Producers Guild Sets Jan. 19 Date for 2013 Awards

February, 15, 2012 6:55 pm | Comments On #Academy Awards, Awards, oscars, PGA Awards, producers guild of america, Producers Guild of America Awards, The Artist

The Producers Guild of America announced the date of its 2013 awards on Wednesday – and while the PGA isn't making any big changes in when it will give out its awards, it is inching earlier, and will certainly be in the clear if the Academy decides to move up the date of the Oscars.

The 2013 PGA Awards will take place on January 19 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, the guild announced. The 2012 ceremony took place on January 21, the 2011 show on January 22 and the 2010 awards on January 24.

The PGA Award has become one of the most accurate predictors of an Oscar win; it is the only guild that uses the same preferential system as the Academy to count its ballots.

The last four PGA winners – "The King's Speech," "The Hurt Locker," "Slumdog Millionaire" and "No Country for Old Men" – went on to win...

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Oscars Finally Invite Chris Rock Back

February, 15, 2012 10:28 am | Comments On #Academy Awards, Awards, Chris Rock, Jude Law, Oscar presenters, oscars, sean penn

Chris Rock has been booked as a presenter at the 84th Academy Awards, marking his return to the show where his 2005 hosting gig ended with Rock being scolded by Sean Penn for denigrating the talents of "one of our finest actors," Jude Law.

Chris Rock hosting the 77th Academy AwardsThat year, Rock joked that producers who couldn't get Russell Crowe shouldn't settle for Colin Farrell, and ones who couldn't get Tom Cruise shouldn't settle for Law. "Who is Jude Law?" he asked. "Why was he in every movie I've seen for the last four years?"

The line, which prompted Penn's retort when the actor took the stage to present the Best Actress award late in the...

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Oscar Season 2012: Why Isn't It Over Yet?

February, 14, 2012 6:39 pm | Comments On #Academy Awards, Awards, Brad Pitt, Gary Oldman, George Clooney, Jean Dujardin, Nick Nolte, Oscar campaigning, oscars, Oscars 2012, The Artist, Tom Hooper

It's mid-February, which means one thing in Hollywood: Almost everybody who has anything to do with the Academy Awards race just wants it to be over.

With the race for key awards seemingly over, people are getting tired of the marathon that Oscar season has become.

At the Directors Guild awards, I asked presenter Jean Dujardin – who has been in Los Angeles for much of the fall and winter, attending parties and doing interviews and making television appearances in a language that is not his own – how he was holding up through it all.

"I’m fine," “The Artist” star said with an easy smile, a few days after...

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Scott Rudin's Grammy Win Puts Him in Elite Company

February, 13, 2012 10:34 pm | Comments On #Academy Awards, Awards, EGOT, emmy awards, Grammy Awards, Scott Rudin, The Book of Mormon, Tony Awards

With all the Grammy-night focus on Whitney and Adele, a rather remarkable accomplishment took place on Sunday night without much notice: Scott Rudin won a Grammy for producing the original cast album to the Broadway show "The Book of Mormon."

Scott RudinBy itself, the Grammy would be just another award in a career that has already had plenty. But the honor was the final piece in an achievement so rare that only 10 other people in show-business history have ever done it: the EGOT, a nickname for winning an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony.

Rudin won his Emmy for executive producing the 1984 children's dance documentary "He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin'," which also won the doc Oscar (but not for...

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Uggie Is Top Dog at the Golden Collar Awards, Of Course (Updated)

February, 13, 2012 8:23 pm | Comments On #Awards, Golden Collar Awards, The Artist, Uggie

A number of the world's most accomplished dogs went head-to-head on Monday, competing in the most prestigious and acclaimed competition that the canine world has to offer.

That was the 136th Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in New York City.

UggieAcross the country, meanwhile, another group of dogs competed in the first Golden Collar Awards, a newer and sillier event with, shall we say, a less illustrious pedigree. The showbiz version of a dog show may have lacked the prestige and history, but it had a lot more real housewives, of both Beverly Hills and New York.

And while we won't know Westminster's Best in Show until Tuesday night, the Golden Collar Awards announced its top dogs on...

