Ponderance

Irreversible rating not reversed!

Urban Cinfile reports that Irreversible is keeping its R Rating in Australia:

At its meeting on March 30 the Classification Review Board declined to hear the appeal by the Australian Family Association to refuse classification for the French drama, Irreversible, on the grounds that the request was made out of time, being more than 30 days after the film’s release. The Board added it had viewed the film anyway, and "considered there was virtually no prospect of the film’s classification changing."

Thankfully, a day of sensible censors! :)

Doctor Who?!?

Okay, so Christopher Eccleston is cast as the new incarnation of the Doctor in BBC's revival of Dr Who next year. An interesting choice, but at least someone who we know can act. However, in terms of companions, it seems that no one learnt anything from the major problems with the Dr Who film, especially in terms of companions! The BBC News reports:

Ex-pop star Billie Piper is in line to play Doctor Who's female companion in the revival of the sci-fi show. The 21-year-old, who is married to Chris Evans, is said to be favoured by the new series' executive producer Russell T Davies. A BBC spokesman said the role will not be finally decided for another eight weeks, but Piper is in the running. ... The Doctor's new sidekick will be called Rose Taylor, and is described as "feisty". Davies, well-known for writing Queer As Folk, said that he wanted Doctor Who's latest incarnation to have a Buffy The Vampire Slayer-style right-hand woman. A screaming girly-style companion is unacceptable nowadays," he commented. ... It is also speculated that there will be quite a sexual chemistry between Taylor and the Doctor, while she will possess psychic powers. Piper, 21, first came to prominence as a pop star, scoring a debut chart topper with Because We Want To in 1998.

The Doctor can't have romance with a companion. Can't. Ever. I'm sorry, but surely the shudder that went down millions of spines as Paul McGann's filmic Doctor locked lips with a companion was enough to show that companions don't work as love interests! And while I'm a big Buffy fan and like the idea of a companion who can look after herself (like Ace, the 7th Doctor's last companion), I hear the words Billie Pipers and ex-Pop Star and sigh. Besides, if there's a Buffy-like companion, won't that make the Doctor Giles-like? And surely no one wants to see Giles and Buffy gettin it on?!?

Traces of Kubrick

The Guardian has a fascinating article by Jon Ronson on his amazing finds in the legendary archive of Stanley Kubrick. A taste:

In one portable cabin, for example, there are hundreds and hundreds of boxes related to Eyes Wide Shut, marked EWS - Portman Square, EWS - Kensington & Chelsea, etc, etc. I choose the one marked EWS - Islington because that's where I live. Inside are hundreds of photographs of doorways. The doorway of my local video shop, Century Video, is here, as is the doorway of my dry cleaner's, Spots Suede Services on Upper Street. Then, as I continue to flick through the photographs, I find, to my astonishment, pictures of the doorways of the houses in my own street. Handwritten at the top of these photographs are the words, "Hooker doorway?" "Huh," I think. So somebody within the Kubrick organisation (it was, in fact, his nephew) once walked up my street, on Kubrick's orders, hoping to find a suitable doorway for a hooker in Eyes Wide Shut. It is both an extremely interesting find and a bit of a kick in the teeth.

If you're interested in more after reading the article, check out the Kubrick Exhibition featuring some of the items discovered in archive of the the engimatic genius.

Some Silly Things

Been on a blogging adventure looking at silly, very silly, and sillier still things. Some highlights:
* Mercury News: "City officials [in Southern California] were so concerned about the potentially dangerous properties of dihydrogen monoxide that they considered banning foam cups after they learned the chemical was used in their production. Then they learned that dihydrogen monoxide - H2O for short - is the scientific term for water."
* CNN.com: Drivers in the US who watch XXX DVDs in their car-mounted displays face fines and even jail time! (Surely the lack of concentration on the road has to be the biggest concern!!)
* Chris Null: Guess how large a Gummi Bear can get in you soak in in water overnight!

Irreversible ... to be banned?

