78th Academy Awards

The 78th Academy Awards, honoring the best in film for 2005, were held on March 5 2006 at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California. They were hosted by The Daily Show host Jon Stewart.

The nominees were announced on January 31, 2006. Ang Lee's drama Brokeback Mountain, with eight nominations, had the most nominations of the year's films. Its nominations included Best Actor, Best Director, and Best Picture. Paul Haggis' Crash, George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck, and Rob Marshall's Memoirs of a Geisha each received six nominations.

Major winners and nominees

This is a breakdown of only major winners. For a complete list of nominees and winners, see: 78th Academy Awards nominees and winners

Feature Films

Category	Winner	Producers/Country
Best motion picture of the year	*Crash*	Paul Haggis, and Cathy Schulman
Best foreign language film	*Tsotsi*	South Africa
Best documentary feature	*March of the Penguins*	Luc Jacquet and Yves Darondeau
Best animated feature film of the year	*The Curse of the Were-Rabbit*	Nick Park and Steve Box

Acting

Category	Winner	Movie
Best actor in a leading role	Philip Seymour Hoffman	Capote
Best actress in a leading role	Reese Witherspoon	Walk the Line
Best actor in a supporting role	George Clooney	Syriana
Best actress in a supporting role	Rachel Weisz	The Constant Gardener

Writing

Category	Winner	Movie
Original screenplay	Story by Paul Haggis; screenplay by Paul Haggis, and Bobby Moresco	Crash
Adapted screenplay	Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana	Brokeback Mountain

Directing

Ang Lee for Brokeback Mountain

Special honors

Academy Honorary Award: Robert Altman

Films with multiple nominations

Eight

Brokeback Mountain (won three)

Six

Crash (won three)
Good Night, and Good Luck. (won none)
Memoirs of a Geisha (won three)

Five

Capote (won one)
Munich (won none)
Walk the Line (won one)

Four

King Kong (won three)
Pride & Prejudice (won none)
The Constant Gardener (won one)

Three

Cinderella Man (won none)
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (won one)
War of the Worlds (won none)

Two

A History of Violence (won none)
Hustle & Flow (won one)
Mrs. Henderson Presents (won none)
North Country (won none)
Syriana (won one)
Transamerica (won none)

Films with multiple wins

The following films each won three Oscars.

3/8
''Brokeback Mountain

3/6
''Crash

3/4
''King Kong

3/6
''Memoirs of a Geisha

Academy Award ceremony presenters and performers

Name	Role	Activity
Jessica Alba	Presenter	Co-presented with Eric Bana the Academy Award for Sound Mixing
Jennifer Aniston	Presenter	Presented the Academy Award for Costume Design
Lauren Bacall	Presenter	Introduced a tribute to Film noir (several of the clips featured Bacall)
Eric Bana	Presenter	Co-presented with Jessica Alba the Academy Award for Sound Mixing
Zach Braff	Presenter	Co-presented (as Chicken Little) with Joan Cusack (as Abby Mallard) the Academy Award for Animated Short Film
Sandra Bullock	Presenter	Co-presented with Keanu Reeves the Academy Award for Best Art Direction
Steve Carell	Presenter	Co-presented with Will Ferrell the Academy Award for Makeup
George Clooney	Presenter	Introduced the In Memoriam segment
Russell Crowe	Presenter	Introduced a tribute to Biographical film
Joan Cusack	Presenter	Co-presented (as Abby Mallard) with Zach Braff (as Chicken Little) the Academy Award for Animated Short Film
Will Ferrell	Presenter	Co-presented with Steve Carell the Academy Award for Makeup
Jamie Foxx	Presenter	Presented the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Morgan Freeman	Presenter	Presented the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Jennifer Garner	Presenter	Presented the Academy Award for Sound Editing
Jake Gyllenhaal	Presenter	Introduced a segment on epic films
Tom Hanks	Presenter	Presented the Academy Award for Best Director
Salma Hayek	Presenter	Presented the Academy Award for Original Music Score
Dustin Hoffman	Presenter	Presented the Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay
Terrence Howard	Presenter	Presented the Academy Award for Documentary Short Subject
Samuel L. Jackson	Presenter	Introduced a segment on political films
Tom Kane	Announcer	Announcer for the 78th Annual Academy Awards
Nicole Kidman	Presenter	Presented the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Queen Latifah	Presenter	Presented the Academy Award for Best Song
Chris 'Ludacris' Bridges	Presenter	Introduced the performance of "It's Hard out Here for a Pimp"
Jennifer Lopez	Presenter	Introduced the performance of "In the Deep"
Rachel McAdams	Host	Hosted the Scientific and Technical Awards on February 18
Jack Nicholson	Presenter	Presented the Academy Award for Best Picture
Dolly Parton	Performer	Performed "Travelin' Thru", from Transamerica
Itzhak Perlman	Performer	Performed musical selections from the movies nominated for "Best Original Score"
Keanu Reeves	Presenter	Co-presented with Sandra Bullock the Academy Award for Best Art Direction
Will Smith	Presenter	Presented the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
Jon Stewart	Host	Hosted the 78th Academy Awards
Ben Stiller	Presenter	Presented the Academy Award for Visual Effects
Meryl Streep	Presenter	Co-presented with Lily Tomlin the Honorary Academy Award to Robert Altman
Lily Tomlin	Presenter	Co-presented with Meryl Streep the Honorary Academy Award to Robert Altman
Hilary Swank	Presenter	Presented the Academy Award for Best Actor
Charlize Theron	Presenter	Presented the Academy Award for Documentary Feature
Three 6 Mafia	Performers	Performed "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp", from Hustle & Flow
Uma Thurman	Presenter	Presented the Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay
John Travolta	Presenter	Presented the Academy Award for Best Cinematography
Naomi Watts	Presenter	Introduced the performance of "Travelin' Thru"
Luke Wilson	Presenter	Co-presented with Owen Wilson the Academy Award for Live Action Short Film
Owen Wilson	Presenter	Co-presented with Luke Wilson the Academy Award for Live Action Short Film
Reese Witherspoon	Presenter	Presented the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature
Kathleen York	Performer	Performed "In the Deep", from Crash
Ziyi Zhang	Presenter	Presented the Academy Award for Film Editing

