Dolby Theatre Unveils New Name, New Technology

June, 11, 2012 1:06 pm | Comments On #Academy Awards, Awards, dolby, Dolby Laboratories, dolby theatre, Kodak Theater, Movies, oscars

The Kodak Theatre era came to an end on Monday, as Dolby unveiled new signs proclaiming the home of the Academy Awards to be the Dolby Theatre.

The official unveiling of the large "DOLBY THEATRE" sign on Hollywood Blvd. will take place on Monday evening at 6:00, and the grand opening is scheduled for next Monday, June 18, for the premiere of Pixar's "Brave.

But all the external signs at the Hollywood & Highland Center theater had been replaced by Dolby signs on Monday morning, when Dolby held a press preview for the new technological advancements it put into the 3,400-seat theater.

Also read:...

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Student Academy Awards Honor USC, CalArts, NYU and Columbia

June, 09, 2012 11:47 pm | Comments On #Academy Awards, Awards, oscars, Student Academy Awards

Students from USC, CalArts and Columbia University qualified for next year's Oscars by winning gold medals at Saturday night's 39th annual Student Academy Awards, which took place at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.

Those schools produced the top winners from the United States, while the University of Westminster in the U.K. yielded the gold medal recipient in the Foreign Film category.

Richard Harbaugh/AMPASGold medal winners in those four categories automatically qualify in the shorts categories for the upcoming Oscars. The gold medal in the documentary category, which went to a film from NYU, does not automatically qualify its recipient for the Oscars. 

The ceremony...

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Tony Awards: Can Awards Magic Happen Twice for 'Once'?

June, 08, 2012 3:02 pm | Comments On #Awards, Cristin Miliotti, culture, Enda Walsh, glen hansard, John Tiffany, marketa irglova, Once, Steve Kazee, theater, Tony Awards

In a Broadway season bursting with shows borrowed from Hollywood, "Once" is in many ways the strangest and unlikeliest of all.

And yet the musical, adapted from the 2007 film by John Carney, is not only flourishing on the Great White Way, it's the leading nominee going into Sunday night's Tony Awards. Its 11 nominations far outpace the showing of current Broadway adaptations of "Ghost," "Leap of Faith" and "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark," and the musical promises to give Disney's "Newsies" a serious challenge when the envelopes are opened on Sunday.

Also read: 'Once' Leads Nominees for 2012 Tony Awards

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Don Rickles Steals the Show at AFI's Shirley MacLaine Tribute

June, 08, 2012 10:25 am | Comments On #AFI, afi life achievement award, American Film Institute, Awards, Don Rickles, Jack Black, Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep, Movies, Shirley MacLaine, Warren Beatty

Shirley MacLaine heard hours of kind words at the AFI Life Achievement Award tribute in her honor Thursday night at Sony, but the guy who stole the show was the one who trashed everyone in the room.

Veteran comic Don Rickles briefly turned MacLaine's AFI tribute into a roast, mocking MacLaine's little brother, Warren Beatty ("I know your brother very well, and I never liked him"), Jack Nicholson ("he's not here tonight -- he's with the Lakers, oiling their jocks"), the event itself ("it's been what, 18 hours?") and even the guest of honor ("Shirley, I never read your books and I don't plan to").

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The crowd on a Sony...

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Oscar Museum Selects Architects Renzo Piano, Zoltan Pali

May, 30, 2012 9:34 am | Comments On #Academy Awards, Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, Awards, culture, dawn hudson, LACMA, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Movies, oscars, renzo piano, Zoltan Pali

Architects Renzo Piano and Zoltan Pali have been chosen to design the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Academy announced on Wednesday.

May Company buildingThe two men were chosen by the Academy's Museum Committee, which is made up of current AMPAS president Tom Sherak, past presidents Sid Ganis and Robert Rehme, Academy governors Craig Barron, Jim Bissell, Gale Anne Hurd and Rob Friedman, and  former governor Kathleen Kennedy.

Renzo Piano (below left), who won the Pritzker Prize for his architecture in 1998, previously designed the expansion of LACMA, where the Academy museum will be located. His other work includes the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris...

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'Oscars Outdoors' Launches in Hollywood With 'Field of Dreams'

May, 20, 2012 5:26 pm | Comments On #Academy Awards, Awards, dawn hudson, Field of Dreams, Movies, oscars, Oscars Outdoors, Phil Alden Robinson, Randy Haberkamp, Tom Sherak

The Academy launched its new "Oscars Outdoors" open-air theater on Saturday night in Hollywood with a screening of "Field of Dreams" – a choice, AMPAS president Tom Sherak told TheWrap, that was a complete no-brainer.