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Cinematographers Awards: 'Tree of Life' Is Top Film

February, 12, 2012 10:00 pm | Comments On #American Society of Cinematographers, American Society of Cinematographers Awards, ASC Awards, Awards, hugo, The Artist, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Tree of Life, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Emmanuel Lubezki, who has taken home most of this season's cinematography awards for his work on Terrence Malick's "The Tree of Life," won the feature film award from the American Society of Cinematographers on Sunday night in Hollywood.

The Tree of LifeLubezki won the award once before, for "Children of Men" in 2006. He was considered the odds-on favorite coming into the ceremony, though fellow nominee Guillaume Schiffman won the cinematography award for "The Artist" at the BAFTA Awards earlier on Sunday.

Other feature film nominees included Robert Richardson for "Hugo," Jeff Cronenweth for "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" and Hoyte van Hoytema...

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'The Artist' Dominates at BAFTA Awards

February, 12, 2012 1:27 pm | Comments On #Awards, BAFTA, BAFTA Awards, British Academy of Film and Television Arts, Orange British Academy Film Awards

"The Artist" was named the year's best film at the Orange British Academy Film Awards on Sunday, sweeping through the ceremony just as it is expected to do at the Academy Awards in two weeks.

Jean Dujardin at the BAFTA AwardsThe black-and-white silent film was also given awards for director Michel Hazanavicius and leading actor Jean Dujardin (left), and for its screenplay, music, cinematography and costume design by voters from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA).

Martin Scorsese's "Hugo" won awards for its sound and production design. Scorsese was also honored with BAFTA's Academy Fellowship, an honorary award given for "outstanding and...

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Glen Hansard, Marketa Irgova and the 'Backroom Boys' Highlight Academy's Sci-Tech Awards

February, 12, 2012 11:01 am | Comments On #Academy Awards, Awards, Douglas Trumbull, Falling Slowly, glen hansard, Jonathan Erland, marketa irglova, Milla Jovovich, oscars, Richard Edlund, Sci-Tech Awards, Scientific and Technical Awards

The Academy's Scientific and Technical Awards ceremony has been dubbed the nerd Oscars before – but after Saturday night's show at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, you could also call it the anti-Oscars.

After all, the show began with something that the big show has decided to do away with this year: the live performance of an Oscar-nominated song, in this case the Oscar-winning "Falling Slowly" from Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova.

Marketa Irglova and Glen Hansard at the Sci-Tech AwardsIt included far more smart guys than movie stars. Not one of the winners had his speech interrupted by music, even if he pulled out a piece a paper and read a list of thank-yous.

(The...

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Bowing to Angry Best-Song Fallout, Academy Promises 'Hard Look' at Process

February, 09, 2012 12:18 pm | Comments On #Academy Awards, Awards, Best Original Song, Bruce Broughton, Diane Warren, Man or Muppet, oscars, Real in Rio

Songwriters are mad, voters are puzzled, and the Academy's process for determining the Oscar Best Original Song nominees is in for good, hard scrutiny once the Oscars are over.

That's the fallout from this year's Oscar nominations, when one of the biggest shocks was that the Academy's Music Branch only found two songs deserving of a nomination.

Man or MuppetIt's not that those songs are bad. One of them, "Man or Muppet" from "The Muppets" (left), was the most delightful musical moment in any film of 2011, while the other, "Real in Rio" from "Rio" (below), provided a vibrant overture to that animated film.

But by limiting the...

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Oscar's Doc Shorts: So Serious -- Except for the One About Elvis and the Nun

February, 09, 2012 11:23 am | Comments On #Academy Awards, Awards, documentaries, God Is the Bigger Elvis, Incident in New Baghdad, Oscar shorts, oscars, Saving Face, The Barber of Birmingham, The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom

For years, one type of film has dominated the Best Documentary Short Subject category: a serious, issue-oriented doc that deals with tragedies or social injustices and runs close to the 40-minute limit.

That single-minded focus on the part of doc-branch voters can make watching all of the nominees a sobering experience, and a lengthy one: This year's five animated-short nominees have a total running time of 53 minutes, but their doc counterparts total nearly three hours.

The Barber of BirminghamAnd in an indication of just how major a force HBO is in the doc world, and just how adept it is at qualifying television movies for a film award, the cable channel almost always has a hand in a good number of...

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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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