In addition, previous Academy Awards hosts Billy Crystal, Chris Rock, Steve Martin, David Letterman and Whoopi Goldberg, as well as George Clooney, Mel Gibson and Halle Berry participated in a pre-taped comedy skit at the start of the broadcast. Tom Hanks, in addition to presenting an award, was also featured in a pre-taped skit about keeping acceptance speeches within the time limits.

Opening/Montages/Trivia

The opening featured former hosts who pretended to be declining to host again, with film-based settings including a quick parody of the tent scene from Brokeback Mountain, with Billy Crystal and Chris Rock; a family room in a house, with Steve Martin and some lookalike kids; a posh hotel room, with Whoopi Goldberg; David Letterman babysitting Steve Martin's "kids"; Mel Gibson on the set of his latest movie, Apocalypto; and even Mr. Moviefone. Cut to Jon Stewart being wakened (sharing a bed with Halle Berry) and falling asleep again, realizing it's a dream; then awakening again, sharing the bed with George Clooney, who advises Stewart it's not a dream, and to get up and get the show started.
The montage sequence after the opening shows western films with scenes involving male characters talking emotionally with perceived innuendo, a reference to Brokeback Mountain. Other montages in the ceremony saluted film noir, epic films, biographical films, and political commentary in film. Stewart later joked that there would be a montage on montages.
This was the first time Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Aniston, George Clooney, Luke Wilson, Steve Carell, Eric Bana, and Jessica Alba had ever presented an award.
This was the sixth time that Jack Nicholson had presented the award for Best Picture.
Presenter Jennifer Garner slipped and nearly fell on her way toward the dais, either from slippery soles or from getting tangled in her gown. She quickly righted herself and quipped at the mike, "I do my own stunts!" Later, she was asked what caused her to trip and she mentioned that as she was being fitted for her dress, she rushed through and it resulted it in being a little longer than it should have been.
Ben Stiller, in presenting the Visual Effects award, performed in a green-screen suit that was supposed to make him "invisible," while pretending to be unaware that this special effect was ineffective. That effect was a joke on animated characters showing up on stage via screen.
Will Ferrell and Steve Carell delivered their introductions to the Academy Award for Makeup in intentionally bad makeup; Ferrell in pasty-looking makeup and Carell was also wearing fake, thick eyelashes.
In addition to being a presenter, Tom Hanks performed in a pre-taped comedy skit about supposed Academy plans to rein in actors whose "Thank Yous" go on and on. Hanks' seemingly endless list is truncated when he is surrounded by musicians who beat him up with their instruments and "shoot" him with a tranquilizer dart.
Several spoof advertisements were shown, narrated by Stephen Colbert, a former correspondent from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart who currently hosts The Colbert Report. They attacked the candidacies of various nominees on behalf of other nominees, modeled on famous political ads. For example, in a parody of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, "Dames for Truth" attacked Dame Judi Dench with absurd claims, such as that Dench poked a dame's eye out in a bar fight. The ad was capped with the disclaimer that Dames for Truth was "a shadow organization in no way affiliated with Felicity Huffman". In a parody of the Harry and Louise political ads (1993), an old couple complained about the "foreign" sounding names of the best actress nominees, other than Reese Witherspoon.
- On March 2, 2006, Colbert used his "The Da Colbert Code" (a parody of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code), a series of bizarrely random word associations, to accurately predict the Oscar winners for Best Supporting Actress, Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Picture. The following show, on March 6, 2006, was marked by Colbert's proclamation that "I called it!" as balloons rained down from the ceiling. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIot4A2fMeU&search=colbert
Three 6 Mafia was the first ever hip-hop act to perform at the Oscar ceremony. It is the second hip-hop song to win an Oscar, after Eminem's "Lose Yourself", from the film 8 Mile, won in 2002. Jon Stewart later commented on the "scorecard" at this point: Martin Scorcese had won zero Oscars; Three 6 Mafia had won one.
Crash (2004) joined the list of rare films that won the Academy Award for Best Picture without also winning Best Director.
In Stewart's opening speech, he remarked, "Björk couldn't be here tonight... she was trying on her Oscar dress and Dick Cheney shot her." This was reference to the Dick Cheney hunting incident and the dress Bjork wore at the 73rd Academy Awards.

