Ravings of the Loquacious Madman

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Presents

The 82nd Annual Academy Awards

Sunday March 7, 2010

Performance by an actor in a leading role

• Jeff Bridges “Crazy Heart” (Fox Searchlight)
• George Clooney “Up in the Air” (Paramount in association with Cold Springs Pictures and DW Studios)
• Colin Firth “A Single Man” (The Weinstein Company)
• Morgan Freeman “Invictus” (Warner Brothers)
• Jeremy Renner “The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment)

Performance by an actor in a supporting role

• Matt Damon “Invictus” (Warner Brothers)
• Woody Harrelson “The Messenger” (Oscilloscope Pictures Classics)
• Christopher Plummer “The Last Stallion” (Sony Pictures Classics
• Stanley Tucci “The Lovely Bones” (DreamWorks in association with Film4, Distributed by Paramount)
• Christoph Waltz “Inglourious Basterds” (The Weinstein Company)

Performance by an actress in a leading role

• Sandra Bullock “The Blind Side” (Warner Brothers)
• Helen Mirren “The Last Station” (Sony Pictures Classics)
• Carey Mulligan “An Education” (Sony Pictures Classics)
• Gabourey Sidibe “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” (Lionsgate)
• Meryl Streep “Julie & Julia” (Sony Pictures Releasing)

Performance by an actress in a supporting role

• Penélope Cruz “Nine” (The Weinstein Company)
• Vera Farmiga “Up in the Air” (Paramount in association with Cold Springs Pictures and DW Studios)
• Maggie Gyllenhaal “Crazy Heart” (Fox Searchlight)
• Anna Kendrick “Up in the Air” (Paramount in association with Cold Springs Pictures and DW Studios)
• Mo’Nique in “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” (Lionsgate)

Best animated feature film of the year

• “Coraline” Henry Selick (Focus Features)
• “Fantastic Mr. Fox” Wes Anderson (20th Century Fox)
• “The Princess and the Frog” John Musker and Ron Clements (Walt Disney)
• “The Secret of Kells” Tomm Moore (GKIDS)
• “Up” Pete Docter (Walt Disney)

Achievement in art direction

• “Avatar” Art Direction:Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg, Set Direction: Kim Sinclair (20th Century Fox)
• “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” Art Direction:Dave Warren and Anastasia Masaro, Set Direction: Caroline Smith (Sony Pictures Classics)
• “Nine” Art Direction: John Myhre, Set Direction: Gordon Sim (The Weinstein Company)
• “Sherlock Holmes” Art Direction: Sarah Greenwood, Set Direction: Katie Spencer (Warner Brothers)
• “The Young Victoria” Art Direction: Patrice Vermette, Set Direction: Maggie Gray

Achievement in cinematography

• “Avatar” Mauro Fiore (20th Century Fox)
• “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” Bruno Delbonnel (Warner Brothers)
• “The Hurt Locker” Barry Ackroyd (Summit Entertainment)
• “Inglourious Basterds” Robert Richardson (The Weinstein Company)
• “The White Ribbon” Christian Berger (Sony Pictures Classics)

Achievement in costume design

• “Bright Star” Janet Patterson (Apparition)
• “Coco before Chanel” Catherine Leterrier (Sony Pictures Classics)
• “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” Monique Prudhomme (Sony Pictures Classics)
• “Nine” Colleen Atwood (The Weinstein Company)
• “The Young Victoria” Sandy Powell (Apparition)

Achievement in directing

• “Avatar” James Cameron (20th Century Fox)
• “The Hurt Locker” Kathryn Bigelow (Summit Entertainment)
• “Inglourious Basterds” Quentin Tarantino (The Weinstein Company)
• “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” Lee Daniels (Lionsgate)
• “Up in the Air” Jason Reitman (Paramount in association with Cold Spring Pictures and DW Studios)

Best documentary feature

• “Burma VJ” Anders Østergaard and Lise Lense-Møller (Oscilloscope Laboratories) A Magic Hour Films Production
• “The Cove” (Roadside Attractions) An Oceanic Preservation Society Production
• “Food Inc.” Robert Kenner and Elise Pearlstein (Magnolia Pictures) A Robert Kenner Production
• “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers” Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith A Kovno Communications Production
• “Which Way Home” Rebecca Cammisa A Mr. Mudd Production

Best documentary short subject

• “China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province” Jon Alpert and Matthew O’Neill A Downtown Community Television Center Production
• “The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardener” Daniel Junge and Henry Ansbacher A Just Media Production
• “The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant” Steven Bognar and Julia Reichart A Community Media Production
• “Music by Prudence” Roger Ross Williams and Elinor Burkett A iThemba Production
• “Rabbit à la Berlin” Bartek Konopka and Anna Wydra (Derkert Distribution) An MS Films Production

Achievement in film editing

• “Avatar” Stephen Rivkin, John Refoua, and James Cameron (20th Century Fox)
• “District 9” Julian Clarke (Sony Pictures Releasing)
• “The Hurt Locker” Bob Murawski and Chris Innis (Summit Entertainment)
• “Inglourious Basterds” Sally Menke (The Weinstein Company)
• “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” Joe Klotz (Lionsgate)

Best foreign language film of the year

• “Ajami” Israel (Kino International) An Inosan Production
• “El Secreto de Sus Ojos” Argentina (Sony Pictures Classics) A Haddock Films Production
• “The Milk of Sorrow” Peru A Wanda Visión/Oberon Cinematogràfica/Vela Production
• “Un Prophète” France (Sony Pictures Classics) A Why Not/Page 114/Chic Films Production
• “The White Ribbon” Germany (Sony Pictures Classics) A X Films Creative Pool/Wega Film/Les Films du Losange/Lucky Red Production

Achievement in makeup

• “Il Divo” Aldo Signoretti and Vittorio Sodano (MPI Media Group through Music Box)
• “Star Trek” Barney Burman, Mindy Hall, and Joel Harlow (Paramount and Spyglass Entertainment)
• “The Young Victoria” Jon Henry Gordon and Jenny Shircore (Apparition)

Achievement in music written for motion picture (Original score)

• “Avatar” James Horner (20th Century Fox)
• “Fantastic Mr. Fox” Alexandre Desplat (20th Century Fox)
• “The Hurt Locker” Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders (Summit Entertainment)
• “Sherlock Holmes” Hans Zimmer (Warner Brothers)
• “Up” Michael Giacchino (Walt Disney)

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)

• “Almost There” from “The Princess and the Frog” Music and Lyrics by Randy Newman (Walt Disney)
• “Down in New Orleans” from “The Princess and the Frog” Music and Lyrics by Randy Newman (Walt Disney)
• “Loin de Paname” from “Paris 36” Music by Reinhardt Wagner, Lyrics by Frank Thomas (Sony Pictures Classics)
• “Take It All” from “Nine” Music and Lyrics by Maury Yeston (The Weinstein Company)
• “The Weary Kind” from “Crazy Heart” Music and Lyrics by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett (Fox Searchlight)

Best motion picture of the year

• “Avatar” James Cameron and Jon Landau, Producers (20th Century Fox) A Lightstorm Entertainment Production
• “The Blind Side” (Warner Brothers) An Alcon Entertainment Production
• “District 9” Peter Jackson and Carolynne Cunningham, Producers (Sony Pictures Releasing) A Block/Hanson Production
• “An Education” Finola Dwyer and Amanda Posey, Producers (Sony Pictures Classics) A Finola Dwyer/Wildgaze Films Production
• “The Hurt Locker” (Summit Entertainment) A Voltage Pictures Production
• “Inglourious Basterds” Lawrence Bender, Producer (The Weinstein Company) A Weinstein Company/Universal Pictures/A Band Apart/Zehnte Babelsberg Production
• “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” Lee Daniels, Sarah Siegel-Magness, and Gary Magness, Producers (Lionsgate) A Lee Daniels Entertainment/Smokewood Entertainment Production
• “A Serious Man” Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, Producers (Focus Features) A Working Title Films Production
• “Up” Jonas Rivera, Producer (Walt Disney) A Pixar Production
• “Up in the Air” Daniel Dubiecki, Ivan Reitman, and Jason Reitman, Producers (Paramount in association with Cold Spring Pictures and DW Studios) A Montecito Picture Company Production

Best animated short film

• “French Roast” Fabrice O. Joubert A Pumpkin Factory/Bibo Films Production
• “Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty” Nicky Phelan and Darragh O’Connell (Brown Bag Films) A Brown Bag Films Production
• “The Lady and the Reaper (La Dama y la Muerte)” Javier Recio Gracia A Kandor Graphics and Green Moon Production
• “Logorama” Nicolas Schmerkin (Autour de Minuit) An Autour de Minuit Production
• “A Matter of Loaf amd Death” Nick Park (Aardman Animations) An Aardman Animation Production

Best live action short film

• “The Door” Juanita Wilson and James Flynn (Network Ireland Television) An Octagon Films Production
• “Instead of Abracadabra” Patrik Eklund and Mathias Fjellström (The Swedish Film Institute) A Directörn &Fabriköm Production
• “Kavi” Gregg Helvey A Gregg Helvey Production
• “Miracle Fish” Luke Doolan and Drew Bailey (Premium Films) A Druid Films Production
• “The New Tenants” Joachim Back and Tivi Magnusson A Park Pictures and M & M Production

Achievement in sound editing

• “Avatar” Christopher Boyes & Gwendolyn Yates Whittle (20th Century Fox)
• “The Hurt Locker” Paul N.J. Ottoson (Summit Entertainment)
• “Inglourious Basterds” Wylie Stateman (The Weinstein Company)
• “Star Trek” Mark Stoeckinger & Alan Rankin (Paramount and Spyglass Entertainment)
• “Up” Michael Silvers & Tom Myers (Walt Disney)

