Dreamgirls, Babel among Oscar losers

LOS ANGELES, Feb 26 (Reuters) As soon as the Oscar nominations were announced a month ago, leading contender ''Dreamgirls'' was immediately declared the biggest loser because of its historic omission from the best picture race.

At the 79th annual Academy Awards, the heavily publicised musical picked up just two awards from eight nominations, with newcomer Jennifer Hudson winning for best supporting actress.

Her co-star, the highly favored comedian Eddie Murphy, was edged out by Alan Arkin for ''Little Miss Sunshine.'' Paradoxically, the Broadway adaptation notably failed to win the original song race, where it had three nominations. Melissa Etheridge won for a song from the decidedly non-musical environmental documentary ''An Inconvenient Truth.'' Its other honor was for sound mixing.

''Dreamgirls'' was the first movie in the awards' 79-year-old history to lead the nominees without scoring a nomination for best picture. Recriminations flew that the film's backers, DreamWorks, and the studio's billionaire co-founder, David Geffen, had overhyped the movie. Some pundits had declared it an Oscar winner as far back as the Cannes Film Festival in May, when part of the unfinished movie was screened for the first time to build buzz.

The film's box office performance was hardly stellar. It recently squeaked past the 100 million dollar mark at the North American box office, and has bombed overseas.

''Babel'' was another film that had Oscar written all over it long before it opened. The multilingual cultural drama was the second-most-nominated film, with seven nominations, but scored just one award, for Argentine composer Gustavo Santaolalla's original score. It had been nominated in such categories as best picture and best director.

Those coveted prizes went to ''The Departed,'' and the director of that film, Martin Scorsese. The veteran director, clutching a statuette for the first time in a four-decade career, failed to make Clint Eastwood's day.

Eastwood was nominated for directing ''Letters From Iwo Jima,'' and also produced the Japanese-language war drama, along with Steven Spielberg and Robert Lorenz. It received four nominations, winning for sound editing.

''The Departed'' actually had three credited producers: independent financier Graham King, producer-turned-studio chief Brad Grey and actor Brad Pitt. But the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which organizes the Oscars, ruled that only King would be allowed to accept the Oscar.

Grey, now the chief of Paramount Pictures, had lobbied to be included, even though ''The Departed'' was set up at rival studio Warner Bros., and he would have essentially been campaigning against his studio's contender, ''Babel.'' Other empty-handed losers included five-time contender ''Blood Diamond,'' four-time nominee ''Notes on a Scandal,'' and a pair of double contenders, ''United 93'' and ''Cars.'' And then there was Peter O'Toole. The 74-year-old veteran of the British stage and screen was nominated for the eighth time in more than 40 years, for his lead role as an aging actor who falls for a young woman in ''Venus.'' He lost to Forest Whitaker, a first-time nominee for his role as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. At the Oscars, bad guys often finish first.

REUTERS SHB SSC1238