Skandies: The fake nominees

HOW THIS WORKS: Each of the 40 or so Skandie voters is allotted 100 points in each category, to be divided among exactly ten candidates. The maximum number of points permissible for any one choice is 30; the minimum is 5. (I stole this system from the Village Voice's annual Pazz & Jop poll.) In the performance categories, votes are for performances, not for actors; it's not uncommon for someone to turn up more than once in the same year, and in fact Edward Norton finished 1st and2nd in Supporting Actor back in 1996, the first year I used this format.

Now, there's only one round of voting. People submit their ballots, I add up the points, and that's that. So there are aren't actually any "nominees" in a traditional sense. Nonetheless, I always first reveal the top five in each category, in alphabetical order, just to give the project that Oscar-type feel. The reverse countdown, kicking off with all the #20s, will begin tomorrow.


BEST PICTURE

Brokeback Mountain

Caché (Hidden)

Grizzly Man

The New World

Tropical Malady


BEST DIRECTOR

David Cronenberg, A History of Violence

Michael Haneke, Caché (Hidden)

Terrence Malick, The New World

Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Tropical Malady

Wong Kar-wai, 2046

This is the second "nomination" (all further scare quotes omitted) for Malick, who placed 4th for The Thin Red Line in 1998, and the third for Wong, who placed 4th in 1996 for Chung King Express and won outright in 2001 for In the Mood for Love. Has he done it again? Stay tuned, etc.


BEST ACTRESS

Emmanuelle Devos, Kings & Queen

Kate Dollenmayer, Funny Ha Ha

Sibel Kekilli, Head-On

Q'Orianka Kilcher, The New World

Evan Rachel Wood, Pretty Persuasion

First nomination for all.


BEST ACTOR

Robert Downey, Jr., Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Mysterious Skin

Philip Seymour Hoffman, Capote

Heath Ledger, Brokeback Mountain

Viggo Mortensen, A History of Violence

First nomination for all.


BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Christian Bale, The New World

Jeff Daniels, The Squid and the Whale

Paul Giamatti, Cinderella Man

William Hurt, A History of Violence

Mickey Rourke, Frank Miller's Sin City

Bale and Giamatti have each been nominated once before, both in the lead category: Bale placed 3rd in 2000 for American Psycho; Giamatti won last year for Sideways.


SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Maria Bello, A History of Violence

Laura Linney, The Squid and the Whale

Michelle Williams, Brokeback Mountain

Yuen Qiu, Kung Fu Hustle

Ziyi Zhang, 2046

Only Linney, who won in 2000 for You Can Count on Me (lead category), has previously been nominated. (Zhang placed 6th for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, mostly because she wound up landing in Actress rather than Supporting Actress; I believe she had enough points to win the latter, or pretty close.)


SCREENPLAY

Woody Allen, Match Point

Noah Baumbach, The Squid and the Whale

Shane Black, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

Skander Halim, Pretty Persuasion

Larry McMurtry & Diana Ossana, Brokeback Mountain

First nomination for all.

[YEAH, YEAH, I KNOW: It looks fishy. But while there's no doubt that the voting body's personal knowledge of Mr. Halim -- he's part of same -- resulted in Pretty Persuasion being much more widely seen that it would otherwise have been, I believe that all votes for his screenplay were sincere. (For the record, I didn't give Skander any points, and I consider him a good friend.) I could of course have declared the film ineligible, but in the end I chose to trust the integrity of the voters rather than remove a fairly major picture from all consideration. And it's certainly significant that another film written (and directed) by a Skandie voter was eligible last year, and was widely seen, and got basically no votes.]


SCENE

Caché (Hidden): Majid's final cut

The Devil's Rejects: "Free Bird"

King Kong: Kong vs. the T-Rexes (V-Rexes?)

Ong-bak: Street market foot chase

War of the Worlds: First encounter of the close kind


UNDISTRIBUTED FILM, 2003

(There's a two-year window of eligibility for the main part of the survey -- I prefer that all the movies be at least roughly contemporaneous -- so a few years ago I started doing a separate poll for unreleased [in NYC] films, staggered two years behind the main poll. A smaller group of voters, composed primarily of those who regularly attend one or more major film festivals, votes for this category.)

Ana and the Others (Celina Murga)

No Rest for the Brave (Alain Guiraudie)

Not on the Lips (Alain Resnais)

PTU (Johnnie To)

The Story of Marie and Julien (Jacques Rivette)