Because of differing release dates, the nominations for the 2009 European Film Awards, announced over the weekend at the Seville filmfest, span three years of Oscars eligibility. Contending for the top prize are last year's Oscar champ, "Slumdog Millionaire" -- which earned six nods -- as well as best pic nominee "The Reader." Also on the list are this year's French and German Oscar submissions for foreign film -- "A Prophet," which also earned six noms, and  "The White Ribbon" -- and one of next year's hot releases: "Fish Tank" from Britain. Rounding out the list is "Let the Right One In," which Sweden passed over last year as its official Oscar entry in favor of "Everlasting Moments."

"Slumdog Millionaire" helmer Danny Boyle and scripter Simon Beaufoy -- who both won Oscars last year -- are nominees at this year's European Film Awards, which will be held on Dec. 12 in the German city of Essen. The other nods for "Slumdog" are a bid by Oscar-winning cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle -- also recognized for his work on "Antichrist" -- lead actor Dev Patel and as one of the 10 pics in the people's choice category. Some awards purists would argue that last nod -- for a prize won by popular vote rather than being bestowed by the academy's 2,000 members -- shouldn't count in the tally, but the official nominations list includes this category.

Two years ago, 2006 best actress Oscar champ Helen Mirren ("The Queen") ended an amazing awards run with a win at the European Film Awards. Among this year's crop of best actress nominees are last year's Oscar winner, Kate Winslet ("The Reader"). Her competition includes one current potential best actress nominee -- Penelope Cruz ("Broken Embraces") -- but not another -- Audrey Tautou ("Coco Before Chanel").

For the full list of nominations, visit the European Film Academy website.

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Photo: A scene from "Slumdog Millionaire." Credit: Fox Searchlight Pictures

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After piping in with their Oscars predix for best pix on Tuesday, our forums' moderators now stick out their thin, tender, trembling necks to forecast the best-actress race. Chris "Boomer" Beachum, Matthew "Boidiva02" Cormier, Darrin "DoubleD" Dortch, Robert "Rob L" Licuria, Andrew "andrew" Pickett and Paul Sheehan.

Only two actresses get the bets of all of these pundits: Carey Mulligan ("An Education") and Helen Mirren ("The Last Station"). Yeah, I'm sure they're right about that duo. Those not putting their derby dollars down on Gabourey Sidibe ("Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire") and Saoirse Ronan ("The Lovely Bones") will regret it later. Personally, my fifth pick is Marion Cotillard ("Nine"). Check out our forums to see who other Derbyites are betting on in general; read reax to these specific predix here. Early fave to win is Sidibe, I think. Here are the views of 16 film journos we polled on the best-pic race.

Photos: From left, Carey Mulligan in "An Education." Credit: Sony Pictures Classics. Gabourey Sidibe in "Precious." Credit: Lionsgate

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This year marked only the second time in Oscar history in which all four acting winners have hailed from outside the United States. The first was back in 1964 when the winners were three Brits -- Rex Harrison ("My Fair Lady"), Julie Andrews ("Mary Poppins") and Peter Ustinov ("Topkapi"), as well as Russian born Lila Kedrova ("Zorba the Greek").

But Oscar has had the welcome mat out from its very first ceremony in 1929 when Swiss-born Emil Jannings won best actor for his performances in "The Last Command" and "The Way of All Flesh. And three of the first four best actresses hailed from Canada: Mary Pickford ("Coquette"); Norma Shearer ("The Divorcee"); and Marie Dressler ("Min and Bill").

While Daniel Day-Lewis ("There Will Be Blood") and Tilda Swinton ("Michael Clayton") are just two of the 36 English actors to win Academy Awards, Marion Cotillard ("La Vie en Rose") made Oscar history by giving the first French language performance to be so honored while Javier Bardem is the first Spanish actor to win an Oscar.

One of our most prolific forum posters, the aptly named Academy Awards Guru, has compiled a list of the nationalities of all 265 Oscar winners for acting. During the course of 80 ceremonies, they have won 306 Oscars (there has been one tie in each of best actor and best actress). Of these, 76 winners came from outside the USA to take home 85 Oscars. While 21 other countries have produced Oscar winners, it is not surprising that England leads with 36 of her citizens winning 42 Oscars.

Over the past 80 years, best actor has gone to a non-American 24 times and best actress 25 times while in the 72-year history of the supporting awards, non-Americans won supporting actor 19 times and supporting actress 17 times.

When Oscar is not comforting the long-suffering wife, he can often be found in the arms of a young beauty.

