Dud DVDs Doom “Munich” at Brit Oscars?
No views might have been bad news for Munich.
With most voters of the so-called British Oscars reportedly unable to watch Steven Spielberg’s docudrama about the aftermath of the terrorism-marred 1972 Summer Olympics because of a DVD screener snafu, the movie was absent from Thursday’s nominee field.
Hometown favorite The Constant Gardener had better luck with the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). The U.K.-produced John Le Carre thriller led the way with 10 nominations, including one for Best Film.
Golden Globes favorite Brokeback Mountain added more notches to its belt with nine nods, including ones for its usual suspects– Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams and director Ang Lee. Crash, an all-star parable about racism in Los Angeles, also scored nine nominations.
It was not known definitively if Munich’s screener troubles sealed its fate with BAFTA. To be sure, the $70 million epic has struggled for weeks to gain footholds at the box office (grossing just $34.2 million domestically through Tuesday, per BoxOfficeMojo.com) and at Hollywood’s pre-Oscar events. At Monday’s Globes, it went oh-for-two.
With all that, if there was one film that could ill afford one false move it was Munich. And according to reports, it suffered two false moves as it tried to make its pitch to BAFTA voters.
“It’s been quite a cock-up,” a BAFTA member said last week in the U.K. newspaper, The Guardian. “We were promised that they were going to send screeners before Christmas, but they never arrived. Now we finally have a copy but there is no way we can watch it.”
In the newspaper, the film’s U.K. publicity firm blamed the bum DVDs on human error–“someone pushed the wrong button” during encoding–making the discs incompatible with Region 2 players. And even if British-based BAFTA voters wanted to pay to see the movie, they couldn’t–it doesn’t open in theaters there until Jan. 27.
Universal Pictures, Munich’s Hollywood studio home, did not return a call for comment Thursday.
Focus Features, Universal’s art-house division, however, was in the crowing mood, issuing a press release Thursday noting Brokeback Mountain’s BAFTA–and box office–success.
On Tuesday, one day after its four Globe wins, Brokeback broke to the top of the movie chart. Its gross wasn’t stunning–it made all of $742,412–but it was good enough to best its competitors for the first time in six weeks in theaters. The R-rated tale of gay cowboys will move up to nearly 1,200 screens on Friday, per BoxOfficeMojo.com.
Though on the downside of its own theatrical run, Good Night, and Good Luck remains a hot ticket on the awards show circuit. George Clooney’s take on CBS Newsman Edward R. Murrow is up for six BAFTAs, including Best Film and Best Director. Clooney is a double nominee for Best Supporting Actor, for his role as CBS news producer Fred Friendly in Good Night and, as was his golden lot at the Globes, for his paunchy turn in Syriana.
In addition to Good Night, and Good Luck and The Constant Gardener, the BAFTA Best Film field is rounded out by Brokeback Mountain, Crash and Capote.
Other top nominees are Pride & Prejudice and Memoirs of a Geisha, with six each. This is Geisha’s best award-show showing yet. Like the Oscars, the BAFTAs honor the craft fields, enabling the sweeping Geisha to pick up nominations for cinematography, production design and costume design.
Likewise, BAFTA’s special effects categories helped Hollywood’s blockbusters finally break into the nominee circle. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, The Chronicles of Narnia, Batman Begins and King Kong each scored multiple nods.
Notably absent from that list is Star Wars: Episode III–Revenge of the Sith, the top-grossing movie of 2005, which was thoroughly snubbed, Munich-style–except in the case of Sith, voters probably saw it.
Here’s a complete list of 2006 BAFTA nominations:
Best Film:
Brokeback Mountain
Capote
The Constant Gardener
Crash
Good Night, and Good Luck
Best British Film:
A Cock and Bull Story
The Constant Gardener
Festival
Pride & Prejudice
Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Best Actor:
David Strathairn, Good Night, and Good Luck
Heath Ledger, Brokeback Mountain
Joaquin Phoenix, Walk the Line
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Capote
Ralph Fiennes, The Constant Gardener
Best Actress:
Charlize Theron, North Country
Judi Dench, Mrs. Henderson Presents
Rachel Weisz, The Constant Gardener
Reese Witherspoon, Walk The Line
Ziyi Zhang, Memoirs of a Geisha
Best Supporting Actor:
Don Cheadle, Crash
George Clooney, Good Night, and Good Luck
George Clooney, Syriana
Jake Gyllenhaal, Brokeback Mountain
Matt Dillon, Crash
Best Supporting Actress:
Brenda Blethyn, Pride & Prejudice
Catherine Keener, Capote
Frances McDormand, North Country
Michelle Williams, Brokeback Mountain
Thandie Newton, Crash
The David Lean Award for Achievement in Direction:
Ang Lee, Brokeback Mountain
Bennett Miller, Capote
Fernando Meirelles, The Constant Gardener
Paul Haggis, Crash
George Clooney, Good Night, and Good Luck
Original Screenplay:
Cinderella Man, Cliff Hollingsworth and Akiva Goldsman
Crash, Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco
Good Night, and Good Luck, George Clooney and Grant Heslov
Hotel Rwanda, Keir Pearson and Terry George
Mrs. Henderson Presents, Martin Sherman
Adapted Screenplay:
Brokeback Mountain, Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana
Capote, Dan Futterman
The Constant Gardener, Jeffrey Caine
A History of Violence, Josh Olson
Pride & Prejudice, Deborah Moggach
The Carl Foreman Award for Apecial Achievement by British Director/Producer or Writer in First Feature Film:
David Belton (producer), Shooting Dogs
Peter Fudakowski (producer), Tsotsi
Annie Griffin (director/writer), Festival
Richard Hawkins (director), Everything
Joe Wright (director), Pride & Prejudice
Best Foreign-Language Film:
De Battre Mon Coeur S’est Arrete
Le Grand Voyage
Kung Fu Hustle
Joyeux Noel
Tsotsi
The Anthony Asquith Award for Achievement in Film Music:
Brokeback Mountain, Gustavo Santaolalla
The Constant Gardener, Alberto Iglesias
Memoirs of a Geisha, John Williams
Mrs. Henderson Presents, George Fenton
Walk The Line, T Bone Burnett
Cinematography:
Brokeback Mountain
The Constant Gardener
Crash
March of the Penguins
Memoirs of a Geisha
Editing:
Brokeback Mountain
The Constant Gardener
Crash
Good Night, and Good Luck
March of the Penguins
Production Design:
Batman Begins
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
King Kong
Memoirs of a Geisha
Costume Design:
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Memoirs of a Geisha
Mrs. Henderson Presents
Pride & Prejudice
Sound:
Batman Begins
The Constant Gardener
Crash
King Kong
Walk the Line
Achievement in Special Visual Effects:
Batman Begins
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
King Kong
Makeup and Hair:
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Memoirs of a Geisha
Pride & Prejudice
Short Animation Film:
Fallen Art
Film Noir
Kamiya’s Correspondence
The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello
Rabbit
Short Film:
Antonio’s Breakfast
Call Register
Heavy Metal Drummer
Heydar, An Afghan in Tehran
Lucky
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