Stephen Frears‘ The Queen corralled 10 BAFTA (i.e., British Academy of Film and Television Arts) nominations this morning, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay (Peter Morgan) and Best Actress (Helen Mirren). And Casino Royale tallied nine nominations, including a deserved Best Actor nom for Daniel Craig. Wait….could all this have a little something to do with nationalistic solidarity?

The winners will be named on a BBC telecast of the London award ceremony on Sunday, February 11.
The Queen has it in the bag, of course, but for the sake of phony suspense The Departed, Babel, The Last King Of Scotland and Little Miss Sunshine have also been nominated for Best Film. And the other Best Director nominees besides Frears are Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Babel), Martin Scorsese (The Departed), Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (Little Miss Sunshine) and Paul Greengrass (United 93).
Morgan’s Queen script aside (i.e., another slam-dunk), the other Best Original Screenplay noms are for Paul Greengrass‘s United 93 script, Guillermo del Toro‘s Pan’s Labyrinthand Michael Arndt‘s Little Miss Sunshine.
The Best Adapted Screenplay noms are for Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Paul Haggis‘s Casino Royale script in the adapted screenplay section, with William Monahan (The Departed), Aline Brosh McKenna (The Devil Wears Prada), Peter Morgan and Jeremy Brock (The Last King Of Scotland) and Patrick Marber (Notes On A Scandal) rounding out the pack.
The Best Actor noms are Craig, Peter O’Toole (Venus), Leonardo DiCaprio (The Departed), Richard Griffiths (The History Boys…forget it), and Forest Whitaker (The Last King Of Scotland) .
Best actress will be won by Mirren, of course, but for appearances sake the great Penelope Cruz (Volver), Judi Dench (Notes On A Scandal), Meryl Streep (“The Devil Wears Prada”) and Kate Winslet (Little Children) have also been nominated.

“When I first meet Guillermo del Toro, writer/director of Pan’s Labyrinth, one of the true masterpieces of the decade, he is not promoting his own movie,” begins Sasha Stone‘s just-up profile. “He is there, along with his friend Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu to hold a special screening for their friend Alfonso Cuaron‘s new film, Children of Men.”

“Del Toro, Cuaron and Gonzalez Inarritu together have produced some of the year’s best offerings, even if Children of Men and Pan’s Labyrinth hit almost too late for Oscar voters or guild voters to catch up with them. Running the awards circuit can do wonders for films that were difficult to get made, namely in the money department. Being nominated for an Oscar at least doubles your profit out of the gate, which can mean life or death for a labor of love like Pan’s.
“While Babel is a strong best picture contender, and Pan’s the frontrunner for the foreign language Oscar, Children of Men is a highly acclaimed film yet so few Academy members, and perhaps guild members, seem to have seen it. It seemed odd to me that these two lauded directors would be doing anything but trying to gain recognition for their own work, but what you get immediately from them is that they aren’t like the typical Hollywood players.
“The Universal lot was not easy to get to on a Wednesday night. With all of the screenings and parties and voting, how can any Academy voter keep straight all that needs to be seen and done. This is why Del Toro and Gonzalez Inarritu went to the trouble of holding a special screening — in hopes of giving Academy members a chance to see it on the big screen, which greatly enhances the experience of Children of Men.
“Friendship, collaboration and relationships are important to them. The question isn’t why were they doing this for their friend but rather, how could they not do it?”