Oscars Producers Promise Singing and Dancing - But Don't Ask About Show Length
February, 20, 2013 6:23 pm | Comments On #Academy Awards, adele, Awards, barbra streisand, Craig Zadan, james bond, Les Miserables, Neil Meron, oscars, Seth MacFarlane, SkyfallAt the end of the year, Academy Awards show producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron will produce a live, televised version of the musical "The Sound of Music." But before that, they've got the Oscars to finish – and that show, to hear them tell it, might as well use "the sound of music" as its own subtitle.
Veterans of the Broadway stage, television and film who have often specialized in musicals, Zadan and Meron detailed their plans (some of them, anyway) to TheWrap in a lengthy and wide-ranging conversation that took place this week in the office they share backstage at the Dolby Theatre. It's the first time they've been back to the theater since...
Costume Designers Say Best-Dressed Movies Are 'Anna Karenina,' 'Mirror Mirror,' 'Skyfall'
February, 19, 2013 11:18 pm | Comments On #American Horror Story, Anna Karenina, Anne Hathaway, Awards, CDG Awards, Costume Designers Guild, Downton Abbey, Joel McHale, mirror mirror, Skyfall, smashThe best-looking movies of 2012 are "Anna Karenina," "Skyfall" and "Mirror Mirror," said the Costume Designers Guild on Tuesday night.
In the final guild ceremony of awards season, "Anna Karenina" won in the Excellence in Period Film category, while "Skyfall" was honored for Excellence in Contemporary Film and "Mirror Mirror" for Excellence in Fantasy Film.
Of the three winners, two – "Anna Karenina" (left) and "Mirror Mirror" – are also nominated for the costume-design Oscar. Over the past eight years, the Oscar winner has coincided with the CDG's period-film winner three times and its fantasy-film winner...
Oscar Predictions: There's Room for Surprises in Between Those 'Argo' Wins
February, 19, 2013 7:08 pm | Comments On #Academy Awards, argo, Awards, Daniel Day-Lewis, oscarsOscar polls are now closed, and this is an easy Academy Awards year to predict. "Argo" will win Best Picture, Daniel Day-Lewis will win Best Actor, "Amour" will win Best Foreign Language Film.…
And this is also a difficult Oscars to predict. Jennifer Lawrence will win Best Actress, unless Jessica Chastain or Emmanuelle Riva beats her; Tommy Lee Jones will win Best Supporting Actor, or maybe it'll be Christoph Waltz, or maybe Robert De Niro …
Hanging over everything is the Oscars' unusual voting timetable this year, in which members cast their nominating ballots before they saw what the Hollywood guilds were going to do, and their final ballots long after most guild awards had been announced.
The result was a voting pattern unmoored from the guild awards, and one that could defy conventional wisdom if Academy members spent...
Read MoreAMPAS Drops '85th Academy Awards' - Now It's Just 'The Oscars'
February, 19, 2013 2:38 pm | Comments On #Academy Awards, Awards, Craig Zadan, dawn hudson, Neil Meron, oscarsThe upcoming Academy Awards show is the 85th, a significant anniversary that in past years might have brought a reunion of past winners, special film clips or some sort of recognition on the Oscar show.
But this year, the number 85 has been quietly retired, and so has the phrase "Academy Awards."
Both disappeared from official AMPAS materials about three weeks ago. "We're rebranding it," Oscar show co-producer Neil Meron told TheWrap on Monday. "We're not calling it 'the 85th annual Academy Awards,' which keeps it mired somewhat in a musty way. It's called 'The Oscars.'"
During TheWrap's interview with Meron and his partner Craig Zadan, Meron said...
Read MoreOscars Rewind: War and Peace, Academy Awards Style
February, 18, 2013 5:19 pm | Comments On #Academy Awards, ampas, Awards, Bowling for Columbine, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Chicago, Gangs of New York, Gil Cates, Harvey Weinstein, Martin Scorsese, Michael Moore, moulin rouge, Movies, Nicole Kidman, oscars, Steve Martin, Steve PondSteve Martin adjusted his jokes. Gil Cates and the Academy depopulated the red carpet. Will Smith and Angelina Jolie pulled out, but Halle Berry and Susan Sarandon showed up. A musical won Best Picture, Michael Moore mouthed off, Harvey Weinstein stirred up controversy, and the final award was announced before midnight on the East Coast for only the second time in 20 years.