Last year's best actress winner, Helen Mirren ("The Queen") was the first leading woman older than 40 to take home an Oscar in a decade. Up until then, the list of recent winners looked like the lineup at a beauty pageant: Reese Witherspoon, Hilary Swank, Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman, Halle Berry, Julia Roberts and Gwyneth Paltrow. Personally, I think Mirren was able to overcome that trend by embracing it. At age 62, she's still quite sexy (remember her nude scene in "Calendar Girls"?) and she was brazenly frisky while out on the Oscar campaign trail last year, even appearing on the cover of Los Angeles magazine tugging at her bra.

Granted, the younger screen lovelies would often win acclaim and awards by deglamourizing themselves to show Hollywood that they were more than just pretty faces. But during Oscar campaign season, off came the false noses, boxing gloves and trailer-trash outfits, to be replaced by designer gowns and comely coifs.

This year, classic Gallic beauty Marion Cotillard turns from ugly duckling to swan and back playing tragic chanteuse Edith Piaf. With her head shaved and her eyebrows plucked, the French actress, 32, is transformed into the "little sparrow" at the end of her troubled life.

While 1960s siren Julie Christie, star of "Away From Her," still sizzles in real-life, like Mirren, for this 66-year-old to win would be to buck the trend. Though this age bias is less blatant in the category for supporting actresses, older gals still triumph there only now and then: Judi Dench once, Dianne Wiest twice in recent years, for example.

Pace University proved the obvious a few years ago when it conducted an Oscar study spanning the 25 years before 2000 and discovered that best actor winners were, on average, five years older than their female equivalents. And seven years separated male and female nominees.

In the last 15 years only two actresses older than 50 have won an Oscar in the lead or supporting races: Dames Mirren and Dench. Meantime, consider all of these chaps north of the half-century mark who've triumphed during the same years: lead actors Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, and Anthony Hopkins as well as supporting players Alan Arkin, Morgan Freeman, Chris Cooper, Jim Broadbent, Michael Caine, James Coburn, Martin Landau, Gene Hackman, and Jack Palance.

When sizing up Ruby Dee's chances of duplicating her SAG victory at the Oscars, it's important to weigh the history of the two awards, which have only co-existed since 1994. They've agreed 8 times in 13 years, but 5 of those were in the past 5 years.

Note that the extraordinary amount of recent agreement between SAG and Oscar can be seen among nominees, too: in 2005 and 2006 the lists in the supporting-actress race were the same. This year the nominee overlap was 4 for 5, with Saoirse Ronan ("Atonement") replacing SAG contender Catherine Keener ("Into the Wild") at the Oscars.

Remember, there used to be a lot more time in between these two awards, but when the Oscars moved up on the calendar four years ago, SAG moved up, too. Now they're scrunched much closer in time. Also keep in mind that the two groups share many of the same voters. All 1,300 members of the academy's acting branch belong to SAG. There are a lot more guild members, of course (more than 100,000 total; 2,100 are on SAG's nominating committee), but they're all like-minded people. Heck, if Gallup and Harris can get an accurate take on the national opinions of 300 million Americans by polling 1,500 people, then it's logical to assume that the views of SAG and AMPAS overlap a great deal despite the gap in numbers.

Here's a look back on this SAG race since 2000:

2006
X - "Jennifer Hudson, "Dreamgirls"
Adriana Barraza, "Babel"
Rinko Kikuchi, "Babel"
Abigail Breslin, "Little Miss Sunshine"
Cate Blanchett, "Notes on a Scandal"
NOTE: All five nominees lined up.

2005
X - "Rachel Weisz, "The Constant Gardener"
Michelle Williams, "Brokeback Mountain"
Catherine Keener, "Capote"
Amy Adams, "Junebug"
Frances McDormand, "North Country"
NOTE: All five nominees lined up.

2004
X - "Cate Blanchett, "The Aviator"
Sophie Okonedo, "Hotel Rwanda"
Laura Linney, "Kinsey"
Virginia Madsen, "Sideways"
Cloris Leachman, "Spanglish"
NOTE: At the Oscars, Natalie Portman ("Closer") replaced SAG nominee Cloris Leachman.

CLICK HERE to Read MORE!

With so many foreigners competing in the Oscars race for best actress this year — Helena Bonham Carter ("Sweeney Todd"), Julie Christie ("Away from Her"), Marion Cotillard ("La Vie en Rose"), Keira Knightley ("Atonement") and Ellen Page ("Juno"), among others — it's possible that we may again see a sole Yankee in the race. Perhaps only Angelina Jolie ("A Might Heart") or Laura Linney ("The Savages")?

