'The Hurt Locker' wins six Oscars, including history maker for director Kathryn Bigelow

The 82nd Academy Awards followed the script set down by pundits, as the front-runners for all of the major Oscars won Sunday night. "The Hurt Locker" led with six Oscars, including best picture and best director for Kathryn Bigelow, who became the first woman to win this award. The Iraq war drama also picked up prizes for original screenplay (Mark Boal), editing, sound mixing and sound editing. "Avatar" went into the night tied with "The Hurt Locker" with a leading nine nominations but had to settle for three Oscars for art direction, cinematography and visual effects (and a $2.4-billion and counting box-office take). See a complete list of all Oscar winners here. Lead actor went...

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03/07/2010 21:38
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Poll: What film will win best picture at the Oscars?

For the first time since 1943, there are 10 nominees for best picture at the Academy Awards. Although "The Hurt Locker" has been the front-runner for the last several weeks, in the closing days of voting, the war drama faced attack on three fronts: 1) issues of accuracy, 2.) for perhaps being too accurate (an army sergeant claims the movie rips off his own story) and 3.) because its producer was banned from the ceremony for breaking campaign rules. Traditionally, most voters completed their Oscar ballots as soon as they arrived. However, this year -- with the introduction of the preferential method for determining the best picture winner -- more than 1,500 out of 5,800...

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03/07/2010 10:22
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Gold Derby nuggets: 'The Hurt Locker' accuracy questioned | Sandra Bullock vs. Meryl Streep

• After acknowledging he is not a film critic, Paul Rieckhoff, executive director and founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), writes in a guest column for Newsweek: "As a voice of the new veterans' movement, and of thousands of IAVA members across the country, I have a responsibility to serve as pop-culture watchdog, and to help the American public understand what accurately depicts the military's experience in Iraq and what doesn't. Especially because with less than 1 percent of American citizens now serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, films are one of the few ways to connect the other 99 percent of Americans to the reality of modern combat." He then says, "'The...

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02/24/2010 17:45
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Gold Derby nuggets: 'Avatar' & 'Hurt Locker' win with guilds | Barbara Walters ends Oscars specials | Emmy champ David Canary leaving 'AMC'

• The Art Directors Guild went with the only Oscar nominees contending in the categories of fantasy film -- "Avatar" -- and period picture -- "Sherlock Holmes" -- at its 14th annual kudosfest Saturday. No contemporary films -- including category winner "The Hurt Locker" -- are in the running at the Oscars, where "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus," "Nine" and "The Young Victoria" round out the field. Last year "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" won with both groups, while in 2007 "Sweeney Todd" won the Oscar and "There Will Be Blood" took the ADG period prize. ADG • "The Hurt Locker" edged two of its editing Oscar rivals -- "Avatar" and "District 9" --...

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02/15/2010 16:29
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Mo'Nique to be among no-shows at Oscars nominees luncheon

Oscars nominees will gather together for the annual academy luncheon Monday and 14 of the 20 acting nominees will be among the more than 120 attendees. Just how important is this breaking of bread while the Oscars ballots are still being cast? Meryl Streep ("Julie & Julia") has arranged her travel schedule to be at the festivities at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. The New York-based actress skipped the luncheon last year when she was a nominee for "Doubt" and three years ago when she contended for "The Devil Wears Prada" -- she lost both those races. Indeed, all of the best actress contenders but Helen Mirren ("The Last Station") -- who won this award three...

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02/12/2010 13:27
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Gold Derby nuggets: Grammys & Super Bowl boost record sales | Oscars best picture race staying at 10

• Todd Marten reports, "a little TV exposure continues to go a long way. Country trio Lady Antebellum tops the chart for the second straight week, leading in a week that saw big increases for acts that appeared on the Jan. 31 Grammy Awards. Artists such as Pink, Green Day, Taylor Swift and the Dave Matthews Band all saw large sales jumps, and the Who's appearance on Sunday night's Super Bowl seems to already be paying dividends." In particular, "the biggest beneficiary of the Grammys, in terms of a sales increase, was pop star Pink. Her 'Funhouse' (LaFace) was up 235% over the prior week, selling a total of 31,000 copies. To date, it's sold...

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02/10/2010 17:33
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Gold Derby nuggets: Oscars to get instant engraving | A salute to Sandra Bullock | Time up for '24'?