The Oscars of 10 years ago was a rough, troubled production, a pretty good Oscar show undertaken even as rumors swirled that it was going to be postponed or canceled. No Academy Awards since then has faced quite so many obstacles, and only one has drawn such low ratings.
Also read: The Oscars Endgame: An Expensive Way to Make a Last Impression
The show was...
Read MoreWhat Surprises Wait in 'Argo' Oscars? And What's Behind the Big Ad Spend? (Video)
February, 18, 2013 4:20 pm | Comments On #argo, Awards, Ben Affleck, oscars, Sharon Waxman, Steve Pond, Steven Spielberg, videoAs the Oscar voting draws to a close, there has been a frenzy of last-minute campaigning around an Oscar race that is supposed to be a done deal for "Argo." What do the movie studios know that the Oscar pundits don't?
In this week's video, I discuss the flurry of movie advertising with Sharon Waxman, as we question whether there are any surprises in store at the Academy Awards next week. In addition, we take a look at all the box-office success for this year's Best Picture nominees.
Also read: The Oscars Endgame: An Expensive Way to Make a Last Impression
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Read MoreThe Oscars Endgame: An Expensive Way to Make a Last Impression
February, 18, 2013 6:11 am | Comments On #Academy Awards, argo, Awards, Life of Pi, Lincoln, oscars, Silver Linings Playbook, zero dark thirtyAs one of the most expensive Oscar races ever comes to a close, the Hollywood trade papers and a handful of consumer publications ought to be sending thank-you notes to the 371 members of the Academy's Directors Branch.
If those voters had gone the expected route and given a Best Director nomination to Ben Affleck for "Argo," this Oscar season would look a lot like last year, when "The Artist" romped to what appeared to be an easy victory, or 2011, when "The King's Speech" did the same thing.
In both of those years, one film won most or all of the guild awards and breezed to Oscar gold – and both times, the film's biggest rivals saw the writing on the wall long before the Academy Awards rolled around.
...
Read More'Skyfall,' 'Life of Pi' Are Tops with Motion Picture Sound Editors
February, 17, 2013 11:28 pm | Comments On #Ang Lee, Awards, Life of Pi, Motion Picture Sound Editors, MPSE Golden Reel AwardsOn a night when director Ang Lee was honored with the Motion Picture Sound Editors' honorary Filmmaker Award, his film "Life of Pi" won big at the MPSE's Golden Reel Awards.
But the award that most closely aligns with the Oscar sound editing category, Sound Effects and Foley in a Feature Film category, went not to "Pi" but to the James Bond film "Skyfall."
Four of the five Oscar nominees were also nominated in that category: "Skyfall," "Pi," "Django Unchained" and "Argo." The last of those films suffered a rare shutout at an awards ceremony.
"Life of Pi" was the only film to win more than one award, taking home the Music...
Read MoreWriters Guild Makes it a Guild Sweep for 'Argo,' Also Honors 'Zero Dark Thirty'
February, 17, 2013 7:45 pm | Comments On #Awards, WGA Awards, writers guild, Writers Guild of America"Argo" and "Zero Dark Thirty" have been named the top film scripts of 2012 by the Writers Guild of America.
The results should be good news for "Argo," the strong Best Picture favorite that appeared locked in a close battle with "Lincoln" and "Silver Linings Playbook" for the Adapted Screenplay Oscar.
And it should provide a smaller boost to "Zero Dark Thirty," because that screenplay's two biggest rivals at the Oscars, "Django Unchained" and "Amour," were ineligible for the WGA's Original Screenplay Award.
Rules that restrict WGA Awards eligibility to films produced under the guild's Minimum...
Read More'Les Miz' Is Music to the Ears of the Cinema Audio Society
February, 16, 2013 10:41 pm | Comments On #Awards, Brave, CAS Awards, Cinema Audio Society, Hatfields & McCoys, Homeland, Les Miserables, Lincoln, Modern Family, Skyfall, sound mixing, The Hobbit, zero dark thirty"Les Miserables" has been named the best work of 2012 by the Cinema Audio Society, a non-profit organization that honors the art of sound mixing in film and television.
The film, for which director Tom Hooper recorded his actors singing live on the set, was considered the favorite for the CAS Award and for the sound-mixing Oscar. In addition to working with vocal tracks recorded in difficult circumstances, its mixers had to contend with prominent orchestral music throughout the film's near three-hour running time.
Also read: For...
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Description
Steve Pond, author of the L.A. Times bestseller The Big Show, has been covering entertainment for more than two decades. He also writes on the awards circuit for TheWrap, in his column "The Odds."
