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)

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.

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.

In the end, it was Meryl Streep's turn as a world leader that finally earned her a lead actress statuette after 12 years of losing to her competitors. Streep's third career Oscar win provided one of the evening's few surprises when the 62-year-old actress bested "The Help" star Viola Davis for her role as Margaret Thatcher in "The Iron Lady. " "I really understand that I'll never be up here again," said Streep with a laugh during her acceptance speech. The acclaimed actress has been nominated a record-setting 17 times -- 14 times in the lead actress category -- though she hasn't won since she took the statue in 1983 for her lead role in "Sophie's Choice.

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.

I have shrugged off Kenneth Turan's incessant rain of personal barbs over the last few months, since he is clearly not a big enough man to admit when he is wrong, and it has been amusing to watch him dig himself into a deeper hole each time he tries to justify his misanthropic sensibility with regard to "Titanic." But it's time to speak up when Turan uses his bully pulpit not only to attack my film, but the entire film industry and its audiences.

Here is the complete list of nominees for the 46th annual nighttime Emmy Awards, as announced Thursday by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. The academy said additional nominations will be released in the next few weeks, for categories such as choreography, voice-over performance and individual achievement in informational and cultural programming. * Comedy series: "Frasier," NBC; "Home Improvement," ABC; "The Larry Sanders Show," HBO; "Mad About You," NBC; "Seinfeld," NBC.

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.

By their very nature, the Oscars are an orgy of self-referential splendor, but Sunday things got more than a little out of hand. From the moment Morgan Freeman (a.k.a. the voice o' God) stepped out on stage to remind us of the importance of film, the telecast of the 84th Academy Awards hawked the magic of movies with the indefatigable and square-shouldered sprightliness of an ingenue down to her last decent audition dress. "Let's go to the movies" was the evening's theme, and although it was expressed in ways that were funny (a Christopher Guest skit)

The movie of the fewest words spoke the loudest at the Oscars this year. On an evening suffused with nostalgia, "The Artist," a nearly wordless, black-and-white romance celebrating Hollywood's formative era, won five Academy Awards, including best picture, on Sunday night. The French production also took home directing honors for Michel Hazanavicius, the lead actor award for Jean Dujardin and trophies for costume design and score. Producer Thomas Langmann dedicated his best picture Oscar to his filmmaker father, who died in 2009.

Despite a growing embrace of environmentalism among many designers, so-called sustainable fashion continues to conjure notions of burlap. Awards show commentators rarely use the term - elegance just isn't synonymous with eco-friendly living. But at the Academy Awards, Missi Pyle, part of the ensemble cast of"The Artist," will walk the red carpet in a flowing blue gown made from organic silk, hand-dyed with natural mineral pigments and lined with recycled polyester. The gown was designed by Valentina Delfino, one of hundreds of designers around the world who submitted sketches to the third annual sustainable couture competition known as Red Carpet Green Dress in the hopes of presenting their creations on the most glamorous - and watched - red carpet in the world.

"The Artist," the black-and-white silent film about Hollywood's rocky transition to the “talkies,” took the biggest honors at the 84th Academy Awards on Sunday night, including best picture, director and lead actor. It was a night filled with firsts - and an especially good night for the French. “The Artist” was the first silent film to nab best picture honors since the first Academy Awards were held in 1929, when “Wings” took the top prize. And for the first time in Academy Awards history, a French actor (Jean Dujardin)

For all the pride the Iranian film "A Separation" has conjured among Los Angeles Persians, not every aspect of the emotionally gripping Oscar hopeful has gone over so smoothly with the city's expats. In fact, it takes just moments for the filmmaker to alienate some of his most ardent fans here. In the opening scene, a husband and wife stare straight into the camera, presumably into the eyes of a judge, as the woman explains why she's asking for a divorce: Her husband, she pleads, refuses to flee Iran with her because he feels obligated to stay and care for his ailing father.

Is silence truly golden? Can George Clooney's tears bring Oscar happiness? Will Billy Crystal's yuks play as well as they did eight years ago? And could the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the first time bestow acting statuettes on two African American women on the same night? It's been a bit of a rocky road to Sunday night's 84th Academy Awards: Original ceremony producer Brett Ratner resigned amid a cloud of controversy, Eddie Murphy bowed out of the hosting job and was replaced by Crystal, the Kodak Theatre became the no-name theater after the film company filed for bankruptcy and Sacha Baron Cohen has threatened some red carpet shenanigans.

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.

I guess reinventing the Oscars is harder than it looks. The academy gave the gig this year to producers Laurence Mark and Bill Condon, two classy industry veterans who've been involved with all sorts of admirable films over the years.

And the Oscar goes to…social media. The popular online communities of Facebook and Twitter have been cast to play a bigger role in keeping the Academy Awards relevant to viewers and advertisers. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and Walt Disney Co.'s ABC television network have been posting comedy bits on YouTube, designing interactive games for Facebook friends and installing cameras backstage to give Internet users a behind-the-scenes peek of Sunday's 84 t h Academy Awards.

A garden spot again Re "Restoring a Griffith Park sanctuary," Feb. 19 It was 1949; Fern Dell, that bit of heaven in Griffith Park, was the destination for my first date with my then-future husband. I had packed tuna sandwiches for our picnic, and the sun was shining on our special day. We wandered through the area enjoying the beauty of the ferns and the sound of the water as it streamed over the rocks. We've been married 58 years and have wanted to return to Fern Dell, but we have been concerned about security.