If so, we'll hear lots of chatter among Oscarologists about that ole chestnut that a sole Yankee always prevails against a foreign invasion. But is the theory really true?

Believers use this theory to explain the seemingly unexplainable, including Marisa Tomei's 1992 supporting-actress win for "My Cousin Vinny." While Helen Hunt ("As Good As It Gets") beat four foreign lasses, she had won several awards leading up to the Oscars. Tomei had not. On Oscar night, the frontrunner in that supporting race figured to be Aussie Judy Davis who had picked up several critics prizes for her work in Woody Allen's domestic drama "Husbands and Wives." Nipping at her heels were thought to be the three Brits — Dame Joan Plowright, Laurence Olivier's widow, who had won the Globe for "Enchanted April", New York critics choice Miranda Richardson ("Damage"), and Vanessa Redgrave ("Howards End").

But just how parochial are the Academy Awards? Before 1997, the last time a lone American actress prevailed over four foreigners in the lead-actress race was back in 1971 when Jane Fonda won for "Klute." Her competition? South African Janet Suzman ("Nicholas and Alexandra"), and three Brits - Vanessa Redgrave ("Mary, Queen of Scots"), the previous year's winner Glenda Jackson ("Sunday Bloody Sunday"), and one Julie Christie ("McCabe and Mrs. Miller").

Interestingly, when Christie won in 1965, she beat two other Brits — the previous year's winner Julie Andrews ("The Sound of Music") and Samantha Eggar ("The Collector") as well as France's only best actress winner Simone Signoret ("Ship of Fools") and the sole American nominee, newcomer Elizabeth Hartman ("A Patch of Blue").

The following year, 1966, was the only one in Oscar history that all five lead actress nominees hailed from foreign lands. British born Elizabeth Taylor won her second Oscar for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" beating out both British Redgrave sisters — Vanessa ("Morgan!") and Lynn ("Georgy Girl") as well as French beauty Anouk Aimee ("A Man and a Woman") and Ukrainian Ida Kaminska ("The Shop on Main Street").

CLICK HERE to Continue Reading!

Right now Hollywood studio chiefs are scared stiff of being declared an early Oscars frontrunner.

Why?

Just because some clueless, self-proclaimed pundits say it's a terrible thing to be? Frankly, they concocted the Early Frontrunner Stumbles Theory to explain what they don't understand, but what's actually quite obvious to true Oscar authorities — that is, why "Dreamgirls" and "Brokeback Mountain" tripped up. Neither of those films lost best picture because they were the early frontrunner, but more on that later.

For now let's put this ridiculous myth to rest. Has everyone already forgotten that Helen Mirren ("The Queen") and Forest Whitaker ("Last King of Scotland") were ahead to win best actress and actor at this time last year? They didn't lose a single major award in the derby ahead.

But somehow clueless pundits argue that the best-picture race is different? How so? It's not.

Throughout most of Oscars history, the vast majority of early frontrunners in all top categories ended up trotting over the finish line just fine.

Others like "The Aviator" probably would've soared ahead, but the late-breaking release of a Clint flick can trip up anything in Eastwood-mad Hollyweird.

Consider these recent, early best-picture faves: "Lord of the Rings: Return of the King," "Titantic," "Gladiator," "The English Patient," "Forrest Gump," "Schindler's List" and "Unforgiven," to name just a few. Heck, "A Beautiful Mind" was under ferocious assault by media outraged over its creators sugar-coating its real-life story in 2001 (there was no smear campaign against it — let's not go there again) and it still won!

Most upsets in the best-picture race can be explained by the peculiarities involved in each case. The L.A. Times was among major media predicting "Apollo 13" would win in 1995, but let's recall that film had a major Oscar glitch: Ron Howard — who had won DGA — wasn't nominated for best director. Once Mel Gibson won the helmer's prize at the Golden Globes, his pic took off like a rocket that probably couldn't be stopped. After all, "Braveheart" entered the Oscars with the most nominations that year (10, followed by 9 for "Apollo 13"). Why is anyone surprised, in retrospect, that it won?

There's one legitimate case of an early frontrunner stumbling because voters were bored later. I believe voters ended up making the best choice in the end, though I concede they probably would've voted differently if they'd cast their ballots earlier: "Shakespeare in Love" vs. "Saving Private Ryan" (1998). Summer-release "Ryan" had been out front for soooooo long, that by the time the Oscars rolled around late the following March, Entertainment Weekly wisecracked, "We thought it won already!"

