OSCAR CROSSES MANY BORDERS WITH THIS YEAR'S NOMINEES LIST.

Byline: GREG HERNANDEZ Staff Writer

There is some irony in the fact that while ``Dreamgirls'' with its large African-African cast fell short in the Best Picture category, this year's batch of Academy Award nominees represents the most ethnically diverse ever.

Four black actors, a black actress, a Mexican actress and a Japanese actress make up seven of the 20 acting slots in the leading and supporting fields. Spain's Penelope Cruz was also nominated for a Spanish-speaking role in ``Volver.''

``I think it's brilliant, and I could not be happier because it seems so organic -- not contrived or a white guilt gift,'' said actress Anne Marie Johnson, senior member of the Screen Actors Guild's Ethnic Employment Opportunity Committee. ``It just seemed that these were all very solid performances and that these actors truly deserved to be in this position.''

Getting global

The Oscar voters also acknowledged a certain globalization of the movies. Mexican filmmaker Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's ``Babel'' received a Best Picture nomination and six other nominations while films by fellow countrymen Alfonso Cuaron (``Children of Men'' ) and Guillermo del Toro (``Pan's Labyrinth'') received nominations in major categories. Many of these nominations also went to fellow countrymen.

``Babel'' Supporting Actress nominee Adriana Barraza, a native of Mexico, called the diversity of acting nominees ``a good thing. Everybody contributes in movies, a lot of people work hard to make them work and realize them. It's important to recognize them, all the people involved from all over the world.''

Best Actor nominee Forest Whitaker, recognized for his performance as dictator Idi Amin in ``The Last King of Scotland,'' is considered the front- runner in his category after winning the Golden Globe last week as well as prizes from various critics groups this season. His competition includes Will Smith, who is up for ``The Pursuit of Happyness.'' Smith was last nominated in 2001 for ``Ali.''

Reading into things

Nominated for Best Supporting Actor for ``Blood Diamond'' is African actor Djimon Hounsou, who also competed for the same award in 2003 for ``In America.''

Eddie Murphy and Jennifer Hudson are nominees for ``Dreamgirls'' and the front-runners in the supporting categories.

Todd Boyd, a professor of critical studies at USC's School of Cinematic Arts, said it's impossible to read anything into the snub of ``Dreamgirls'' in the Best Picture category since the nominations are such a subjective process. Last year, the upset win of ``Crash'' over favorite ``Brokeback Mountain'' had many speculating about an anti-gay bias.

``Every year, people have a tendency to want to politicize and read into the nominations which makes sense with Oscar's history,'' Boyd said. ``But how do you define the five best pictures? How do you define the best acting performances? There is no scientific criteria. It's hard to say.''

Colorblind 

The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, which hands out the Oscars each year, said it does not classify nominees by race and therefore cannot confirm whether 2007 is its most ethnically diverse year on record.

It took just more than 50 years after Hattie McDaniel won the Oscar for ``Gone With the Wind'' for Whoopi Goldberg to win for 1990's ``Ghost'' and black actresses were rarely nominated in the intervening years. Then Halle Berry broke through the color barrier in 2002 when she won for ``Monster's Ball'' and become the first -- and so far only -- black actress to win in the lead category.

Things had only been slightly better for the men as nearly 40 years passed between Sidney Poitier's 1963 Best Actor win for ``Lillies in the Field'' and Denzel Washington's victory in 2002 for ``Training Day.''

``If you look at the more recent history of the Oscars when Denzel Washington and Halle Berry won in 2002, increasingly what you have seen practically every year is nominations (for black performers) and in the case of Jamie Foxx, a win,'' observed Boyd.

Still, so far in Oscar's 79-year history, only twice have black performers won in more than one acting category in a single night. Washington and Berry won and then two years later Foxx won Best Actor for ``Ray'' -- beating out Don Cheadle in ``Hotel Rwanda'' among others -- and Morgan Freeman took home the Best Supporting Actor prize for ``Million Dollar Baby.''

International nods

In major nonacting categories, Inarritu got Best Picture and Best Director nominations for ``Babel'' as did the film's Mexican screenwriter, Guillermo Arriaga. The Mexican film ``Pan's Labyrinth'' not only got a Best Foreign Language Film nod, but a nomination for del Toro as screenwriter as well as four other nominations for the film. Cuaron and Alex RodrIllegal 'X-value' for character STYLs voided here guez share a Best Editing nomination, and Cuaron shares a screenwriting nod with four others for ``Children of Men.''

Boyd is encouraged by the overall diversity of the 2007 nominations.

``I think what you are starting to see is it spreading from what was primarily African-Americans to include other actors of color,'' he said.

Among those is Japanese actress Rinko Kikuchi, nominated for Best Supporting Actress from ``Babel'' along with Barraza. She seemed more excited Tuesday about her co-star's nomination than her own.

``When I saw (Barraza's) performance in `Babel' I was blown away by how powerful and profound it was,'' Kikuchi said through an interpreter from Paris. ``She deserves her nomination of every single award you could think of.''

greg.hernandez(at)dailynews.com

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2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) Mexican actress Adriana Barraza was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her work in ``Babel.'' She called the diversity of nominees ``a good thing.''

Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

(2) Forest Whitaker is thought to be a front-runner for the Best Actor Academy Award.

Associated Press