I know what you've been thinking for the last, oh, 70 years or so: "If only the Oscars would class up their game and maybe hit Papyrus on the way home and rustle up some more colorful, indelible stationery on which to deploy the winners' names." Holler! Your prayers are answered, and there's awesome paper-stock porn video to prove it after the jump.
Welcome to the penultimate edition of Movieline's Oscar Index, your bulletproof weekly guide to the ups, downs, spins, twists, turns, bumps, bruises and other noteworthy happenings in the 2010-11 awards race. Our Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics has issued its latest breakdown of the current competition, and it's... volatile (to say the least). Let's have a look:
In this very spot on Tuesday, you read about how a stuttering expert from the University of New Hampshire was just the latest person to profess his or her love for The King's Speech. Now there's this: "One in 20 children stutter at some point; one in 100 go on to a lifetime of stuttering. Sixty-eight million people around the world stutter," said Jane Fraser, president of The Stuttering Foundation, in a press release. "If you ask the stuttering community what movie has helped them the most, The King's Speech would surely receive at least 68 million votes." For the sake of The Social Network, hopefully they're not all Academy members.
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 Director nominees Joel and Ethan Coen!
When an Oscar winner proceeds with a cursory speech about agents, directors, producers, and co-stars, it's easy to forget why we wait all year for the ceremony. However, once every few years an an angel of hilarious rancor descends into the Kodak Theater, adding snide flair to these nominally staid acceptance speeches. Here are the 8 best moments in cynical Oscar acceptance; some are more lighthearted (and funnier) than others, but all have a lasting aftertaste.
As Louis deduced on Monday, it turns out the whole "Whoopi Goldberg was snubbed by the New York Times in their piece about African-American Oscar winners!" controversy was nothing more than a case of bad reading comprehension. "The error lies with those who are reading the story incorrectly," wrote a spokesperson for the Times in an e-mail to EW. "The point of the piece was not to name every black actor or actress who has been awarded an Oscar, it was to draw a comparison between the number who won prior to 2002 (the year Halle Berry and Denzel Washington won) and those who have won since." No word yet on whether Elisabeth Hasselbeck will renew her subscription to the Gray Lady. [EW]
After an inaugural barnburner featuring a historic Oscarcast and a packed house of 200 viewers, Movieline has officially re-teamed with 92YTribeca to present our second annual Oscar Viewing Party in New York. Tickets are on sale now -- prepare your tux or evening gown for the night and read on for details.
Move over Queen Elizabeth II and Andy Rooney, there's a new King's Speech champion in town. Sheryl Gottwald, a professor of speech who specializes in stuttering at the University of New Hampshire, says the Oscar front-runner perfectly illustrates the hard-road that must be taken to overcome stuttering. "The emotional turmoil that dealing with stuttering causes was represented just beautifully," she said in a press release. "Encouragement, building his sense of self and sense of self-esteem was such a big piece of King George's treatment, and it's still a big piece of what we do today." What random person will profess their love for The King's Speech next? Stay tuned...
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 Geoffrey Rush!
Before heading out to participate in whatever Valentine's Day activities you have planned for this evening, here's one story guaranteed to make you go, "Awww!" The Los Angeles Times caught up with those adorable choir kids from P.S. 22 in Staten Island to discuss their trip to California for the Oscars, and it's filled with little flourishes like this: "'I always wanted to be in Disneyland!' exclaimed Mohammed, small and excitable. 'I'm dying, I'm DYING!' He threw an arm across his forehead and fell to the ground in mock-death." Yeah, this is cute.
The View has a bimonthly tradition (approximately) of making headlines, and the latest "controversy" is a wee one: Whoopi Goldberg claims The New York Times didn't mention her in an article called "Hollywood Whiteout" about this year's rather Caucasian field of Oscar nominees. It touches on Oscar history too, and Whoopi said that the failure to mention her Oscar win for Ghost hurt her "terribly." Is Goldberg's outrage warranted?
Add another major star to the Oscar telecast. Academy Award producers Bruce Cohen and Don Mischer have announced that former Best Actress winner Reese Witherspoon will be handing out a statue at the ceremonies on Feb. 27. If you're scoring at home, let's slot her in just below Aaron Rodgers -- but above Werner Herzog and David Lynch -- on the list of possible Best Picture presenters. [Deadline]
Take that, Queen Elizabeth II! At the end of 60 Minutes on Sunday night, reliably old Andy Rooney revealed his own personal ties to The King's Speech. "I don't go to the movies very often," Rooney began, "but recently I saw The King's Speech [...] I like movies that remind me of something I know about." Rooney went on to discuss his own brush with King George VI during World War II. No truth to the rumor that The Weinstein Company is already crafting a press release about this monumental endorsement. Click ahead to watch, whippersnapper.
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 Actress nominee Annette Bening!
It's hard to remember, but there was a time when romantic comedies weren't viewed with the same contempt as torture porn and Adam Sandler. This is a genre that saw the likes of Preston Struges, Billy Wilder and Woody Allen create some of the most iconic films Hollywood history; now it's a genre overrun by Dennis Dugans and Robert Luketics, filmmakers seemingly content to stomp on whatever happy, "boy meets girl" memories you might have. If the Hollywood machine has got you down in this lead-up to Valentine's Day, there is some hope: Resist buying a ticket for No Strings Attached (or, shiver, Just Go With It) and search out Luke Matheny's God of Love instead.
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