One more time: the reason "Brokeback Mountain" lost and "Dreamgirls" wasn't nominated was simply because those old, str8 white guys in the academy couldn't empathize with gay cowboys and hip young black chicks. No, voters are not prejudiced against them. They just couldn't get into their heads, feel their angst, take their emotional journeys. If only that had been Clint Eastwood in "Dreamgirls" belting out "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going," that geezer academy crowd would've burst into hysterical sobs, torn at their thinning hair, raced out of the screening rooms of Beverly Hills screaming, and then hurled their bodies into moving traffic just to stop the pain.

If any of them had survived, they would've voted for "Dreamgirls" for best picture and it not only would've been nominated, it would've swept every category. Deep down in your heart, you know I'm right.

Considering the loud critics' huzzahs for "Control," it's no surprise to see it lead with the most British Independent Film Award nominations (10). It may be a bit jarring, however, to see "Eastern Promises" on the list, if you regard it as a big Hollywood pic instead of a wee Brit indie. But it's also a BBC co-production set in London and helmed by a member of the British Commonwealth (David Cronenberg is a proud Canadian).

It's really a bit, well, scandalous to see "Notes on a Scandal" in the lineup, too, but that's because last year's derby player jumped the eligibility period in Britain, of course.

See the full list of contenders, CLICK HERE Here's the jury who determined the lineup: CLICK HERE

What relevance does this award have on the Yankee derby? There are some curious overlaps. Rarely, do winners line up with Oscar choices, but it's happened: Rachel Weisz won best actress for "The Constant Gardener" at BIFA, supporting actress at the Oscars and Golden Globes. (BAFTA put her in the lead race where she lost to Reese Witherspoon in a very non-British, arguably supporting role — "Walk the Line.")

Otherwise, Oscar champs tend to lose, as Helen Mirren ("The Queen") and Forest Whitaker ("The Last King of Scotland") learned last year. "Queen" and "King" lost best pic to "This Is England," an edgy drama about a troubled boy befriended by skinheads.

But most relevant is the fact that BIFA contenders do reign on Yankee kudos lists, too, so we should pay special attention to its newest rundown.

Some Oscar smackdowns will never end! Example: Did "Shakespeare in Love" or "Saving Private Ryan" deserve to win best pic of 1998? Go 'head and pitch your tomatoes at me — I say Oscar voters got it right with "Shakespeare"! Take that! Ha!

I don't feel so strongly about voters picking Marisa Tomei ("My Counsin Vinny") as best supporting actress of 1992, old news that's triggering another fight in our forums today.

Tomei's victory was a surprise for two reasons: it honored an outrageously comedic role and an outrageously crass and foul-mouthed role.

Some Oscarologists credit her win to outrageous patriotism. Tomei was the only Yankee in the category that also included Miranda Richardson ("Damage"), Joan Plowright ("Enchanted April"), Vanessa Redgrave ("Howards End") and Judy Davis ("Husbands and Wives").

CLICK HERE to Continue Reading!

There were many award milestones and records set at the recent Emmys. And in many cases, results just made for interesting trivia. Our forum posters have been busy compiling a rundown. Here's what they drafted, with credit given to each poster by nickname. To see the thread in our forums, CLICK HERE.

RICHT315: All 12 acting categories were taken by a different series ("Extras," "Ugly Betty," "Entourage," "My Name Is Earl," "Monk," "30 Rock," "Boston Legal," "Brothers & Sisters," "Lost," "Grey's Anatomy," "Studio Sixty on the Sunset Strip" and "Law & Order: SVU").

RICHT315: All 4 drama acting awards came from the same network (ABC) but different shows ("Brothers & Sisters," "Boston Legal," "Lost," "Grey's Anatomy").

RICHT315 & BOOMER: Jane Krakowski ("Ally McBeal," "30 Rock") joins a very small group of people who have been regulars on more than one series for a season that won a comedy or drama series Emmy. Others are: Mary Tyler Moore ("The Mary Tyler Moore Show," "The Dick Van Dyke Show"), Edward Asner ("The Mary Tyler Moore Show," "Lou Grant"), Betty White ("The Mary Tyler Moore Show," "The Golden Girls"), Kelsey Grammer ("Cheers," "Frasier"), Portia de Rossi ("Ally McBeal," "Arrested Development"), Steven Hill ("Mission: Impossible," "Law and Order"), Jimmy Smits ("L.A. Law," "NYPD Blue") and James Garner ("Maverick," "The Rockford Files").

GMJAMBEAR: Four performers won Emmys on their first nominations (America Ferrera, Katherine Heigl, Leslie Caron, Thomas Haden Church).