Achievement in sound mixing

• “Avatar” Christopher Bynes, Gary Summers, Andy Nelson, and Tony Johnson (20th Century Fox)
• “The Hurt Locker” Paul N.J. Ottoson and Ray Beckett (Summit Entertainment)
• “Inglourious Basterds” Michael Minkler, Tony Lamberti, and Mark Ulano (The Weinstein Company)
• “Star Trek” Anna Behlmer, Andy Nelson, and Peter J. Devlin (Paramount and Spyglass Entertainment)
• “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” Greg P. Russell, Gary Summers, and Geoffrey Patterson (DreamWorks and Paramount in association with Hasbro, Distributed by Paramount)

Achievement in visual effects

• “Avatar” Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham, and Andrew R. Jones (20th Century Fox)
• “District 9” Dan Kauffman, Peter Muyzers, Robert Habros, and Matt Aitken (Sony Pictures Releasing)
• “Star Trek” Roger Guyett, Russell Earl, Paul Kavanagh, and Burt Dalton (Paramount and Spyglass Entertainment)

Adapted screenplay

• “District 9” Written by Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell (Sony Pictures Releasing)
• “An Education” Screenplay by Nick Hornby (Sony Pictures Classics)
• “In the Loop” Screenplay by Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, and Tony Roche (IFC Films)
• “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” Screenplay by Geoffrey Fletcher (Lionsgate)
• “Up in the Air” Screenplay by Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner (Paramount in association with Cold Spring Pictures and DW Studios)

Original screenplay

• “The Hurt Locker” Written by Mark Boal (Summit Entertainment)
• “Inglourious Basterds” Written by Quentin Tarantino (The Weinstein Company)
• “The Messenger” Written by Alessandro Camon & Oren Movermen (Oscilloscope Laboratories)
• “A Serious Man” Written by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen (Focus Features)
• “Up” Screenplay by Bob Peterson & Pete Docter Story by Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, and Tom McCarthy (Walt Disney)

By ANITA GATES

Patrick Swayze, the balletically athletic actor who rose to stardom in the films “Dirty Dancing” and “Ghost” and whose 20-month battle with advanced pancreatic cancer drew wide attention, died Monday. He was 57.

His publicist, Annett Wolf, told The Associated Press in Los Angeles that Mr. Swayze had died with family members at his side.

Mr. Swayze’s cancer was diagnosed in January 2008. Six months later he had already outlived his prognosis and was filmed at an airport, smiling at photographers and calling himself, only half-facetiously, “a miracle dude.”

He even went through with plans to star in “The Beast,” a drama series for A&E. He filmed a complete season while undergoing treatment. Mr. Swayze insisted on continuing with the series. “How do you nurture a positive attitude when all the statistics say you’re a dead man?” he told The New York Times last October. “You go to work.”

The show, on which he played an undercover F.B.I. agent, had its premiere in January and earned him admiring reviews.

A week before the series began, Mr. Swayze was the subject of a one-hour “Barbara Walters Special” on ABC, in which he talked about his illness. “I keep my heart and my soul and my spirit open to miracles,” he told Ms. Walters. But he said he was not going to pursue every experimental treatment that came along. If he were to “spend so much time chasing staying alive,” he said, he wouldn’t be able to enjoy the time he had left.

“I want to live,” he said.

Shortly after the interview, he was hospitalized for pneumonia. At least one tabloid newspaper ran photographs of him in April with reports that the cancer had metastasized and that his weight had dropped to 105 pounds.

Mr. Swayze rose to stardom in 1987. He had received attention in several early movies and in the mini-series “North and South,” but the coming-of-age film “Dirty Dancing” established him as a romantic leading man. He starred opposite Jennifer Grey as a young working-class dance instructor at a Catskills resort who proved to have more heart, integrity and sex appeal than many of the wealthy guests with whom he was forbidden to fraternize.

He exhibited similar emotional intensity in the supernatural romance “Ghost” (1990), an enormous box-office hit. His character, a loft-living yuppie banker, is murdered early in the film and spends the rest of it as a spirit, desperately trying to communicate with his fiancée (Demi Moore) with the help of a psychic (Whoopi Goldberg). The film, which also showcased his physical grace, solidified his stardom.

Mr. Swayze was proud of “Ghost,” as he told The San Francisco Chronicle in 1990. “I needed to do something that will affect the audience in a positive way, make them feel better about their lives and appreciate what they have,” he said.

Patrick Wayne Swayze was born on Aug. 18, 1952, in Houston, the son of Jesse Wayne Swayze, an engineer and rodeo cowboy, and Patsy Swayze, a dance instructor and choreographer. He began dancing as a child and was often teased about it. But he was also a student athlete, and his dancing career was hampered by a football injury.

After attending San Jacinto, a community college in Texas, Mr. Swayze moved to New York to study dance, becoming a member of Eliot Feld Ballet. He made his Broadway debut in 1975 as a dancer in “Goodtime Charley” and was cast in the original Broadway production of “Grease,” taking over the lead role. (He returned to Broadway almost three decades later, filling in as the razzle-dazzle lawyer Billy Flynn in “Chicago” in 2003.)

He made his screen debut in “Skatetown, U.S.A.” (1979), a roller-disco movie starring Scott Baio. Looking back on that film, he told the Toronto newspaper The Globe and Mail in 1984, “I saw that with not too much trouble I could become a teenybopper star, but I knew if I accepted that, it would take years to win credibility as a serious actor.”

His first notable film was “The Outsiders” (1983), a drama about teenage gangs that starred other newcomers like Tom Cruise, Rob Lowe, Matt Dillon and Emilio Estevez. The same year he was cast in a short-lived television series, “Renegades,” a sort of updated “Mod Squad” about young gang leaders turned deputies.

His public profile grew steadily, especially with his appearances in “Red Dawn” (1984), a film about small-town high school students fighting the Soviets in World War III, and in “North and South” (1985), a 12-hour mini-series in which he played a conflicted Southern soldier.

“People don’t identify with victims,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press, discussing his “North and South” character, originally written as a more passive man. “They identify with people who have the world come down on their heads and who fight to survive.”

After that came “Dirty Dancing” and then, just three years later, “Ghost,” with a few largely forgotten movies in between.

During the 1990s he was a bank-robbing surfer in “Point Break” (1991) and a drag queen with the daunting name Vida Boheme in “To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar” (1995). “To Wong Foo” earned him his third Golden Globe nomination. (The others were for “Dirty Dancing” and “Ghost.”)

His portrayal of a noble doctor in Roland Joffé’s “City of Joy” (1992) was not well received. But then, critics rarely praised his acting ability. At best he was commended for his athletic presence and stalwart demeanor.

From 1995 to 2007 he made more than a dozen feature films, including “Donnie Darko” (2001), in which he played an obnoxious motivational speaker. In 2006 he surprised many by starring in London as the streetwise gambler Nathan Detroit in the musical “Guys and Dolls.” His last film was “Powder Blue,” a drama with Lisa Kudrow that was released on DVD this year. As a young unknown, Mr. Swayze met Lisa Niemi, a fellow Houstonian, in one of his mother’s dance classes. They married in 1975. She survives him, along with his mother; two brothers, Don and Sean; and a sister, Bambi. Another sister, Vicky, died in 1994.

Mr. Swayze said more than once that he was determined not to be typecast. In a 1989 interview with The Chicago Sun-Times, he said, “The only plan I have is that every time people think they have me pegged, I’m going to come out of left field and do something unexpected.”

He also expressed concern about the dangers of Hollywood superficiality. “One of the reasons I bought my ranch was because I didn’t want to hear the hype,” he told The A.P. in 1985, referring to his horse ranch in the San Gabriel Mountains. He added, “Your horses don’t lie to you.”

New York Times September 14, 2009

By SUSAN STEWART [New York Times]

Farrah Fawcett, an actress and television star whose good looks and
signature flowing hairstyle influenced a generation of women and bewitched a
generation of men, beginning with a celebrated pinup poster, died Thursday
morning [June 25, 2009] in Santa Monica, Calif. She was 62 and lived in West
Los Angeles.

Her death, at St. John’s Health Center, was caused by anal cancer, which she
had been battling since 2006, said her spokesman, Paul Bloch.

To an extraordinary degree, Ms. Fawcett’s cancer battle was played out in
public, generating enormous interest worldwide. Her face, often showing the
ravages of cancer, became a tabloid fixture, and updates on her health
became staples of television entertainment news.

In May, that battle was chronicled in a prime-time NBC documentary, "Farrah’s
Story," some of it shot with her own home video recorder. An estimated nine
million people viewed it. Ms. Fawcett had initiated the project with a
friend, the actress Alana Stewart, after she first learned of her cancer.

Ms. Fawcett’s doctors declared her cancer-free after they removed a tumor in
2007, but her cancer returned later that year. She had been receiving
alternative treatment in Germany and was hospitalized in early April for a
blood clot resulting from that treatment, according to her doctor, Lawrence
Piro. He also said her cancer had spread to her liver.

Ms. Fawcett’s career was a patchwork of positives and negatives, fine
dramatic performances on television and stage as well as missed
opportunities.

She first became famous when a poster of her in a red bathing suit, leonine
mane flying, sold more than twice as many copies as posters of Marilyn
Monroe and Betty Grable combined. No poster like it has achieved anywhere
near its popularity since, and, arriving before the Internet era, in which
the most widely disseminated images are now digital, it may have been the
last of its kind.

