Read the Official Press Release:
Upcoming Features Will Include Award-Winning Second Screen Experience That Gives
Movie Fans Unparalleled, Live, Behind-the-Scenes Access, Exclusive Original Video Series,
Popular My Picks Game, Photos and Insider Commentary
Oscar.com, the official online home of the 84th Academy Awards®, is launching its award-winning Oscar Digital Experience today with a first look at Billy Crystal’s return to Oscar’s stage. One of America’s most beloved funny men, Billy starts the official countdown to the show talking about what the Oscars mean to him and setting the stage for weeks of extensive coverage on Oscar.com.
Read more on OSCAR.COM Officially Kicks Off OSCAR® Season!…
 Excellence in Period Film:
“The Artist” (Mark Bridges)
“Jane Eyre” (Michael O’Connor)
“The Help” (Sharen Davis)
“Hugo” (Sandy Powell)
“W.E.” (Arianne Phillips)
Excellence in Fantasy Film:
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2″ (Jany Temime)
“Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” (Penny Rose)
“Red Riding Hood” (Cindy Evans)
“Thor” (Alexandra Byrne)
“X-Men: First Class” (Sammy Sheldon)
Excellence in Contemporary Film:
“Bridesmaids” (Leesa Evans & Christine Wada)
“The Descendants (Wendy Chuck)
“Drive” (Erin Benach)
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (Trish Summerville)
“Melancholia” (Manon Rasmussen) Read more on Costume Design Guild Nominations…
Categories: News, Precursors Tags: Best Costume Design, Bridesmaids, Drive, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2, Hugo, Jane Eyre, Melancholia, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Precursors, the artist, The Descendants, the girl with the dragon tattoo, The Help, Thor, W.E., X-Men: First Class
 Motion Pictures:
- Hanna
- Hugo
- Moneyball
- Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
- Super 8
Read more on Cinema Audio Society Nominees…
 Recovering lost films in Hollywood is a bit like treasure hunting. You never know what kind of rarities you are going to find, but at the end of the day you realize you have stumbled onto something worth incredible value. Finding and resurrecting a lost film that happens to be the first ever winner of the Academy Award for “Best Picture, 1927/1928,” and you have hit the threshold of all things valuable in cinema. Yes, after safeguarding spare negatives from the original negative prints of Wings, Paramount recently released the prints from their vaults and have restored the film with crisper picture quality, newly designed special effects, and brand new digitized sound effects thanks to the sound restoration technologies from George Lucas’s Skywalker Sound facilities. This remastered Wings is part of the celebration of Paramount’s 100th Anniversary as a Motion Picture Studio, and their project of releasing the film to a public audience at a large screening room at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences building (where I was privileged to see the film), as well as to Blu-Ray and DVD on January 24th, is one of the best gifts this studio could ever provide to lovers of cinema and its origins. Read more on Historical Circuit: Wings (****)…
 A violent act on a playground between two middle school boys is all that’s needed to launch into Carnage, the cinematic adaptation of a Tony Award winning play about two sets of parents who are brought together to work through a situation their children have forced them into.
Directed by Oscar-winner Roman Polanski, Carnage is essentially a filmed play with four characters engaging in a rollercoaster ride of discussions about their children, their lives, their respective marriages, and a whole treasure trove of other related and unrelated topics. The film retains a feverish, almost manic, pitch and your ability to like this rests with how much vitriol, dialogue, and smarminess you can stomach from these four interesting, but slightly troubled, individuals.
 Read more on Carnage (**½)…
 Often called “the invisible art” of the movies, editing is a crucial and frequently undervalued (and misunderstood) element of filmmaking. Even more debatable is how to judge what “best” editing entails. Is it more commendable when an editor cuts a mediocre film out of pure garbage, or if they simply make impeccable footage flow well for the finished product? Is a film full of quick cuts more award-worthy than one comprised of long takes? Can we even compare the editing of Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol to the editing of The Tree of Life? These are questions that even die-hard cinephiles have a hard time addressing, and Academy members – at least based on their voting habits – don’t really bother with. The rule of “Most” applies here as always; thrillers with tons of cuts and ensemble films split across multiple plot strands have a historical advantage here. More importantly, however, is just how crucial this category is to the Best Picture race. Simply put, it is very rare for a film to win the top prize without a Best Editing nod. The last one to do so was Ordinary People…31 years ago. So with that, let’s see what we’ve got…
Read more on Sizing Up the Best Film Editing Field…
 Believe it or not, there are people who remain unaware that ‘The Artist’ is a silent film, and when let on to this fact…well, they weren’t happy. Here’s the story that Moviefone picked up about this particular bit of cinematic displeasure:
It looks like not everyone loves “The Artist.” According to the Telegraph, a “small number” of Liverpool filmgoers were so surprised to find that the Best Picture frontrunner was silent, they demanded their money back.
“I thought it was really funny and laughed,” Nicola Shearer, a 25-year-old Liverpool resident going to see “The Artist” told the Telegraph after being reminded by theater personnel that the film was silent. “Of course, I knew it was and I asked the usher why she wanted to know. She then told me some people complained and asked for refunds because there is no sound and the screen is smaller.”
Read more on Someone wanted a refund because ‘The Artist’ is a silent film?…
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