Pedro Almodóvar, THE CONSUL FROM SODOM: Controversial Goya Award Choices

Penélope Cruz in Broken Embraces (Emilio Pereda & Paola Ardizzoni / El Deseo / Sony Pictures Classics) (top); Jordi Mollà in El cónsul de Sodoma (Steinweg Emotion Pictures) (bottom)

In the Spanish-language website Filmin, "questions without answers" are asked about the selections for the Spanish Academy's 2010 Goya Awards. A few of the questions, e.g., "who will win best actress this year" can only be answered at the Goya ceremony next Feb. 14. Several questions, however, are just plain unanswerable — at least from a logical (or personal) standpoint.

For example, Pedro Almodóvar's Broken Embraces was up for a Golden Palm in Cannes. Starring Lluís Homar and Penélope Cruz, Almodóvar's homage to old Hollywood film noirs has also won several critics' awards in the United States, and is up for a Golden Globe for best foreign language film. It's also been shortlisted by the British Academy. But at the Goyas, it failed to get either a best picture or best director nomination. Almodóvar had to be satisfied with a best original screenplay nod. At Filmin, the writer asks, "What's so special about the Broken Embraces subtitles?"

Another question: "Is Soledad Villamil a newcomer?" Nominated in the best female newcomer category for the mystery drama The Secret in Their Eyes, Villamil is a 40-year-old Argentinean actress who won Argentina's top film award about a dozen years ago for El mismo amor, la misma lluvia / Same Love, Same Rain. Her film debut took place nearly two decades ago, in 1991.

And here's another: "What will [respected Catalan author] Juan Marsé think?" … about the six nominations received by the biopic El cónsul de Sodoma / The Consul from Sodom. Starring best actor nominee Jordi Mollà as renowned poet Jaime Gil de Biedma, the film was adapted by Goya nominees Joaquin Górriz, Miguel Ángel Fernández, Miguel Dalmau, and director Sigfrid Monleón, from Dalmau's own book, Jaime Gil de Biedma.

Marsé reportedly referred to El cónsul de Sodoma as "grotesque, ridiculous, phony, absurd, dirty, pedantic, directed by an incompetent and ignorant fool, badly acted, with deplorable dialogue. It's a shameless film, with an infamous title and produced by unscrupulous people."

So, when the Oscar nominations are announced in early February, if you find anything grotesque, ridiculous, phony, absurd, dirty, pedantic, directed by incompetents, badly acted, with deplorable dialogue, and/or produced by unscrupulous people — and you probably will — just remember that similar reactions greet the choices made by other film academies in other parts of the world. I'm not sure that'll be any consolation, but it'll be the truth.