Oscars 2014: Academy Awards Ceremony Set for March 2nd

March 25, 2013 | Posted by Linda Ge in Awards, General News Leave a comment

academy As we are a quarter of the way into the new movie-going year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced the dates for next year’s award season which will award the best of 2013. They have also announced the date for the 2015 ceremony.

BEVERLY HILLS, CA – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the ABC Television Network today announced the dates for the 86th and 87th Oscar® presentations. The 86th and 87th Academy Awards® will air live on ABC on Oscar Sunday, March 2, 2014, and February 22, 2015, respectively.

Key dates for the Awards season are:

Saturday, November 16, 2013: The Governors Awards

Monday, December 2, 2013: Official Screen Credits due

Friday, December 27, 2013: Nominations voting begins

Wednesday, January 8, 2014: Nominations voting ends 5 p.m. PT

Thursday, January 16, 2014: Oscar nominations announced

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Jennifer Lawrence, Anne Hathaway and the Complete List of Oscar Winners

February 24, 2013 | Posted by Linda Ge in Awards Leave a comment

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Jennifer Lawrence, the youngest two-time Best Actress nominee ever, just took home her fist Oscar for “Silver Linings Playbook.” The big winner of the night was “Argo”, which won Best Picture without its director, Ben Affleck, even being nominated for Best Director. The winner in that category went to Ang Lee for “Life of Pi”, who has now won Best Director twice without his filing winning Best Picture.

In the other acting categories, Anne Hathaway, the biggest lock of the night, won her Best Supporting Actress Oscar for “Les Miserables”, while Daniel Day Lewis was announced as Best Actor for “Lincoln” by Meryl Streep, who didn’t even bother opening the envelope containing the winner’s name! In the widest open category of the night, Christoph Waltz took home the Best Supporting Actor trophy for “Django Unchained.” He won two years ago in the same category for another Quentin Tarantino film, “Inglourious Basterds.”

Below are the full list of winners from tonight’s Academy Awards, in the order they were handed out during the show.

Oscar Spotlight: Bradley Cooper Loses The Hangover

February 23, 2013 | Posted by Rebecca Lewis in Features 1 Comment

In our Oscar Spotlight series we take a look at rising stars who have this year gained the biggest accolade in Hollywood, an Academy Award nomination. In a year filled with incredible performances, none of our chosen actors were considered a shoo-in. Taken from three of the acting categories, we present …

Bradley Cooper Loses The Hangover

Nearly four years after its release, Bradley Cooper‘s name is still synonymous with “The Hangover“. In the years that followed Cooper tried but never quite managed to prove he had something to offer beyond playing the handsome jerk. In 2013, however, it might be fair to say the American actor has finally broken through, with his first Oscar nomination for a captivating performance in “Silver Linings Playbook.“

Oscar Spotlight: Jennifer Lawrence Conquers Hollywood

February 22, 2013 | Posted by Rebecca Lewis in Features 1 Comment

Jennifer Lawrence Conquers Hollywood

In 2010 Jennifer Lawrence burst onto the scene with indie film “Winter’s Bone“, giving one of the best leading actress performances in recent memory and cementing her status with an Oscar nomination. Two years later, Lawrence once again finds herself a Best Actress nominee – for the equally challenging role of Tiffany in “Silver Linings Playbook” – but this time, she is no longer a fresh face on the indie scene, but a worldwide star.

Jennifer Lawrence, Quvenzhané Wallis make Oscar history as nominations are announced

January 10, 2013 | Posted by Linda Ge in Awards Leave a comment

It’s a history-making year for the Best Actress category as the nominations for “Beasts of the Southern Wild” star Quvenzhane Wallis and “Silver Linings Playbook” star Jennifer Lawrence made history. Nine year old Wallis becomes the youngest person ever to be nominated for Best Actress, while Lawrence, at 22, becomes the youngest person to be nominated twice for Best Actress (she received her first nomination in 2010 for “Winter’s Bone”). Also making history in the category is Emmanuelle Riva for “Amour”, who becomes the oldest Best Actress nominee ever at age 85. Naomi Watts for “The Impossible” and Jessica Chastain – thought to be Lawrence’s biggest competition for the win – for “Zero Dark Thirty” rounded out the top five.

