Oscar duel may shape up after Golden Globes

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The best-drama category is especially tough to call, with strong contenders in Martin Scorsese's "The Departed," Stephen Frears' "The Queen" and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's "Babel."

The dramatic acting categories seem far more predictable, with Helen Mirren looking like a shoo-in for best actress at both the Globes and Oscars as Britain's besieged monarch Elizabeth II in "The Queen."

Forest Whitaker as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in "The Last King of Scotland" is a clear front-runner for best actor, though seven-time Oscar runner-up Peter O'Toole is a dark horse as a lecherous old actor in "Venus."

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New to the Globes this year is a category for animated films, whose nominees are the talking-auto comedy "Cars," the penguin musical "Happy Feet" and the spooky tale "Monster House."

"I'm so thrilled that the industry is strong enough that we have an award like that," said "Cars" director John Lasseter, whose "Toy Story" pioneered Hollywood's craze for computer-animated movies. "We had 16 animated films released this year, which is remarkable."

Also new to the Globes: American directors purloined two of the five nominations for foreign-language film. Clint Eastwood's Japanese-language war film "Letters From Iwo Jima" and Mel Gibson's Mayan epic "Apocalypto" will compete against Germany's "The Lives of Others," Mexico's "Pan's Labyrinth" and Spain's "Volver."

Eastwood scored a rare feat by picking up two of the Globes' five directing nominations, for "Letters From Iwo Jima" and the World War II companion film "Flags of Our Fathers."

Leonardo DiCaprio did the same for best dramatic actor with nominations as an undercover cop in "The Departed" and a fortune-seeker in the African adventure "Blood Diamond."

"It's a pretty fantastic feeling. I must say I'm pretty humbled and honored by it all," said DiCaprio, who was coy about whether Oscar nominations would follow. "It would be a great feeling. It really would. It's one of those things, and I keep saying it but it's the truth, I have no control over it. It's not at all in my hands."

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