Ms. Fawcett won praise for her serious acting later in her career, typically
as a victimized woman. But she remained best known for the hit 1970s
television show "Charlie’s Angels," in which she played Jill Munroe, one of
three beautiful women employed as private detectives by an unseen male boss
who (in the voice of John Forsythe) issued directives and patronizing praise
over a speaker phone. Her pinup fame had led the producers to cast her.

Ms. Fawcett and her fellow angels, played by Jaclyn Smith and Kate Jackson,
brought evildoers to justice, often while posing in decoy roles that put
them in skimpy outfits or provocative situations.

"Charlie’s Angels," created and produced by Aaron Spelling and Leonard
Goldberg for ABC, was a phenomenon, finishing the 1976-77 season as the No.
5 network show, the highest-rated television debut in history at that time.

Ms. Fawcett was its breakout star. Although she left the show after one
season and returned only sporadically thereafter, the show’s influence –
among other things, it inspired two much later feature films starring
Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore and Lucy Liu – was so indelible that she was
forever associated with it.

The series, whose popularity coincided with the burgeoning women’s movement,
brought new attention to issues of female sexuality and the influence of
television. Commentators debated whether the show’s athletic, scantily clad
heroines were exemplars of female strength or merely a harem of pretty
puppets doing the bidding of a patriarchal leader.

As the show’s most popular star, Ms. Fawcett became another sort of poster
girl, for the "jiggle TV" of the ’70s, and a lightning rod for cultural
commentators. Chadwick Roberts, writing in The Journal of Popular Culture in
2003, described her "unbound, loose and abundant hair" as marking "a new
emphasis on femininity after the androgyny of the late ’60s and early ’70s."

In 1978 Playboy magazine called Ms. Fawcett "the first mass visual symbol of
post-neurotic fresh-air sexuality." She herself put it more plainly: "When
the show got to be No. 3, I figured it was our acting. When it got to be No.
1, I decided it could only be because none of us wears a bra."

Ms. Fawcett acknowledged that her sex symbol status was a mixed blessing. It
made her famous, but it often obscured the acting talent that brought her
three Emmy nominations, most notably for "The Burning Bed," a critically
acclaimed movie about spousal abuse.

"I don’t think an actor ever wants to establish an image," she said in an
interview with The New York Times in 1986. "That certainly hurt me, and yet
that is also what made me successful and eventually able to do more
challenging roles. That’s life. Everything has positive and negative
consequences."

Ferrah Leni Fawcett was born in Corpus Christi, Tex., on Feb. 2, 1947. Her
father, James, worked in the oil pipeline industry; her mother, Pauline, was
a homemaker.

After dropping out of the University of Texas, Ms. Fawcett moved to
Hollywood to pursue acting. She soon found work in commercials for Wella
Balsam shampoo and Noxzema shaving cream, among other products. A Noxzema
commercial in which she shaved the face of the football star Joe Namath was
shown during the 1973 Super Bowl.

Ms. Fawcett also found acting work in television, landing guest roles on "I
Dream of Jeannie," "The Flying Nun" and other sitcoms. She appeared in four
episodes of "The Six Million Dollar Man," whose star, Lee Majors, she had
married in 1973. When Ms. Fawcett was cast on "Charlie’s Angels," she had a
clause written into her contract that allowed her to leave the set every day
in time to prepare dinner for Mr. Majors.

She was billed as Farrah Fawcett-Majors until 1979. She and Mr. Majors
divorced in 1982.

The poster that ignited Ms. Fawcett’s career was shot at the Bel Air home
she shared with Mr. Majors. "She was just this sweet, innocent, beautiful
young girl," said Bruce McBroom, who took the photograph. Searching for a
backdrop to Ms. Fawcett in her one-piece red swimsuit (which she chose
instead of a bikini because of a childhood scar on her stomach), he grabbed
an old Navajo blanket from the front seat of his 1937 pickup.

After leaving "Charlie’s Angels" to pursue a film career (she came back for
guest appearances for two more seasons), Ms. Fawcett made three forgettable
movies in quick succession, then salvaged her reputation by returning to
television. In 1981 she starred in the mini-series "Murder in Texas," as the
wife of a doctor who is subsequently accused of murdering her; in 1984 she
made "The Burning Bed."

Both movies were shown on NBC, and both performances received strong
reviews. In "The Burning Bed," Ms. Fawcett was one of the first prime-time
actresses to forgo cosmetics in favor of a convincing characterization.

In 1983 she played another victimized woman who fights back – a
vengeance-seeking rape victim – in the Off Broadway production of
"Extremities." She took over for Karen Allen, who had replaced Susan
Sarandon. Ms. Fawcett went on to star in the film version of the play in
1986.

Other roles followed in film and television – she won praise again in the
searing 1989 television movie "Small Sacrifices" – but throughout, Ms.
Fawcett tended to attract more attention for her looks and personal life
than for her professional accomplishments. Her long relationship with the
actor Ryan O’Neal, with whom she had a son, kept her on the gossip pages
long after her television work had become sporadic. In recent months she and
Mr. O’Neal had been living together. Interviewed by Barbara Walters this
month on the ABC program "20/20," Mr. O’Neal said that he had asked Ms.
Fawcett to marry her and she had said yes.

In 1997 Ms. Fawcett negated much of the respect she had earned as an actress
when, during an appearance on "Late Show With David Letterman," she promoted
a bizarre body-painting Playboy video and appeared ditsy to the point of
incoherence.

But later that year she appeared in the acclaimed independent film "The
Apostle" as Robert Duvall’s long-suffering wife, and her critical star rose
again – only to be dimmed by publicity about a court case involving a former
companion, the director James Orr. Mr. Orr was convicted of assaulting Ms.
Fawcett and sentenced to three years’ probation.

In addition to Mr. O’Neal, Ms. Fawcett is survived by her father, James, and
her son, Redmond James Fawcett O’Neal.

Though her career was volatile, Ms. Fawcett’s fame never diminished after
"Charlie’s Angels." She tried to capitalize on her celebrity with the 2005
reality series "Chasing Farrah," but it was a critical and ratings flop.
Writing in Medialife magazine, Ed Robertson described the series and its
star as "a living example of a talented actress whose career has been turned
into a parody by poor decisions."

Ms. Fawcett herself described her career succinctly. "I became famous," she
said in her 1986 Times interview, "almost before I had a craft."

By BRUCE WEBER

David Carradine, an enigmatic actor who never outran the cult status he earned in the 1970s television series “Kung Fu” — even though he went on to star as Woody Guthrie in the film “Bound for Glory” and as the title character in Quentin Tarantino’s twin thrillers, “Kill Bill” Volumes I and II — was found dead on Thursday in a hotel room in Bangkok, where he was filming a new movie. He was 72 and lived in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles.

The police in Bangkok are treating the death as a suicide, The Associated Press reported, though Mr. Carradine’s manager of six years, Chuck Binder, said he didn’t believe this was the case.

“He was working, he had a family, he was happy,” Mr. Binder said in an interview Thursday. “He just bought a new car.”

Thai authorities informed the United States Embassy that Mr. Carradine, who was staying in a suite at the Swissotel Nai Lert Park, died either late Wednesday or early Thursday, The A.P. said.

“I can confirm that we found his body, naked, hanging in the closet,” Teerapop Luanseng, a police officer investigating the death, told The A.P.

A busy actor if not always the most discriminating in his choice of roles, Mr. Carradine had hundreds of credits on television and in the movies, and it can be fairly said that acting was in his blood. He was the oldest son of John Carradine, a prolific character actor who was a favorite of the director John Ford, and he had three actor half-brothers, Keith, Robert and Bruce Carradine.

He was in his early 30s and had a decade of credits in the theater, in films and on television behind him when he was cast in “Kung Fu” as Kwai Chang Caine, a half-Chinese, half-American Shaolin monk who had fled China after he killed a man in defense of his master and was on the lam in the 19th-century American West.

The character, a martial arts master and mystical peacenik, was portrayed by Mr. Carradine with a preternatural calm and, in moments of heroic violence — deployed only as a last resort — an explosive grace, a reluctant hero more comfortable spouting vaguely Confucian aphorisms than wreaking physical vengeance on even the most evil foes. The show caught on, especially with young viewers, plugging into the battle-weary spirit of the waning years of the Vietnam War and, in its depiction of the ill treatment of Chinese immigrants, the indignant anguish of the civil rights movement as well (though some Asian-Americans were irked that the role was not given to an Asian actor).

“Kung Fu” made its debut as an ABC movie of the week in 1972, then ran as a series until 1975. And though Mr. Carradine was not proficient in the martial arts himself — he studied them later — the show was influential in the rise of American interest in them and in Eastern philosophy.

In an interview with The New York Times after “Kung Fu” became a hit, Mr. Carradine said that no one was more surprised than he.

“Man, I read that pilot script and flipped!” he said. “But I never believed it would get on TV. I mean, a Chinese western, about a half-Chinese half-American Buddhist monk who wanders the gold rush country but doesn’t care about gold, and defends the oppressed but won’t carry a gun, and won’t even step on an ant because he values all life, and hardly ever speaks? No way!”

He was born John Arthur Carradine in Hollywood on Dec. 8, 1936; he changed his name in his early 20s, at the start of his acting career, because he didn’t want to be known as John Jr. (especially since his father’s birth name was not John but Richmond). He attended several colleges in the San Francisco area, studying music and eventually acting and earning money by painting murals in bars.

He served in the Army from 1960 to 1962 and landed on Broadway in 1964 in “The Deputy.” His break came the next year, when, alongside Christopher Plummer, he played an Inca king, also on Broadway, in “The Royal Hunt of the Sun,” by Peter Shaffer. From there he was cast in the lead of a short-lived television series based on the classic western film “Shane.”