“Beasts of the Southern Wild” and “Silver Linings Playbook” not only made history but were also two of the biggest winners of the morning, each earning more nominations than expected. In addition to Wallis, “Beasts” also garnered a Best Director nod for Behn Zeitlin and a Best Picture nomination. “Silver Linings” got its expected Best Picture, Best Director (David O. Russell), Best Supporting Actor (Robert DeNiro) and Best Actor (Bradly Cooper) nominations, but it surprised in Best Supporting Actress, where Jacki Weaver was nominated. That category is still led by Anne Hathaway’s powerhouse performance in “Les Miserables” (which missed out on Best Director for Tom Hooper but garnerd Hugh Jackman a Best Actor nod), while Amy Adams was nominated for “The Master”, Sally Field for “Lincoln” and Helen Hunt for “The Sessions.”

The category with the biggest shocks of the morning definitely came from Best Director, which snubbed not only Hooper for “Les Mis”, but also thought-to-be-sure-bets Kathryn Bigelow for “Zero Dark Thirty” and Ben Affleck for “Argo.” The two films had been thought to be the frontrunners for not only Best Director but also Best Picture, and will seemingly face a much steeper uphill climb on the latter. Steven Spielberg got an expected and deserved nomination for “Lincoln” (which led all nominations with 12), while Zeitlin for “Beasts”, Russell for “Silver Linings”, Ang Lee for “Life of Pi” (which came in second with 11 noms, including Best Picture) and Michael Haneke for “Amour” (which also picked up a Best Picture nom) rounded out the five.

The full list of nominations, announced this morning by Oscar host Seth MacFarlane and Emma Stone, can be found below (thanks to AwardsDaily).

Emma Stone to announce Oscar nominations

January 7, 2013 | Posted by Linda Ge in Awards Leave a comment

“The Amazing Spider-Man” star Emma Stone will be announcing this year’s Academy Award nominations on the morning of this Thursday, January 10th, along with the telecast’s host for the evening, “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane, it was announced today. Jennifer Lawrence did the honors last year, and Anne Hathaway the year before.

BEVERLY HILLS, CA – Nominations for the 85th Academy Awards® will be announced by the show’s host, Seth MacFarlane, and actress Emma Stone on Thursday, January 10. This will be the first time since 1972 that an Oscar show host has participated in the nominations announcement.

MacFarlane and Stone will unveil the nominations at a 5:30 a.m. PT news conference at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, where hundreds of media representatives from around the world will be gathered.

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Faces to Watch: Oscar 2012 Edition, from Jennifer Lawrence to the young cast of “Les Miserables”

December 10, 2012 | Posted by Linda Ge in Awards, Features Leave a comment

It’s almost that time of year again, when young actors who are lucky enough to be recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences see a drastic rise in their profiles and the movie offers come flooding in. But first, you have to get nominated. With critics awards already underway and the SAG and Golden Globe nominations both coming this week (!!), now is the perfect time to check in on the dozens of young actors who are vying for just a few spots come Oscar nomination time on January 15th.

From likely winners to maybe-nominees to long shots that deserve some more attention (in descending order), we assess the chances of up and coming actors in each acting category below.

Start Here: Best Actress >>

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Oscar Spotlight: Jean Dujardin Finds His Voice

February 25, 2012 | Posted by Rebecca Lewis in Awards, Features Leave a comment

In our new Oscar Spotlight series we take a look at four rising stars who have this year become Oscar nominees for the first time. In a year filled with incredible performances, only one of our chosen actors was a shoo-in. The other three were all (welcome) surprise nominees. Taken from each of the four acting categories, we present …

Jean Dujardin Finds His VoiceThe biggest surprise on Oscar nomination day would have come if Jean Dujardin had not been nominated for Best Actor, considering the French actor had been winning nearly every award for Best Actor since “The Artist” premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.

