25 things the Academy did right in Zeroes [more inside]
posted by philip-random on Nov 19, 2009 - 60 comments

When Resul Pookutty won the Oscar for Sound Mixing last weekend, it's probably the first time an Oscar acceptance speech, or really any U.S. network television broadcast, has mentioned the "primordial syllable," Om, which is very important to Hindus, Jains, and Buddhists.
posted by aught on Feb 24, 2009 - 16 comments

Once again, Stephen Colbert predicted the winners in all of major Academy Award categories ten days in advance, using an unconventional methodology. Well kinda... there was one category where he waffled.
posted by twoleftfeet on Feb 22, 2009 - 63 comments

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

Heath was great but Robert Downey Jr. should win.
posted by JVA on Jan 23, 2009 - 130 comments

Pirating the 2009 Oscars [more inside]
posted by the dief on Jan 22, 2009 - 75 comments

Oscar Night In Hollywood "If we can huckster a President into the White House, why cannot we huckster the agonized Miss Joan Crawford or the hard and beautiful Miss Olivia de Havilland into possession of one of those golden statuettes which express the motion picture industry's frantic desire to kiss itself on the back of its neck?" The Atlantic reprints an indispensible Raymond Chandler article from 1948.
posted by Skot on Feb 22, 2008 - 11 comments

Mona Lisa Descending a Staircase and 45 more Oscar winning animations.
posted by vronsky on Feb 12, 2008 - 11 comments

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

Oscarology is a system of astrology I invented -- excuse me, that was revealed to me in a powerful mystical experience -- based on what movie won the Best Picture Oscar for the year you were born. I have been communing with the Spirit of the Oscars and transcribing the visions it has vouchsafed to me.
posted by arcticwoman on Jan 25, 2008 - 64 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

A Sour Grapes Rant: "The people connected with Brokeback Mountain, including me, hoped that, having been nominated for eight Academy awards, it would get Best Picture... We should have known conservative heffalump academy voters would have rather different ideas of what was stirring contemporary culture... Next year we can look to the awards for controversial themes on the punishment of adulterers with a branding iron in the shape of the letter A, runaway slaves, and the debate over free silver." -- E. Annie Proulx unleashes in The Guardian.
posted by docgonzo on Mar 13, 2006 - 154 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

At this Larry King interview and in other places, Jon Stewart is getting ready for his very big "before and after" moment. In one week he will go from hosting a sort of anti-establishment "basic cable" talk show to hosting the very establishment (of some sort at least) Oscars viewed by usually at least 40 million people. Despite what most of us me-fiers might think, Stewart is sort of unknown outside his core devotees and especially for a Oscar host -- unlike Bob Hope, Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg, and even Chris Rock -- he has never been responsible for a hit movie. Moreover, his ratings (at 1.1 -- or about two and half million people a night) would place him at about the sixth most seen cable news "show" -- behind Greta, Shepard Smith, Hannity, Larry, and, of course, the factor. Now, that's a very wealthy, influential 2-3 million viewers that policy makers and advertisers love, so it's not chicken change but you can still understand what the Oscars might mean for fans of Jon. For people who believe Stewart is the only effective keeper of a liberal flame, you can only hope he will continue to impress on the bigger stage. However, some people are getting worried -- a la the NYT and the New Republic which is already claiming Stewart is losing his bite in order to please Hollywood and that he might not be so funny in the first place.
posted by skepticallypleased on Feb 28, 2006 - 77 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

78th Annual Academy Awards Nominations
posted by Hanover Phist on Jan 31, 2006 - 95 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

Ryan , the Oscar winner for Best Short Film, is a canadian 3d and 2d animated masterpiece. I wish I could provide more than the material already provided by Andy Baio, but I just felt like you all should see this. It's the true story of Ryan Landis, a brilliant artist devastated by the real world. It's also the story of his impact on the director. That really doesn't do it justice. Please just click. apology inside
posted by shmegegge on Mar 1, 2005 - 21 comments