• Oscar winners will no longer have to wait weeks to see their names on the shiny gold statuettes they are handed at the ceremony. The academy has announced plans to personalize the Oscars at the post-ceremony Governors Ball. To that end, "the academy will create 197 nameplates, one for each 2009 nominee in every category. The engraving will include the nominee’s name, category, film title and year. After the winners have been announced, the unused nameplates will be recycled." As academy president Tom Sherak said, “An Oscar statuette just isn’t complete until a nameplate is attached. The Governors Ball is the perfect place for Oscar winners to add that final touch as they celebrate...

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02/09/2010 14:55
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Gold Derby nuggets: 'Avatar' vs. 'The Hurt Locker' | Oscars boost box office | 'Avatar' and 'emotion capture'

• Steve Pond analyzes the matchup at the Oscars between "Avatar" and "The Hurt Locker" by delving into the numbers of academy members in each of the branches that nominated the movies. "First, we’ll start with the categories that nominated one film, but not the other. For 'Avatar,' that was Art Direction and Visual Effects. For 'The Hurt Locker,' Original Screenplay and Best Actor. So now we have four AMPAS branches going on record to say that they prefer one film over the other. Here, the numbers don’t favor James Cameron’s big hit: The art directors branch of the Academy contains 374 members, the visual effects branch 279. On the 'Hurt Locker' side, the writers...

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02/03/2010 17:04
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Oscar nominations: Fascinating facts, figures and milestones

With invaluable assistance from our many forum posters, here are interesting stats about this year's nominations for the Oscars. Nine not so fine: "Avatar" and "The Hurt Locker" lead this year's derby with nine nominations each; "Nine" managed just four nominations. However, beginning with "The Life of Emile Zola" in 1937, there have been 77 films that have landed 10 or more Oscar nominations. Last year's big champ "Slumdog Millionaire" won eight of its 10 races, while "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" managed just three wins from 13 nominations. Money matters: On nomination day, "Avatar" broke the domestic box office record of 1997 best picture champ "Titanic" when it reached $601 million in receipts....

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02/03/2010 14:06
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Can 'Up in the Air' win best picture at Oscars without an editing nomination?

Ever since the Oscars introduced an award for editing in 1934, only nine movies have won best picture without at least being nominated for the editing Academy Award. That's one explanation of how "Crash" pulled off a surprise win over "Brokeback Mountain" four years ago and why "The Departed" prevailed over PGA and SAG champ "Little Miss Sunshine" three years ago. Neither of those losing best picture contenders was in the running for the editing award at the Oscars. Two years ago Oscar champ "No Country for Old Men" did make the cut with the editors, although Joel and Ethan Coen, under the pseudonym Roderick Jaynes, lost to Christopher Rouse for "The Bourne Ultimatum." And...

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02/02/2010 12:17
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Oscars guided by guild awards in nominations

This year, 19 of the 20 SAG acting nominees are contending at the Academy Awards. The only one not to make the cut was SAG supporting actress contender Diane Kruger ("Inglourious Basterds"), who was replaced on the Oscars ballot by Maggie Gyllenhaal ("Crazy Heart"). Last year, 18 of the 19 SAG acting nominees repeated at the Academy Awards. As double SAG nominee Kate Winslet was bumped up by the Oscars from supporting to lead for "The Reader," she was denied a lead nod for "Revolutionary Road." However, that film's Michael Shannon managed to knock SAG nominee Dev Patel of "Slumdog Millionaire" out of the supporting race. Two years ago, 15 of the 20 SAG nominees...

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02/02/2010 10:01
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Experts divided on adapted screenplay winner at Oscars

Four of these Oscar pundits -- Edward Douglas (Coming Soon), Scott Feinberg (And The Winner Is), Michael Musto (Village Voice) and Jeff Wells (Hollywood Elsewhere) -- predict "Up in the Air" scripters Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner to prevail in the adapted screenplay race. Steve Pond (The Wrap) thinks the prize will go to Nick Hornsby for his adaptation of "An Education," while I believe Geoffrey Fletcher will win for adapting "Precious." See experts' predictions of the best actor race here, best actress race here, best supporting actor here, best supporting actress here and best picture here. Contenders are ranked according to their likelihood of winning. ADAPTED SCREENPLAY Douglas Feinberg Musto O'Neil Pond Wells 'Up...

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12/23/2009 15:35
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