Image Credit: Alberto E. Rodriguez, Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
Amanda Seyfried may soon be joining Seth MacFarlane’s wild west show.
The Ted filmmaker, Family Guy creator and soon-to-be Oscar host will be shooting (so to speak) the gunslinging comedy A Million Ways to Die in the West later this spring, and Seyfried is in talks to play the girl who dumps his timid pioneer farmer.
Image Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Images
No surprise here, but now it’s official. Last year’s acting winners Meryl Streep, Jean Dujardin, Octavia Spencer and Christopher Plummer will present at this year’s Academy Awards ceremony.
“We are honored to have Meryl, Octavia, Christopher and Jean, last year’s Oscar winners in each of the acting categories, return to the Oscar stage,” said Oscar show producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron in a statement.
This isn’t the only bit of presenter news lately: Earlier, Mark Wahlberg confirmed he would be presenting alongside the animated bear, Ted.
The Academy Awards, hosted by Seth MacFarlane, air Feb. 24.
Read more:
Mark Wahlberg and CGI costar Ted to present at the Oscars
Seth MacFarlane serves up a martini for James Bond in Oscars promo
Oscars luncheon on-the-scene: Jennifer Lawrence, Ben Affleck, Hugh Jackman, and more
Seth MacFarlane, what a lucky guy. He scores a gig hosting the Oscars and a job making drinks for James Bond. Or at least, he briefly plays bartender in a commercial that promotes the Academy Awards’ planned tribute to the British spy.
Following up his first round of commercials promoting the Oscars, in this latest ad, MacFarlane appears opposite Pierce Brosnan’s Bond from 1999′s The World Is Not Enough with the help of a little computer magic.
Warning, humorless Bond fans: MacFarlane’s irreverent humor in the following ad may break down your image of 007 as a constantly cool and suave. Watch it below: READ FULL STORY »
Norah Jones will sing the jazzy Everybody Needs a Best Friend from the stuffed-bear comedy Ted on the upcoming Oscar telecast, the producers have announced.
The tune, which is up for Original Song, was co-written by Academy Awards host (and Ted filmmaker) Seth MacFarlane — so when producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron revealed last week that Adele would be crooning her nominated song from Skyfall, it was easy to assume this number would be part of the telecast as well. READ FULL STORY »
Ted versus Stewie? It could happen at this year’s Academy Awards.
After over a 218 million dollar domestic box office take, it’s no surprise that the R-rated bear has fans. And apparently Academy members – and Oscars viewers — are going to get a second round of inappropriate hijinks. On a segment of Anderson Live airing Friday, Mark Wahlberg confirmed that he and Ted will be part of the Oscar telecast this year, which of course is being hosted by Ted creator/voice Seth MacFarlane. Jokes about the Best Actress nominees by the teddy bear with no boundaries? All but a guarantee.
Ted fans also have another reason to celebrate: Wahlberg confirmed MacFarlane was working on a script for a Ted sequel, which Wahlberg will be involved with.
Watch below: READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Film Images
Last Thursday, when the Academy Awards nominations were announced, it was one of those moments when the nominations were very clarifying. Lincoln leading the pack (with 12), combined with the shocking roll call of snubs in the Best Director category (No Affleck! No Bigelow! No Quentin! No guy-who-made-The King’s Speech-and-Les Miz as if he’d been placed on this earth to be the 21st-century answer to middlebrow Oscar taste), instantly brought a fuzzy, multi-movie race into absolute focus, with Lincoln and its director and screenwriter, Steven Spielberg and Tony Kushner, the obvious — and, to my mind, deserving — front-runners, and everything else fading to the sidelines. I don’t necessarily think any of that is wrong. Yet the whole reason I like writing about the Oscars is that, while I don’t pretend to have any special powers of prognostication (especially when compared to the reigning odds-makers at EW), I do think that the reasons that certain movies, and actors and actresses, and writers and directors triumph over others on awards night is not a question that can be divorced from critical/aesthetic analysis. Even mediocre choices reflect an aesthetic, and also a way that movies interact with the world; the critic’s task is to define what that is. In that spirit, here are a few observations about why I think the winners will win. READ FULL STORY »
With the nominations out, Seth MacFarlane is wasting no time getting out there to promote the Feb. 24 telecast.
The Academy and ABC has debuted five new videos teasing the Oscars. Check them out below, and on the last page vote for your favorite … READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Bob D’Amico/Getty Images
Congratulations, Seth MacFarlane — you’ve just become a historical footnote.
The Family Guy creator was nominated for an Oscar this morning, when Ted‘s “Everybody Needs a Best Friend” snagged a spot in the Best Song category. That makes MacFarlane the sixth person in Oscar history to both host and be nominated for a competitive award during the same ceremony. More importantly, MacFarlane is the only person who’s managed to achieve this feat while serving as the event’s solo host.
Host-slash-nominees — hominees? — are more common at Emmys or the Tonys than the Oscars, since those other ceremonies are more likely to be hosted by performers who work in the same medium as the awards being given. It’s interesting, then, that only two years have passed since a same-night Oscar nominee last took the stage as host — in 2011, Best Actor contender James Franco tested his emcee skills with co-host Anne Hathaway at the 83rd annual awards. (And we all know how that turned out.)
Image Credit: Jason Merritt/Getty Images; Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images
In another break with tradition, Oscar host Seth MacFarlane will wake up early on Thursday to help announce the Academy Award nominations.
Usually, it’s the job of an actor (last year it was Jennifer Lawrence) and the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, but this year MacFarlane will join the mix, alongside The Amazing Spider-Man and Gangster Squad actress Emma Stone.
Image Credit: Cindy Ord/Getty Images; Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
Anne Hathaway has some cautionary advice for Seth MacFarlane as he preps to host the Oscars: “Have … a … plan.”
She pauses, laughs a little mordantly and adds: “Have several.”
Hathaway’s ultra-chipper co-hosting experience opposite a low-energy James Franco two years ago provoked a lot of dislike — including from her, when she finally saw a little bit of it.
This year, the Les Miserables star will likely be back at the ceremony as a supporting actress nominee, and she’s actually offering some very good, very practical advice to the Family Guy creator for when he steps out onto that stage Feb. 24.