The "Australian Family Association" and Fred Nile have combined forces to try and get another film banned in Australia. Their target this time is the french film Irreversible which was released in Sydney and Melbourne in mid-February. Inside Film reports:

French film Irreversible, starring Monica Bellucci, may be banned by the Classification Review Board after complaints from both the Australian Family Association and Rev Fred Nile, who has written to the Federal Attorney General. Irreversible first released in Australia on Thursday 12 February in Sydney and Melbourne to above-average box office figures, with an impressive screen average of $10,427 on its opening weekend. The film has previously been released in over 21 territories worldwide including the United States and the UK, completely uncut and as originally edited by its acclaimed director, Gasper Noe. The classification review has come as a blow to domestic film distributors, Accent Film Entertainment, after a successful six week season in Sydney and Melbourne, as other states such as Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth were due to follow after positive word-of-mouth. ... Says Margaret Pomeranz, host of SBS's The Movie Show, 'Here we go again. Another film acknowledged internationally as a serious work of cinema is questioned by various pressure groups in this country about its suitability for viewing by adults. It just makes you weep. How narrow are we going to become in Australia?' The film was unanimously passed by The Office of Film and Literature Classification prior to its release in February, with an R18+ rating. The film was cited as an important work from a major artist, the decision praised by many sections of the Australian artistic community. The hearing will take place this Monday 29th March at which time a decision will be passed by the Classification Review Board.

If you are as worried about another film being banned in Australia as I am (can anyone say Ken Park?), you may wish to write to the Office of Film and Literature Classification via details here. *sigh*

Elephant

Two misunderstood teenage boys clad in black gloves and military fatigues, carrying ominously large duffle bags filled to the brim, walk purposefully into your average American high school. This one scene is all it takes for most people to recall the spate of tragic and violent events epitomised in the Columbine shootings in 1999. Gus Van Sant's amazing new film Elephant is haunted by Columbine, but unlike so many films, Van Sant does pretend to understand. Instead, his film traces the paths of a number of students, all with their own issues and worries. From John (John Robinson), whose alcoholic father is more demanding than most children, to the trio of 'cool' girls -- Brittany, Jordan and Nicole (Brittany Mountain, Jordan Taylor, Nicole George) -- who seem to have it made until the three retreat to the toilets to regurgitate in unison, every teenager in this film is struggling with life. We see the same few hours from the perspective of a number of different characters, each ending at the moment before tragedy strikes. Finally, we meet Alex (Alex Frost) and Eric (Eric Deulen), who are both frequently picked on, but have secretly planned their revenge. They both play video games which simply involve shooting defenceless characters. Perhaps the moment in the film which is most critical of the US system comes when Eric and Alex manage to order high-power firearms over the Internet and have them delivered to their homes. From there, we see the random and gut-wrenchingly realistic execution of dozens of teenagers and their teachers.

Van Sant's films often differ quite widely in quality from the amazing To Die For to the rather schmaltzy Good Will Hunting. Elephant, however, is definitely one of Van Sant's most impressive achievements. The cinematography is exquisite; shots juxtapose everyday moments of beauty with the tragedy of real(istic) lives and horrific deaths. The cast are fresh and mainly unscripted, with all the actors except three completely new to the industry, most still in high school themselves. Van Sant also edited this film, and the familiarity and care with which events unfold packs a lot into this film which is actually very short, running 82 minutes. The result is a very believable, indeed disturbingly believable film which explores ordinary lives and high school shootings without seeking to explain or, for the most part, judge. This is an excellent picture, which will stay with you for a long time.

Yeti Sport III

Another event in the Yeti Sport Olympics. Click here to play, but be warned, it's highly addictive!

War of the Worlds (and more rich hobbits)

It seems War of the Worlds may have another big-screen incarnation under Steven Speilberg's helm and featuring Tom Cruise. The pair last worked together on Minoirty Report which was far better than I'd expected, so I have high hopes for their adaptation of this H.G. Wells classic.

In other filmic news, Return of the King is now the second highest grossing film of all time in Australia, having knocked Crocodile Dundee (*shudder*) from that position. However, the final installment Lord of the Rings film is still ten million behind Titanic's #1 spot. Of course, given that all three films are in the top five grossing list (FoTR: #5, TTT: #4), and their cumulative budget was less than Titanic's overall costs, I think New Line and Peter Jackson are probably pretty happy!

Sedna ... "so weird"!

