SOPA, Santorum and Seal
If you’re feeling withdrawal symptoms from reduced doses of Occupy Wall Street rabble-rousing (we hear they’re just hibernating), the success of last week’s SOPA blackout ought to cheer you up. Read More
Academy Awards
Doggone It! Harvey Weinstein and DVF Celebrate The Artist
Gossip columnist Liz Smith made her way through the dining room of the Monkey Bar on Monday afternoon, where Harvey Weinstein, Diane von Furstenberg and George Stevens, Jr. were hosting a promotional lunch on behalf of The Artist—the black-and-white silent movie that Mr. Weinstein is gently, persuasively shepherding toward an Academy Award for Best Picture—and surveyed the scene, perched side-saddle in a red leather booth. Ms. Smith, who is supposedly in her eighties, looked a few decades younger in a black leather jacket with white stitching from Carlisle. Read More
New York, LA Times Now Decides What Documentaries Nominated For Academy Awards
Adding to the already long list of confusing and nonsensical plans for handing out the little statues from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, it was announced today that documentaries would be considered for Oscar nomination only if they had been reviewed in The New York Times or The LA Times beforehand.
This may not be as terribly insane as it seems. (Though it does seem pretty random, not to mention biased: giving an outside organization the power to wield a nomination verdict conclusively is actually unheard of.) Despite the rise of DIY film making and festival showcases, it's true that both Times do an admirable job reviewing most documentaries of note--one could make an argument that The New York Times actually skews towards the more esoteric form of film-making because traditionally documentaries have been considered "high-brow" films.
So this shouldn't be a problem, right?
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What the Hell Happened to the Oscars?
Red was the dominant color at the 83rd Academy Awards, and by the end of three hours and 45 minutes, I was seeing plenty of it. If this was the year when some brain-dead jerk who never heard of the term "moving pictures" decided to move into the age of cyberspace, all I can say Read More
A First Look at Franco and Hathaway’s Oscar-Hosting Chemistry [WATCH]
The producers of the 83rd Academy Awards broke from tradition when they chose two fresh-faced actors as hosts, breaking the tradition of hiring over-the-hill comedians.
So how will James Franco and Anne Hathaway fare? ABC gives us the first glimpse in a TV spot that shows the duo "rigorously preparing for every possible Oscar emergency." Read More
Cruise-Holmes Coalition To Skip Oscars Over Beef With Anne Hathaway
Religious extremists Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes may not be gracing the Kodak Theater's red carpet come Oscar night.
And it's not the lack of nominations keeping them away (that's always the case!) Rather, it seems like the First Couple of Scientology are entangled in a bit of a tiff with the non-Franco half of Read More
Franco and Hathaway to Take Time Off From Yale and Nudity, Respectively, to Host Oscars
Meet your hosts for the 2011 Academy Awards: James Franco and Anne Hathaway. Ever heard of these young upstarts?
James Franco is a Yale graduate student who moonlights in film. He can currently be seen in "127 Hours" cutting his own arm off with a tiny knife, and enjoys Denis Johnson stories. Anne Read More
The New Yorker‘s Richard Brody Sticks Neck Out For Jean-Luc Godard, Accused Anti-Semite
In August, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced it would be bestowing an honorary award upon Jean-Luc Godard. On the surface this makes perfect sense: more than anyone else, Godard is responsible for the French New Wave movement, one of the 20th century's most enduring artistic movements — in film or Read More
Godard Companion: Director Will Not Travel to Oscars for a ‘Bit of Metal’
Despite evidence pointing to his complete non-existence Jean-Luc Godard is in fact still alive, his extremely brief interview with The Australian proves. What's more, the legend of cinema is actually aware that he will be awarded an honorary Oscar.
On Aug. 26, the Academy assigned flacks to the impossible task of convincing the notoriously private filmmaker to come Read More
Snoozy Oscar-fest Ends Big With Bigelow!
Well, so that happened! Was it just us or were these just the most tediously boring Oscars in ages? And who should we blame? Maybe we should start with the very strange stage design, which we’re guessing was intended to be a nod to old Hollywood glamour, but felt more like an early-'70s set Read More
Hurt Locker Pushes Its Case a Little Too Hard
In this morning's Observer, Richard Siklos writes about the Academy Awards' new voting system, and the lengthy politicking process that has everyone hopeful of bringing down the front-runners. "[T]he extra time has also allowed awards campaigners to reach deep into their bag of tricks," he writes.
A little too deep apparently. The L.A. Times Read More
Jews on the Red Carpet
To call this the year of Jews in film sounds like the setup for a bad joke. What, runs the imagined punch line, is it also the year of Canadians in curling?
Well, yes, actually. Jews are having something of a Hollywood moment. No fewer than three of the nominees for best picture at Sunday's Oscars--Inglourious Read More
Rigging the Oscars
This Sunday night, watch the Academy Awards on television, count to 10-and wait for the controversy over vote counting to begin.
The big question mark surrounding this year's Oscars is not so much who is going to win, but how. This year, the Academy expanded the field of nominations from 5 to 10, and introduced a Read More
Oscars: New York vs. L.A.
The Academy Awards may belong to Los Angeles, but that doesn't mean that The Observer and fellow New Yorkers can't boldly declare what Ought To Be. We give you Oscar picks by coastal sensibilities--and who's got the edge in the end.
One Way to Ace Your Oscar Pool
Even for serious Oscar ballot competitors, a few categories resist preparation. Foreign films, documentaries and shorts are not something most people think about until handed their ballot, leaving "Funniest Name" as the only reliable criterion. But for the last five years, IFC Center has been trying to change those odds.
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