Gardener wows BAFTA

Tinseltown is beginning to bubble as the heat beneath the awards season is taken up a notch by the announcement of the BAFTA film award nominations.

Fernando Meirelles’ palm-dampener picked up ten noms, including Best Film, Best Actor for Ralph Fiennes and Best Actress for Rachel Weisz.

Hot on The Constant Gardener’s tail is Ang Lee’s scorching hot cowboy drama Brokeback Mountain and Paul Haggis’ race drama Crash – both raking in an impressive nine nominations.

Doing battle with those three flicks for Best Film are George Clooney’s black and white political flick Good Night, And Good Luck and Bennett Miller’s writer biopic Capote.

Clooney’s McCarthy era media drama chalked up six nominations, including Best Original Screenplay and Best Director for George Clooney. The Cloonster himself is nominated for four gongs – including two Best Supporting Actor nods for Good Night and the Stephen Gaghan thriller Syriana.

In the Best Actor category, Fiennes will be fighting it out with Golden Globe winner Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote), Heath Ledger (Brokeback Mountain), Joaquin Phoenix (Walk The Line) and David Strathairn (Good Night, And Good Luck).

Reese Witherspoon finds herself in with a good shout for nabbing the Best Actress prize. To do so she’ll have to elbow her way past Judi Dench (Mrs Henderson Presents), Ziyi Zhang (Memoirs Of A Geisha), Charlize Theron (North Country) and the aforementioned Brit Rachel Weisz.

The winners will be announced in London on 19 February.