As a young actor, Mr. Carradine had a reputation for being headstrong and difficult. He was also an admittedly freewheeling child of the 1960s, a partaker of psychedelic drugs who had occasional run-ins with the police. He lived with the actress Barbara Hershey during the time when she had changed her name to Barbara Seagull, and they had a son they named Free.

Mr. Carradine was married five times. In addition to his son Free and his half-brothers Keith, Robert and Bruce, he is survived by his wife, Annie; two other half-brothers, Michael Bowen and Christopher; five daughters, Kansas, Calista, Amanda, Madeline and Olivia; another son, Max; and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

The popularity of “Kung Fu” helped Mr. Carradine land two plum starring roles: Woody Guthrie in “Bound for Glory” (1976), a film directed by Hal Ashby that was nominated for a best picture Oscar; and an American acrobat, opposite Liv Ullmann, in “The Serpent’s Egg” (1978), a film directed by Ingmar Bergman that is generally considered among his most problematic. Mr. Carradine also worked with Martin Scorsese — he has a memorable scene as a drunk in “Mean Streets” (1973) — and Walter Hill, in “The Long Riders” (1980), a western in which he, Keith and Robert were cast with other acting brothers, James and Stacy Keach and Dennis and Randy Quaid.

In 2003 and 2004, Mr. Tarantino helped to revive Mr. Carradine’s career with the “Kill Bill” movies, in which he played the elusive mastermind of a gang of assassins who is stalked by a former protégée, played by Uma Thurman. More recently he was busy with a number of film projects that were not as popular. He was making a French action movie, “Stretch,” at the time of his death. Indeed, perhaps his most recognizable recent work was a commercial for Yellow Book, in which he spoofed his role in “Kung Fu.”

Natasha Richardson, a Tony Award-winning actress whose career melded glamorous celebrity with the bloodline of theater royalty, died Wednesday at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. She had suffered head injuries in a skiing accident Monday north of Montreal, and was flown to New York on Tuesday. She was 45 and lived in Manhattan and in Millbrook, N.Y.

Alan Nierob, a spokesman for her husband, the actor Liam Neeson, announced Ms. Richardson’s death Wednesday night.

“Liam Neeson, his sons, and the entire family are shocked and devastated by the tragic death of their beloved Natasha,” a statement said. “They are profoundly grateful for the support, love and prayers of everyone, and ask for privacy during this very difficult time.”

The statement did not disclose the cause of death or discuss Ms. Richardson’s medical condition.

The gravity of her injuries had prompted an outpouring of public interest and concern and flurries of rumor and speculation since Monday, when reports of her accident began filtering out of the Mont Tremblant ski resort in the Laurentian hills.

Ms. Richardson, who was not wearing a helmet, had fallen during a beginner’s skiing lesson, a resort spokeswoman, Lyne Lortie, said Tuesday. “It was a normal fall; she didn’t hit anyone or anything,” Ms. Lortie said. “She didn’t show any signs of injury. She was talking and she seemed all right.”

Still, an instructor and a ski patrol member accompanied her off the slopes, and when Ms. Richardson complained of a headache about an hour later in her hotel, she was taken by ambulance to a hospital nearby and later transferred to one in Montreal. She was flown to Lenox Hill on Tuesday afternoon.

On Wednesday, as television news vans stood outside, friends including Lauren Bacall and family members including Ms. Richardson’s mother, Vanessa Redgrave, and sister, the actress Joely Richardson, were observed arriving. Mr. Neeson was seen crouched beside her in an ambulance in Montreal the day before.

The news media attention harked back to the early 1990s, when the couple’s relationship was noted in newspapers. She was a blond, beautiful English actress, he was her ruggedly handsome Irish co-star, and the two were thought to be courting right on stage, during a New York production.

Ms. Richardson was an intense and absorbing actress who was unafraid of taking on demanding and emotionally raw roles. Classically trained, she was admired on both sides of the Atlantic for upholding the traditions of one of the great acting families of the modern age.

Her grandfather was Sir Michael Redgrave, one of England’s finest tragedians. He passed his gifts, if not always his affection, to his daughters, Vanessa and Lynn Redgrave, and his son, Corin Redgrave. The night Vanessa was born, her father was playing Laertes to Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet.

Ms. Richardson was the daughter of Vanessa Redgrave and the film director Tony Richardson, known for “Tom Jones” and “The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner.” Married in the early 1960s, they were divorced in 1967. He died of AIDS in 1991 at the age of 63.

Ms. Richardson came to critical prominence in England in 1985 as Nina, Chekhov’s naïve and vulnerable ingénue in “The Seagull,” a role her mother had played to great acclaim in 1964. It was a road production, and when it reached London, Vanessa Redgrave joined the cast as the narcissistic actress Arkadina. The production became legendary, but working with her mother intimidated her.

“She rehearsed like a tornado,” Ms. Richardson recalled in a 1993 interview with The New York Times Magazine. “It was completely crazy. She rolled on the floor in some scenes. I was terrified of being on stage with her.”

But almost no one doubts that Ms. Redgrave inspired her daughter as well. Like her mother, Ms. Richardson was known for disappearing into a role, for not capitalizing on her looks and for being drawn to characters under duress.

In the performance that made her a star in the United States, she played the title role on Broadway in a 1993 revival of “Anna Christie,” Eugene O’Neill’s grueling portrait of a waterfront slattern in confrontation with the abusive men in her life. Embracing the emotional wreckage that showed in her character’s face, she modeled her makeup each night on Edvard Munch’s painting “The Scream.”

Her performance, nominated for a Tony Award, was vibrantly sensual, and her scenes with her co-star, Mr. Neeson, were acclaimed as sizzling and electric. The chemistry between them extended offstage as well; shortly after the run, Ms. Richardson separated from her husband, the producer Robert Fox. She and Mr. Neeson married in 1994.

Besides her husband, Ms. Richardson is survived by their two sons, Micheal Richard Antonio Neeson, 13, and Daniel Jack Neeson, 12, as well as her mother, her sister, a half-sister, Katherine Grimond, and a half-brother, Carlo Sparanero, also known as Carlo Nero, the son of Ms. Redgrave and Franco Nero.

Ms. Richardson’s Tony Award came in 1998, for best actress in a musical, for her performance as Sally Bowles, the gifted but desperately needy singer in decadent Weimar Berlin who is at the center of “Cabaret.”

It was a remarkable award: Ms. Richardson’s strengths did not include singing. But her reinvention of a role that was performed memorably by Jill Haworth in the 1966 Broadway production proved that a performer could act a song as well as sing it and make it equally affecting.

“Ms. Richardson, you see, isn’t selling the song; she’s selling the character,” Ben Brantley, writing in The Times, said of her delivery of the title song. “And as she forges ahead with the number, in a defiant, metallic voice, you can hear the promise of the lyrics tarnishing in Sally’s mouth. She’s willing herself to believe in them, and all too clearly losing the battle.”

Natasha Jane Richardson was born in London on May 11, 1963. She made her first film appearance at the age of 4, playing a bridesmaid at the wedding of her mother’s character in “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” directed by her father. She attended the Central School of Speech and Drama in London and got her first job in an outdoor production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

She eventually moved to the United States, where “no one cares about the Redgrave baggage,” as she once said. She gave her greatest performances there.

In the movies she played the title character in Paul Schrader’s film “Patty Hearst” (1988), about the heiress and kidnap victim. She worked with Mr. Schrader again on “The Comfort of Strangers” (1990), a creepy psychological drama with a screenplay by Harold Pinter from a novel by Ian McEwan.

The same year, she also starred in “The Handmaid’s Tale,” an adaptation of the dystopian novel by Margaret Atwood about subjugated women in a pseudo-Christian theocracy. In a 1993 television adaptation of Tennessee Williams’s one-act play “Suddenly, Last Summer,” she was Catherine Holly, a young woman (played by Elizabeth Taylor in the original movie) driven to the brink of insanity by the gruesome death of her young cousin. And she played the title role in the 1993 television movie “Zelda,” based on the life of Zelda Fitzgerald, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s ferociously competitive and emotionally delicate wife.

Ms. Richardson’s more recent work has included more conventional Hollywood fare, including a remake of “The Parent Trap” (1998), the comedy “Maid in Manhattan” (2002) and the teenage melodrama “Wild Child” (2008).

On stage, she appeared on Broadway in “Closer,” Patrick Marber’s play about infidelity and the Internet, and as Blanche DuBois in a revival of “A Streetcar Named Desire.” Though the production did not draw much praise, Ms. Richardson’s performance did, as perhaps her grandfather had envisioned.

In 1985, a week before he died, Sir Michael, enfeebled by Parkinson’s disease, went to see Ms. Richardson as Ophelia in a production of “Hamlet.” Turning to his daughter Vanessa, Ms. Richardson’s mother, he uttered a brief review. “She’s a true actress,” he said.

