Oscar Campaign Playbook? Jennifer Lawrence Shows Off Comedic Chops In 'SNL' Promos

Jennifer Lawrence hasn't had many opportunities to show off her comedic chops onscreen — she only burst onto the scene three years ago in Winter's Bone, then quickly filled up her dance card with action blockbusters like X-Men: First Class and The Hunger Games before taking on the awards season contender Silver Linings Playbook — but the Best Actress front-runner has been delighting awards-watchers left and right on the Oscar circuit these past few months. The girl is funny — sardonic, whip-smart, witty, self-deprecating, and she knows what's what as she plays the Hollywood game, which is why her post-Golden Globes hosting gig on Saturday Night Live will be one to watch.
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After Golden Globes Win, Is 'Argo' The People's Film?

Last night’s Golden Globes cemented Argo as the People’s Film from an awards season stand-point, setting the scrappy underdog to stand toe-to-toe with the monolithic Lincoln. Theoretically, the “People’s Film” would be The Hunger Games, which won Favorite Movie at the People’s Choice Awards, but in the context of the Oscars, the populism is relative to the awards — and none of the elite awards are more populist than the Golden Globes.
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Hey, Uma, Oprah: Will Seth MacFarlane Be The Oscars' Next David Letterman?

When the Oscar nominations were announced on Thursday, viewers across the globe were treated to Seth MacFarlane tossing out jokes that were exhausted before they were tried. Every line about how early the nomination announcements were fell flat on the West coast, so I can only imagine how weak they played in time zones that were  already awake. His general onstage demeanor wasn’t doing him any favors either. He appeared shaken and unprepared, and while I doubt the nomination announcement was heavily rehearsed, I’m concerned about the man’s ability to compose himself on a global stage. He's good on video and audio, but how is he live?  (Recall last year's Emmys, where he couldn't even find his mic.) more »

Hulk Render! Does The 'Avengers' VFX Reel Warrant Oscar Gold?

Since we can now utter the words "the Oscar-nominated Marvel's The Avengers," let's take a closer look at all that visual effects magic that went into making Joss Whedon's blockbuster superhero pic such a bombastic VFX achievement. More specifically, as is apparent in ILM's recently-released Oscar VFX reel, take a gander at the digital wizardry that bore Mark RuffaHulk and the maelstrom of Chitauri invaders and explosions and costumed superheroes that went into The Avengers' carefully orchestrated chaos of a final showdown.
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Jacki Weaver Dropped An F-Bomb When She Heard About Her Oscar Nom

Jacki Weaver says she has no Oscar game plan except to buy a new pair of shoes.  "I love shoes. I love shiny things," the Australian actress told Movieline this afternoon, after learning she had been nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her fine work in David O. Russell's Silver Linings Playbook.  more »

Academy Award Nominations: Best Song Picks Are 'Les Miserables'-y Safe

So you might have heard that the 85^th Academy Awards nominations have been announced . Good for you, person who wakes up early in the morning. This year's nominees contains some shocking snubs — no best director for Tarantino or Bigelow? — as well as some pleasant surprises, but if the majority of the nominees will have us bitching or raving until March, the Best Original Song category plays it as frustratingly safe as ever. more »

Academy Award Nominations − The Behind-The-Scenes Winners & Losers

It's a good morning for Harvey Weinstein, Fox and Sony Pictures Classics.  Sifting through the more surprising-than-usual list of Academy nominations, these are the three big winners of the fierce behind-the-scenes campaigning that movie studios, their specialty divisions (and their consultants) do to get their pictures, directors, actors, etc. onto the hallowed Oscars short list.

The Weinstein Company has the enviable dilemma of now having to decide how to run two Best Picture campaigns for Silver Linings Playbook and Django Unchained.  It also managed to get Joaquin Phoenix a Best Actor nomination for The Master despite Phoenix's slagging of the Oscars as the "stupidest thing in the world" and the picture's quick fade as a contender in the awards buzz circus. David O. Russell's nomination, after being passed over by the Director's Guild, is another sign of TWC's political muscle, particularly since the Silver Linings Playbook director is an outsider in Hollywood — like Weinstein and Phoenix, for that matter. (Okay, so Weinstein may be way more inside than he was in the Miramax days, but he's still an outsider. Fox employee and this year's Oscars host Seth MacFarlane made that clear earlier this morning, when referring to the Best Supporting Actress nominees, he cracked: "Congratulations, you five ladies no longer have to pretend to be attracted to Harvey Weinstein.")

Fox and Sony also did well in the Best Picture category: Fox 2000 has Life of Pi and Fox Searchlight has Beasts of the Southern Wild in the top category, but Sony is the more interesting story here.  While the Annapurna-produced Columbia Pictures-distributed Zero Dark Thirty  was nominated for Best Picture as expected, director Kathryn Bigelow's omission in the Best Director category goes down as one of the biggest snubs of this morning.  On the other hand, the nominations of Sony Pictures Classics' Amour in the Best Picture and Best Foreign Picture categories and Michael Haneke for Best Director is quite a coup for the mini major given the competition this year and the film's difficult subject matter. In other words, Haneke's gain is related to Bigelow's loss.

Thoughts? Leave them in the comments section.

More On Today's Oscar Nomintions: 

Academy Award Nominations — What Were The Biggest Snubs & Shocks Of The 2013 Oscar Noms?

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Academy Award Nominations — What Were The Biggest Snubs & Shocks Of The 2013 Oscar Noms?

