The Revenant and Mad Max: Fury Road were showered with honors by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, picking up Oscar nominations for best picture and best director.
There are to be six best picture nominees to join them: Bridge of Spies, Spotlight, The Big Short, The Martian, Brooklyn and Room. Notably not among them: Straight Outta Compton and Carol both of which were pegged to make the cut by awards handicappers.
The Revenant, directed by Alejandro Inarritu, drew 12 nominations in total — the most of any film — with Leonardo DiCaprio honored for his wounded frontiersman and Tom Hardy for his villainous supporting role.
Photo: Reuters
With 10 nominations, George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road was the second most-honored film, although most of its support came from technical areas, like film editing, costume design and makeup and hairstyling. Behind Fury Road came The Martian with seven nominations — although its director, Ridley Scott, was prominently snubbed — and Spotlight with six.
The acting fields were filled with familiar faces. As expected, Cate Blanchett came away with her sixth best actress nomination for Carol. Jennifer Lawrence, now a four-time nominee, this time for Joy, joined Blanchett in the category. Also selected were Brie Larson from Room, Charlotte Rampling from 45 Years and Saoirse Ronan from Brooklyn.
DiCaprio, picking up his fifth acting nomination, is competing against the reigning best actor winner, Eddie Redmayne, who picked up a nod for The Danish Girl. Voters also backed Matt Damon (The Martian), Bryan Cranston (Trumbo) and Michael Fassbender (Steve Jobs).
Concussion, starring Will Smith, and Beasts of No Nation, featuring Idris Elba, received nothing.
The racially diverse Creed, directed by Ryan Coogler, was shut out, except for a nomination for its war-horse supporting actor, Sylvester Stallone.
Four contenders are squaring up to succeed Antonio Guterres as secretary-general of the UN, which faces unprecedented global instability, wars and its own crushing budget crisis. Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, Argentina’s Rafael Grossi, Costa Rica’s Rebeca Grynspan and Senegal’s Macky Sall are each to face grillings by 193 member states and non-governmental organizations for three hours today and tomorrow. It is only the second time the UN has held a public question-and-answer, a format created in 2016 to boost transparency. Ultimately the five permanent members of the UN’s top body, the Security Council, hold the power, wielding vetoes over who leads the
A humanoid robot that won a half-marathon race for robots in Beijing on Sunday ran faster than the human world record in a show of China’s technological leaps. The winner from Honor, a Chinese smartphone maker, completed the 21km race in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, said a WeChat post by the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, also known as Beijing E-Town, where the race began. That was faster than the human world record holder, Ugandan Jacob Kiplimo, who finished the same distance in about 57 minutes in March at the Lisbon road race. The performance by the robot marked a significant step forward
An earthquake registering a preliminary magnitude of 7.7 off northern Japan on Monday prompted a short-lived tsunami alert and the advisory of a higher risk of a possible mega-quake for coastal areas there. The Cabinet Office and the Japan Meteorological Agency said there was a 1% chance for a mega-quake, compared to a 0.1% chance during normal times, in the next week or so following the powerful quake near the Chishima and Japan trenches. Officials said the advisory was not a quake prediction but urged residents in 182 towns along the northeastern coasts to raise their preparedness while continuing their daily lives. Prime
HAZARDOUS CONDITION: The typhoon’s sheer size, with winds extending 443km from its center, slowed down the ability of responders to help communities, an official said The US Coast Guard was searching for six people after losing contact with their disabled boat off the coast of Guam following Typhoon Sinlaku. The crew of the 44m dry cargo vessel, the US-registered Mariana, on Wednesday notified the coast guard that the boat had lost its starboard engine and needed assistance, Petty Officer 3rd Class Avery Tibbets said yesterday. The coast guard set up a one-hour communication schedule with the vessel, but lost contact on Thursday. A Coast Guard HC-130 Hercules aircraft was launched to search for the six people on board, but it had to return to Guam because of
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