Academy Awards

Academy Award nominees are usually revealed on a Tuesday about four weeks before the big show, which is typically held the last Sunday in February. For 2009, though, the targeted Tuesday -- Jan. 20 -- is Inauguration Day. So the 81st annual Oscar nominees will be revealed Thursday, Jan. 22, and the Academy Awards will be presented Sunday, Feb. 22 -- the earliest Oscars ever. "It didn't make any sense for us to try to compete with [the inauguration] from a news point of view," academy Executive Administrator Ric Robertson said Monday.

At an Academy Awards ceremony that set out to honor movie heroes of all stripes, an onstage team-up between Spider-Man and the pint-size crusader known as Batkid didn't make the cut. Miles Scott, the 5-year-old leukemia patient who charmed America when he donned a mini-batsuit and defended San Francisco from supervillains during a Make-a-Wish event last year, was scheduled to appear with "Amazing Spider-Man" star Andrew Garfield at the Oscars...

Now that the Oscar field is finally set, Hollywood's most nail-biting, nerve-racking fashion exercise can officially begin. Of course, the dance between designers and stars lasts until the final hours before the Academy Awards, which means it's much too early to say for sure who will wear what on the big night. But there are plenty of clues to be found in previous red-carpet appearances by this year's contenders and presenters.

Conan O'Brien will host the youthful, pop-oriented MTV Movie Awards for the first time on April 13 at the Nokia Theatre, the late-night host announced on "Conan" on Tuesday. At 50, he is the oldest performer ever to host the show, which tends to favor twenty- and thirty-something comedians for its podium gigs. O'Brien is a seasoned awards show emcee, having hosted the Emmys in 2002, 2003 (as a co-host) and 2006. He could lend a bit of legitimacy to an MTV event that previous hosts such as Rebel Wilson (2013)

VANITY FAIR'S cancellation of its legendary Oscar party dramatically changes the landscape of Hollywood's most glamorous evening for the first time in years. When editor Graydon Carter threw his first Academy Awards viewing and post-party at Morton's in 1994, he wanted to inherit the uber-hosting mantle of the late talent agent Swifty Lazar. Instead, he did Swifty one better -- Carter practically eliminated the competition. Vanity Fair has been such a magnet for A-listers that studios don't even bother to compete anymore and throw pre-Oscar parties instead.

Stars have been trotting out for the Academy Awards since 1929.  On this rainy Oscar Sunday, we looked back as far as 1945 to see how often the awards have been affected. Check out our graphic below showing rainfall at the Academy Awards.  Real-time coverage of the Academy Awards 2014   @AmyTheHub

Here in Beverly Hills, amid the gurgling fountains of wealth and luxury, the world's most famous women come in disguise, during off hours, by private elevator, using false names, to fight the good fight against the one thing that money can't buy: time. In the weeks before the Oscars, the entertainment industry's biggest night of the year, it's the dermatologists and plastic surgeons they seek -- anxious to look younger, slimmer, more beautiful than usual.

Was that the Academy Awards or the Democratic National Convention? LELAND HAMMERSCHMITT Ojai

The Oscars have almost arrived! Broadcasting live at 5:30 p.m. PST (8:30 p.m. EST) Sunday on ABC from the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, the 86th Academy Awards will recognize achievements in the film industry from 2013. Vying for the all-important best picture are " 12 Years a Slave ," " American Hustle ," " Captain Phillips ," " Dallas Buyers Club ," " Gravity ," " Her ," " Nebraska ," " Philomena " and " The Wolf of Wall Street . "  FULL COVERAGE: Oscars 2014 Unlike most years when Hollywood insiders have a clear idea of who will take home an Academy Award, this year the race for best picture is quite close.

The 82nd Oscars most likely will not win an award for smoothest-running show. More than a few stumbles clouded the gala ceremony, drawing angry tweets and complaints from viewers. Many noted that Farrah Fawcett was omitted from the "in memoriam" tribute saluting Hollywood figures who have died in the last year. Veteran film critic Roger Ebert noticed the snub almost immediately. "No Farrah in the memorial," he tweeted. "They have a lot of 'splaining to do." The night's most surreal moment came during the presentation of the short documentary award to "Music by Prudence," about an African singer who has been successful despite her crippling disability.