"There were a lot of movies that we could have shown, but we liked the idea of 'If you build it, he will come,'" he said, quoting a line from Phil Alden Robinson's much-beloved baseball fantasy from 1989.

Oscars Outdoors"We built this, and we hope they will come."

By this, Sherak meant Oscars Outdoors, a space nestled off Vine Street between the Academy's Pickford Center for Motion Picture Study and the huge parking...

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AFI Tops List of Student Oscar Winners

May, 15, 2012 10:18 am | Comments On #Academy Awards, AFI, American Film Institute, Awards, Columbia, NYU, oscars, Student Academy Awards, Student Oscars, UCLA, USC

The American Film Institute, USC, UCLA, NYU and Columbia were among the schools that will be represented at the 2012 Student Academy Awards ceremony on June 9.

Those schools were home to some of the 10 students who were named winners of this year's Student Oscars, which the Academy announced on Tuesday.

Winners were announced in the alternative, animation, documentary and narrative categories, with half the winners coming from Southern California film schools: two from AFI, the only school to have more than one winner, and one each from USC, UCLA and CalArts.

Other schools with winners included NYU, Columbia, Ringling College of Art and Design, American University and, for the first time, Art Institute of Jacksonville.

Although voters can choose up to two films in the alternative category, they opted for a single winner, "The Reality Clock"...

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Oscars' New Documentary Rules Can't Kill DocuWeeks (Updated)

April, 30, 2012 5:23 pm | Comments On #Academy Awards, Awards, documentaries, DocuWeeks, Michael Moore, Movies, oscars

DocuWeeks, the annual showcase designed by the International Documentary Association to qualify docs for the Academy Awards, will serve in that function again this year, despite attempts in the Academy's Documentary Branch to end its qualifier status.

IDA executive director Michael Lumpkin told TheWrap on Monday that the Los Angeles Times has agreed to review all the films in this year's DocuWeeks, which will run from August 10 through August 30 at the Laemmle NoHo 7 in North Hollywood, and from August 3 though August 23 at the IFC Center in New York.

DocuWeeks logoThe Times confirmed that it plans to review every DocuWeek film.

Those Times reviews will enable all 17 feature films to qualify for Oscar...

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The Emmys Grapple With a New Question: TV or Not TV?

April, 18, 2012 12:03 pm | Comments On #Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, Awards, emmy awards, Emmys, John Leverence, Lilyhammer, Primetime Emmy Awards, Television

It used to be so simple.

The Primetime Emmy Awards honored television's marquee programs, the ones that everybody watched in the same place and at the same time: on network broadcasts that took place Monday through Saturday from 8 to 11 p.m. (7 to 10 Central), Sunday from 7 to 10.

Emmy AwardsAnd then, for good measure, the Emmys threw in the news shows that preceded those primetime blocks, and the late-night programming that followed them.

But today's television landscape is dramatically different, and the primetime designation is gradually – or not so gradually – becoming almost irrelevant.

Shows originate on the web, or start on traditional television and migrate to the...

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Adam Sandler Is as Bad as it Gets, Say the Razzies

April, 02, 2012 12:09 am | Comments On #Adam Sandler, Al Pacino, Awards, David Spade, Golden Raspberry Awards, Jack and Jill, Razzie Awards, Razzies

Adam Sandler broke all existing records at an awards show on Sunday night, but it's the awards show where you really don't want to break records.

Sandler's critically-savaged comedy "Jack and Jill" swept the 32nd annual Golden Raspberry Awards, which are given out each year to the worst movies and performances as judged by the opinionated voters and bad-movie lovers who make up the Golden Raspberry Award Foundation.

Jack and Jill poster"Jack and Jill," which the Razzies dubbed a "two-for-one twaddle-fest" featuring Sandler in dual roles as a man and his sister, was named worst picture, worst screenplay (Sandler, Steve Koren and Ben Zook) and worst director (Dennis...

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The Odds is an informed, bemused, skeptical and authoritative look at all aspects of the Academy Awards race. Steve Pond, author of the L.A. Times bestseller The Big Show, has been covering this particular circus for more than two decades, much of that time as the only reporter with full backstage and rehearsal access to the Oscar show.

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