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Oscar news stirs on the Web

The people behind the Academy Awards have plenty of company online as word of this year's highly anticipated list of movie nominations heads to a host of Internet sites.

Jim Hu Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Jim Hu
covers home broadband services and the Net's portal giants.
Jim Hu
2 min read
And the nominees are...

Movie buffs from around the world were able to view the highly anticipated list of nominations for this year's Academy Awards on the Web on Tuesday. Minutes after the list was read, Oscar.com, the official site of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, posted the list in its entirety.

Leading the pack was Peter Jackson's adaptation of "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring," which raked in 13 nominations, including one for best picture. Director Ron Howard's "A Beautiful Mind" and the colorful musical "Moulin Rouge" tied for second with eight nominations each, and both were also on the best picture list.

The other best picture nominations included Robert Altman's murder mystery "Gosford Park" and the family tragedy "In the Bedroom."

The Oscars will be broadcast March 24 at 5 p.m. PST on ABC, live from the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Calif. Walt Disney's ABC unit also produces the Oscar site.

Other fan sites around the Internet have also moved quickly to post the list of nominations. OscarWatch, a news and community site about the awards, posted the nominations minutes after they were announced. The site also closed its Oscar nominations contest, which usually lures 4,000 contestants.

Publishing mainstays in Hollywood were also vying to post the list first. Trade magazine Variety beat The Hollywood Reporter to the story.

In other high-profile categories, the nominations for best actor were Russell Crowe for "A Beautiful Mind," Sean Penn for "I am Sam," Will Smith for "Ali," Denzel Washington for "Training Day," and Tom Wilkinson for "In the Bedroom."

Best actress nominees were Halle Berry for "Monster's Ball," Judi Dench for "Iris," Nicole Kidman for "Moulin Rouge," Sissy Spacek for "In the Bedroom," and Renee Zellweger for "Bridget Jones's Diary."

"Freddy Got Fingered" lead Tom Green was not nominated.