Lord of the Rings tops Oscar race with 13 nods

Complete List of Oscar Nominees

Epic fantasy The Lord of the Rings led this year's Oscar nominations Tuesday by winning 13 nods, including best picture, the seventh film in the history of the awards to do so.

The other frontrunners for the nominations, psychological drama A Beautiful Mind and Paris-based song and dance extravaganza Moulin Rouge came in next with eight nominations each, including best films and best actors.

Also showing heavily in the race for Hollywood's most coveted awards, to be bestowed here on March 24, were satirical 1930s murder mystery Gosford Park which came in with seven nods and family drama In the Bedroom with five.

The pre-dawn ceremony went off here without a hitch, endings weeks of behind the scenes maneuvering, studio lobbying and nail biting as Tinseltown's frenzied awards season moved into its final straight.

Australians Russell Crowe and Nicole Kidman were nominated in the best actor and actress categories for their respective performances as a schizophrenic maths genius in Mind and as a Paris courtesan in Moulin Rouge.

The nomination was Crowe's third consecutive Oscar nod and puts him in the running for the rare honour of winning two back-to-back Oscars in March.

Also in the best actor category were former Hollywood bad boy Sean Penn for I am Sam and Will Smith in the role of Mohammad Ali in Ali, Tom Wilkinson for in In the Bedroom, Denzel Washington for his role as a crooked cop in Training Day.

Running for best actress against Kidman were Sissy Spacek for her portrayal of a distraught housewife in In the Bedroom, Halle Berry for the southern US drama Monster's Ball, Judi Dench for her role as novelist Iris Murdoch in Iris and US actress Renee Zellweger for Bridget Jones' Diary.

Former child star Ron Howard won his first Oscar nomination as best director for A Beautiful Mind, along with Ridley Scott for Black Hawk Down, Robert Altman for Gosford Park, Peter Jackson for Lord of the Rings and David Lynch for his twisted drama Mulholland Drive.

Among the best foreign language film nominees, France's subtle comedy Amelie, did particularly well, winning a total of five nominations.

Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, it picked up best sound, art direction, cinematography, and original screenplay.

Also vying for best foreign language picture were India's tale of the trials of locals under British colonial rule Lagaan, Bosnia's dark war comedy No Man's Land, Norway's Elling and Argentina's Son of The Bride.

But is was Lord of the Rings, A Beautiful Mind, old-style musical revival Moulin Rouge and In the Bedroom that had been the favorites in the race for the sacred Academy Award nominations, and they did not disappoint.

Rings, the first of Jackson's $270 million trilogy of films, won nominations for best director, best supporting actor for McKellen's characterisation of the wizard Gandalf and best cinematography.

It also got nods for best costume design, best director, best film editing, best make-up, best original score, original song, sound, visual effects and adapted screenplay.

Only seven films have won as many Oscar nominations in the awards 74-year history while only two have managed 14, including 1997's blockbuster "Titanic" and 1950's "All about Eve."

Mind also won nods for Jennifer Connelly as best supporting actress for her role as mathematician John Nash's wife, best director, original score, adapted screenplay, make-up and film editing.

Moulin Rouge picked up nominations for best art direction, cinematography, costume design, editing, make-up as well as best picture, actress and sound.

But, surprisingly, it missed out on a best director nod for Australian Baz Luhrmann who won a Golden Globe last month.

Gosford Park, which had a mixed reception from critics and audiences was the dark horse in the race for the nominations but performed extremely well, winning nods for best picture, director, two best supporting actress nods for Britons Maggie Smith and Helen Mirren, best screenplay, costume and art direction.

Somali-based combat flick Black Hawk Down was an outside runner, picking up four nominations including Scott's best director nod, best sound, cinematography and film editing.

Twenty Years After His Death, Philip K. Dick Is The Hottest Sci-Fi Writer Around.

Warner Bros. has paid $200,000 to option the rights to Dick's semi-autobiographical novel, "A Scanner Darkly" for WB-based Section 8 -- the production shingle of Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney. If the film is produced, the value of the deal could rise to $2 million.

A disturbing tale of addiction, "Scanner" lives up to its modifier: The book follows Bob Arctor, a man so in the grip of drug dementia his brain can't even recognize himself. Gripped by delusions, Arctor can't discern between his day job as a narcotics officer and his paranoid alter-ego, Fred, who's submersed in the addict's lifestyle.

The project had most recently been set up at Muse Prods., where producer Chris Hanley had attached Leonardo DiCaprio and for a time courted music video helmer Chris Cunningham to develop the project as his first feature. Those people are no longer involved in the picture, which will start afresh at Section 8.

