The Howard Hughes epic The Aviator led Academy Awards contenders with 11 nominations yesterday, including best picture among them, plus acting honors for Leonardo DiCaprio, Cate Blanchett and Alan Alda and a directing slot for Martin Scorsese.
The boxing saga Million Dollar Baby and the J.M. Barrie tale Finding Neverland followed with seven nominations each, among best picture and acting nominations for Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, Hilary Swank and Johnny Depp.
Eastwood also got a directing nomination for Million Dollar Baby.
The other best-picture nominees were the Ray Charles portrait Ray and the buddy comedy Sideways.
Jamie Foxx
Along with Eastwood, Jamie Foxx also scored two nominations, as best actor for the title role in Ray and supporting actor as a taxi driver whose cab is hijacked by a hit man in Collateral.
Foxx is a front-runner in the lead-actor category. Starring as aviation trailblazer Hughes, DiCaprio also was nominated for best actor.
The best-actress category presents a rematch of the 1999 showdown, when underdog Swank won the Oscar for Boys Don't Cry over Annette Bening, who had been the front-runner for American Beauty.
This time, Swank was nominated as a bullheaded boxing champ whose life takes a cruel twist in Million Dollar Baby. Bening was chosen for Being Julia, in which she plays an aging 1930s stage diva exacting wickedly comic revenge on the men in her life and a young rival.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum, the Razzies, which mock the worst in film were announced in Hollywood.
Catwoman led with seven nominations, among them worst picture, worst actress for Halle Berry and worst supporting players for Sharon Stone and Lambert Wilson. Catwoman was also nominated for worst screen couple for Berry with either Stone or co-star Benjamin Bratt.
Cat Litter?
"Catwoman is the cinematic equivalent of a clump in the cat-litter box," Razzies founder John Wilson said. "Kind of a sad little thing laying there stinking up the place."
US President George W. Bush and some of his advisors received worst-acting nominations for their appearances in news and archival footage in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, which assails Bush for his actions surrounding the Sept. 11 attacks.
Bush was nominated for worst actor, while Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice got a nomination for worst supporting actress and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for worst supporting actor.
Wilson said while Fahrenheit 9/11 was a piece of anti-Bush propaganda, the president and his associates earned their Razzie nominations on their own.
"It wasn't Mr. Moore's editing," Wilson said. "It's the raw footage of these people just making fools of themselves."
Just a few seconds of screen time in Fahrenheit 9/11 brought a nomination as worst supporting actress for Britney Spears, who sits for a moment blank-faced and chewing gum in the film before saying she thinks people should support the president in all decisions he makes.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
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