Nominations for best actor in a drama went to Pitt and DiCaprio, as well as Sean Penn as the title character in Milk, Frank Langella as the 37th president of the United States in Frost/Nixon and Mickey Rourke as The Wrestler. Penn's take on Milk, who was assassinated in 1978, just 10 months after being elected to San Francisco's Board of Supervisors, has garnered universal praise and won awards from both the New York and Los Angeles critics.
The year's No. 1 film at the box office, The Dark Knight, received only a single nomination, for the late Heath Ledger as best supporting actor.
Yet again, labor strife is threatening to make a shambles of the coming awards season, with the Screen Actors Guild set to announce the results of a strike authorization vote on Jan. 23. Last year, a writers' strike led the Hollywood Foreign Press to cancel the Golden Globes ceremony and came within two weeks of causing a boycott of the Oscar ceremony. The SAG strike vote would come after the Globes ceremony Jan. 11, but in plenty of time to disrupt the Oscars, scheduled for Feb. 22.
