venice:
 Helen Mirren's performance as Queen Elizabeth II is being hailed by critics and audiences at the Venice Film Festival barely a week after she received a best actress Emmy for her performance as Queen Elizabeth I on television. The Rome newspaper La Repubblica headlined "Queen Wins Venice's Heart." In the film Mirren portrays the queen having to deal with a crisis that threatens the British monarchy in the wake of Princess Diana's death in 1997. The British trade publication Screen Daily predicted that Mirren's performance inThe Queen "is likely to be crowned with a host of awards nominations." The online film commentator David Poland wrote that Mirren "lives at the center of the work, underplaying the role to within an inch of not connecting with us, but keeps us firmly at the end of the leash until it is time to show us this very reserved character's heart." The French news agency Agence France Presse reported that Mirren, director Stephen Frears, and cast members received a 15-minute standing ovation at Saturday's screening. -- IMDb
- 5 September, Beijing: For premiering his latest movie Summer Palace at the Cannes Film Festival last May without receiving permission from the Chinese government, the country's State Administration of Radio, Film and Television has barred award-winning director Lou Ye from making movies for five years, the Xinhua News Agency reported today. The erotic film incorporates footage from the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstration. It was the only film from Asia selected to compete for Cannes' Palme d'Or, according to the news agency. The government also ordered that all prints of Summer Palace be confiscated. -- IMDb
 - 7 September, Beverly Hills: Ellen DeGeneres has been set to host the 79th Academy Awards telecast, producer Laura Ziskin announced today. It will be DeGeneres' first time as Oscar® host, as well as her first appearance on an Academy Awards telecast.
"Ellen DeGeneres was born to host the Academy Awards," said Ziskin. "There is no more challenging hosting job in show business. It requires someone who can keep the show alive and fresh and moving, as well as someone who is a flat-out great entertainer. Ellen completely fits the bill. I can already tell she is going to set the bar very high for herself and therefore for all of us involved in putting on the show. Now all we need is a lot of great movies."
DeGeneres is the host of the syndicated talk show "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," which this year won its third Emmy for Outstanding Talk Show and earned DeGeneres her second Emmy for Outstanding Talk Show Host.
"When Laura Ziskin called, I was thrilled," said DeGeneres. "There's two things I've always wanted to do in my life. One is to host the Oscars. The second is to get a call from Laura Ziskin. You can imagine that day's diary entry."
The ceremonies honoring film achievements for 2006 will be held on Sunday, February 25, 2007. The 79th Annual Academy Awards Presentation will be broadcast live from the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland by the ABC Television Network, beginning at 5:00 p.m. (PST) with a half-hour arrivals segment. -- A.M.P.A.S.
- 9 September, Venice:
 Sanxia Haoren (Still Life), a Chinese film about ordinary people set against the giant Three Gorges Dam project, was the surprise winner of the Venice Film Festival's coveted Golden Lion award on Saturday. Directed by independent film maker Jia Zhang-Ke, the picture was a late entry into the main competition but swept aside hot favourites like Stephen Frears' The Queen, Emilio Estevez's Bobby and Emanuele Crialese's Golden Door.
The award ceremony on the glamorous Lido beach front wrapped up an 11-day movie marathon with over 20 premieres in the main competition and dozens more being screened for the first time. Still Life was shot in the village of Fengjie, which has since been destroyed by the Three Gorges Dam, and recounts the story of people who return there during the upheaval.
As expected, Helen Mirren took the best actress award for her title role in The Queen, a British production about the crisis in the royal family caused by the death of Princess Diana in 1997 and Prime Minister Tony Blair's role. "It's an incredible honor to have a film take its first steps here in Venice," Mirren said at the prize ceremony. "Stephen Frears is the mother of the film. I'm just a bit of the DNA of this film."
The best screenplay prize went to The Queen's Peter Morgan, who said his story was faithful to actual events but not an exact historical reconstruction.
Another surprise was in store in the best actor category, which went to U.S. heartthrob Ben Affleck for his performance as 1950s "Superman" actor George Reeves in Hollywoodland.