But “The Artist” very nearly wasn’t made, and Dujardin’s journey to potential Oscar glory was not an easy one.

Nicknamed “France’s George Clooney”, Dujardin was, and let’s face it still is, very much an unknown in Hollywood. He began his career on French TV as a a comic actor before transitioning into film with the 2005 spoof surfer movie, “Brice de Nice” in which he played a dead-beat surfer obsessed with Patrick Swayze’s character Bodhi in “Point Break.” Director and frequent Dujardin collaborator Michel Hazanavicius had wanted to create a silent film for years but, according to Hazanavicius, no one would take the film seriously and help finance it. When the director and star began to gain commercial success in France with a series of Bond spoofs “OSS 117″, producers started to pay attention – and soon Hazanavicius, Dujardin and Berenice Bejo were filming in Los Angeles.

Oscar Spotlight: Jonah Hill Gets Serious

February 24, 2012 | Posted by Rebecca Lewis in Awards, Features Leave a comment

In this new series “Oscar Spotlight” we take a look at four rising stars who have this year become Oscar nominees for the first time. In a year filled with incredible performances, only one of our chosen actors was a shoo-in. The other three were all (welcome) surprise nominees. Taken from each of the four acting categories, we present …

Jonah Hill Gets Serious

As Melissa McCarthy captures her first Academy Award nomination for a comedic performance, for funny man Jonah Hill it took playing against type to garner his first nomination.

Hill got his big break working with producer/director Judd Apatow in 2005, in a small supporting role in “The 40 Year Old Virgin“. They worked together again in “Knocked Up”, so it was perhaps unsurprising when Apatow upgraded Hill to play the lead opposite Michael Cera in a little movie you may have heard of called “Superbad”. Hill’s ability to mix crass high school humor with a serious coming-of-age friendship won over audiences and critics alike, and Hill began to get his pick of comedic roles, going on to work with Russell Brand in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and the sequel “Get Him to the Greek” and then with Apatow again in 2009′s “Funny People”.

In 2010, Hill worked with John C. Reilly and Marisa Tomei in “Cyrus”, a film about a mother and son’s unconventional relationship. Though it garnered mixed critical reception, it was perhaps a bit of foreshadowing that something more serious was in Hill’s repertoire. Even so, Hill flew in the face of all of our expectations by successfully taking on the role of Peter Brand, a genius number cruncher who helps Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) recruit baseball players on a budget for the Oakland A’s in Bennett Miller’s “Moneyball”, a film that had been in development hell for years, going through three rewrites and three different directors. It was worth the wait for the filmmakers though: “Moneyball” garnered a total of six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture.

Oscar Spotlight: Melissa McCarthy And How The Academy Gained A Sense Of Humor

February 23, 2012 | Posted by Rebecca Lewis in Awards, Features 2 Comments

Melissa McCarthy And How The Academy Gained A Sense Of Humor

It’s rare for the Academy to nominate, let alone vote for, a comedy (it’s a known fact that if you put any of the following together – mental illness, the Holocaust, overcoming adversity or a biopic on Someone Important - you’re looking at a film jostling for an award). So when the crude laugh-out-loud film “Bridesmaids” began to gain serious traction on the awards circuit, and then garnered two Academy Award nominations including one for Best Supporting Actress, it was one of the biggest eyebrow-raising surprises of the morning.

For Melissa McCarthy, awards recognition has come suddenly, after a long and celebrated career on the small screen. Between 2000 and 2007, McCarthy played Sookie St James, the scatter-brained best friend of Lorelai Gilmore in The WB’s “Gilmore Girls”, but it wasn’t until 2011 that she won her first Emmy, as one half of CBS sitcom “Mike and Molly.”

And just a few months later, Oscar came calling too.

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