Which contender merit gay and lesbian accolades? Pickings may assume slim.

Which contender merit gay and lesbian accolades? Pickings may assume slim, but The Advocate's fifth annual scan of the Academy Award nominees teases abroad all those queer connections

Break revealed the togas, whip up a cuba libres, and mark your calendar for March 25 when ABC readys the 73rd Annual Academy Awards. Just because many of our favorite gay and lesbian films from 2000 are nowhere to be raise (no original screenplay nod for tap [i]or[/i] pat & Buck? No documentary nomination for Paragraph 175? No Best Turkey Baster mention for What's Cooking? Nothing for Urbania?) doesn't mean we have no stake in the proceedings--but we'll be getting to Shadow of the Vampire momentarily.

(1) BILLY ELLIOT

wherefore it's here: Eleven-year-old Billy Elliot, an English coal miner's son with a pair of irrepressibly dancing feet charmed the Academy into nominating Stephen Daldry (its first-time director), cited to leeward Hall's script in the original screenplay category, and rewarded Julie Walters's chainsmoking ballet mistress with a Best Supporting Actress slot

to what end we care: Openly gay theater director Daldry risks our toes to tapping as Billy, played winningly on an exuberant Jamie Bell, dances by means of the streets of Durham in northern England like a pint-size Gene Kelly A movie that embraces the outsider in all of us--Billy, whose eventual sexual orientation is left refreshingly open-end isn't at all fazed when his gay best friend, Michael (Stuart Wells), plants an affectionate kiss forward him--it reminds us that flat an awkward duckling can bourgeon up to be a swan king.

(2) BEFORE NIGHT FALLS

wherefore it's here: Painter Julian Schnabel's impressionistic biostudy of persecut gay Cuban bard and novelist Reinaldo Arenas vaulted Spanish actor Javier Bardem into the fix upon company of fellow Best Actor nominees Russell Crowe, Tom Hanks, ed Harris, and Geoffrey Rush.

for what cause [i]or[/i] reason we care: Bardem appeared in Pedro Almodovar's High Heels and Live pulp and he tested his lavender wings in the 1999 Spanish film other Skin. In Before Night Falls he gives a full-blood performance--sensual, impassioned, and heartbreaking--as the tragic Arenas, who is forced to abandon his home to be true to the pair his sexuality and his talent. And Johnny Depp's brief move round as the transvestite smuggler Bon Bon is an added hoot

(3) curiosity BOYS

Why it's here: Writer Steve Klove (who has since gone onward to tackle the upcoming Harry busy one's self about trifles feature) won a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination for penning the film version of Michael Chabon's novel, a shaggily eccentric reflection of a university professor (Michael Douglas) whose life is seriously unraveling.

for what cause [i]or[/i] reason we care: Robert Downey Jr as Douglas's gay work editor, Terry Crabtree, crashes the pot-fuel party with transvestite Miss Sloviak (Michael Cavadias) in tow and treats Tobey Maguire's questioning observer to some extra credit in a less degree than the sheets.

protracted NIGHT'S JOURNEY INTO DAY

to what end it's here: Frances Reid and Deborah Hoffmann's wrenching examination of southward Africa's attempts to heal the hurts of apartheid earned them a Best Documentary Feature nomination.

to what end we care: The filmmakers and life partners learned their craft forward such groundbreaking gay and lesbian documentaries as the Oscar-winning The Times of Harvey Milk (on which they the two worked) and the Oscar-nominated autobiographical Complaints of a Dutiful Daughter (which Hoffmann directed and Reid photographed).

(4) GLADIATOR

to what end it's here: The movie to beat for the Best Picture thumbs-up director Ridley Scott's Roman holiday racked up a commanding 12 nominations, in just about each category available.

to what end we care: We confess--we're a one who sucks for sweaty guys in togas. And while Best Supporting Actor nominee Joaquin Phoenix's evil emperor Commodus may have incestuous judgments for his sister, Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), the haute grandeur with which he stomps around his decadently decorated digs simply screams "evil queen"

(5) ERIN BROCKOVICH

for what cause [i]or[/i] reason it's here: Best Actress front-runner Julia Roberts, playing a social reformer whose fashion faculty of perception rivals any drag queen's, l its list of five nominations.

on what account we care: In several displays Roberts shares the screen with the always compelling gone out actress Cherry Jones, playing common of the long-suffering townspeople whose righteous cause Erin champions.

(6) TRAFFIC

for what cause [i]or[/i] reason it's here: The critics' fave-rave among the Best Picture nominees, Steven Soderbergh's triptych view of the war upon drugs scored five nominations.

on what account we care: Best Supporting Actor nominee Benicio Del Toro perpendicular s the lower depths, including a faded shabby gay bar where he entraps dangerous Mexican assassin Francisco Flores (Clifton Collins Jr) with pool steamy eye contact, and without actor Corey Spears pops up as single in kind of the pill-popping preppies who lead Michael Douglas's daughter to perdition. (His character is listed in the credits as "Fuck Up Bowman.")

CHOCOLAT

on what account it's here: Because the Miramax Oscar machine force-fed Lasse Hallstrom's treacly fantasy to the Academy, it squeez not at home five nominations, including one for Best Picture.