Veteran French film maker Alain Resnais won best director for the critically acclaimed Private Fears in Public Places and the special jury prize went to Daratt, Chad's first ever entry in the prestigious competition. -- Silvia Aloisi and Mike Collett-White, Reuters
 - 12 September, Toronto: Although some analysts had predicted that Death of a President, which made its debut at the Toronto Film Festival this week, would never find a distributor -- others had predicted it would never see the light of day in the U.S. -- Newmarket Films announced Monday that it had purchased U.S. distribution rights from producer-director Gabriel Range. It reportedly paid $1 million. Newmarket is the same company that picked up rights to Mel Gibson's equally controversial The Passion of the Christ. President, which is shot as if it were a television documentary, centers on the assassination of George W. Bush during a visit to Chicago in 2007. Using digital techniques, the filmmakers replaced the head of an actor pretending to be shot with the actual head of George Bush. The movie has been denounced by Bush supporters, including Rush Limbaugh and the Republican Party of Texas, who warn that it could encourage some unbalanced viewer to attempt a copycat crime. But Range told the Toronto audience that "there have been plenty of fictional films about presidential assassinations." Meanwhile, Time magazine critic Richard Corliss predicted that "the film will be one of those curios that millions of people read about but few pay to see. It will be forgotten in a year -- except by the Secret Service." -- IMDb
- 15 September, Los Angeles: Sometimes you just have to wonder "What were they thinking?" Screen Actors Guild President Alan Rosenberg has blasted fellow member Laird Stuart after Stuart urged the union's membership to vote against a new commercials contract that Rosenberg helped negotiate. An email, quoted in today's Los Angeles Times, concluded with the words, "Go find a place to molt, you sorry excuse for a human being." (Stuart forwarded Rosenberg's email to the union membership.) Reporting on the email, which Rosenberg acknowledged "wasn't terribly professional," the Times observed, "Even by the standards of the notoriously fractious SAG, Rosenberg's remarks were unusually pointed." -- IMDb
- 16 September, Toronto:
 Bella, a romantic drama by Mexican director Alejandro Monteverde, was the surprise winner of the top award at the Toronto Film Festival on Saturday, while the contentious Death of a President took home a critics' prize.
A story of two people whose lives converge and turn upside down on a single day in New York, Bella received no buzz and little ink during the 10-day event, but still managed to win the festival's People's Choice Award, voted on by moviegoers. The prize is often an indicator of future Academy Award nominations, with past recipients including best picture winners American Beauty and Chariots of Fire. Last year's winner, Tsotsi, won an Oscar® for best foreign-language film.
"I really hope that this is not a dream and that I don't wake up at film school," a visibly surprised Monteverde said at an awards ceremony. "This festival is my first festival, it's my first film. it's my first everything." The U.S.-produced film edged out Patrice Leconte's Mon meilleur ami and the politically charged Dixie Chicks: Shut up and Sing for the award.
Death of a President, which stirred controversy in the days ahead of the festival, took home the Fipresci prize, which is chosen by international critics. The film, a fictional documentary showing the assassination of President Bush, was noted by the jury "for the audacity with which it distorts reality to reveal a larger truth."