The 25th annual Razzies were held this weekend, honoring the worst films of 2004. Without a doubt, the highlight of the event was the nomination (and subsequent winning) of Halle Berry for her abysmal participation in Catwoman. Why? Berry actually attended the ceremony to recieve her award, saying among other things "I want to thank Warner Brothers for casting me in this piece of shit."
posted by XQUZYPHYR on Feb 27, 2005 - 52 comments

girlhacker's 2005 Oscar Goodie bag list is out (here's 2004's, and 2003's) so now we can envy all the free stuff stars will be getting, even though they could easily afford to buy it all a thousand times over.
posted by mathowie on Feb 25, 2005 - 32 comments

Do Hollywood stuntmen deserve their own Oscar category? Judge for yourself [qt]. Major stunt organizations have now joined forces to lobby the Academy to finally create an award for Best Stunt Coordinator. Does athleticism, courage and sheer gung-ho physicality deserve the same kind of recognition given to other Oscar categories? Only once has the Academy officially recognized a stuntman, with an Honorary Oscar for pioneering stunt coordinator Yakima Canutt in 1967.
posted by mediareport on Feb 16, 2005 - 23 comments

Nominations for 77th Annual Academy Awards: OK, so Sideways gets nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay (Adapted), Best Supporting Actor aaaand Best Supporting Actress, but Paul Giamatti--arguably the linchpin of the whole flick--gets stiffed. (Jamie Foxx, on the other hand, gets nominated twice...not that there's anything wrong with that!)

Travesty, or just an indication of an incredibly rich "Best Actor" field?
posted by LairBob on Jan 25, 2005 - 152 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

"I aim to close every kind of hole in the dike I can find on piracy," and with those words, MPAA demon Jack Valenti banned all DVD and VHS screeners of this years Oscar nominated films. File under "Throwing the baby out with the bathwater." Next up: Valenti plans to remove everyone's eyeballs with a rusty spoon.
posted by WolfDaddy on Oct 2, 2003 - 23 comments

Did CNN turn up the booing on Michael Moore's Oscar acceptance speech? Check out the waveform analysis and decide. (via On Lisa Rein's Radar).
posted by hammurderer on Apr 15, 2003 - 55 comments

On a night like tonight, when the brightest stars have the courage to come out and shine, it's great to know I finally have a way to say "thank you" to celebrities for their tireless work behind the scenes to make our lives better.
posted by mathowie on Mar 23, 2003 - 102 comments

I had a really cool site on Wednesday to post, but stopped myself due the (prime time) start of the War, out of respect for MeFi users that have loved ones on either side of the line. It wasn't apprpriate. One of the things I have noticed on this site since last Wednesday is a very strong bifurcation of posts - those who are staunchly anti IraqFilter - who post as if nothing is going on, and those who can't seem to focus on anything else. This seems to be a struggle going on in other circles as well, as seen in this column by Roger Ebert, who discusses the appropriateness of tonights Oscars. The show must go on, right?
posted by Quartermass on Mar 23, 2003 - 21 comments

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

The Pianist by Roman Polanski has been nominated for several Acadamy awards including best picture and best direction. The issue is that it's director Roman Polanski fled the US in 1977 when he was accused of sexually assaulting a 13 year old girl. (and after his wife Sharon Tate was killed by the Manson family). He fled because while he had worked out a deal with the prosecuter and the girls family, the judge in the case had set aside the plea bargain and Polanski faced up to a 50 year jail term. Now even the victim in the case Thinks Polanski should be allowed back into the states for the acadamy awards
posted by bitdamaged on Mar 10, 2003 - 51 comments

Can I catch Gay if I watch the Oscars?
posted by vito90 on Feb 13, 2003 - 25 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

Berry, Denzel Make Oscars History Denzel Washington is only the second African American male to win an Best Actor Oscar since Sidney Poitier's win for Lilies of the Field in 1963. Halle Berry is the first African American female to win Best Actress ever. Berry's speech was quite good (albeit long) but it leaves me wondering how all those "women who stand behind her[sic], Jada Pinkett, Angela Bassett, Vivica Fox and it's for every nameless faceless woman of color that now has a chance because this door tonight has been opened" feel about being named inferior. And why didn't the camera flash onto Jada Pinkett-Smith when Berry said that? Now, that would have been a true Oscar moment.
posted by gloege on Mar 25, 2002 - 60 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

