He predicted a losing season for the White Sox in 2007 and foresaw that the Tampa Bay Rays would be the best team in the American League in 2008, although he wrongly predicted that the Rays would win the World Series. He also predicted Obama's 6-point victory over McCain. Now the stats guru Nate Silver is picking the Oscar winners and predicting an upset win for Taraji P. Henson in the Best Supporting Actress category.
posted by jonp72 on Feb 19, 2009 - 30 comments

Is Slumdog Millionaire

A) A white man's imagined India
B) The reality of Mumbai
C) An immensely likeable slice of broad entertainment – nothing else
D) All of the above?

And will it win the Oscar for Best Picture now that it's taken the Producers Guild Award for Best Picture and the SAG award for Best Ensemble?
posted by crossoverman on Jan 26, 2009 - 118 comments

The 2008 Oscar nominated animated shorts are online. Via.
posted by jonson on Feb 2, 2008 - 15 comments

The Cheating of Salim Baba [video | projector]
posted by hadjiboy on Jan 29, 2008 - 25 comments

Oscar Lists: Records And Curiosities. A plethora of fun facts to keep you entertained while you wait for the start of the 79th annual Academy Awards ceremony today/tonight. It's part of Oscar Lists: The Index, which is filled with almost every Oscar fact you could possibly need.
posted by amyms on Feb 25, 2007 - 42 comments

AMPAS ankles Oscarwatch skein The Academy has brought the banhammer down on the Oscarwatch blog, issuing a demand that blogger Sasha Stone cease and desist from using the Oscar trademark in her domain name. Why now after 7 1/2 years of blogging under that name? Maybe because they found out about her whopping $20k yearly ad revenue.
posted by Horace Rumpole on Feb 9, 2007 - 18 comments

The Mysterious Geographical Explorations of Jasper Morello is a series of four gorgeous steampunk victorian silhouette animated shorts from Australia. The first link goes to a trailer for the films, all four full animations are available on a DVD via the official site (which is loads of fun to explore play around on), and the (Academy Award Nominated) first of the four shorts has been released on YouTube.
posted by jonson on Feb 1, 2007 - 7 comments

"Best Animated Short" is the Oscar category that (arguably) gets the least love. But why? They're often the most accessible, usually coming in at less than 10 minutes in length. Thus, for you consideration, here are direct links to three of the five 2007 nominees: "Maestro", "No Time For Nuts", and "The Danish Poet" (via).
posted by JPowers on Jan 24, 2007 - 14 comments

"Mixed" reviews of John Stewart's performance last night. A reminder that someone warned in February that Crash might win best picture because many Academy members were "unwilling to screen Brokeback Mountain" [permalinks broken, scroll down]. Marvel that YouTube somehow managed to get rights [cough] to Oscar video, at the Oscar frocks and that thing on Charlize Theron's shoulder, and at the persistent myth that a billion people watched the awards.
posted by mediareport on Mar 6, 2006 - 188 comments

The Oscars don't only breed argument about who should have won--but also about the speeches? Were they good? Did they suck? What are the classics? What's Memorable? What's Misquoted? How would your speech go? Would you thank your "makeup man"? Oprah? Complain? Or just go crazy? And here are some more top ones (1,2,3) and another bottom. And Oscar Night bingo in case it all gets to be too much, too boring or too damn long.
posted by FeldBum on Mar 2, 2006 - 17 comments

Say "cheese" — stinky, expensive, overprocessed American cheese. The venerable Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has revealed its set design for the Seventy-Eighth Academy Awards® Telecast. This year's edition is described as "an homage to old movie theaters" by designer Roy Christopher. "It's a no-holds-barred return to classic Hollywood glamour." Others may beg to differ.
posted by rob511 on Feb 22, 2006 - 56 comments