In Memoriam

George Clooney presented the annual tribute to those in the motion picture industry who had died during the previous year. Among those featured were: Teresa Wright, Pat Morita, producer Robert F. Newmyer, Dan O'Herlihy, Vincent Schiavelli, writer Joe Ranft, Moira Shearer, Fayard Nicholas, composer Joel Hirschhorn, Sandra Dee, John Fiedler, Anthony Franciosa, editor Stu Linder, Barbara Bel Geddes, producer Moustapha Akkad, Chris Penn, John Mills, recording sound mixer Robert Knudson, Simone Simon, producer Debra Hill, choreographer Onna White, makeup artist Robert J. Schiffer, cinematographer/director Guy Green, Brock Peters, writer Ernest Lehman, Shelley Winters, Anne Bancroft, production designer John Box, Eddie Albert, producer Ismail Merchant, director Robert Wise and finally, Richard Pryor.

Voting trends and reaction

For the second consecutive year, the field of major nominees did not include a bona fide blockbuster at the U.S. box office, with the nominees for Best Picture performing even more poorly than those of one year earlier.

None of the five Best Picture nominees was among the year's top 40 releases in box office at the time of the nominations, likely the most disappointing box-office performance of any Best Picture field in history; the film chosen as best Documentary Feature, March of the Penguins, earned more ($77.4 million) than any of the dramatic nominees, the first such occurrence in Academy history. As of January 31, Crash was the highest earner among the Best Picture nominees with $55.4 million in domestic box office receipts, and ranked as the 47th highest grosser of 2005. It was followed by Brokeback Mountain at $51 million (53rd) and Munich at $40.1 million (67th); Good Night, and Good Luck. ($25.1 million) and Capote ($15.3 million) rounded out the field. (By the time of the awards, Brokeback Mountain would surpass Crash with $78.9 million, benefitting from its position as Oscar frontrunner.) Of the top 50 releases of 2005 in U.S. box office through January, only Crash, Walk the Line (19th) and Cinderella Man (41st) received nominations for directing, acting or writing. The top 18 films in box office received a total of only 14 nominations, with a majority of these in the categories of Visual Effects, Sound Mixing and Sound Editing.

For the first time in five years, a majority of the Best Picture nominees were rated R (under 17 requires accompanying adult); it had been seven years since as many (four) of the nominees had earned that rating. Of the 85 nominations awarded to non-documentary feature films (apart from the Foreign Film category), a slight majority of 43 went to R-rated films, 25 to films rated PG-13, 16 to PG-rated films and 1 to a G-rated film. There was a remarkable rating-related division among the nominations: R-rated films captured 32 of the 40 nominations for Best Picture, directing, screenwriting and acting, while non-R-rated films received 34 of the 45 nominations in the remaining categories, primarily those in "below the line" areas (the music and editing categories accounted for 9 of the 11 nominations for R-rated films).

Also, the nominations were more widely dispersed than usual; it marked the first time in six years that no film received more than eight nominations.

This year the awards ceremony started at 5:00 P.M. PST, 30 minutes earlier than the previous seven ceremonies. The pre-show was extended from its original thirty minutes to a full hour before the ceremony. The Barbara Walters Special, usually airing before or after the ceremony (depending on time zone) was for the second time, since 2003, aired on different days this time before the actual day of the ceremony, March 1 to accommodate these time changes.