81st Annual Academy Awards

Performance by an actor in a leading role

• Richard Jenkins in “The Visitor” (Overture Films)
• Frank Langella in “Frost/Nixon” (Universal)
• Sean Penn in “Milk” (Focus Features)
• Brad Pitt in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.)
• Mickey Rourke in “The Wrestler” (Fox Searchlight)

Performance by an actor in a supporting role

• Josh Brolin in “Milk” (Focus Features)
• Robert Downey Jr. in “Tropic Thunder” (DreamWorks, Distributed by DreamWorks/Paramount)
• Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Doubt” (Miramax)
• Heath Ledger in “The Dark Knight” (Warner Bros.)
• Michael Shannon in “Revolutionary Road” (DreamWorks, Distributed by Paramount Vantage)

Performance by an actress in a leading role

• Anne Hathaway in “Rachel Getting Married” (Sony Pictures Classics)
• Angelina Jolie in “Changeling” (Universal)
• Melissa Leo in “Frozen River” (Sony Pictures Classics)
• Meryl Streep in “Doubt” (Miramax)
• Kate Winslet in “The Reader” (The Weinstein Company)

Performance by an actress in a supporting role

• Amy Adams in “Doubt” (Miramax)
• Penélope Cruz in “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” (The Weinstein Company)
• Viola Davis in “Doubt” (Miramax)
• Taraji P. Henson in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.)
• Marisa Tomei in “The Wrestler” (Fox Searchlight)

Best animated feature film of the year

• “Bolt” (Walt Disney), Chris Williams and Byron Howard
• “Kung Fu Panda” (DreamWorks Animation, Distributed by Paramount), John Stevenson and Mark Osborne
• “WALL-E” (Walt Disney), Andrew Stanton

Achievement in art direction

• “Changeling” (Universal), Art Direction: James J. Murakami, Set Decoration: Gary Fettis
• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Art Direction: Donald Graham Burt, Set Decoration: Victor J. Zolfo
• “The Dark Knight” (Warner Bros.), Art Direction: Nathan Crowley, Set Decoration: Peter Lando
• “The Duchess” (Paramount Vantage, Pathé and BBC Films), Art Direction: Michael Carlin, Set Decoration: Rebecca Alleway
• “Revolutionary Road” (DreamWorks, Distributed by Paramount Vantage), Art Direction: Kristi Zea, Set Decoration: Debra Schutt

Achievement in cinematography

• “Changeling” (Universal), Tom Stern
• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Claudio Miranda
• “The Dark Knight” (Warner Bros.), Wally Pfister
• “The Reader” (The Weinstein Company), Chris Menges and Roger Deakins
• “Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight), Anthony Dod Mantle

Achievement in costume design

• “Australia” (20th Century Fox), Catherine Martin
• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Jacqueline West
• “The Duchess” (Paramount Vantage, Pathé and BBC Films), Michael O’Connor
• “Milk” (Focus Features), Danny Glicker
• “Revolutionary Road” (DreamWorks, Distributed by Paramount Vantage), Albert Wolsky

Achievement in directing

• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.), David Fincher
• “Frost/Nixon” (Universal), Ron Howard
• “Milk” (Focus Features), Gus Van Sant
• “The Reader” (The Weinstein Company), Stephen Daldry
• “Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight), Danny Boyle

Best documentary feature

• “The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)” (Cinema Guild), A Pandinlao Films Production, Ellen Kuras and Thavisouk Phrasavath
• “Encounters at the End of the World” (THINKFilm and Image Entertainment), A Creative Differences Production, Werner Herzog and Henry Kaiser
• “The Garden” (A Black Valley Films Production), Scott Hamilton Kennedy
• “Man on Wire” (Magnolia Pictures), A Wall to Wall in association with Red Box Films Production, James Marsh and Simon Chinn
• “Trouble in the Water” (Zeitgeist Films), An Elsewhere Films Production, Tia Lessin and Carl Deal

Best documentary short subject

• “The Conscience of Nhem En” (A Farallon Films Production), Steven Okazaki
• “The Final Inch” (Vermilion Films in association with Google.org), Irene Taylor Brodsky and Tom Grant
• “Smile Pinki” (A Principe Production), Megan Mylan
• “The Witness- From the Balcony of Room 306” (A Rock Paper Scissors Production), Adam Pertofsky and Margaret Hyde

Achievement in film editing

• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall
• “The Dark Knight” (Warner Bros.), Lee Smith
• “Frost/Nixon” (Universal), Mike Hill and Dan Hanley
• “Milk” (Focus Features), Elliot Graham
• “Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight), Chris Dickens

Best foreign language film of the year

• “The Baader Meinhof Complex” (A Constantin Film Production), Germany
• “The Class” (Sony Pictures Classics), A Haut et Court Production, France
• “Departures” (Regent Releasing), A Departures Film Partners Production, Japan
• “Revanche” (Janus Films), A Prisma Film/Fernseh Production, Austria
• “Waltz with Bashir” (Sony Pictures Classics), A Bridgit Folman Film Gang Production, Israel

Achievement in makeup

• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Greg Cannom
• “The Dark Knight” (Warner Bros.), John Caglione, Jr. and Conor O’Sullivan
• “Hellboy II: The Golden Army” (Universal), Mike Elizalde and Thom Floutz

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)

• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Alexandre Desplat
• “Defiance” (Paramount Vantage), James Newton Howard
• “Milk” (Focus Features), Danny Elfman
• “Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight), A.R. Rahman
• “WALL-E” (Walt Disney), Thomas Newman

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)

• “Down to Earth” from “WALL-E” (Walt Disney), Music by Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman, Lyric by Peter Gabriel
• “Jai Ho” from “Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight), Music by A.R. Rahman, Lyric by Gulzar
• “O Saya” from “Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight), Music and Lyric by A.R. Rahman and Maya Arulpragasam                  

Best motion picture of the year

• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.), A Kennedy/Marshall Production, Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall and Ceán Chaffin, Producers
• “Frost/Nixon” (Universal), A Universal Pictures, Imagine Entertainment and Working Title Production, Brian Grazer, Ron Howard and Eric Fellner, Producers
• “Milk” (Focus Features), A Groundswell and Jinks/Cohen Company Production, Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen, Producers
• “The Reader” (The Weinstein Company), A Mirage Enterprises and Neunte Babelsberg Film GmbH Production, Anthony Minghella, Sydney Pollack, Donna Gigliotti and Redmond Morris, Producers
• “Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight), A Celador Films Production, Christian Colson, Producer

Best animated short film

• “La Maison en Petits Cubes” (A Robot Communications Production), Kunio Kato
• “Lavatory- Lovestory” (A Melnitsa Animation Studio and CTB Film Company Production), Konstantin Bronzit
• “Oktapodi” (Talantis Films), A Gobelins, L’école de l’image Production, Emud Mokhberi and Thierry Marchand
• “Presto” (Walt Disney), A Pixar Animation Studios Production, Doug Sweetland
• “This Way Up” (A Nexus Production), Alan Smith and Adam Foulkes

Best live action short film

• “Auf der Strecke (On the Line)” (Hamburg Shortfilmagency), An Academy of Media Arts Cologne Production, Reto Caffi
• “Manon on the Asphalt” (La Luna Productions), A La Luna Production, Elizabeth Marre and Olivier Pont
• “New Boy” (Network Ireland Television), A Zanzibar Films Production, Steph Green and Tamara Anghie
• “The Pig” (An M & M Production), Tivi Magnusson and Dorte Høgh
• “Spielzeugland (Toyland)” (A Mephisto Film Production), Jochen Alexander Freydank

Achievement in sound editing

• “The Dark Knight” (Warner Bros.), Richard King
• “Iron Man” (Paramount and Marvel Entertainment), Frank Eulner and Christopher Boyes
• “Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight), Glenn Freemantle and Tom Sayers
• “WALL-E” (Walt Disney), Ben Burtt and Matthew Wood
• “Wanted” (Universal), Wylie Stateman

Achievement in sound mixing

• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.), David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce and Mark Weingarten
• “The Dark Knight” (Warner Bros.), Lora Hirschberg, Gary Rizzo and Ed Novick
• “Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight), Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke and Resul Pookutty
• “WALL-E” (Walt Disney), Tom Myers, Michael Semanick and Ben Burtt
• “Wanted” (Universal), Chris Jenkins, Frank A. Montaño and Petr Forejt

Achievement in visual effects

• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton and Craig Barron
• “The Dark Knight” (Warner Bros.), Nick Davis, Chris Corbould, Tim Webber and Paul Franklin
• “Iron Man” (Paramount and Marvel Entertainment), John Nelson, Ben Snow, Dan Sudick and Shane Mahan

Adapted screenplay

• “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Screenplay by Eric Roth, Screen story by Eric Roth and Robin Swicord
• “Doubt” (Miramax), Written by John Patrick Shanley
• “Frost/Nixon” (Universal), Screenplay by Peter Morgan
• “The Reader” (The Weinstein Company), Screenplay by David Hare
• “Slumdog Millionaire” (Fox Searchlight), Screenplay by Simon Beaufoy

Original screenplay

• “Frozen River” (Sony Pictures Classics), Written by Courtney Hunt
• “Happy-Go-Lucky” (Miramax), Written by Mike Leigh
• “In Bruges” (Focus Features), Written by Martin McDonagh
• “Milk” (Focus Features), Written by Dustin Lance Black
• “WALL-E” (Walt Disney), Screenplay by Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon, Original story by Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter

By Logan Hill, Maxim

Frank Miller has spent as much time as Lex Luthor studying heroes. So I ask him to explain what he’s learned. In a long, intense, often prickly conversation, Miller gradually divulges his hero’s identity. As he does, his protagonists slowly come into focus, stomping out from the shadows of noir, the fog of war, and the black nights of Gotham and Sin City. Below, the 10 rules of the Frank Miller man.

1. The hero sacrifices everything.
Miller’s origin story goes like this: Born in 1957, he grows up in Maryland and Vermont with three brothers and three sisters as a self-described “maladjusted child,” obsessed with comics. At age six he meets his destiny. Instead of being bitten by a radioactive spider, he goes to the movies and gets bitten by the old B-film The 300 Spartans. “It changed the way I looked at heroes entirely,” remembers Miller, who decided then and there to pursue a life in ink. “It stopped being the fresh-faced guys who get medals on their chests at the end of Star Wars. It became people who were willing to sacrifice everything for the greater good.” The lesson stuck with him: “One of the most heroic movies I ever saw was Rocky, a guy who lasts 15 rounds before he loses a fight.”

