Looking for information on the many 2005 film awards and nominations announced to date? Rich Cline, a UK film critic and creator of Shadows on the Wall, a detailed British film e-zine, maintains The Shadows Sweepstakes, "compiling all those year-end accolades in one handy place..." The numbers for scoring used by Cline "are cumulative points based on Shadows' complex, highly secret scoring system." The standings as of this writing are from 24 December 2005, with 102 awards tabulated.

Movie City News, my favorite film site, has a number of charts on their Awards Watch site, including The 2005 Top Tens (the BIG chart, with total scores and average votes), The Awards Scorecard, Critics Awards (by society, etc.), The Critics (list by individual critics), and The Worst of 2005, among others.

Cline reviews Syriana, one of my favorite films of the year, and one that I found difficult to follow at times. He sums this up neatly:

Gaghan's script wisely sticks to the human story as things twist and turn toward a series of explosive climaxes. Keeping everyone and everything straight is quite a challenge, although he gives us plenty of help. This smart, insinuating approach rewards sharp-eyed viewers with all sorts of details, layers of character interaction and powerful human emotion.

I hope to see Syriana again soon, and plan to be sharp(er)-eyed next time. In my defence, when I watched Syriana the first time, my brain was numb, having spent the previous few hours watching King Kong.