Taking this quick writing break to spread the good word, announced just in the last hour. Nom list. Press release.

I was happy to see two of my favorite small films of the year, Mysterious Skin and (to a lesser extent) Me and You and Everyone We Know nominated. (Skin for best director for Gregg Araki--quite the coup; and Me & You . . . for best first feature and best first screenplay.)

Most of the big awards were dominated by films also in the running for Oscars: Capote, Brokeback Mountain, and Good Night and Good Luck tied for second (with a couple others) at four noms.

Brokeback Mountain was tied for second : Best pic, actor, director &sptg actress. (Sorry Jake, nothing for you.)

My one shock was that the Brokeback Screenplay was neglected. I thought Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana did the nearly impossible -- took an amazing, award-winning story and improved on it. How often is the movie richer and more complex than the book? (Granted that the "book" was only 30 pages. But in most hands, it would have been fleshed out with pale filler. This version made me wish Annie would have written it much longer.)

This will of course, help Brokeback--perhaps more than any of the other well-known pics, as it has a special credibility problem with straight audiences. This may help ever so slightly to legitimize it as "a great film," instead of just "the big film for the gays." Every bit of cred helps.

And it may help a bit more in the Oscar race, as the only film with more noms, "The Squid & The Whale," is out of serious contention.