It used to be you could count on David O. Russell to be Hollywood's resident actor-alienating, on-set yelling enfant terrible. Not anymore. As the director told MSN Movies, he's well aware that years of bad behavior landed him in movie jail. And now that The Fighter has put him back in the industry's good graces with a Best Director Oscar nod as the cherry on top, Russell's all about making nice.
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Earlier this week, Academy Award co-host Anne Hathaway revealed that she would not be ripping a page out of Ricky Gervais' award show hosting playbook, How To Offend Everyone You're Supposed To Be Honoring...And Then Some. "I think that humor is really difficult to pull off," Hathaway said. "And I'm not particularly adept at it." (She also doesn't want to commit career suicide just to land a solid, below-the-belt jab at The Tourist.) If Hathaway changes her mind before Sunday, however, Ricky Gervais has thoughtfully assembled an entire Oscar opening monologue for her and Oscar co-host James Franco. Read it in its entirety below.
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Has awards season become a tad repetitive for your tastes? Sure, the recent surge by The King's Speech over The Social Network is exciting, I suppose, but at this point how many awards can we see Natalie Portman and Colin Firth win against basically the same competition before we all collectively throw up our hands and say, "OK, we get it. Can we just move on to the Oscars now? Or at least try something different?" Here's an idea: What if every single awards ceremony were important?
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Oscar week is going strong here at Movieline HQ, and in addition to last minute party preparations -- Julie is furiously working on her world famous potato salad -- we've asked celebrities from all walks of life to give us their fool-proof predictions. ESPN host/GoodFellas enthusiast Tony Reali was kind enough to take time away from his day job of keeping sportswriters in check on Around the Horn to participate in our little parlor game. Which Oscar hopefuls does he think should have speeches prepared for Sunday? Leave your mute buttons behind and click ahead to find out.
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If you've been reading the Oscar Index, you realize that the Best Supporting Actress Oscar is this year's wild card. Will Melissa Leo prevail in spite of her considerable pomp? Will Hailee Steinfeld come from behind with a victory? Will Helena Bonham Carter just be awesome always? It's a toss-up. Movieline's own Julie Miller and yours truly are mapping out the telecast's most exciting award with a play-by-play of the nominee announcement, the winner, and the ensuing fight in the Kodak Theater.
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Ed. note: All this week, Movieline has solicited Oscar predictions from numerous film and TV personalities in the lead-up to Sunday's Academy Awards ceremony. To our humble and grateful surprise, writer/producer/director/actor Paul Feig (Freaks and Geeks, The Office, the forthcoming Bridesmaids) responded with the following piece. Who said long-form commentary was dead?
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It's time once again to return to Movieline's recently undertaken mission to honor this year's acting and directing nominees with a tribute that will surely outlive any trophy they could ever hope to receive: one of our daily inaugural Awards-Season Trading Cards. Today, let's give it up for Best Supporting Actor nominee John Hawkes!
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So I'm in the middle of this project about James Franco and Twitter, a tech-culture marriage proving increasingly curious by the hour. And the next thing I know, there's the man himself, dancing with his Oscar co-host Anne Hathaway in what one can only presume is a tribute to Grease set to be performed at the Academy Awards.
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A few seasoned film actors, writers and comediennes have already predicted this year's Academy Award winners, but Movieline HQ wanted to spice up its new Oscar feature by summoning an industry "outsider" to forecast Hollywood's most esteemed award night. Enter Tila 'Tequila' Nguyen, the entertainment personality and cinema enthusiast who earlier this month held her own against Jennifer Aniston and Zach Galifianakis in a riotous edition of Funny or Die's Between Two Ferns.
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If you're one of the many swell Movieline readers based in or around New York City, you've surely already marked down Feb. 27 as the night you're joining us and the gang at 92YTribeca for our annual Oscar Viewing Party. But just in case you haven't, I bring you news that will no doubt sweeten the deal. (Hint: Drinks!)
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It's time once again to return to Movieline's recently undertaken mission to honor this year's acting and directing nominees with a tribute that will surely outlive any trophy they could ever hope to receive: one of our inaugural Awards-Season Trading Cards. Today, let's give it up for Best Director nominee David O. Russell!
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Emmy-winning comedian Kathy Griffin loves the Oscars but hates Hollywood's self-congratulatory streak. We understand her. The D-List doyenne shared with Movieline her picks for Best Picture, Worst Picture, and choices for better hosts than James Franco and Anne Hathaway.
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Oh, wow. Five months of awards coverage flies by so fast, but believe it: The ballots are in, the tuxes are tailored and the jewels are being rented as we speak. And the 2011 Academy Awards are right around the corner. This means, of course, one final trip to Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics for the final Oscar Index of the 2010-11 season. Get the Kleenex, and let's see what there is to see...
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Happy Oscar week, you third-class stowaways. Quoth the thespian Bill Paxton, "Are you ready to go back to Titanic?" The point is you're not. It's 2011 and we're still 192 years away from comprehending Titanic's world-paralyzing success, its Best Picture win, and Jack Dawson's hack drawing skills. He's just never going to get into Oberlin at that rate. You won't find explanation for James Cameron's sorcery here, but near, far, wherever you are -- you will remember and recoil at the royal badness of Titanic.
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Around Movieline HQ, Kyle Killen is somewhat of a folk hero. The screenwriter was responsible for two of our most-discussed projects in 2010: The short-lived-but-brilliant Lone Star, and the Mel Gibson comeback vehicle The Beaver (which will finally hit theaters this summer; fingers crossed). Naturally, it was a no-brainer to ask Killen -- who recently had his pilot script for the Inception-like thriller REM picked up by NBC -- for his Oscar predictions in the lead-up to Sunday night. Will Best Picture go to those upstarts from Silicon Valley or the stuffy, upper crust royalty from 1930s England?
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