2. The hero is fearless.
At age 20, fresh out of art school and dreaming of the great comic book houses of New York, Miller moves to the Big Apple. He stalks editors, begs for critiques, and bangs out work-for-hire at $25 a page. Within two years, writing and drawing such projects as the Twilight Zone and Spider-Man, he’s a rising star, pleading for a shot at his own series. Marvel gives him a chance, and he responds by reinventing a 15-year-old comic series about a blind lawyer who moonlights as a vigilante. The tag line for Daredevil is “The man without fear!”—and Miller roots his hero’s power in our universal fear: the dark. “What little kid, five or six years old, hasn’t gone around the house with his eyes closed and hands out?” Miller asks. “That’s the Daredevil fantasy.” Before long Miller is slaughtering sacred cows as a matter of course, reinventing Wolverine, Batman, and, with Sin City and 300, entire genres. Miller was becoming a comic book hero in his own right.

3. The hero does nothing small.
Miller grew up in small towns dreaming of Gotham, Metropolis, and planet-hopping superheroes. “It’s all got to happen on a grand scale,” explains Miller, who first became famous for his crime-fiction influences and later his wild style of slashing lines, abstract action, and Jackson Pollock–like splatter. “C’mon, Superman is ridiculous—he has blue hair, he can fly. It can’t just be, ‘This guy’s having a bad day.’ If Daredevil has a nervous breakdown, people are going to get hit.”

4. The hero loves women of all kinds: Blondes, brunettes, redheads, dominatrices, strippers, hookers…
From his earliest strips to the strippers of Sin City, Miller’s heroes have been surrounded by beautiful, often nude, women. Why? Because, like many school-age outcasts, Miller has always loved to draw hot girls. “When you have a brush in your hand, inking a beautiful woman is a lot like running your hands over her,” Miller says. “It turns me on, OK?”
Over the years Miller has caught some flak for drawing so many hookers and lookers, but the actresses who have worked with him, from Rosario Dawson to Jessica Alba, all defend him. “Frank is a gentleman, and his women are badass,” says Jaime King. A close friend of Miller’s, she says he was “incredibly protective” on the sets of both Sin City and The Spirit. “In Sin City, they may be hookers, but they’re not just being fucked and left for dead. They’re the law of the town, keeping shit together.”

5. The hero fights dirty and looks ugly.
A Frank Miller man is nasty when he needs to be: He fights dirty, uses his fists, and knows how to take a beating. He’s not the clean-cut Captain America type. He’s almost always some nasty-looking, hulking freak who’s half-human, half-rhino. Miller’s Batman is a pink-fleshed Hulk. Sin City’s brutish Marv is Miller’s take on a modern-day barbarian. “If I go for a strong guy” he says, “I want him to be ugly.”
Miller likes the rough image for himself too. He’s earned a reputation within the industry for being ferociously demanding, a quality mirrored in his heroes. “Frank talks about his characters as if they won’t let him go until they’ve told him their stories,” says 300 director Zack Snyder. “The only characters that survive are the ones who are tough enough to fight back. Maybe that’s why he ends up with the hardest and scariest.”

6. The hero has a reason, but he doesn’t need therapy.
“When I first got going on what became The Dark Knight, I just thought about him a lot, what kind of guy would do this stuff,” he says of his endlessly influential 1986 reinvention of Batman. That said, Miller says he’s sick of “therapy culture” and hand-wringing heroes like Spider-Man who go around whining all the time about the burden of great power. In 300 Sparta’s King Leonidas didn’t have to ponder the Persian Empire’s diplomacy—he kicked Xerxes’ diplomat down a well.

7. The hero is chivalrous. But he doesn’t talk about it.
Miller didn’t revive the “Dark Knight” moniker by accident; he believes fiercely in old-school chivalry. And he created the debauched borough of Sin City in 1991 to show that old-fashioned values endure, no matter how corrupt the environment. “Without vice there is no virtue,” he says. “I like to refer to a hard-boiled hero as a knight in blood-caked armor.”

8. The hero is the ultimate romantic.
Miller grew up loving Alfred Hitchcock nearly as much as comic book legend Jack Kirby—and he tried to make it in Hollywood in the late 1980s. He even scripted RoboCop 2 and 3, but the experience soured him, until Robert Rodriguez offered him a co-directing credit on Sin City a decade later. “One of my favorite lines is when Marv is about to kill the priest,” says Snyder. “The priest [played by Miller] says, ‘You’d better ask yourself if this whore is worth dying for.’ Marv says, ‘Worth killing for, worth dying for. Worth going to hell for.’ While he’s shooting him.”

9. The hero is hated and misunderstood.
Miller has always been a controversial figure. The more popular he becomes, the more he seems to piss off colleagues, infuriate fans, and confound expectations–because he’s always restlessly pursuing some new direction. In Miller’s universe, superheroes are outlawed and ostracized—there are no trophies. “Community approval isn’t the motive for a hero anyway,” he says. “It’s the motive for a politician. A hero does the right thing because it’s the right thing.”

10. The hero believes in good and evil.
Miller’s 300 became a lightning rod for criticism since many read it as an endorsement of the war on terror, the West versus the Middle East. “I did this comic in the 1990s, so I never could have expected that it would get this reaction from hawks,” says Miller, laughing. “I did 300 years before 9/11, but you don’t have to read much between the lines to see that I believe there is good and there is evil. As the great cartoonist Wallace Wood said, it’s the job of the good guys to kill the bad guys.”

• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind 

• Down to You

• Serendipity

• Before Sunrise / • Before Sunset   

• Zack and Miri Make a Porno

• Breakfast at Tiffany’s  

• Roman Holiday

• 100 Girls

80th Annual Academy Awards

• Performance by an actor in a leading role

George Clooney in “Michael Clayton” (Warner Bros.)

Daniel Day-Lewis in “There Will Be Blood” (Paramount Vantage and Miramax)

Johnny Depp in “Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”
(DreamWorks and Warner Bros., Distributed by DreamWorks/Paramount)

Tommy Lee Jones in “In the Valley of Elah” (Warner Independent)

Viggo Mortensen in “Eastern Promises” (Focus Features)

• Performance by an actor in a supporting role

Casey Affleck in “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” (Warner Bros.)

Javier Bardem in “No Country for Old Men” (Miramax and Paramount Vantage)

Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Charlie Wilson’s War” (Universal)

Hal Holbrook in “Into the Wild” (Paramount Vantage and River Road Entertainment)

Tom Wilkinson in “Michael Clayton” (Warner Bros.)

• Performance by an actress in a leading role

Cate Blanchett in “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” (Universal)

Julie Christie in “Away from Her” (Lionsgate)

Marion Cotillard in “La Vie en Rose” (Picturehouse)

Laura Linney in “The Savages” (Fox Searchlight)

Ellen Page in “Juno” (Fox Searchlight)

• Performance by an actress in a supporting role

Cate Blanchett in “I’m Not There” (The Weinstein Company)

Ruby Dee in “American Gangster” (Universal)

Saoirse Ronan in “Atonement” (Focus Features)

Amy Ryan in “Gone Baby Gone” (Miramax)

Tilda Swinton in “Michael Clayton” (Warner Bros.)

• Best animated feature film of the year

“Persepolis” (Sony Pictures Classics) Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud

“Ratatouille” (Walt Disney) Brad Bird

“Surf’s Up” (Sony Pictures Releasing) Ash Brannon and Chris Buck

• Achievement in art direction

“American Gangster” (Universal)
Art Direction: Arthur Max
Set Decoration: Beth A. Rubino

“Atonement” (Focus Features)
Art Direction: Sarah Greenwood
Set Decoration: Katie Spencer

“The Golden Compass” (New Line in association with Ingenious Film Partners)
Art Direction: Dennis Gassner
Set Decoration: Anna Pinnock

“Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” (DreamWorks and Warner Bros., Distributed by DreamWorks/Paramount)
Art Direction: Dante Ferretti
Set Decoration: Francesca Lo Schiavo

“There Will Be Blood” (Paramount Vantage and Miramax)
Art Direction: Jack Fisk
Set Decoration: Jim Erickson

• Achievement in cinematography

“The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” (Warner Bros.) Roger Deakins

“Atonement” (Focus Features) Seamus McGarvey

“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” (Miramax/Pathé Renn) Janusz Kaminski

“No Country for Old Men” (Miramax and Paramount Vantage) Roger Deakins

“There Will Be Blood” (Paramount Vantage and Miramax) Robert Elswit

• Achievement in costume design

“Across the Universe” (Sony Pictures Releasing) Albert Wolsky

“Atonement” (Focus Features) Jacqueline Durran

“Elizabeth: The Golden Age” (Universal) Alexandra Byrne

“La Vie en Rose” (Picturehouse) Marit Allen

“Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” (DreamWorks and Warner Bros., Distributed by DreamWorks/Paramount) Colleen Atwood

• Achievement in directing

“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” (Miramax/Pathé Renn) Julian Schnabel

“Juno” (Fox Searchlight) Jason Reitman

“Michael Clayton” (Warner Bros.) Tony Gilroy

“No Country for Old Men” (Miramax and Paramount Vantage) Joel Coen and Ethan Coen

“There Will Be Blood” (Paramount Vantage and Miramax) Paul Thomas Anderson

• Best documentary feature

“No End in Sight” (Magnolia Pictures)
A Representational Pictures Production
Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs

“Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience” (The Documentary Group)
A Documentary Group Production
Richard E. Robbins

“Sicko” (Lionsgate and The Weinstein Company)
A Dog Eat Dog Films Production
Michael Moore and Meghan O’Hara

“Taxi to the Dark Side” (THINKFilm)
An X-Ray Production
Alex Gibney and Eva Orner

“War/Dance” (THINKFilm)
A Shine Global and Fine Films Production
Andrea Nix Fine and Sean Fine

• Best documentary short subject

“Freeheld”
A Lieutenant Films Production
Cynthia Wade and Vanessa Roth

“La Corona (The Crown)”
A Runaway Films and Vega Films Production
Amanda Micheli and Isabel Vega

“Salim Baba”
A Ropa Vieja Films and Paradox Smoke Production
Tim Sternberg and Francisco Bello

“Sari’s Mother” (Cinema Guild)
A Daylight Factory Production
James Longley

• Achievement in film editing

“The Bourne Ultimatum” (Universal) Christopher Rouse

“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” (Miramax/Pathé Renn) Juliette Welfling

“Into the Wild” (Paramount Vantage and River Road Entertainment) Jay Cassidy

“No Country for Old Men” (Miramax and Paramount Vantage) Roderick Jaynes

“There Will Be Blood” (Paramount Vantage and Miramax) Dylan Tichenor

• Best foreign language film of the year

“Beaufort” A Metro Communications, Movie Plus Production
Israel

“The Counterfeiters” An Aichholzer Filmproduktion, Magnolia Filmproduktion Production
Austria

“Katyń” An Akson Studio Production
Poland

“Mongol” A Eurasia Film Production
Kazakhstan

“12” A Three T Production
Russia

• Achievement in makeup

“La Vie en Rose” (Picturehouse) Didier Lavergne and Jan Archibald

“Norbit” (DreamWorks, Distributed by Paramount) Rick Baker and Kazuhiro Tsuji

“Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” (Walt Disney) Ve Neill and Martin Samuel

• Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)

“Atonement” (Focus Features) Dario Marianelli

“The Kite Runner” (DreamWorks, Sidney Kimmel Entertainment and Participant Productions, Distributed by Paramount Classics) Alberto Iglesias

“Michael Clayton” (Warner Bros.) James Newton Howard

“Ratatouille” (Walt Disney) Michael Giacchino

“3:10 to Yuma” (Lionsgate) Marco Beltrami

• Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)

“Falling Slowly” from “Once”
(Fox Searchlight)
Music and Lyric by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova

“Happy Working Song” from “Enchanted”
(Walt Disney)
Music by Alan Menken
Lyric by Stephen Schwartz

“Raise It Up” from “August Rush”
(Warner Bros.)
Music and lyric by Jamal Joseph, Charles Mack and Tevin Thomas

“So Close” from “Enchanted”
(Walt Disney)
Music by Alan Menken
Lyric by Stephen Schwartz

“That’s How You Know” from “Enchanted”
(Walt Disney)
Music by Alan Menken
Lyric by Stephen Schwartz

• Best motion picture of the year

“Atonement” (Focus Features)
A Working Title Production
Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner and Paul Webster, Producers

“Juno” (Fox Searchlight)
A Mandate Pictures/Mr. Mudd Production
Lianne Halfon, Mason Novick and Russell Smith, Producers

“Michael Clayton” (Warner Bros.)
A Clayton Productions, LLC Production
Sydney Pollack, Jennifer Fox and Kerry Orent, Producers

“No Country for Old Men” (Miramax and Paramount Vantage)
A Scott Rudin/Mike Zoss Production
Scott Rudin, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, Producers

“There Will Be Blood” (Paramount Vantage and Miramax)
A JoAnne Sellar/Ghoulardi Film Company Production
JoAnne Sellar, Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Lupi, Producers

• Best animated short film

“I Met the Walrus”
A Kids & Explosions Production
Josh Raskin

“Madame Tutli-Putli” (National Film Board of Canada)
A National Film Board of Canada Production
Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski

“Même les Pigeons Vont au Paradis (Even Pigeons Go to Heaven)” (Premium Films)
A BUF Compagnie Production
Samuel Tourneux and Simon Vanesse

“My Love (Moya Lyubov)” (Channel One Russia)
A Dago-Film Studio, Channel One Russia and Dentsu Tec Production
Alexander Petrov

“Peter & the Wolf” (BreakThru Films)
A BreakThru Films/Se-ma-for Studios Production
Suzie Templeton and Hugh Welchman

• Best live action short film

“At Night”
A Zentropa Entertainments 10 Production
Christian E. Christiansen and Louise Vesth

“Il Supplente (The Substitute)” (Sky Cinema Italia)
A Frame by Frame Italia Production
Andrea Jublin

“Le Mozart des Pickpockets (The Mozart of Pickpockets)” (Premium Films)
A Karé Production
Philippe Pollet-Villard

“Tanghi Argentini” (Premium Films)
An Another Dimension of an Idea Production
Guido Thys and Anja Daelemans

“The Tonto Woman”
A Knucklehead, Little Mo and Rose Hackney Barber Production
Daniel Barber and Matthew Brown

• Achievement in sound editing

“The Bourne Ultimatum” (Universal)
Karen Baker Landers and Per Hallberg

“No Country for Old Men” (Miramax and Paramount Vantage)
Skip Lievsay

“Ratatouille” (Walt Disney)
Randy Thom and Michael Silvers

“There Will Be Blood” (Paramount Vantage and Miramax)
Christopher Scarabosio and Matthew Wood

“Transformers” (DreamWorks and Paramount in association with Hasbro)
Ethan Van der Ryn and Mike Hopkins

• Achievement in sound mixing

“The Bourne Ultimatum” (Universal)
Scott Millan, David Parker and Kirk Francis

“No Country for Old Men” (Miramax and Paramount Vantage)
Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff and Peter Kurland

“Ratatouille” (Walt Disney)
Randy Thom, Michael Semanick and Doc Kane

“3:10 to Yuma” (Lionsgate)
Paul Massey, David Giammarco and Jim Stuebe

“Transformers” (DreamWorks and Paramount in association with Hasbro)
Kevin O’Connell, Greg P. Russell and Peter J. Devlin

• Achievement in visual effects

“The Golden Compass” (New Line in association with Ingenious Film Partners)
Michael Fink, Bill Westenhofer, Ben Morris and Trevor Wood

“Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” (Walt Disney)
John Knoll, Hal Hickel, Charles Gibson and John Frazier

“Transformers” (DreamWorks and Paramount in association with Hasbro)
Scott Farrar, Scott Benza, Russell Earl and John Frazier

• Adapted screenplay

“Atonement” (Focus Features)
Screenplay by Christopher Hampton

“Away from Her” (Lionsgate)
Written by Sarah Polley

“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” (Miramax/Pathé Renn)
Screenplay by Ronald Harwood

“No Country for Old Men” (Miramax and Paramount Vantage)
Written for the screen by Joel Coen & Ethan Coen

“There Will Be Blood” (Paramount Vantage and Miramax)
Written for the screen by Paul Thomas Anderson

• Original screenplay

“Juno” (Fox Searchlight)
Written by Diablo Cody

“Lars and the Real Girl” (MGM)
Written by Nancy Oliver

“Michael Clayton” (Warner Bros.)
Written by Tony Gilroy

“Ratatouille” (Walt Disney)
Screenplay by Brad Bird
Story by Jan Pinkava, Jim Capobianco, Brad Bird

“The Savages” (Fox Searchlight)
Written by Tamara Jenkins

79th Annual Academy Awards

• Performance by an actor in a leading role

Leonardo DiCaprio in “Blood Diamond” (Warner Bros.)

Ryan Gosling in “Half Nelson” (THINKFilm)

Peter O’Toole in “Venus” (Miramax, Filmfour and UK Film Council)

Will Smith in “The Pursuit of Happyness” (Sony Pictures Releasing)

Forest Whitaker in “The Last King of Scotland” (Fox Searchlight)

• Performance by an actor in a supporting role

Alan Arkin in “Little Miss Sunshine” (Fox Searchlight)

Jackie Earle Haley in “Little Children” (New Line)

Djimon Hounsou in “Blood Diamond” (Warner Bros.)

Eddie Murphy in “Dreamgirls” (DreamWorks and Paramount)

Mark Wahlberg in “The Departed” (Warner Bros.)

