The Chicago Film Critic's Awards nominations are made...

Father Geek here with an awards nominations posting for those of you that keep up with such things. Its that time of year, sooooo get out your score cards and be prepared to be seeing these reports often in the next few weeks, followed of course by the various announcements of the actual different award winners, climaxing on March 24th with the Academy Awards bash. But for now here's what the Windy City's critics are mulling over...

Ron Howard's fact-based drama "A Beautiful Mind" leads the nominations for the 2001 Chicago Film Critics Awards. The drama won six nominations, including best picture, best director (Howard) and best actor (Russell Crowe).

Todd Field's independent drama "In the Bedroom" tied second place with David Lynch's "Mulholland Dr." with five nominations. Both received nods for best picture, best director and best actress (Sissy Spacek for "Bedroom" and Naomi Watts for "Mulholland").

Winners of the 14th annual Chicago Film Critics Awards will be announced in a press conference at 4:30 p.m. on Feb. 25 at the Goodman Theatre, Chicago. The 49 members of the association, from print, broadcast and on-line media, vote on five nominees in 13 categories.

CFCA President Dann Gire notes that this year's nominations "show the wide range of engaging films and performances this year, and the diversity of the opinions of the Chicago critics from other critics' groups. This list represents a healthy cross-section of independent and studio works."

New this year: "Most Promising Performer" and "Most Promising Director" categories. Last year's Most Promising Actor" and "Actress" categories were merged into the "Performer" category.

"The Most Promising Director Award gives us a chance to celebrate new talents who we think will make significant contributions to film in the future," Gire said.

Because of the severe economic downturn in late 2001 and other factors negatively affecting corporate sponsorships, the awards presentations will not be open to the public as they have in years past.

The complete list of nominees. (Because of voting ties, some categories have more than five nominees.)

Best Film:

• Beautiful Mind
• In the Bedroom
• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
• Mulholland Dr.
• Waking Life

Best Foreign Language Film:

• Amelie
• Amores Perros
• Faithless
• In the Mood for Love
• No Man's Land
• The Road Home
• Werckmeister Harmonies

Best Documentary:

• The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition
• The Gleaners and I
• Go Tigers
• Porn Star
• Startup.com

Best Director:

• Robert Altman for Gosford Park
• Ron Howard for A Beautiful Mind
• Peter Jackson for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
• Baz Luhrmann for Moulin Rouge!
• David Lynch for Mulholland Dr.

Best Screenplay:

• Daniel Clowes & Terry Zwigoff for Ghost World
• Julian Fellowes for Gosford Park
• Akiva Goldsman for A Beautiful Mind
• Christopher Nolan for Memento
• Wes Anderson & Owen Wilson for The Royal Tenenbaums

Best Original Score:

• Angelo Badalamenti, David Lynch, John Neff for Mulholland Dr.
• Mike Galasso and Shigaru Umebayashi for In the Mood for Love
• James Horner for A Beautiful Mind
• Howard Shore for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
• John Williams for A.I.: Artificial Intelligence

Best Cinematography:

• Roger Deakins for The Man Who Wasn't There
• Peter Deming for Mulholland Dr.
• Christopher Doyle & Mark Lee Ping-bin for In the Mood for Love
• Andrew Lesnie for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings
• Janusz Kaminski for A.I.: Artificial Intelligence
• Donald McAlpine for Moulin Rouge!

Best Actor:

• Russell Crowe for A Beautiful Mind
• Gene Hackman for The Royal Tenenbaums
• John Cameron Mitchell for Hedwig and the Angry Inch
• Guy Pearce for Memento
• Denzel Washington for Training Day
• Tom Wilkinson for In the Bedroom

Best Actress:

• Halle Berry for Monster's Ball
• Thora Birch for Ghost World
• Sissy Spacek for In the Bedroom
• Tilda Swinton for The Deep End
• Naomi Watts for Mulholland Dr.

Best Supporting Actor:

• Steve Buscemi for Ghost World
• Ben Kingsley for Sexy Beast
• Jude Law for A.I.: Artificial Intelligence
• Tony Shalhoub for The Man Who Wasn't There
• Jon Voigt for Ali

Best Supporting Actress:

• Jennifer Connelly for A Beautiful Mind
• Cameran Diaz for Vanilla Sky
• Helen Mirren for Gosford Park
• Maggie Smith for Gosford Park
• Marisa Tomei for In the Bedroom

Most Promising Performer:

• Eric Bana
• Paul Bettany
• Hayden Christensen
• Dakota Fanning
• John Cameron Mitchell
• Audrey Tautou

Most Promising Director:

• Todd Field
• Jonathan Glazer
• Alejandro González Iñárritu
• Richard Kelly
• Christopher Nolan