As almost every media outlet has reported in the past week or so, Sedna, a body orbiting the sun, with an 1100km diameter, has been discovered and labelled a planet by some, or a planetoid (or any number of other things). Sedna's size has re-ignited the debate about what exactly constitutes a planet (apparently just orbiting the sun ain't enough). The Australian reports:

Ii's red, round and out there. But the identity of the most distant object ever seen orbiting the Sun has astronomers baffled. "There's absolutely nothing else like it known in the solar system," said astronomer Michael Brown, leader of the US team that discovered the mysterious world, which is three times further from the Earth than Pluto. The distant body, reported in The Australian on Monday, is so weird it may even be a new class of astronomical object, says Michael Ashley of the University of NSW. "It could be the first discovery of thousands of these things," Associate Professor Ashley said of the body, provisionally named Sedna for the Inuit ocean goddess. Sedna's discovery was formally announced yesterday at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech's Associate Professor Brown said one thing was certain – Sedna was too small to be a planet. At a mere 1100km across, Sedna is smaller than Pluto. And at 1413km in diameter, Pluto is the tiniest member of our solar system. Pluto's status as a planet has been hotly debated since 1992, when Brian Marsden, head of the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Centre, suggested it was wrongly classified.

The same edition of The Australian also carries this article debating planet-like qualities, but has different measurements for Sedna's size. Hmmm.

Oddities

Marge Simpson has been voted the Best Role-Model Mother in the UK.
The homepage of the Belly-Dancing Librarians. (Odder still, it was sent to me by my favourite librarian!).

Too Many DVDs, Too Little Work (the story of one Tama's weekend)...

Matchstick Men - Ridley Scott directs Nicholas Cage and Sam Rockwell in a quirky take on the art of the con. Probably the lowest budget film Scott's worked on for ages, but he hasn't lost his touch with the camera. Cage is impressive as the mentally unstable king of the small time con, complete with guilt-associated ticks. Rockwell is great. The plot is actually quite fun, although a little too focused on the pseudo-mandatory twist.

Willard - This film should have been a Tim Burton gothic masterpiece. However, first-time feature director Glen Morgan seems to have added 1 part Burton to 500 parts water to make this weak, tepid and flailing film. Crispin Glover tries valiantly to add depth to the film, but the almost gothic sets, the oh-so-predictable (nee cardboard) supporting characters and the most unthreatening "killer" rats in feature film history made this a very second-rate filmic endevour.

Undead - Made on the memory of the smell of an oily rag, this Australian made schlock-horror-scifi zombie film is just waiting to become a cult classic. From zombies to aliens to zen-like farmers with a Matrix stock of firearms, this film takes the cliches, mashes them together to produce a surprisingly funny and entertaining re-think of the shlock genre. Get a group of friends, a few bottles of wine, and you'll all be cackling along with this one.

Igby Goes Down - Fairly standard arthouse material; troubled rich boy, controlling mother, super-rich godfather, emotionless brother (who steals his sibling's girlfriend), and a potentially meaningful relationship which is never fulfiled due to the evils of drug addiction in the big city. Well put together, but nothing particularly new. It's nice to see that at least one Culkin sibling can act, though!

Reality/Fiction

Alias star Jennifer Garner shows that there's a fine line between television and the real world; Garner stars in the new CIA recruitment advertisements, apparently done for free, showing her "patriotic" side! And Kim Stanely Robinson writes in the NY Times about the interrelations between SF and science in the search for Mars!

Mars, Nepture and Beyond ...

There seems to have been a huge amount of reporting of space-related items in the last two days. Apparently Neptune may have "beneath the planet's surface, ... an electrically conductive fluid, which is driven around by an energy source", which may explain the multiple magnetic poles. Before its retirement, the Hubble telescope may have allowed the largest shot of our universe ever seen by human eyes! The US Spirit Rover on Mars has found more evidence of water and "life-sustaining conditions". And the European Space Agency is still trying to figure out Beagle's failure! It's an exciting time to be watching beyond our little planet!

Movieoke

I can't sing, and have no desire to stand in front of a group of people and torture them with any form of attempt at holding a tune. However, I do lurve my films, and do, from time to time, like the idea of putting my dialogue and voice in the film. So, I'm a perfect candidate for "karaoke's very young American-born cousin", movieoke! NY Times reports:

All the evidence in the room pointed to imminent karaoke. There was a tiny stage and a television monitor flashing words. There was an energetic hostess trying to whip people into the mood. And the people, about a dozen, were waiting patiently for their third beer to lend them the necessary talent. But when the first amateur celebrity took the stage, it was not to belt out his own heartfelt version of "Candle in the Wind." Instead he crouched like a lemur and began to croak out a scene from "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers," as a movie screen behind him showed the monologue by the creature Gollum. "We hates them!" whispered the man on the stage, Oden Roberts, a 27-year-old cinematographer, crawling around as his friends whooped and clapped. When his performance was over, Mr. Roberts reported that, really, it was not all that different from karaoke. "You just have to put your body into it more," he said. Or if you are really dedicated, your hair: Mr. Roberts had moussed his up into little blond spikes, perhaps better to resemble a Middle Earth creature. "It took me half an hour to get it like this," he said. He had just become a willing test subject in the service of movieoke, karaoke's very young American-born cousin.