Pick Your Winners For The Oscars: UK-based Blue Square gives you the odds. So how would you bet a virtual $100? And how much would you stand to win?(That is, if you could do the maths...)
posted by MiguelCardoso on Mar 20, 2002 - 9 comments

After the success of the first free online animated series Angry Kid, triple Oscar winning Aardman Animations announces 12 new Wallace & Gromit short films, delivered exclusively via CD/Web. (Also announced, the title of new W&G feature film and game)
posted by MintSauce on Jan 28, 2002 - 2 comments

This year's Oscar race is shaping up to be populated entirely by dark horses. In the absence of any clear shoo-in nominees, the disputes among Oscar voters (as well as the marketing campaigns mounted by the studios) are growing increasingly heated.
posted by jjg on Dec 31, 2001 - 26 comments

Oscar winners live longer ...winning the coveted golden statuette can add four years to your life. BTW, the next article shows that half of heroin addicts die early.
Big surprise: "drugs = bad for ya" and "success = good for ya".
posted by nonharmful on May 15, 2001 - 9 comments

"Thanks for the honour. Oh, and for the Oscar too..." Is that an MBE on Russell Crowe's chest? A quick google suggests his grandad received one: dunno the protocol of wearing someone else's medal, but is that the first time an Oscar winner's gone on stage with a British gong?
posted by holgate on Mar 27, 2001 - 15 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

The Oscar Nominees Page is up... ...and it looks like both Gladiator and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon are the two big movies this time, with 10 Nominations each, including Best Picture. In addition, Julia Roberts finally has her oscar nod, as well as Tom Hanks, Ed Harris and Geoffrey Rush returning for another round in the Best Actor Category.
posted by Cavatica on Feb 13, 2001 - 38 comments

The Oscars TM AMPAS will NOT consider any movie that was first shown on the Internet.
Looks like our firends at HowWrong Productions, the creators of "Jesus! The Semi-Animated Sorta-Movie!" have beenShafted.
Now they'll have to rent a theater for the sequel: "Jesus' Big Score", and then probably nobody'll show up.. cause they'll all be at The Schmolympics!
You owe me, Talbot. Big time.

posted by wendell on Jun 17, 2000 - 3 comments

Harry Knowles takes on the Oscars in a surreal chat session with himself. Some great lines: "Angelina has a freaky boyfriend." "Dude, that guy was spazzing out." "DEAR GOD, DON'T TORTURE US WITH A BAD STREISAND MEMORY." But my favorite is Harry letting out his inner queen: "NOBODY SINGS THAT SONG BUT DOROTHY!!!"
posted by bjennings on Mar 28, 2000 - 0 comments

Blame Phil Collins?
We knew Blame Canada wouldn't win, and to be fair, Phil probably deserved it - my real question is "what did you think of the 'Blame Canada' production number?" It was the only reason I watched tonight (not being a big awards show guy), and I'm just curious to hear what other people thought of it. Did Robin Williams wreck it? What about the mounties chorus-line? Did anyone else think he was going to do the entire song with the tape over his mouth?
My only other Oscar observation: Angelina Jolie seemed thrilled and suprised to get Best Supporting Actress. Do you think that she would have gone with the Elvira look if she expected to win?
posted by CrazyUncleJoe on Mar 26, 2000 - 13 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

The pets.com sock puppet can now sit on your desktop and dispense oscar cattiness that Joan Rivers would envy (windows only though). He's on my desktop until the big event. [thanks Leonard]
posted by mathowie on Mar 23, 2000 - 3 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

Somebody stole the Oscars (TM AMPAS)!
And, of course, I am denying all involvement.
posted by wendell on Mar 17, 2000 - 9 comments