January 24, 2007	Wednesday	Muharram 04, 1428

LOS ANGELES, Jan 23: Uplifting musical “Dreamgirls” topped the Oscar nominations with eight nods here on Tuesday but suffered a dramatic snub by being omitted from the best picture and best director categories.

The film about a 1960s soul group had been viewed as a strong contender for the top prize at next month’s 79th Academy Awards in Hollywood but instead was bumped out of the reckoning by Clint Eastwood’s “Letters from Iwo Jima”.

The omission of “Dreamgirls” leaves Martin Scorsese’s “The Departed” and Golden Globes winner “Babel,” which earned seven nods, as the front-runners with “Little Miss Sunshine” and royal drama “The Queen” completing the line-up.

The eagerly-awaited nominations were made at a dawn announcement in Beverly Hills by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences chief Sid Ganis and Mexican actress Salma Hayek, one month ahead of the Oscars scheduled for Feb 25.

There were gasps from hundreds of assembled media and onlookers when it became clear that “Dreamgirls’” Bill Condon had missed out in the best director category. The nominees for best director saw two surprise inclusions in the shape of Eastwood, who had been ignored in a series of key industry awards this year, and Paul Greengrass, who earned a nod with his Sept 11 movie “United 93”. Scorsese is the heavy favourite to win his first best director Oscar after being passed over on five previous occasions.

But the veteran US film-maker will be nervously eyeing the emergence of Eastwood in the awards race, the respected and adored Hollywood legend who is chasing his third best director Oscar.

Eastwood was the man responsible for Scorsese’s most recent Oscars near-miss, when his “Million Dollar Baby” scooped best picture and director awards two years ago, shading “The Aviator”.

Other nominees in the directing race are Mexico’s Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for “Babel” and British director Stephen Frears for “The Queen”. There were surprises, too, in the leading acting categories.

As expected, Golden Globes winner Forest Whitaker earned a best actor nomination for his turn as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in “The Last King of Scotland” while Irish veteran Peter O’Toole picked up his eighth acting nomination for “Venus”.

Heart-throb Leonardo DiCaprio was also nominated, though surprisingly his nod came for the portrayal of a South African mercenary in the adventure drama “Blood Diamond”. DiCaprio had been tipped to get nominated for “The Departed”. The other best actor nominations fell to Will Smith for “The Pursuit of Happyness” and Ryan Gosling for “Half Nelson”. The best actress nominations were one of the few categories to follow the form book, with Oscars favourite Helen Mirren leading a trio of British stars for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in “The Queen”. Former Oscar winner Judi Dench was also nominated for her performance in “Notes on a Scandal” while Kate Winslet picked up her fifth career nod for the adultery drama “Little Children”. Meryl Streep won her 14th Academy Awards nomination for “The Devil Wears Prada” while Spain’s Penelope Cruz received the first nod of her career for “Volver”, the Pedro Almodovar movie surprisingly omitted from the best foreign language film nominees.—AFP