Snubbed for Best Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio, for The Departed
As wonderfully callous and mercenary as Leonardo DiCaprio was in Blood Diamond, his turn in Martin Scorsese's Möbius-strip crime epic The Departed was even more remarkable. Watching his sublimely subtle performance as Billy Costigan, a morally conflicted young man who can only do right by doing wrong (infiltrating the South Boston mob), is like witnessing Greek drama. Call it Beantown Aeschylus.
Here, DiCaprio comes across as both cocky and cornered when going head-to-head with Jack Nicholson's twisted crime boss. ''Leo's face is like a battlefield of moral conflicts,'' says Scorsese. ''The pain that comes through his eyes, he's like a young Montgomery Clift or Paul Newman.'' —Chris Nashawaty
Snubbed for Best Actor: Sacha Baron Cohen
It's no mere awards-season hype to say that Sacha Baron Cohen's turn in the viciously satirical comedy Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan stretches the boundaries of acting. Baron Cohen, 35, not only created the gleefully un-PC Kazakh reporter Borat Sagdiyev but, in a feat of daring without precedent in a major Hollywood movie, he took his character out of the safe confines of fiction and inserted him into the real world. Whipping up a narrative on the fly out of encounters with unsuspecting Americans, Baron Cohen sustained his performance for hours on end, even when the cameras weren't running, improvising his way through unpredictable scenarios with no recourse to saying ''cut.''—Josh Rottenberg
Snubbed for Best Supporting Actor: Michael Sheen
Just so you know, Michael Sheen is not just a one-trick prime minister. While it's true that he has now portrayed British PM Tony Blair twice, the 37-year-old Welsh actor has also played Mozart, Romeo, and a werewolf king. The first time Sheen impersonated Blair was for the 2003 British TV movie The Deal. That film was written by Peter Morgan and directed by Stephen Frears, and when the two teamed up again for The Queen, they re-elected Sheen, who bears a passing resemblance to Blair but, more importantly, embodies the politician's commonality, charisma, and cunning. If it were a mere imitation, Sheen would not have scored so much recognition from critics groups, or held his own on screen with Helen Mirren as Elizabeth II. —Steve Wulf
Snubbed for Best Director: Pedro Almodóvar
No other contemporary filmmaker captures women on screen quite like Pedro Almodóvar, a fact he proves again with Volver, his most female-centric work since 2000's Best Foreign Language Film winner All About My Mother. A tender homage to motherhood, Volver tells the story of a fiery young mother — played to earthy, sensual perfection by Penélope Cruz (pictured, with Almodóvar) — and her complicated relationships with her daughter, her sister, and her own mamá, who appears to be back from the dead. Drenched in typically Almodóvarian vibrant colors, the film balances comedy and tragedy, absurdity and melodrama. And the director never loses his footing — not even when Cruz's character wraps up a rueful memory of her mother with, of all things, a fart joke. —Missy Schwartz
[tammy]: If Babel wins best picture, I am gonna kill somebody.
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