From Christoph Waltz’s surprise Best Supporting Actor win to Ben Affleck’s emotional, heartfelt remarks after Argo snagged Best Picture, last night’s Academy Awards were filled with memorable acceptance speeches — and notable pre-speech journeys to the stage. (How’s your knee, Jennifer Lawrence?)
Relive the night’s best post-win soliloquies below. Think any will eventually reach “You like me! Right now, you like me!” status? READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Jonathan Olley
Zero Dark Thirty is set largely in Pakistan — but the citizens of that country largely aren’t able to see how their homeland is depicted in it, unless they can track down a pirated copy of the Oscar-nominated film.
EW has confirmed that Zero Dark Thirty has not been approved by Pakistan’s board of censors, and therefore has not been shown in any of the nation’s few movie theaters that play English-language films. But that’s not the whole story: according to the Associated Press, no distributor has even applied for permission to show Zero Dark Thirty in Pakistan. This means that while the movie hasn’t been officially censured by Pakistan’s government, it is unofficially unsanctioned there. DVDs of the film were being sold recently in the capital city of Islamabad — but the AP writes that rumors about a ban have driven at least two stores to stop carrying Zero Dark Thirty, while another has taken to selling it only under the counter.
Image Credit: Dimitrios Kambouris/WireImage
Michael Moore couldn’t save Flint, Michigan’s auto plants in the ’80s — but he did help to get Palestinian filmmaker Emad Burnat released from LAX’s detention room last night. Burnat is currently up for a Best Documentary Oscar for his film 5 Broken Cameras.
Burnat and his family arrived in Los Angeles last night in order to attend this week’s Academy Awards ceremony. But before they could exit the city’s main airport, they were “held at US immigration for about an hour and questioned about the purpose of my visit to the United States,” Burnat said in a statement. “Immigration officials asked for proof that I was nominated for an Academy Award…they told me that if I couldn’t prove the reason for my visit, my wife Soraya, my son Gibreel and I would be sent back to Turkey on the same day.”
Luckily, Burnat was able to send a text to Michael Moore, one of the Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science’s Documentary Branch. READ FULL STORY »
Can a yellow-skinned, pacifier-loving baby defeat four fierce foes — including a swoon-inducing urban fairy tale from Disney — at the Academy Awards?
We won’t know for sure until Sunday, when this year’s Oscars — including the prize for Best Animated Short Film — are handed out in Los Angeles. In the meantime, audiences can content themselves with watching that baby’s Academy-approved short film on Hulu. “The Longest Daycare” finds mute, cute Maggie Simpson grappling with her unibrowed arch-nemesis at the Ayn Rand School for Tots. Though the David Silverman-directed short originally appeared in 3-D before theatrical screenings of Ice Age: Continental Drift, you’ll have to be satisfied with this two-dimensional rendering:
Who’s in, who’s out?
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has finally settled the debate with its announcement of nominees for the 85th Academy Awards. Lincoln leads the pack with 12 nominations, followed by Life of Pi with 11.
There was a surprisingly strong showing for Beasts of the Southern Wild, which scored a directing nomination for Benh Zeitlin that few saw coming. Directing snubs for Argo‘s Ben Affleck, Zero Dark Thirty‘s Kathryn Bigelow, and Les Miserables‘ Tom Hooper does not bode well for those films going forward.
Below are the contenders for the ceremony, which will take place Feb. 24.
Image Credit: Robert Mora/Getty Images
Martin Richards — or “Marty,” as those in the theater community called him — died of cancer Monday in New York City. Richards won an Academy Award in 2003 for producing that year’s Best Picture, Chicago. The Oscar was the culmination of Richards’s decades-long battle to bring that Kander and Ebb musical to movie theaters; it began in 1975, when Richards produced the show’s original Broadway production.
Of course, Chicago wasn’t Richards’s only project. The prolific stage producer — born Morton Richard Klein in the Bronx — was nominated for 10 Tony Awards throughout his career, winning for La Cage aux Folles (2004 revival), The Will Rogers Follies (1991), La Cage aux Folles (original 1983 production), and Sweeney Todd (1979). Richards also produced Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and the Gregory Peck Nazi thriller, The Boys from Brazil, as well.
Here’s a clip of Richards accepting his Oscar in 2002. Note the moment when someone from the audience reminds him to thank his wife, the late Johnson & Johnson heiress Mary Lea Johnson Richards — the voice in the crowd is Hilary Swank, who famously forgot to thank her own husband when she won her first Oscar in 2000.
Image Credit: Matt Sayles/Invision/AP
They grow up so fast.
Former child star Jodie Foster is now claiming a lifetime achievement award.
The two-time Academy Award-winning star of The Silence of the Lambs and The Accused will received the Cecil B. DeMille trophy at the upcoming Golden Globe Awards.
Image Credit: Michael Buckner/Getty Images
Seth MacFarlane is hosting the Academy Awards.
God help us, who ever thought we’d be seeing THOSE words all put together?
The grinning mischief-maker behind the not-so-warm-and-fuzzy teddy bear of Ted, and the animated hits Family Guy, American Dad and The Cleveland Show will be the emcee of the 85th annual Oscars on Feb. 24, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced today. READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Jojo Whilden
The last 48 hours of the Toronto International Film Festival produced another full crop of potential awards-baiting films. Here’s what has Oscar watchers buzzing up here.
Silver Linings Playbook Along with Argo, David O. Russell’s family study is the one film that’s attracted the most Oscar buzz so far. Uproariously funny and surprisingly moving as well, this is a character piece that hits all the right notes and should be a home run with the Academy. I could easily see nominations for Best Picture, actor (Bradley Cooper), actress (Jennifer Lawrence), and supporting actor (Robert De Niro) along with dual citations for Russell for writing and directing.
The Sessions After its successful Sundance debut (where it was called The Surrogate), John Hawkes and Helen Hunt’s sexually frank drama played here to wonderful response. Hawkes (in the lead category) and Hunt (in supporting) seem like sure bets for nominations, and their strong buzz could even help the film become a Best Picture contender. READ FULL STORY »
Johnny Carson. Jon Stewart. Jimmy Fallon? Not so fast: The host of NBC’s Late Night with Jimmy Fallon has revealed that despite reports to the contrary, he will not be hosting 2013′s Academy Awards ceremony.
“No, I’m not going to do the Oscars,” he told Matt Lauer in London this afternoon. “It’s an honor to be asked by the Academy, but it’s not my year.”
Rumors about Fallon hosting the Oscars began swirling last week, when recently departed MPAA president Tom Sherak initiated talks with the late night host and Saturday Night Live executive producer Lorne Michaels. But Fallon’s admission shouldn’t come as much of a surprise; as the LA Times noted, ABC would be unlikely to welcome the former SNL star, since Late Night competes with the network’s own Jimmy Kimmel Live.
Watch Fallon shoot down the Oscar rumors below.
