Not enough nominations to go around

The Oscars wouldn’t be a real contest if there weren’t also-rans. But for every movie, actor or screenwriter who didn’t receive an Academy Award nomination Tuesday, something or someone else more fortunate slipped in. * “Chicago’s” Richard Gere won the best musical actor Golden Globe and was among the five Screen Actors Guild best actor nominees. But Gere can only attend the Oscars to cheer on his “Chicago” colleagues, as Gere was not picked by academy voters. * Peter Jackson, the single driving force behind the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, was overlooked for best director. The second Jackson film, “The Two Towers,” was nominated for best picture, but Jackson also was not nominated for co-writing it. * Among the best-reviewed foreign-language movies of the year, Brazil’s violent “City of God” may have proven too difficult for academy voters to stomach. While the equally gritty “Amores Perros” was nominated two years ago, “City of God” missed out on a foreign-language nomination this year. Spain’s “Talk to Her” was not the country’s official submission in the category, but filmmaker Pedro Almodovar did win nominations for directing and writing. * The screenplay for “About Schmidt” gave Jack Nicholson and Kathy Bates enough great scenes to collect a best actor nomination for Nicholson and a best supporting actress nomination for Bates. But the script itself (nominated by the Writers Guild of America) wasn’t good enough to make the cut in the academy’s adapted screenplay race. * Three contenders for the best supporting actor award were not invited to the dance: Dennis Quaid for “Far From Heaven,” Tom Hanks for “Catch Me If You Can” and Alfred Molina for “Frida.” * For every oversight, there is an opening. In one of the best supporting actor slots that might have gone to either Quaid, Hanks or Molina, John C. Reilly was nominated for “Chicago.”