Oscar bout

This year’s Oscar bout will pit the obsessive-compulsive pilot vs. the lady boxer.

Martin Scorsese’s sweeping Howard Hughes biography “The Aviator” will square off against Clint Eastwood’s gritty girlfight drama, “Million Dollar Baby” – and Eastwood’s legend – on Oscar night.

When the glitter had settled on the nominations Tuesday, “The Aviator” pulled in 11 in all, including best picture, a best actor nod for star Leonardo DiCaprio and supporting bids for Cate Blanchett and first-time Oscar nominee Alan Alda – as well as a best director nomination for Scorsese, who has never won a best-director or best-picture Oscar.

The film with the most nominations has gone on to win the best picture prize in 18 of the past 20 years.

“Million Dollar Baby” racked up seven nominations, including best picture, for Eastwood as both director and actor, Hilary Swank for best actress, and supporting actor Morgan Freeman. Already billed as the “sentimental favorite,” Freeman has never won an Oscar either in three previous nominations.

Best-picture nominee “Finding Neverland” also earned seven nominations, including one for star Johnny Depp, portraying Peter Pan playwright J.M. Barrie – but not one for director Marc Forster, which reduces the film’s best-picture chances.

Swank and Annette Bening will face off for the best-actress Oscar for the second time in five years. In 2000, Swank won for “Boys Don’t Cry,” beating Bening in “American Beauty.” This time, Bening was nominated for “Being Julia.”

“I knew when I read the script that it was special,” Swank said Tuesday of “Million Dollar Baby.” “It was a rare find.”

“Ray” received six nominations, including best picture and best director for Taylor Hackford. The winter-long coronation of Jamie Foxx continues as the winner of Golden Globe and Critic’s Choice awards for his impersonation of soul singer Ray Charles picked up two nominations Tuesday: best actor for “Ray,” and best supporting actor for Michael Mann’s thriller, “Collateral.”

Foxx led a record five nominations for black actors, the most in any year in Academy history. He also became only the third actor (after Barry Fitzgerald and Al Pacino) to win best and supporting nominations the same year.

Critics’ darling “Sideways” picked up five nominations, including best picture, best director for Alexander Payne and supporting-actor and supporting-actress nods for Thomas Haden Church and Virginia Madsen – but none for star Paul Giamatti.

“Knowing Paul, he’s probably relieved,” Madsen said. “He really doesn’t care about any of this. He’s a working actor. He just wants to go home after work to his wife and son.”

The first tally of the nation’s oddsmakers put “Aviator,” Foxx, Swank and Scorsese as the early favorites. The awards ceremony will be broadcast Feb. 27 on ABC.

Oscar didn’t totally dodge the year’s most controversial films.

Michael Moore did not want “Fahrenheit 9/11” considered in the best-documentary category, effectively shutting himself out of any Academy Award chances despite an expensive campaign for a best-picture nomination.

But Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ,” a runaway hit in spite of complaints about its violence and alleged anti-Semitism, picked up nominations for music, makeup and cinematography.

With Moore out of the documentary field, Morgan Spurlock’s hilarious hit “Super Size Me,” about one man’s attempt to ruin his health by eating nothing but McDonald’s food for a month, emerges as a favorite.

Of the five nominees for best foreign-language film, only two have thus far been released stateside: “The Sea Inside,” from Spain, and “The Chorus,” from France. “As It Is In Heaven” (Sweden) is, like “The Chorus,” about a musician leading a choir; “Downfall” (Germany) is about the last days of Hitler and the Third Reich; and “Yesterday” (South Africa) is the chronicle of a young woman with AIDS.

Among the movies overlooked from overseas was “House of Flying Daggers,” a critical favorite and Golden Globe nominee from Chinese director Zhang Yimou, though it was nominated for cinematography.

Nominees for best animated film were “Shrek 2,” “Shark Tale” and “The Incredibles,” which also was nominated for best screenplay, best sound and best sound editing. “Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events” picked up four nominations in technical categories.

“Hotel Rwanda,” based on the true-life story of a hotel manager who sheltered refugees from the Rwandan genocide, earned three nominations, for actor Don Cheadle, supporting actress Sophie Okonedo and original screenplay.

Director Mike Leigh’s sympathetic story of a 1950s back-alley abortionist, “Vera Drake,” also earned three nominations, in the best director, best actress (Imelda Staunton) and best original screenplay categories.

In addition to Swank, Bening and Staunton, best actress nominations went to Kate Winslet for “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and Catalino Sandino Moreno, making her film debut as a teenage Colombian drug mule in “Maria Full of Grace.”

Eastwood’s surprise best-actor nomination meant that Liam Neeson (“Kinsey”), Giamatti, Javier Bardem (“The Sea Inside”), Jim Carrey (“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”) and Jeff Bridges (“The Door in the Floor”) will have to wait for another day.

In other supporting actor and actress nominations, the couples talkfest “Closer” scored a double for Natalie Portman and Clive Owen, while Laura Linney nabbed a supporting actress nod for her portrait of the famous sex-researcher’s spouse in the otherwise ignored “Kinsey.”

The best picture and best director races will pit Hollywood royalty against the director’s director – Eastwood vs. Scorsese.

Scorsese won the Critics Choice award for best director. Eastwood won the Golden Globe. Scorsese has been nominated for best director five times, never winning.

But the lack of blockbusters in this year’s nominees could spell trouble for the Oscar telecast, to be hosted by Chris Rock.

“I think you’re looking at a low-rated show, because rooting interest in the races is a big reason to watch,” said Steve Pond, author of the just-released “The Big Show: High Times and Dirty Dealings Backstage at the Academy Awards” (Faber & Faber, $26).

“If there aren’t movies nominated that a lot of people have seen competing for the top awards, people don’t watch,” Pond said.

Still, Pond says, with Chris Rock hosting, “people may tune in just to see what he does.”

Rock, for his part, has joked that if Jamie Foxx doesn’t win for “Ray,” he’ll “take an Oscar from one of the sound or light people that win and give it to him.”