“Wouldn’t you know, the kid they pick to play tramps is the only good girl in Hollywood.”
Before Myrna Loy rose to stardom with Manhattan Melodrama and The Thin Man (both 1934), she was often relegated to playing vamps, mistresses, and other assorted flavors of wicked women. Then, after 80 movies playing mostly bad girls, Montana native Loy became “the perfect wife.” “Men Must Marry Myrna Loy” clubs were formed around the country. She and Clark Gable, in a poll conducted by Ed Sullivan, were voted by 20 million of the nation’s moviegoers as The King and Queen of Hollywood. She was FDR's favorite actress, and John Dillinger died just to see her new movie. A staunch anti-Nazi since the mid-Thirties (to MGM's dismay, Hitler promptly banned her films from the lucrative German market), wondered aloud in the press why blacks were always given servants' roles, and was the first major star to buck the studios in a contract dispute (the issue: equal pay for equal work. She was making half what William Powell was, didn't like it and quit work for nearly a year until MGM capitulated). When WWII broke out she quit Hollywood and worked full time for the Red Cross, and helped run a Naval Auxilary Canteen. More inside.
posted by matteo on Feb 3, 2006 - 27 comments

Jon Stewart to host 2006 Academy Awards. "As a performer, I'm truly honored to be hosting the show,' Stewart says. "As an avid watcher of the Oscars, I can't help but be a little disappointed with the choice.'
posted by Robot Johnny on Jan 5, 2006 - 105 comments

Rochus Misch is the last man alive from Hitler's underground bunker. His most recent interview is in light of Der Untergang ["Downfall"], the new German film which portrays Hitler as a man, not a monster. Misch asserts that while factually accurate, the movie fails to capture the atmosphere in the bunker... as if anything ever could. The movie has recieved much critical acclaim and has been nominated for best foreign language film at this year's Academy Awards.
posted by grapefruitmoon on Feb 21, 2005 - 23 comments

76th Annual Academy Award Nominations
posted by ColdChef on Jan 27, 2004 - 77 comments

Why Gollum shouldn't win an Oscar. Many Lord of the Rings fans think Andy Serkis should be nominated for an Academy Award for his work in the films, but as Roger Ebert writes, the actor shouldn't benefit because animators kept Gollum from falling into the Uncanny Valley.
posted by tranquileye on Jan 13, 2004 - 36 comments

The Box Office Oracle You pick the writer, director, genre, actrons, budget, rating and month of release. You get projected box office receipts, chance of winning an Oscar and critics most likely to praise and pan your movie. There's even a BOO Hall of Fame. [via All Movie Guide reviewer Matthew Tobey]
posted by mediareport on Jun 26, 2003 - 25 comments

2003 Oscar Schwag
posted by crunchland on Mar 18, 2003 - 21 comments

It's A Dirty Post But Someone's Gotta Do It: The 2003 Razzie and Oscar nominations have been announced and all bets are on (though I couldn't find any online odds). Meanwhile, nominee Meryl Streep recently denounced the Academy Awards process as a "political campaign". Be that as it may, are they still fun to follow and predict?
posted by MiguelCardoso on Feb 11, 2003 - 49 comments

74th Annual Academy Awards aka The Oscars are on. History was made tonight? or just the same old, same old? Please note the discussion may give away the winners, as does the linked page.
posted by riffola on Mar 24, 2002 - 155 comments

Ladies and gentlemen, your moment of Oscar zen.
posted by solistrato on Mar 25, 2001 - 22 comments

Mr. Showbiz is doing live coverage of the Oscars. I'm breaking a handful of MF rules by posting this, I realize, but I think it's really cool, and it hasn't gotten nearly enough press. (The Big D decided to put all its press behind Oscars.com, whose live coverage isn't nearly as fun.)
posted by dan_of_brainlog on Mar 25, 2001 - 15 comments

If you're in or around LA this weekend, you might want to check out all the academy award nominated documentary films being screened at the Director's Guild theater.
posted by mathowie on Mar 23, 2000 - 0 comments

And the oscar for best salvage man goes to... That didn't take very long. There's not much you can do with highly publicized, stolen goods, especially when they're barely worth more than scrap metal when melted down.
posted by mathowie on Mar 20, 2000 - 5 comments