Clooney in Good Night and Good Luck

Los Angeles, Dec. 14 (Reuters): Woody Allen turned serious, George Clooney took on a Cold War villain, Terrence Howard played a poor pimp with rich dreams and Heath Ledger went gay to earn Golden Globe nominations on Tuesday.

Nominations for the film awards, which are often called a harbinger of Oscars to come, honoured actors and filmmakers who challenged conventions in 2005 for their craft.

Take George Clooney. He was nominated for directing and writing a 90-minute, old-fashioned black-and-white film about newsman Edward R. Morrow’s confrontation with Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, not exactly a hot topic in 2005. The film Good Night, and Good Luck was also nominated for best film drama and its star, David Strathairn, was nominated for best actor in a movie drama.

Strathairn’s Morrow will compete against a remarkable group of performances ? Russell Crowe as a dogged boxer in Cinderella Man, Philip Seymour Hoffman as writer Truman Capote in Capote, Howard as the pimp who raps in Hustle & Flow and Ledger as the gay cowboy in Brokeback Mountain.

“We’re really happy. We were hoping for anything we could get for Good Night. It’s so hard, it’s black and white, it’s not what you’d call a slam dunk”, Clooney said.

Clooney said he made Good Night, and Good Luck in part to use an old story to comment on the current political situation, especially on the press’s role in politics.

Scarlett Johansson said she was nominated for best actress in a drama, Match Point, because comic filmmaker Woody Allen decided it was time to turn serious. Allen was nominated for his screenplay and direction, and the film as one of the year’s five best dramas.

“Lately Woody feels he’s very interested in the idea that dramatic films have stronger staying power with audiences ? not that comedy is disposable ? but it doesn’t have the same intellectual place in your mind,” Johansson said.

Howard, who has always had a reputation as an actor’s actor, broke out of the box in two films ? one as a mistreated black TV executive in Crash, and the other as a pimp who dreams of a rap music career in Hustle & Flow.

“I feel wonderful like I always wanted to feel,” he said.