And you can even envisage the high-end market version which would come complete with a motion capture suit so your can be Gollum! Ah, the film lovers weirdest dreams come true ... my precious ...

Schindler's History

Just as Mel Gibson's The Passion of The Christ has issues of realism and history in film back in the spotlight, the tenth anniversary of Steven Spielberg's Shoah Foundation has come around, marked by the DVD release of Schindler's List. However,as the NY Times reports, the DVD extras and presentation of the film speak of a complex relationship between film and history:

By 1937 in Poland "we had a feeling that things weren't going to be so good for the Jews," says a survivor of the Krakow ghetto in a 77-minute documentary that accompanies Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List," released today for the first time on DVD by Universal. Accompanying the documentary, called "Voices From the List," is a 12-minute short, "The Shoah Foundation Story With Steven Spielberg," about the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, founded by Mr. Spielberg in 1994 to videotape the recollections of thousands of Holocaust survivors and witnesses. Heard in "Voices From the List," many of them give a running account of the Krakow experience that rivals the movie in dramatic impact. [...] Cast and filmmaker biographies are on the flip side of the disc, but other than brief remarks on a pamphlet attached to an appeal to contribute to the Shoah Foundation, there are no features about the making of "Schindler's List." That could disappoint some viewers. "Steven didn't want anything but material about and from the Shoah Foundation on the DVD," Marvin Levy, a Spielberg spokesman, said by telephone last week. Mr. Spielberg has not done director's commentaries on DVD, but normally he talks extensively and entertainingly about his films during making-of documentaries and the like. This time, Mr. Levy said, "he wanted the experience to be exactly what the film was, and that was it."

On the one hand, having direct survivor testimony so readily and widely accessible is extremely useful for oral historians and educators seeking to use actual testimony and voices to narrate the tragic experiences of the Holocaust. However, the way these issues are presented, as accompaniment to a feature film, begs difficult questions about the way history is being mediated by cinema. The emotional weight of these testimonies almost makes Schindler's List feel like an historical documentary, not a Hollywood drama. Spielberg's decision to treat the film as a voice unto the past, and to avoid the stndard director's commentaries and so forth, seems to be aimed at elevating the truth-value of the film itself. While obviously it is better to have these issues confronted, and Schinder's List did an amazing job in starting and continuing the debates surrounding the Holocaust and historical representation, should we be a little weary of promoting Schindler's List to a definitive role regarding the experience of the Holocaust? Is history on film sufficient? Does it matter if Spielberg blurred some historical material to up the dramatical impact of the film? While I would never argue that Schindler's List was not a brilliant film (it certainly had a large impact on me when I first saw it), do historians and media theorists need to add a little critical distance between a Hollywood film and historical narratives?

VR Goes Mainstream (sort of)

Remember the early 90s excitement about Virtual Reality, with goggles and gloves and full 3D simulations in sound and audio? And then the discovery that wearing VR goggles could strain your neck in about 30 minutes, felt uncomfortable, and was in many ways less satisfying than sitting behind a computer screen? Well, that may have killed early 3D VR, but as technology gets fast enough, VR is making a partial comeback, although not using Gogs'n'gloves, but on a flat screen using 3D modelling (which, is all fairness, might be more like playing Quake than early ideas of VR). This digital modelling seems to be here to stay, though, because it's helping folks make money! The NY Times reports:

WHEN the Philadelphia Phillies' $458 million ballpark opens in April, some ticket holders may experience something akin to what Yogi Berra famously described as "déjà vu all over again." While nothing could replicate the open-air spectacle of actually being there - the crack of the bat, the cheering fans, the aroma of hot dogs and peanuts - thousands of people toured the park, in a sense, long before it existed. They visited it virtually, gliding through a finely detailed, three-dimensional digital model. AEI Digital, a division of EwingCole, one of the architectural firms that designed the park, meticulously constructed it in more than four million polygons. This was accomplished long before the last real brick, last cubic yard of real concrete and last piece of real structural steel were laid, poured and bolted into place - even before the place was named Citizens Bank Park. In fact, the digital model was a vital tool in giving prospective investors a good idea of just how their company's name might look looming high above the park, said John Weber, the Phillies' director of sales.

