Brit Oscars bow to Queen, Bond

Los Angeles - Would the so-called British Oscars snub Queen Elizabeth and her loyal subject James Bond?

Not bloody well likely.

The royal-examining The Queen claimed 10 nominations, and the 007-relaunching Casino Royale nabbed nine to lead all comers as the field for the Orange British Academy Film Awards was announced Friday.

The U.K.-centric nominations made the six nominations scored by the great American tragedy United 93, heretofore a hit-and-miss awards-show contender, all the more remarkable. Until, that is, one was reminded that writer-director Paul Greengrass, nominated for Best Director and Original Screenplay, is, like Queen Elizabeth and Bond, available for afternoon tea, as it were.

Not every Brit, however, was a shoo-in. London-born, Cambridge-educated Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat was nowhere to be found among the nominees.

Having better luck, despite their utter lack of Britishness: the Mexican fable Pan's Labyrinth, up for eight awards; and the Hollywood hit The Departed, and the dysfunctional-American-family comedy Little Miss Sunshine, both up for six.

Informally known as the British Oscars, or the BAFTAs (for the show-sponsoring British Academy of Film and Television Arts), the Orange British Academy Film Awards are considered the most prestigious trophies of trophy season not presented in Hollywood.

All of this means Helen Mirren now will have a chance to accept trophies on two continents.

The Globe-nominated star of The Queen, having swept the U.S. critics awards for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth in crisis, will vie for BAFTA's Best Actress trophy opposite Volver's Penélope Cruz, Notes on a Scandal's Judi Dench, The Devil Wears Prada's Meryl Streep and Little Children's Kate Winslet.

If that lineup doesn't look familiar, it will. Come Monday, all five actors will be up for Golden Globes, although Streep will compete as a comedy performer.

New James Bond Daniel Craig didn't win over Globe voters, but he did just fine with BAFTA ones. His work in Casino Royale puts him in the heavyweight Best Actor category with The Departed's Leonardo DiCaprio, The History Boys' Richard Griffiths, Venus' Peter O'Toole and, per usual, The Last King of Scotland's Forest Whitaker.

Dreamgirls, meanwhile, apparently didn't translate overseas. The Oscar-contending musical, ostensibly about the rise of Detroit's Motown Records, notched only two BAFTA nominations: one for Jennifer Hudson's hard-to-ignore supporting turn as a spurned singer and one for composer Henry Krieger's music.

Movies that got more love from BAFTA voters included Babel, The Departed, The Last King of Scotland, Little Miss Sunshine and The Queen, all up for Best Film.

A win for The Departed would be a win for BAFTA-approved producer Brad Pitt, also a star of Babel. (As reported last week, Pitt likely won't be up for an Academy Award for The Departed because the Producers Guild of America has judged that only one of the film's three producers, Graham King, should be deigned worthy of such an honor.)

Martin Scorsese, who knows about hard luck at the Oscars, will seek his second BAFTA as Best Director for The Departed. His competition: United 93's Greengrass, Babel's Alejandro González I?árritu, The Queen's Stephen Frears and Little Miss Sunshine's Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. (No, no Clint Eastwood—again.)

Making a rare award-season cameo was Mel Gibson's Mayan-speaking Apocalypto, nominated for Best Foreign-Language Film.