As has become standard practice in recent years, the broadcast aired on a time delay in order to allow the network to censor offensive material. This occurred during the performance of "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" when several words were blanked out at the start of the song, and later one phrase was bleeped during Three 6 Mafia's acceptance speech.

As with tradition, last year's acting winners present an acting award for the opposite sex. Cate Blanchett won Best Supporting Actress the previous year but was contractually signed to star in a play in New York City, therefore unable to present the award for Best Supporting Actor; Nicole Kidman was recruited to fill in.

"Gay Oscars"?

Many news organizations labeled this ceremony "The Gay Oscars",^*^* as movies such as Brokeback Mountain, Capote, and Transamerica featured prominent gay or transgender characters and were strong candidates for the popular Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Actress categories.

Tom O'Neill of InTouch Weekly declared on CNN Saturday Night, "I think we could have the all-gay Oscars. Brokeback for best picture; Capote for best actor; Transamerica for best actress.""Gay Oscars" from a transcript of CNN Saturday Night accessed February 18, 2006 from ^* Ultimately, in these three categories only Capote won its potential award.

The label of "Gay Oscars" resembles the "Black Oscars" label of the 74th Academy Awards when two African-Americans, Denzel Washington and Halle Berry, won the best actor and actress Oscars, respectively. ^* It should be noted that several gay and transgender themed characters and films have won major Oscar awards in previous years, including Tom Hanks' character in Philadelphia and Hilary Swank's character in Boys Don't Cry.

Winners

The awards were unusually divided; for the first time in 58 years, no film won more than three awards, with Brokeback Mountain, Crash, King Kong, and Memoirs of a Geisha each receiving that many. Crash was the first Best Picture winner since Rocky 29 years earlier to win only three awards; it was also the first Best Picture winner since Chariots of Fire 24 years earlier to not win for its directing nor for any of its performers. For the first time in 49 years, Best Picture, Best Director and the four acting awards went to six different films; and for the first time ever, none of these films won for cinematography either. King Kong and Memoirs of a Geisha became the first films since The Bad and the Beautiful 53 years earlier to win (or tie for) the most awards without being nominated for Best Picture.

For the first time in 44 years, each of the acting winners was a first-time nominee. With Philip Seymour Hoffman winning for his performance as Truman Capote, and Reese Witherspoon honored for her role as June Carter, it marked the fifth time that both lead acting awards went to performers playing real people. Ang Lee became the first Asian director to be honored. Paul Haggis was the evening's only multiple winner, with awards for producing and writing Crash. March of the Penguins was the first nature documentary in 35 years (since The Hellstrom Chronicle in 1971) to win the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.

Commentary

The New York Times declared that the selection of Crash as best picture was a "stunning twist", due to the fact that Brokeback Mountain received the top prizes at other large award shows such as the Golden Globes and the BAFTA Awards. They also suggested that Crash won as the "hometown favorite", being set in Los Angeles, where most Academy voters live.'Crash' Walks Away With the Top Prize at the Oscars from the New York Times accessed March 6, 2005 from Crash was indeed the second Best Picture winner in a row to be set primarily in Los Angeles, following Million Dollar Baby, also written by Paul Haggis; however, no Best Picture winner prior to the two had ever been primarily set there, suggesting that such a hometown bias has historically played little role in the voting. Also, residents of Los Angeles were divided over the film, some believing it presented an unfairly negative portrayal of the city ^*.

Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan also observed that some Academy members displayed "discomfort" with the subject matter of Brokeback Mountain. He suggested that these voters might have instead voted for Crash so that they could still "feel like they were good, productive liberals", hence Crash's victory."Breaking no Ground" from the LA Times accessed March 5, 2006 from ^* Indeed, two voting members had publicly refused to view Brokeback Mountain.

In a commentary in The Guardian, Annie Proulx—the author of the short story on which Brokeback Mountain was based—harshly lashed out at the selection of Crash, labeling it Trash and denouncing Academy voters as "living cloistered lives behind wrought-iron gates or in deluxe rest-homes, out of touch not only with the shifting larger culture and the yeasty ferment that is America these days, but also out of touch with their own segregated city"; calling the attendees a "somewhat dim LA crowd," she suggested that "Next year we can look to the awards for controversial themes on the punishment of adulterers with a branding iron in the shape of the letter A, runaway slaves, and the debate over free silver." ^*.

TV Ratings

The ceremony attracted 38.59 million viewers with 26.57 million households watching. This makes this year's ceremony the lowest viewed ceremony in terms of Nielsen Ratings after the one in 2003. This is partially due to the lack of box office hits being nominated.

References

External links

Academy Awards ceremonies | 2006 film awards | 2005 in film

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