The virtual as gateway to the material; not a new idea, but a hell of a lot more engaging than a 1/1000 model scale!

Googlebar in Firefox

All this time I've slowly been migrating to FireFox as my preferred browser, but I've been missing the functionality of the Google Toolbar from IE. Now I discover, that if I'd looked around Mozilla's website more, I'd have found their alternative version which is just as good. If you're a Mozilla/FireFox user, click here for the Googlebar.

It's All For Sale At Yahoo!

Just as Yahoo has uncoupled its search engine from Google, its credibility has suffered a huge blow as Yahoo allows business to pay to ensure regular updating of their listings. The New York Times reports:

Yahoo said yesterday that it would start charging companies that want to ensure that their Web sites are included in its Web index from which research results are selected. The practice, called "paid inclusion," has long been a part of many search engines including Microsoft's MSN search function and Ask Jeeves. But Google, which last year surged ahead of Yahoo to become the No. 1 site for searching on the Internet, disdains the practice as misleading. Last month, Yahoo replaced Google, which had operated Yahoo's search engine, with its own technology to index billions of Web pages. Yahoo says it hopes to include every site on the Internet it can find in that index at no charge. But sites that pay for Yahoo's new program can guarantee that they are included in the index. Yahoo will update its index of paying clients every two days, while it may update its listing of other sites once a month. And Yahoo will give paying clients detailed reports on when its users click on their sites and will help those sites improve their listings. The paying sites will be intermingled with others in Yahoo's main search results listings, which are separate from the advertising called "sponsor results" on top of and to the side of Yahoo's search results.

Sidebar advertising is one thing, but allowing (or effectively forcing) sites to pay for frequent indexing in the main listings does nothing for Yahoo's credibility in painting an accurate overall picture of the Net.

Middle East Big Brother Cancelled

Amidst a storm of protests about the 'indecent' nature of the Middle East's own application of the Big Brother franchise, the show has been canned! MediaGuardian reports:

The first ever series of Big Brother in the Middle East has been pulled after protests that it was "indecent" and violated Islamic standards. It had been on air for just one week but the sight of male and female contestants sleeping under one roof caused a public outcry. Up to 1,000 took part in a rally against the show on Friday and seven Islamist MPs planning an official protest in parliament in Bahrain, where the show is being filmed. A spokeswoman for the Middle East Broadcasting Centre said it did not want to be "the source of differences of opinion" and had decided to "reconsider the production" of the show.

Other attempts as reality TV in the Middle East have been doing just as badly, one show "in which young women compete to win an arranged marriage has ended in the controversial style in which it began with one of the final two contestants storming out and refusing to get married to the man selected by producers" (report here).

The Academy of the King

Well, it's official, Return of the King is one of the most awarded films of all time, receiving an Academy Award in every category it was nominated, for an extremely impressive haul of 11 Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Adapted Screenplay, Art Direction, Costume Design, Film Editing, Makeup, Music(Original Score), Music (Original Song), Sound and Visual Effects. Peter Jackson and crew are going to have very impressive trophy cabinets! There were no major surprises in what was perhaps one of the most true to prediction Oscars in a long while: Sean Penn got Best Actor, Charlize Theron took Best Actress, Tim Robbins Best Supporting with boy bits and Renee Zellweger Best Supporting with girl bits. Sofia Coppola took got her well-deserved nod for Best Original Screenplay for Lost in Translation and Pixar/Disney got Best Animated with Finding Nemo. For Australians Harvie Krumpet took Best Animated Short, while Peter Weir's Master and Commander got nods for Cinematography and Sound Editing. The full rundown:

76th Annual Academy Award
(Winners in Red)

BEST PICTURE
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Lost in Translation
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Mystic River
Seabiscuit

DIRECTING
Fernando Meirelles - City of God
Peter Jackson - The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Sofia Coppola - Lost in Translation
Peter Weir - Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Clint Eastwood - Mystic River

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
Johnny Depp - Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Ben Kingsley - House of Sand and Fog
Jude Law - Cold Mountain
Bill Murray - Lost in Translation
Sean Penn - Mystic River

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
Keisha Castle-Hughes - Whale Rider
Diane Keaton - Something's Gotta Give
Samantha Morton - In America
Charlize Theron - Monster
Naomi Watts - 21 Grams

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Alec Baldwin - The Cooler
Benicio Del Toro - 21 Grams
Djimon Hounsou - In America
Tim Robbins - Mystic River
Ken Watanabe - The Last Samurai

