The Michigan Daily discovered in April 2005 that several articles written by arts editor Marshall W. Lee did not meet the newspaper's standard of ethical journalism. Parts of these stories had been plagiarized from other news sources. Although the article below has not been found to contain plagiarism, the Daily no longer stands by its content. For details, see the Daily's editorial.

It’s hard to believe, but only a year ago the Academy Awards’ Best Picture race was a motley cinema curio of epic adventures and post modern fairytales: swashbuckling heroes went head to head with hobbits while suburban psyche-tragedy battled middle-age melancholy for the golden statuette. In 2005, however, the contest for Oscar’s most coveted prize couldn’t be more different. The much heralded and much maligned “Year of the Biopic” delivered on its promise of heavy-handed, sugar-coated visions of celebrity, and come February 27 three laudatory and embellished biographies will contend with a noir boxing drama and a quiet, wine-soaked dramedy for the Best Picture prize.

These are the kind of Oscars where the buzz behind the nominations — Will Scorsese finally win? Will “Sideways” be a Cinderella? Wait, did you say “Finding Neverland?" — is almost more enthralling than the movies themselves. But make no mistake, 2005 was a fine year for film, and this Oscars’ brawl for Best Picture may well be the most interesting and competitive in years. Here’s a look at the nominees:

After dazzling critics and audiences with 2003’s “Mystic River,” Clint Eastwood returns in fine form as director, composer and star of the far superior “Million Dollar Baby.” Based on the short-story cycle “Rope Burns” by F.X. Toole, “Million Dollar Baby” focuses on aging boxing coach and gym owner Frankie Dunn (Eastwood), a prickly trainer whose life is plagued by the echoes of his past personal and professional failures. After being dumped by his star fighter, Dunn begrudgingly agrees to take on troubled gym-rat Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank), an impoverished thirty-something wannabe fighter with killer determination and endless enthusiasm. Heartbreaking and heavy, “Million Dollar Baby” is openly and fervently unsentimental, dragging its characters through physical and emotional hell with a kind of detached reverence for pain and turmoil that the Academy just eats up.

And as the latest wide-release of the Best Picture bunch, “Million Dollar Baby” is also gaining late momentum and scoring plenty of gushing, A+ reviews and awards from critics’ circles on both coasts. “Baby” is the kind of film that forces voters to think with their hearts and not their heads, and you should never underestimate the power of a sentimental favorite.

Another frontrunner is Martin Scorsese’s lush and lavish Howard Hughes biopic “The Aviator.” Scorsese’s eight-year labor of love is a fast-moving, entertaining film that boasts a fine performance by Leonardo DiCaprio, who captures Hughes’s boundless spirit, as well as the paranoid delusions that accompanied the eccentric billionaire’s gradual onset of insanity. Expertly crafted and extravagantly detailed, “The Aviator” is extremely well made but clumsily oblique, and when all is said and done, the movie may not be resonant or deep enough to catch the attention of Oscar voters looking for a film with a little more emotional punch.

But “The Aviator” is a sentimental favorite in its own right, a celebratory cinema feast helmed by the definitive Oscar bridesmaid — Scorsese is an iconic six-time nominee who has yet to take home an award for his work behind the camera — and the Academy loves to bow at the alter of idols, especially those whose snubs are the thing of legend.

It wouldn’t be the Best Picture race — or, for that matter, any major Awards category — without a few left-field contenders, and this year’s future also-rans include Marc Forster’s saccharine biopic “Finding Neverland,” and Jamie Foxx’s one man show “Ray.”