• Performance by an actress in a leading role

Penélope Cruz in “Volver” (Sony Pictures Classics)

Judi Dench in “Notes on a Scandal” (Fox Searchlight)

Helen Mirren in “The Queen” (Miramax, Pathé and Granada)

Meryl Streep in “The Devil Wears Prada” (20th Century Fox)

Kate Winslet in “Little Children” (New Line)

• Performance by an actress in a supporting role

Adriana Barraza in “Babel” (Paramount and Paramount Vantage)

Cate Blanchett in “Notes on a Scandal” (Fox Searchlight)

Abigail Breslin in “Little Miss Sunshine” (Fox Searchlight)

Jennifer Hudson in “Dreamgirls” (DreamWorks and Paramount)

Rinko Kikuchi in “Babel” (Paramount and Paramount Vantage)

• Best animated feature film of the year

“Cars” (Buena Vista) John Lasseter

“Happy Feet” (Warner Bros.) George Miller

“Monster House” (Sony Pictures Releasing) Gil Kenan

• Achievement in art direction

“Dreamgirls” (DreamWorks and Paramount)
Art Direction: John Myhre
Set Decoration: Nancy Haigh

“The Good Shepherd” (Universal)
Art Direction: Jeannine Oppewall
Set Decoration: Gretchen Rau and Leslie E. Rollins

“Pan’s Labyrinth” (Picturehouse)
Art Direction: Eugenio Caballero
Set Decoration: Pilar Revuelta

“Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” (Buena Vista)
Art Direction: Rick Heinrichs
Set Decoration: Cheryl Carasik

“The Prestige” (Buena Vista)
Art Direction: Nathan Crowley
Set Decoration: Julie Ochipinti

• Achievement in cinematography

“The Black Dahlia” (Universal) Vilmos Zsigmond

“Children of Men” (Universal) Emmanuel Lubezki

“The Illusionist” (Yari Film Group) Dick Pope

“Pan’s Labyrinth” (Picturehouse) Guillermo Navarro

“The Prestige” (Buena Vista) Wally Pfister

• Achievement in costume design

“Curse of the Golden Flower” (Sony Pictures Classics) Yee Chung Man

“The Devil Wears Prada” (20th Century Fox) Patricia Field

“Dreamgirls” (DreamWorks and Paramount) Sharen Davis

“Marie Antoinette” (Sony Pictures Releasing) Milena Canonero

“The Queen” (Miramax, Pathé and Granada) Consolata Boyle

• Achievement in directing

“Babel” (Paramount and Paramount Vantage) Alejandro González Iñárritu

“The Departed” (Warner Bros.) Martin Scorsese

“Letters from Iwo Jima” (Warner Bros.) Clint Eastwood

“The Queen” (Miramax, Pathé and Granada) Stephen Frears

“United 93” (Universal and StudioCanal) Paul Greengrass

• Best documentary feature

“Deliver Us from Evil” (Lionsgate)
A Disarming Films Production
Amy Berg and Frank Donner

“An Inconvenient Truth” (Paramount Classics and Participant Productions)
A Lawrence Bender/Laurie David Production
Davis Guggenheim

“Iraq in Fragments” (Typecast Releasing in association with HBO Documentary Films)
A Typecast Pictures/Daylight Factory Production
James Longley and John Sinno

“Jesus Camp” (Magnolia Pictures)
A Loki Films Production
Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady

“My Country, My Country” (Zeitgeist Films)
A Praxis Films Production
Laura Poitras and Jocelyn Glatzer

• Best documentary short subject

“The Blood of Yingzhou District”
A Thomas Lennon Films Production
Ruby Yang and Thomas Lennon

“Recycled Life”
An Iwerks/Glad Production
Leslie Iwerks and Mike Glad

“Rehearsing a Dream”
A Simon & Goodman Picture Company Production
Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon

“Two Hands”
A Crazy Boat Pictures Production
Nathaniel Kahn and Susan Rose Behr

• Achievement in film editing

“Babel” (Paramount and Paramount Vantage)
Stephen Mirrione and Douglas Crise

“Blood Diamond” (Warner Bros.)
Steven Rosenblum

“Children of Men” (Universal)
Alex Rodríguez and Alfonso Cuarón

“The Departed” (Warner Bros.)
Thelma Schoonmaker

“United 93” (Universal and StudioCanal)
Clare Douglas, Christopher Rouse and Richard Pearson

• Best foreign language film of the year

“After the Wedding” A Zentropa Entertainments 16 Production
Denmark

“Days of Glory (Indigènes)” A Tessalit Production
Algeria

“The Lives of Others” A Wiedemann & Berg Production
Germany

“Pan’s Labyrinth” A Tequila Gang/Esperanto Filmoj/Estudios Picasso Production
Mexico

“Water” A Hamilton-Mehta Production
Canada

• Achievement in makeup

“Apocalypto” (Buena Vista) Aldo Signoretti and Vittorio Sodano

“Click” (Sony Pictures Releasing) Kazuhiro Tsuji and Bill Corso

“Pan’s Labyrinth” (Picturehouse) David Martí and Montse Ribé

• Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)

“Babel” (Paramount and Paramount Vantage) Gustavo Santaolalla

“The Good German” (Warner Bros.) Thomas Newman

“Notes on a Scandal” (Fox Searchlight) Philip Glass

“Pan’s Labyrinth” (Picturehouse) Javier Navarrete

“The Queen” (Miramax, Pathé and Granada) Alexandre Desplat

• Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)

“I Need to Wake Up” from “An Inconvenient Truth”
(Paramount Classics and Participant Productions)
Music and Lyric by Melissa Etheridge

“Listen” from “Dreamgirls”
(DreamWorks and Paramount)
Music by Henry Krieger and Scott Cutler
Lyric by Anne Preven

“Love You I Do” from “Dreamgirls”
(DreamWorks and Paramount)
Music by Henry Krieger
Lyric by Siedah Garrett

“Our Town” from “Cars”
(Buena Vista)
Music and Lyric by Randy Newman

“Patience” from “Dreamgirls”
(DreamWorks and Paramount)
Music by Henry Krieger
Lyric by Willie Reale

• Best motion picture of the year

“Babel” (Paramount and Paramount Vantage)
An Anonymous Content/Zeta Film/Central Films Production
Alejandro González Iñárritu, Jon Kilik and Steve Golin, Producers

“The Departed” (Warner Bros.)
A Warner Bros. Pictures Production
Graham King, Producer

“Letters from Iwo Jima” (Warner Bros.)
A DreamWorks Pictures/Warner Bros. Pictures Production
Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg and Robert Lorenz, Producers

“Little Miss Sunshine” (Fox Searchlight)
A Big Beach/Bona Fide Production
David T. Friendly, Peter Saraf and Marc Turtletaub, Producers

“The Queen” (Miramax, Pathé and Granada)
A Granada Production
Andy Harries, Christine Langan and Tracey Seaward, Producers

• Best animated short film

“The Danish Poet” (National Film Board of Canada)
A Mikrofilm and National Film Board of Canada Production
Torill Kove

“Lifted” (Buena Vista)
A Pixar Animation Studios Production
Gary Rydstrom

“The Little Matchgirl” (Buena Vista)
A Walt Disney Pictures Production
Roger Allers and Don Hahn

“Maestro” (SzimplaFilm)
A Kedd Production
Géza M. Tóth

“No Time for Nuts” (20th Century Fox)
A Blue Sky Studios Production
Chris Renaud and Michael Thurmeier

• Best live action short film

“Binta and the Great Idea (Binta Y La Gran Idea)”
A Peliculas Pendelton and Tus Ojos Production
Javier Fesser and Luis Manso

“Éramos Pocos (One Too Many)” (Kimuak)
An Altube Filmeak Production
Borja Cobeaga

“Helmer & Son”
A Nordisk Film Production
Søren Pilmark and Kim Magnusson

“The Saviour” (Australian Film Television and Radio School)
An Australian Film Television and Radio School Production
Peter Templeman and Stuart Parkyn

“West Bank Story”
An Ari Sandel, Pascal Vaguelsy, Amy Kim, Ravi Malhotra and Ashley Jordan Production
Ari Sandel

• Achievement in sound editing

“Apocalypto” (Buena Vista)
Sean McCormack and Kami Asgar

“Blood Diamond” (Warner Bros.)
Lon Bender

“Flags of Our Fathers” (DreamWorks and Warner Bros., Distributed by Paramount)
Alan Robert Murray and Bub Asman

“Letters from Iwo Jima” (Warner Bros.)
Alan Robert Murray and Bub Asman

“Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” (Buena Vista)
Christopher Boyes and George Watters II

• Achievement in sound mixing

“Apocalypto” (Buena Vista)
Kevin O’Connell, Greg P. Russell and Fernando Cámara

“Blood Diamond” (Warner Bros.)
Andy Nelson, Anna Behlmer and Ivan Sharrock

“Dreamgirls” (DreamWorks and Paramount)
Michael Minkler, Bob Beemer and Willie Burton

“Flags of Our Fathers” (DreamWorks and Warner Bros., Distributed by Paramount)
John Reitz, Dave Campbell, Gregg Rudloff and Walt Martin

“Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” (Buena Vista)
Paul Massey, Christopher Boyes and Lee Orloff

• Achievement in visual effects

“Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” (Buena Vista)
John Knoll, Hal Hickel, Charles Gibson and Allen Hall

“Poseidon” (Warner Bros.)
Boyd Shermis, Kim Libreri, Chas Jarrett and John Frazier

“Superman Returns” (Warner Bros.)
Mark Stetson, Neil Corbould, Richard R. Hoover and Jon Thum

• Adapted screenplay

“Borat Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” (20th Century Fox)
Screenplay by Sacha Baron Cohen & Anthony Hines & Peter Baynham & Dan Mazer
Story by Sacha Baron Cohen & Peter Baynham & Anthony Hines & Todd Phillips

“Children of Men” (Universal)
Screenplay by Alfonso Cuarón & Timothy J. Sexton and David Arata and Mark Fergus & Hawk Ostby

“The Departed” (Warner Bros.)
Screenplay by William Monahan

“Little Children” (New Line)
Screenplay by Todd Field & Tom Perrotta

“Notes on a Scandal” (Fox Searchlight)
Screenplay by Patrick Marber

• Original screenplay

“Babel” (Paramount and Paramount Vantage)
Written by Guillermo Arriaga

“Letters from Iwo Jima” (Warner Bros.)
Screenplay by Iris Yamashita
Story by Iris Yamashita & Paul Haggis

“Little Miss Sunshine” (Fox Searchlight)
Written by Michael Arndt

“Pan’s Labyrinth” (Picturehouse)
Written by Guillermo del Toro

“The Queen” (Miramax, Pathé and Granada)
Written by Peter Morgan