Oscar 2007 Nominations

Penélope Cruz told Academy members to vote for her — or else.
Pedro Almodóvar should have used the same vote-getting technique.

"There's so many Mexicans!" exclaimed Mexican actress Salma Hayek, too excited to conjugate her verbs properly, upon announcing — along with Academy president Sid Ganis — some of the nominees for the 2007 Academy Awards.

Indeed. Best supporting actress nominee Adriana Barraza (for Babel); best direction nominee Alejandro González Iñárritu, who also happens to be one of the producers of best picture nominee Babel; best original screenplay nominee Guillermo del Toro, whose Pan's Labyrinth was also nominated in the best foreign-language film category; best adapted screenplay nominee Alfonso Cuarón, one of the screenwriters of Children of Men (which he also directed — but no Academy acknowledgement there); best cinematography nominee Guillermo Navarro (for Pan's Labyrinth); and best actress nominee Penélope Cruz (for Volver).

Ok, ok, if you wanna be technical about it. So, Cruz's a Spaniard — the first ever to get a best actress nod — but Salma Hayek was feeling so red-white-and-green she probably got all geographically incorrect. Most Americans don't know the difference, anyways.

Anika Noni Rose, Beyoncé Knowles, Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls (top); Penélope Cruz, Lola Dueñas in Volver (bottom)

As for the non-Mexican nominations, there were a number of surprises.

The two biggies were Bill Condon's Dreamgirls being left out of the best film, best direction, and best writing categories — too black? too girlie? too glitzy? — and Pedro Almodóvar's Volver being left out of the best foreign-language film category — too Latin? too girlie? not glitzy enough? Or perhaps, Volver's omission was the result of the Academy's inane decision to leave the best foreign-language film final nominations in the hands of thirty or so voters. Or … could it be the long-awaited Hollywood Academy's revenge against the Spanish Academy's lack of a best foreign-language film category?

In any case, I still haven't mustered enough courage to go check out Dreamgirls, this year's top nominee, with a total of eight nods — three of which in the best song category. The last big Broadway-to-Hollywood musical I saw, Chicago, would have made my list of ten worst movies of 2002. However, I have seen Volver, which will definitely be included in my ten-best list for 2006. (That list will be ready, with some luck, by 2014.)

Days of Glory by Rachid Bouchareb

Quality, of course, is in the brain of the beholder. If your brain functions as perfectly as mine, you'll like the things I like and dislike the things I don't care for. You'd have voted for Volver as one of the best foreign-language films of the year, and would have ignored both the French — er… Algerian — version of Saving Private Ryan, Days of Glory, and The Lives of Others, the highly conventional tale of a Stasi spy who came down with cold feet.

I haven't seen Water, yet, though director Deepa Mehta sure deserves an award for perseverance, considering all the hassles she had to deal with — courtesy of Hindu fanatics — while making her film.

Looking on the bright side, if The Lives of Others wins the best foreign-language film award the invariably dull Oscar telecast will be enlivened by director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's remarks about corruption in the world of German politics. Henckel von Donnersmarck's lengthy rant, in fact, was the most interesting thing about the The Lives of Others screening at the AFI FEST last November.

Chances are, however, that Guillermo del Toro will be going onstage to accept his Oscar for Pan's Labyrinth, which garnered a total of six nominations. But then again, the non-nominated Volver was the shoo-in to win that award. So…

Competing against los mexicanos are the British.