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Shohreh Aghdashloo - House of Sand and Fog
Patricia Clarkson - Pieces of April
Marcia Gay Harden - Mystic River
Holly Hunter - Thirteen
Ren�e Zellweger - Cold Mountain

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Robert Pulcini and Shari Springer Berman - American Splendor
Braulio Mantovani - City of God
Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson - The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Brian Helgeland - Mystic River
Gary Ross - Seabiscuit

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Denys Arcand - The Barbarian Invasions
Steven Knight - Dirty Pretty Things
Andrew Stanton, Bob Peterson and David Reynolds - Finding Nemo
Jim Sheridan, Naomi Sheridan and Kirsten Sheridan - In America
Sofia Coppola - Lost in Translation

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
Brother Bear
Finding Nemo
The Triplets of Belleville

ART DIRECTION
Ben Van Os (Art Direction); Cecile Heideman (Set Decoration) - Girl with a Pearl Earring
Lilly Kilvert (Art Direction); Gretchen Rau (Set Decoration) - The Last Samurai
Grant Major (Art Direction); Dan Hennah and Alan Lee (Set Decoration) - The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
William Sandell (Art Direction); Robert Gould (Set Decoration) - Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Jeannine Oppewall (Art Direction); Leslie Pope (Set Decoration) - Seabiscuit

CINEMATOGRAPHY
Cesar Charlone - City of God
John Seale - Cold Mountain
Eduardo Serra - Girl with a Pearl Earring
Russell Boyd - Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
John Schwartzman - Seabiscuit

COSTUME DESIGN
Dien van Straalen - Girl with a Pearl Earring
Ngila Dickson - The Last Samurai
Ngila Dickson and Richard Taylor - The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Wendy Stites - Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Judianna Makovsky - Seabiscuit

FILM EDITING
Daniel Rezende - City of God
Walter Murch - Cold Mountain
Jamie Selkirk - The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Lee Smith - Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
William Goldenberg - Seabiscuit

MAKEUP
Richard Taylor and Peter King - The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Edouard Henriques III and Yolanda Toussieng - Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Ve Neill and Martin Samuel - Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl


MUSIC (ORIGINAL SCORE)
Danny Elfman - Big Fish
Garbriel Yared - Cold Mountain
Thomas Newman - Finding Nemo
James Horner - House of Sand and Fog
Howard Shore - The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

MUSIC (ORIGINAL SONG)
"Into the West" - The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Music and Lyric by Fran Walsh and Howard Shore and Annie Lennox
"A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow" - A Mighty Wind
Music and Lyric by Michael McKean and Annette O'Toole
"Scarlet Tide" - Cold Mountain
Music and Lyric by T Bone Burnett and Elvis Costello
"The Triplets of Belleville" - The Triplets of Belleville
Music by Benoit Charest; Lyric by Sylvain Chomet
"You Will Be My Ain True Love" - Cold Mountain
Music and Lyric by Sting

SOUND
Andy Nelson, Anna Behlmer and Jeff Wexler - The Last Samurai
Christopher Boyes, Michael Semanick, Michael Hedges and Hammond Peek - The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Paul Massey, D.M. Hemphill and Arthur Rochester - Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Christopher Boyes, David Parker, David Campbell and Lee Orloff - Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Andy Nelson, Anna Behlmer and Tod A. Maitland - Seabiscuit

SOUND EDITING
Gary Rydstrom and Michael Silvers - Finding Nemo
Richard King - Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Christopher Boyes and George Watters II - Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

VISUAL EFFECTS
Jim Rygiel, Joe Letteri, Randall William Cook and Alex Funke - The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Daniel Sudick, Stefen Fangmeier, Nathan McGuinness and Robert Stromberg - Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
John Knoll, Hal Hickel, Charles Gibson and Terry Frazee - Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

SHORT FILM (ANIMATED)
Boundin'
Destino
Gone Nutty
Harvie Krumpet
Nibbles

SHORT FILM (LIVE ACTION)
Die Rote Jacke (The Red Jacket)
Most (The Bridge)
Squash
(A) Torzija ([A] Torsion)
Two Soldiers

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Balseros
Capturing the Friedmans
The Fog of War
My Architect
The Weather Underground

DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
Asylum
Chernobyl Heart
Ferry Tales

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
The Barbarian Invasions - French Canada
Evil - Sweden
The Twilight Samurai - Japan
Twin Sisters - The Netherlands
�elary - Czech Republic

And that wraps up the mainstream film awards circuit for another year ...