With the option near expiration, Muse Prods.' Hanley brought the project to Warner Bros.-based Gaylord Films arthouse subsidiary, Pandora Films, in July, but did not get the picture financed. Pandora did bring the project to Section 8, for whom Warners later scooped up the book rights at the time of Muse's option expiration, which ended officially in October.

It's not yet clear who'll helm the project, but it is believed to be a possible candidate for either a CGI or traditional animation treatment, according to sources familiar with the deal.

The project has had at least one draft done by someone who knows about multiple personality disorders -- "Being John Malkovich" scribe Charlie Kaufman -- but that version has since been abandoned, dating back to the time when the project was set up at Universal, where rights resided previous to Muse.

S.F. law: David E. Kelley set to develop drama for Fox

Fox Broadcasting Co. has added more heft to its fall 2002 drama development slate now that David E. Kelley has committed to develop a series for the network and 20th Century Fox Television.

The project is still in the embryonic stage but is said to revolve around the lives of three female lawyers who live together in San Francisco. Fox has given the project a 13-episode commitment, per the terms of its wide-ranging development deal with Kelley.

Kelley already fields the two dramas that comprise Fox's Monday night lineup: "Boston Public," now in its sophomore season, and the Emmy-winning "Ally McBeal," which just passed the 100-episode mark in its fifth season.

Kelley, repped by Endeavor and attorney Michael Gendler, also is attached as executive producer to another Fox drama project in development for the fall, "The Understudy," created by "Ally McBeal" showrunner Bill D'Elia and writer-producer Ivan Menchell.

In other Fox programming news, sources said the Matt Groening animated series "Futurama" may be winding down its run by the end of next season. Most of the writing staff of the 20th-produced comedy has been let go, but sources stressed that the show has not been canceled.

Because of the long lead time needed for animation, the scripts for the series' upcoming season have already been completed. Rather than retain the staff for a show that might not get picked up again, sources said Fox and 20th opted to cut costs and disband the current production team.

"Futurama," which bowed in March 1999, has never been a standout performer, but it has developed a loyal cult following in the Sunday 7 p.m. slot. Fox's 20th Television syndication arm is currently shopping the off-network rights to the show to cable outlets.

Terry Gilliam resurrects Don Quixote

Terry Gilliam is hoping to resurrect The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, an abandoned project of his. The director spent many years finding financing for the film, only to see it fall apart mere weeks into shooting when the lead actor, Jean Rochefort, fell ill.

Gilliam was at the Berlin film festival to suppport a documentary, Lost in La Mancha, about the disastrous events surrounding the film. But although he says it took him "a week to recover" after seeing the documentary, there is a positive aspect to it, as he is now going to make another attempt to complete the film.

He intends to use the same cast, which also includes Johnny Depp and Vanessa Paradis. Gilliam is now trying to get the rights back, after a $12m insurance payout which followed the failure of the first attempt. He said, "If I play it right I can continue making this film for the rest of my life."

First September 11 film planned " The Real Heros are Dead"

The first details of plans for films based on last September's attacks on New York and Washington have begun to emerge.

Perhaps the highest profile of these is a project by Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins to film the real life story of Rick and Susan Rescorla. Rescorla was head of security at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter in the World Trade Centre, and died in the attacks whilst evacuating employees from the building. According to Variety, Sarandon is keen to play his partner Susan whilst Robbins will write and direct the project, tentatively titled The Real Heros are Dead.

Meanwhile, MGM has made a deal with New Yorker journalist Lawrence Wright to adapt his article The Counter-Terrorist into a screenplay. The article told the story of John O'Neill, a former FBI officer who had worked on tracking down the al-Qaida network for most of his career. In a fateful twist, O'Neill became its victim after he left the Bureau to become head of security at the World Trade Centre in September. MGM president Michael Nathanson told Variety that O'Neill's story was one that had to be told. "It is just so hard to find real stories that are truly compelling, and if you started from scratch you'd be hard pressed to create a guy as dramatic and compelling as this one," he said.

"This is an epic story with incredibly intimate and flawed characters... It's not a story about the World Trade Centre or the horror of September 11 as much as it is about a guy who lived his dream, and was a combination of John Wayne and James Bond. September 11 is just a small facet of this." If the two deals go ahead, both films could go into production this year.

The Peter Greenaway "Tulse Luper Suitcase Sells" Int'l

Don Johnson, Deborah Harry, Rossy De Palma, Nick Moran, Victoria Abril, Franke Potente and Isabella Rossellini give a starry gloss to Peter Greenaway’s most ambitious project to date, The Tulse Luper Suitcases, which has secured a raft of international sales.