When the 87 th Academy Awards rolls around next year, I hope someone calls a moratorium on grousing about the length of the ceremony. Does anyone care about how long it takes, except the poor critics who are stuck scrutinizing every minute of the show? The Oscars extravaganza is not normal entertainment. Like the Super Bowl, it is event TV. No one expects the super Bowl to be confined to a tight schedule, even if the game is tedious. It takes as long as it takes. The same goes for the Academy Awards.

This year's Academy Awards ceremony clocked in at a hefty 3½ hours, and that's not even counting the red-carpet arrivals or the celebratory aftermath. Reliving the show, however, will only take a minute, thanks to The Times' Oscars time-lapse, which you can watch above. Eagle-eyed viewers should be able to spot "Gravity" star Sandra Bullock, "12 Years a Slave" star Lupita Nyong'o and "American Hustle" star Jennifer Lawrence posing for photos on the red carpet , followed by shots of the Dolby Theatre filling with guests.

The TV ratings were up, but some people wondered if Ellen DeGeneres #overdidit with all the #socialmedia at the #Oscars2014. Sunday's 86th Academy Awards telecast on ABC broke with tradition and reverse-engineered itself for the Twitter generation, with host DeGeneres returning after a seven-year hiatus to order in pizza as a joke for the attendees and, in the night's most familiar image, tweeting out a selfie posed with Bradley Cooper, Meryl Streep,...

At precisely 10:46 p.m. Sunday -- after the Oscar-hand-out action inside the Dolby Theater was receding in the cultural rear-view mirror with every witticism of Ellen DeGeneres -- and the Academy Awards after-party festivities were in full swing on the uppermost floors of the Hollywood and Highland complex, with just about everybody who is anybody in the 2013-14 awards season scrum turned out in their black-tie finest -- Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt...

“All right, all right, all right.” These words from the 1993 film “Dazed and Confused” put Matthew McConaughey on the map as an actor -- and returned Sunday night as he  took the stage to accept his best actor Oscar for “Dallas Buyers Club.” After thanking the motion picture academy -- “all 6,000 members," fellow nominees and “Dallas Buyers Club's” director and cast members -- a humbled McConaughey listed the three things he...

Alfonso Cuaron, who labored for four years in creating "Gravity," won the Oscar Sunday for best director at the 86th Academy Awards. The native Mexican filmmaker, who had already won the Golden Globe, the BAFTA and the Directors Guild Award, became the first Latin-American to win the Academy Award in the category. The director received a rousing reception when his name was announced. When he finally reached the stage after hugging and kissing several well-wishers, Cuaron shared a soulful handshake with presenter and Oscar winner Sidney Poitier.

In the end, the Oscars just couldn't leave Hollywood. After entertaining multiple offers to relocate the event, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Tuesday that it would keep the Academy Awards at the theater at Hollywood & Highland, negotiating a new 20-year deal with the CIM Group, which owns the complex. CIM also announced that Dolby Laboratories had signed on as the new name sponsor for the complex's 3,400-seat theater, taking over from Kodak, which had filed for bankruptcy.

From Brad Pitt to the pizza guy, backstage at the Oscars was a site for surprises, smooches and last-minute prepping. After Pitt's "12 Years a Slave" won best picture, the actor-producer grabbed director Steve McQueen's face and planted a kiss on it. "You're the first," Pitt said. FULL COVERAGE: Oscars 2014 |  Complete list of winners All night the long, narrow stage wings are flooded with the show's hundreds of crew members, security officers, presenters, singers, dancers and - most notably - winners.

The Oscars are over, Twitter has recovered, the pizza has been devoured and the delivery guy is probably still waiting for the money to make its way from Pharrell Williams' hat to his pocket. But everyone else, host Ellen DeGeneres tells us, is a winner - well, except for "American Hustle," which went 0 for 10 in its nominated categories. (Don't sweat it. The art of survival is a story that never ends.) So what can Hollywood learn from the last six months of awards campaigning?