The Diesel Discovery Award, voted on by the hundreds of journalists that attend the festival, went to the Norwegian production Reprise, directed by Joachim Trier. Canadian film prizes went to Sur la trace D'Igor Rizzi, Manufactured Landscapes, and the short film Les Jours. An award for cultural innovation went to Takva - A Man's Fear of God, a joint Turkish-German production. -- Cameron French, Reuters
- 2 October, Hoopeston, IL:
 The two-screen Lorraine Theater in Hoopeston, IL, reopened for business Friday following a two-week protest shutdown by owner Greg Boardman. Boardman said that he closed down the theater rather than run such studio offerings as Jackass Number Two and The Covenant. "There's just so much lousy material out there -- people vomiting on the screen, " Boardman told the Chicago Tribune. "I have one of the finest sound systems in the world, and I don't want to waste it on such drivel." Noting that Boardman now operates the theater from his home in California, Carol Hicks, managing editor of the Hoopeston Chronicle remarked, "He's got away from Hoopeston and changed. ... He doesn't know what people like here." Boardman, who lives in the foothills of the Sierra near Yosemite, told the Trib: "I can fly back there anytime I want and show any movie I want. ... How many people can say they have their own movie theater and can do that?" -- IMDb
- 11 October, Beverly Hills: Makeup artists and hairstylists who are members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have been granted branch status by the Academy's Board of Governors, Academy President Sid Ganis announced today. Branch status will permit the roughly 120 makeup artists and hairstylists who are currently members-at-large to elect one individual from among their ranks to represent them on the board. This will increase the size of the board to 43. Information about the change and election materials will be sent to members of the new branch in time for them to select the new governor before the December meeting of the board. -- A.M.P.A.S.
- 12 October, Rome: Oscar®-winning actress Nicole Kidman opens Rome's first international film festival on Friday, kicking off nine days of movies that many in Italy see as a direct challenge to Venice's venerable Lido competition. Kidman stars in Steven Shainberg's Fur, the partly fictional story of controversial American photographer Diane Arbus seen through her imaginary friendship with a neighbor, played by Robert Downey Jr. In all, the festival will screen nearly 100 films, mixing big U.S. productions with European and Asian art house movies plus several retrospectives paying tribute to Italian cinema, as well as one dedicated to actor Sean Connery.
The "Festa del Cinema" is the brainchild of Rome's mayor Walter Veltroni, a movie buff who has long cherished the idea of boosting Italy's capital -- home to the famed Cinecittà studios -- with a high-profile film event.
But that has not gone down well with organizers of Venice's film festival, the world's oldest. Both events have a similar budget of around €10 million ($12.5 million), but unlike Venice, Rome's funds are almost entirely private. Commentators say the two festivals are bound to compete for films and sponsorship money, possibly to the detriment of both.
The 16 films in the actual competition have a distinct European, art house flavor and include no U.S. titles. But the contest is likely to take a back seat to a series of special events and screenings which include the presentation of Martin Scorsese's new thriller The Departed , which has already hit cinemas in several countries.
Other celebrities expected to hit Rome's red carpet are Leonardo DiCaprio, Richard Gere, Viggo Mortensen, Monica Bellucci -- who stars in two films showing at the festival -- and Harrison Ford. -- Silvia Aloisi, Reuters
- 19 October, Beverly Hills: A record 61 countries ranging from developing nations to industrialized powers, including new entrant Kazakhstan, have submitted films for consideration in the Foreign Language Film category for the 79th Academy Awards®, Academy President Sid Ganis announced today. Use this link to view the entire list of submitted films. -- A.M.P.A.S.
 - 19 October, Helsinki: Aki Kaurismaki, Finland's prolific and award-winning writer-director, has asked the Finnish Film Institute to withdraw his latest movie from competition for the best foreign language film Oscar®. The German news agency Deutsche Presse-Agentur said that Kaurismaki, whose The Man Without a Past (Mies vailla menneisyyttä) was a finalist in the Oscar® foreign competition for 2002, had informed Raija Nurio, president of the Finnish Film Institute, that he wished his latest film, Lights in the Dusk (Laitakaupungin valot), to be withdrawn but gave no explanation. DPA said that Kaurismaki's action leaves Finland without an entry. The five nominees in the foreign-language competition are expected to be announced on Jan. 23. -- IMDb
- 21 October, Rome:
 A modern-day Russian film, based on Shakespeare's Hamlet, won top prize at Rome's first international film festival as the nine-day marathon wrapped up on Saturday. Playing the Victim by Kirill Serebrennikov, a critically acclaimed theater director in his native Russia, was named best film among the 16 movies in competition. They were mostly art-house titles by new directors. Serebrennikov's film is a family drama centered on a young student who uncovers the mystery surrounding his father's death.