The trilogy of 120-minute films, being sold by Fortissimo Film Sales, gets underway on March 25 with K-19 and Last Orders star JJ Feild in the title role as Luper. Suitcases. The project will include three feature films, a TV series, CD-ROMs and DVDs. The CD-ROMs will enable the viewer to examine the contents of each of the 92 suitcases at their own leisure. The various contents of the suitcases include items such as 92 bars of Nazi gold, 92 shoes, cork frogs, burnt dog burns, Vatican pornography and female underwear belonging to famous American film stars..

Greenaway aims to deliver the first feature element at next year's Berlinale with the two subsequent episodes unveiling at Cannes and Venice. As we reported in December, the first film, "The Early Years", will be released in September 2002. The second film, "Vaux to the Sea", will be released in the Spring of 2003, and the third film, "From Sark to Finish", will be available sometime in 2004.

The films trace the story of the 20th century until the fall of the Berlin Wall, told through the life of a "professional prisoner" and his search for 92 suitcases scattered around the world.

At a press call on Feb 11 in Berlin, Greenaway said: "This is the most ambitious project I’ve ever attempted." Kees’ Kasander’s Kasander Production Ltd, will act as UK co-producer.

UK distribution will be arranged by former Metrodome head, Rupert Preston as representative of Matrix Securities. In a first for the company, the tax finance firm acquired UK rights as part of the film’s sales and lease-back arrangements.

Other co-producers on the $9m picture are Delux Productions of Luxembourg, TS Productions of Spain, Russia’s 12-A, Italy’s GAM Film, and Hungary’s Focus Film.

Germany opens its doors to Bollywood

Bollywood going global is nothing new. Indian films have wooed fans worldwide. Shah Rukh's class act, Aamir's perfectionist act, Hrithik's dance numbers, have wooed the international audiences.

From London, to Paris to Cape town, to Malaysia, there is no virgin territory untouched by Indian films. And taking into account the growing popularity of Indian films, countries like England, US and Switzerland have been vying with each other to lure Bollywood biggies to shoot in their country. Now a new country has joined the rat race to lure Indian producers.

Germany has decided to open its landscapes for our heroes and heroines to romance in the rugged mountains of Saxony, and the black forest to the lakes of Mecklenburg. Achtung, Bollywood!

Self-Confessed Addict Debuts First 'On_Line' Film

There have been a number of commercial movies about Internet hackers and computer viruses, but not one filmed on the web -- until now.

"On_Line," an independent movie by Jed Weintrob, is just that. Shown at the Sundance Film Festival last month, it had its European premiere before appreciative audiences in Berlin last week.

"I've been playing with this technology since 1993, pretty much at the outset. I had an idea for a movie and I've been working on it the past three years," Weintrob, 32, said in an interview with Reuters.

"On_Line" tells the story of six characters bound by an erotic Web site, Intercon-X, run by flatmates John and Moe.

John and others have taken up a life on the Internet verging on the obsessive and the film shows how web-gazing and anonymous online sex without contact can take over, at the expense of "normal" relationships.

"I've had some Internet addiction problems of my own," Weintrob confesses. "A day and night can go by without you going out. At the extreme it's unhealthy. People cut themselves off. Some of these intense sexual experiences can be very addictive."

What's more, as the film shows, the reality of face-to-face meetings can be a let-down.

The movie, featuring established TV stars and beginners, is a mixture of scenes shot with webcams over the Internet and more conventional sections filmed with digital cameras. The Internet dialogues presented logistical headaches with one actor in one room, and at least one other elsewhere playing out their online relationships.

"It was a technical nightmare, I don't think anyone has shot a film online like that," Weintrob said.

The film's release comes well after the bursting of the dot-com bubble, but Weintrob's movie focuses on what he considers the resilient leftovers -- dating and Internet porn.

"I call them the cockroaches as they are the only things still left after the apocalypse of the Internet," he said.

As well as Intercon-X, the film shows "Exit.com," a suicide site, and "Angel cam," a 24-hour open invitation for voyeurs to view a woman's daily routine in her flat, the titillation of her undressing and the monotony of her sleeping. The actress, who had a similar occupation in real life, was found and auditioned on the web.

Weintrob admits to heavy surfing to develop the plot and also went on 10-15 dates via online agencies as part of his research.

"My writing partner had a flirtation for six months on the net. They finally met and found they lived only two blocks apart," he says.

"A friend of mine and his wife used to put their lives up on their personal web pages. She had an affair and he only found out by reading her online diary," Weintrob said.

As Weintrob and his film show, it's not all bad and online romance is steadily becoming part of normal life. "Everyone knows a couple these days who got married after getting to know each other on the Internet," Weintrob said.

The movie, which naturally has its own highly developed Web site, has attracted the interest of U.S. distributors. Weintrob, whose next two projects both have a technology theme, is also thinking of developing a TV show based on "On_Line."