Academy Awards

Much is made in entertainment punditry of the Golden Globes' presumed status as a barometer for the Oscars. The Globes are not a bad indicator, but it's worth remembering that both events are essentially popularity contests. The Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. has fewer than 100 voting members; the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has about 6,000 voters. Both shows involve highly subjective decisions about roughly the same pool of movies and performances. Because the Globes nominates 10 movies, 10 men and 10 women in two categories (drama and musical or comedy)

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...

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.

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)

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.

For anyone who has spent any real time in Los Angeles, the Oscars aren't simply an event -- they are a season, marked by limousines, road closures, early quitting times. Over the years, they've tweaked our rhythms, changed our priorities and altered our escape routes. Whether you love them, shun them or have built rituals around them, they have a significant presence for many.

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.

Oscars host Ellen DeGeneres went to great lengths to fill the frame of a cellphone self-portrait with a veritable who's who of Hollywood stars -- including Jennifer Lawrence, Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt -- and the resulting photograph was a hit: Within minutes of DeGeneres posting the photo on Twitter , the photo racked up more than half a million re-tweets and 300,000 favorites. Stepping into the audience, DeGeneres recruited Meryl Streep, Lawrence, Pitt, Roberts, Bradley Cooper, Kevin Spacey, Lupita Nyong'o and her brother, among others, to take the selfie with her. OSCARS 2014: Full coverage | Complete list | Top nominees and winners Jared Leto, fresh off his win for supporting actor for "Dallas Buyers Club," joined the fun as well with a last-minute photobomb.

“12 Years A Slave” won best picture at the 86th Academy Awards on Sunday night, a poignant victory for the harrowing look at slavery in the United States. Brad Pitt, one of the producers and stars, accepted the honor and then handed off accepting duties to director and fellow producer Steve McQueen. FULL COVERAGE: Oscars 2014 | Red carpet “Everyone deserves not just to survive but to live,” said the British filmmaker. “I dedicate this award to all the people who have endured slavery” and to those who still suffer in slavery today.

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

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,...

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.

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...

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

Pharrell Williams' Lanvin shorts tuxedo, Kate Hudson's caped Atelier Versace gown and Lupita Nyong'o's fairy-tale princess Fred Leighton headband. At Sunday's Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre, stars mastered the art of the personal style statement. Even poor Jennifer Lawrence's slip-and-falls have become a kind of signature. If she never stumbled again, we'd probably miss it. Pale, metallic hues were a trend as much as black dresses were. But what distinguished the best looks were truly unique textures and embellishments.

Hollywood Boulevard was quiet on the Monday morning after the Oscars. The parties were over, the limos were gone, and the only people in the street were crew members taking down displays and picking up trash. But 3,000 fans were lined up outside the lobby of the Dolby Theatre, where the "Live" staff had spent all night turning the Oscar stage into the set for the annual "Live With Kelly and Michael After Oscar Show. " "We take over the theater at midnight," joked Michael Gelman, the show's executive director.