Whatever your Oscar nomination predictions were, you were wrong: This morning's Academy Awards announcements by hosts, Seth MacFarlane and Emma Stone, jolted Oscar-watchers awake with surprises and snubs so shocking they made everyone forget, within minutes, that MacFarlane made a Hitler joke, live, before six in the morning — setting the tone for his upcoming hosting gig.

From all the Beasts of the Southern Wild love, to the freezing-out of shoo-ins, Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty), Ben Affleck (Argo), and Tom Hooper (Les Miserables) from the Best Director race, which were the biggest shocks of the morning?
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Academy Award Nominees Announced - 'Lincoln' Leads 2013 Oscar Noms

Lincoln topped the nominees for the 85th Academy Awards Thursday morning in Los Angeles, the Steven Spielberg-directed film took 12 noms including the Best Picture and Director categories as well as Best Actor for Daniel Day-Lewis, Best Supporting Actor for Tommy Lee Jones and Best Supporting Actress for Sally Field.
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Oscars E-Voting Too Hard For Tech-Illiterate Academy Members, Also Get Off My Lawn

According to THR's Scott Feinberg, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences' newfangled online voting system, implemented this year to make it easier for members to hand Anne Hathaway that statuette and such, is doing just the opposite. Voters can't remember their passwords, web security is questionable, and important papers are being mistakenly tossed in the trash like annoying credit card offers. "It’s probably more difficult for members to log on than it is for hackers," said one Oscars voter. Wait a second guys: This could be great. Who needs a Brett Ratner — this could be just what the Oscars need to finally jazz and youthen things up!
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Oscar Index: Critics Have 'Amour' For 'Zero Dark Thirty' & 'The Master,' But Who's 'Les Miserables' This Christmas?

Academy ballots were mailed out last week to 5,586 voting members, the most significant news on the Oscar front. Not that it was a quiet week in Lake Globesbegone. The New York Times’ critics A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis both named Amour 2012’s best film, as did the Los Angeles Times’ Kenneth Turan. The AP triumvirate of Christy Lemire, David Germain and Jake Coyle anointed Argo, Moonrise Kingdom and Amour, respectively.
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9 Make Oscars' Best Foreign Language Shortlist

Nine films have advanced to the final round of pre-nominations in the Academy's Best Foreign Language category. Previously 71 films had qualified for consideration. This weekend's Sony Classics release, Amour, which won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival is among the films making the shortlist as well as Canada's War Witch, the Gael Garcia Bernal starter No (Chile), France's huge global box office hit A Royal Affair, Iceland's Baltasar Kormákur's The Deep and lauded Romanian director Cristian Mungiu's Beyond the Hills.

Five nominees will emerge from this list via Academy members who will view the shortlist after the new year and then casting their ballots. The 85th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Thursday, January 10, 2013, at 5:30 a.m. PT, and the Oscar ceremony will take place February 24th.

The Best Foreign-Language Oscar Shortlist for the 85th Academy Awards:
Austria, "Amour," Michael Haneke, director 
    
Canada, "War Witch," Kim Nguyen, director   
Chile, "No," Pablo Larraín, director
    
Denmark, "A Royal Affair," Nikolaj Arcel, director
    
France, "The Intouchables," Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano, directors
    
Iceland, "The Deep," Baltasar Kormákur, director
    
Norway, "Kon-Tiki," Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg, directors
    
Romania, "Beyond the Hills," Cristian Mungiu, director
    
Switzerland, "Sister," Ursula Meier, director

From 'Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer' To 'Lincoln,' 282 Features Eligible For Best Picture Oscar

Prognosticators have maybe five (or even as few as two) possible Oscar winners, and most lists of ten (or so) have many of the same titles though perhaps in various orders. But folks, the nominations have yet to come in and the Academy made that clear today with its list of 282 feature films for 2012 that are eligible for Best Picture.

[Related: Oscar Index: 'Zero Dark Thirty' Caught In The Cross-Hairs]

Rules are rules and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences officially considers a feature film that played in a commercial motion picture theater in Los Angeles County by midnight, December 31 and begin a minimum seven consecutive day run.

[Related: Golden Globes Unveil 70th Edition Nominees]

Under Academy rules, a feature-length motion picture must have a running time of more than 40 minutes and must have been exhibited theatrically on 35mm or 70mm film, or in a qualifying digital format. Feature films that receive their first public exhibition or distribution in any manner other than as a theatrical motion picture release are not eligible for Academy Awards in any category.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid Dog Days to Django Unchained; The First Time to Flight; Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted to Magic Mike; 17 Girls to The Sessions… They're all on the official list, so don't count out the non-elite not making Awards headlines.

The 85th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Thursday, January 10, 2013, at 5:30 a.m. PT in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2012 will be presented on Sunday, February 24, 2013

From '100 Black Coffins' To 'Casa De Mi Padre,' 5 Oscar Best Song Dark Horses We're Rooting For

By now you know that the list of songs eligible to be nominated for Best Original Song at the 85th Academy Awards is kind of mind-blowing. Not so mind-blowing is the generally risk-averse bent of the average Academy voter, which is why we should probably just send congratulations now to Brave, Les Miserables, and Adele, resting easy one of them will actually be the right recipient.
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Oscars Name Rick Ross, Katy Perry & 'Ladies Of Tampa' Tracks Eligible For Best Song

This just in from the Academy: This year's Oscars could see the best Best Song race in history. See which original songs are in contention, including unconventional tracks from Django Unchained, Magic Mike, The Man With The Iron Fists, and Casa de mi Padre.

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