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It’s a scientifically proven fact that it is, indeed, hard out there for a pimp. It’s not that hard for a Memphis, Tennessee, rap trio to win an Oscar, however; you just get one of your songs in an independent movie that takes Sundance by storm and then goes on to become a hit. (Piece […]
Going up to collect the Oscar for the Best Documentary Short “One Survivor Remembers,” director Kary Antholis thanks the short’s subject, the Holocaust survivor Gerda Weissman Klein. When Klein herself steps up to the microphone, however, you suddenly feel a much more profound sense of gratitude emanating from the stage. “Thank you for honoring their […]
“This my first song I ever wrote for a motion picture, so I guess it’s all downhill here from here!” joked the platinum-album-selling artist (and possibly the only person cool enough to pull off not wearing a tie to the Oscars). The Jersey native cracked wise and communicated genuine humility when he picked up the […]
Our generation’s Cary Grant was up for two awards this year: Best Director for Good Night and Good Luck, and Best Supporting Actor for Syriana. When it was announced that Ol’ Handsome-Mug had won the latter early on in the evening, Clooney joked “All right, so I’m not winning Director…” After goofing on being voted […]
The 11-year-old Paquin was not the youngest performer to ever win an Oscar; that would be Tatum O’Neal, scoring a Best Supporting Actress win for Paper Moon at the tender age of ten. But the Canadian-born, New Zealand-bred kid was certainly one of the giddiest youngsters to ever grace the Dorothy Chandler’s Pavilion’s stage, and […]
The Academy Awards have a long history of shooing megafamous movie stars off the stage before they’ve finished thanking their agents, their parents and God; they don’t care if you’re last film made $60 billion, they have to keep the show moving along! Julia Roberts was having none of it. “I’m going to spend some […]
Always a bridesmaid, never a bride: The venerable director of Nashville was nominated five times for Best Director, yet somehow never managed to win. [Cue many film fanatics screaming into the abyss] Thankfully, the Academy saw fit to give the 81-year-old filmmaker an honorary award, and after a long and lovely standing ovation, one of […]
With his smeared make-up, Groucho Marx-like waddle and lip-licking sense of reveling in his own psychosis, Ledger’s version of the Joker lends The Dark Knight an anarchic edge; he’s the real reason this is considered the seminal Batman movie. The Best Supporting Actor category has long been friendly to risky, out-there performances, so it was […]
The difference between being a producer and an ex-producer on a film (even a short one) is fairly huge, especially when it comes to little things like, say, being invited to come up on stage when said project wins an Oscar. But Elinor Burkett was not going to let a little thing like legal disputes […]
Watch out for that first step, it’s a doozy. No sooner had Lawrence’s name been called as the winner for Best Actress for Silver Linings Playbook than the young starlet started walking up to the stage—and tripped going up the stairs. (Watch as Hugh Jackman rushes up to help her. So chivalrous, Hugh!) “You’re just […]
2002 provided a landmark Oscar ceremony: It was the first time two African-Americans both took home the year’s top acting prizes (and the only time an African-American woman has nabbed the Best Actress statuette. Way to go, Halle Berry!). It was also, appropriately enough, the same year that the Academy decided to give pioneering black […]
It was exciting enough to see the former Robert Zimmerman performing his nominated song from Wonder Boys, “Things Have Changed,” for the ceremony — if not live in the Los Angeles Shrine Auditorium, then via satellite from a concert in Sydney, Australia. It was even better to see the living legend win the Oscar for […]
When you think of Joe Pesci in Martin Scorsese’s epic, definitive movie on modern wiseguys, you think of a man who uses torrents of profane verbiage to intimidate. (That, and a penchant for impromptu beatdowns and shootings and stabbings and….) So after Pesci walked up on stage after winning the Best Supporting Actor award for […]
“Billy Crystal…I crap bigger than him!” That’s the first thing out of Jack Palance’s mouth when he walked out to bask in the glory of his Oscar win for City Slickers; apparently, he was still in character, playing the tough guy who turned suburban dads into rough-and-ready cowpokes. But anybody doubting the virility or machismo […]
“I love my brother so much right now!” OK, so it’s admittedly not the most common way of beginning an acceptance speech, but then again, Angelina Jolie was not considered the most common of stars circa 1999. Still in her bloodletting-and-seemingly-batshit-crazy phase, a Gothed-out Jolie took to the stage and kicked off her acceptance speech […]
If you’ve ever belly-laughed over Inspector Clouseau wreaking havoc or Dudley Moore tumbling down a hill in 10, then you know filmmaker Blake Edwards has a gift for staging first-rate slapstick. So when the octogenarian was set to receive an honorary Oscar, he decided to turn his moment to shine into a physical-comedy set piece. […]
Costume designers on the verge of becoming Oscar winners had better look sharp (it’s technically their job!), and Aussie Lizzy Gardiner did not disappoint. Accepting the award with her colleague Tim Chappel, she waltzed up to the stage wearing a dress made of expired gold American Express cards—an appropriate piece of offbeat couture, considering she’d […]
Having taken the world by storm with his second film Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino was already riding high when his name was called, alongside his writing partner Roger Avary, for the Best Original Screenplay award. The motormouthed man of the cultural moment jokingly threatened to let loose with a year’s worth of verbiage, but it […]
Call it a film-brat mitzvah: There’s George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola and Steven Spielberg on stage, getting ready to present the Best Director award. And who should it go to but their fellow Seventies New American Cinema partner in crime, Martin Scorsese. For many film lovers, the best American filmmaker working today was long overdue […]
The brouhaha had started as soon as the announcement was made that legendary director Elia Kazan would be receiving an honorary Oscar: You’re going to give an award to the rat who sold out folks to the House of Un-American Activities Committee back in 1952? Old wounds had not entirely healed for some when Robert […]
Regardless of whether you thought Tom Hanks’s portrayal of a man dying of AIDS in Philadelphia was groundbreaking or simply grotesque (passionate arguments have been made for both sides), it’s hard to deny that Hanks’s speech wasn’t delivered straight from his heart — or that it didn’t come with a few surprises. During his speech, […]
Memo to comely actresses who may be presenting an award to Adrian Brody: You may want to prep with some chapstick. Having won the Best Actor Oscar for playing an emaciated musician in The Pianist, Brody was beside himself with joy. He also found himself besides presenter Halle Berry who he then proceeded to scoop […]
It wasn’t like Michael Moore hadn’t been critical of President George W. Bush prior to Bowling for Columbine winning the Best Documentary Oscar. But it’s safe to say he take his anti-Bush to a whole other level when he walked up to the microphone that evening. After mentioning that he’d brought his fellow nonfiction-filmmaking nominees […]
The Italian writer/director/star would have a good night at the Oscars, winning two awards, including Best Actor, for his Holocaust-themed tragicomedy Life Is Beautiful. It’s his speech for his first win of the night, however, that everyone really remembers. When Sophia Loren announces that Benigni’s movie has won the Best Foreign-Language Film award, the manic […]
It’s the yardstick for which all other Oscar freakouts are measured: Overwhelmed from the get-go (who wouldn’t be?) after taking the stage to collect his statue for Jerry Maguire, Gooding Jr. began to thank his wife, God and his costar Tom Cruise, in that order. But once the orchestra kicked in with it’s time-to-move-it-along music, […]