The Nominees

Russell Crowe's nomination for playing a tobacco executive with a conscience in The Insider comes as a bit of a surprise. It's not that the Crowe isn't due - many thought he should have been nominated for L.A. Confidential - it's more that the film's 60-Minutes-like probe of journalism ethics is an unlikely vehicle for a Best Actor performance. But Crowe comes through with a stunning, warts-and-all study of Jeffrey Wigand, the real-life smokes honcho who turned whistle-blower at the behest of Mike Wallace. Insider's Best Picture and Best Director nominations should provide a boost for the actor from Down Under.

He's been around so long, Richard Farnsworth, 79, almost seems like a new face. Starting out as a stuntman in the '30s (his credits include the Marx Brothers' A Day at the Races and the very silly Weekend at Bernies), he branched off into acting in the '60s. In The Straight Story, he

portrays Alvin Straight, a real-life farmer who rode a lawnmower across Iowa to visit his ailing brother. His performance, transcendent in its rugged beauty, marks his  first chance at a Best Actor statue. But even if he wins, Farnsworth won't be the oldest man to claim an Oscar for acting. That distinction belongs to George Burns, who, at age 80, won Best Supporting Actor for The Sunshine Boys.

He's only been nominated once before, but some thought Sean Penn was robbed in 1996. That was when his chilling portrayal of condemned killer Matthew Poncelet in Dead Man Walking lost out to Nicolas Cage's alcoholic in Leaving Las Vegas. This year he's nominated for playing Emmet Ray, a moody jazz guitarist who enjoys brief popularity in the 20s, in Woody Allen's Sweet and Lowdown. The film's near-invisible profile means Penn faces an uphill battle to get attention this time around.

Studies of the postwar suburban family are nothing new to American filmmaking, but rarely has a film been as frank on the subject as American Beauty. The movie covers territory usually reserved for frat movies or teen thrillers. Kevin Spacey, who at 40 has been honing "middle-aged" for a decade, is infinitely believable as the tragic Everyman who comes to the grim conclusion that his life is meaningless. Spacey won Best Supporting Actor in 1995 for playing Verbal Kint (a.k.a. the elusive Keyser Soze) in The Usual Suspects. The enormous popularity of Beauty, which is seen as a kind of establishment flick with an edge, should help Spacey's chances.

Denzel Washington is no stranger to controversy. His nomination for Spike Lee's Malcolm X caused a stir in 1993, and now he's up for another politically charged biopic, The Hurricane. Washington's portrayal of Rubin Carter, the middleweight boxer wrongly accused of a triple murder in 1966, is undeniably compelling. But the movie itself has been roundly criticized in the U.S. for blurring the line between fact and fantasy. In Oscar terms, the fallout of the dump-Hurricane campaign is palpable. Washington got a nomination for his stunning performance, while the movie was shut out elsewhere.

                                                               - Drew Gibson