The jury also gave a special prize to This is England, British director Shane Meadows' story of a 12-year-old boy befriending a group of skinheads in the early 1980s. Italy's Giorgio Colangeli was named best male actor for his role as a convicted murderer in L'aria salata, while the best actress award went to France's Ariane Ascaride, for her performance in Armenia by director Robert Guediguian. -- Valentina Consiglio and Nicola Scevola, Reuters
 - 27 October, Los Angeles: NBC and the new CW network have refused to carry ads for Shut Up & Sing, the documentary about the Dixie Chicks' opposition to the war in Iraq, which opens this weekend in Los Angeles and New York, according to the film's distributor, the Weinstein Co. "It's a sad commentary about the level of fear in our society that a movie about a group of courageous entertainers who were blacklisted for exercising their right of free speech is now itself being blacklisted by corporate America," Harvey Weinstein said in a statement. Today's Daily Variety reported that while NBC has acknowledged that the spots were declined because they are "disparaging" to President Bush, the CW maintains that it did not reject them. A spokesman for the CW told the trade paper: "We were told they were not going to make a national spot buy on CW." Reviews of the movie indicate that the film takes a strong stance against the president. "Clips of Bush make him seem callous," writes Ann Powers in the Los Angeles Times. Anti-Chicks "protesters come off as foolish; one demands that her tiny, puzzled son repeat an expletive directed at the Chicks." (The spurned ads have been posted on the Internet at www.shutupandpost.com.) -- IMDb
- 3 November, Beverly Hills: With 16 animated features submitted for consideration in 2006, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences anticipates that its Animated Feature Film category, for the first time since 2002, may include a full slate of five nominees.
The 16 features expected to compete for 79th Academy Awards nominations are: The Ant Bully, Arthur and the Invisibles, Barnyard, Cars, Curious George, Everyone's Hero, Flushed Away, Happy Feet, Ice Age The Meltdown, Monster House. Open Season, Over the Hedge, Paprika, Renaissance, A Scanner Darkly and The Wild.
Arthur and the Invisibles, Happy Feet and Paprika have not yet had their required Los Angeles releases. If any one of the group were not to meet that requirement, the field in the category would fall below 16, the number required to trigger the five-nominee slate. With 15 or fewer contenders, Academy rules allow a maximum of three nominated features.
Films submitted in the Animated Feature category also may qualify for Academy Awards in other categories, including Best Picture, provided they meet the requirements for those categories. -- A.M.P.A.S.
 - 15 November, London:
 Former 007 Roger Moore has made a plea for a buyer to come forth to save the 80-year-old Elstree Film Studios. The historic studios, where Alfred Hitchcock directed some of his more famous mysteries and where the Indiana Jones and Star Wars films were produced, were purchased by Hertsmere Borough Council in 1996 when no other buyer turned up. Today's Guardian newspaper quoted Moore as saying, "Hertsmere Council extended it a lifeline when it needed it most, and invested heavily. Now that they are seeking to pass on the ownership, I hope that an equally passionate and caring owner can be found; and help take the studio into one of the most exciting periods of film and new media production." A spokesman for the Hertsmere Council said that it was selling the property because it needs a serious injection of cash to modernize it and keep it going. -- IMDb
- 17 November, New York:
 Casino Royale marks the US debut of Daniel Craig as Agent 007. In a web article, Matt Singer of IFC News looks back at the five previous James Bond debuts. Check out his article on IFC.com. He examines each debut Bond film for Sean Connery (Dr. No, 1962), George Lazenby (On Her Majesty's Secret Service, 1969), Roger Moore (Live and Let Die, 1973), Timothy Dalton (The Living Daylights, 1987) and Pierce Brosnan (GoldenEye 1985), with highs, lows, trivia and flubs.
 - 20 November, Los Angeles: Producer-director Robert Altman has died from complications from leukemia in an LA hospital at the age of 81. Altman, whose films include The Player, M*A*S*H and Nashville revealed earlier this year that he had been the recipient of a heart trans
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