Film Academy

Hey lady!! Oscar-winning visual effects supervisor and sound designer Ben Burtt will be chatting with the one and only Jerry Lewis on Thursday evening at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater. “Both Sides of the Camera: The Innovative Jerry Lewis,” presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science's Science and Technology Council, will examine the advances in technology Lewis made during his long film career. The following evening at the Goldwyn, Oscar-winning animator/animation historian John Canemaker will host “An Academy Salute to John and Faith Hubley.” The innovative animation team who were blacklisted in the 1950s earned three Academy Awards.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is aiming to expand and diversify its ranks by relaxing a cap on membership that has restricted new admittances since 2004. The academy has about 5,800 voting members; in recent years, fewer than 200 people have been invited to join annually. The number of openings is essentially determined by how many members have retired, resigned or died. In the last decade, the overall ranks have not grown by more than 30 members a year. Academy leaders say they are not loosening the qualifications for membership.

Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" and Sam Mendes' "Skyfall," the latest installment in the James Bond series, both enjoyed overflow crowds at theaters this weekend, including one venue of particular note -- the 1,012-seat Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills -- which had to turn away film academy members who showed up too close to the movies' 7:30 p.m. start times. "Lincoln" screened Saturday night and, judging from the ovations afforded the post-screening panel -- director Spielberg, producer Kathleen Kennedy, leads Daniel Day-Lewis and Sally Field, screenwriter Tony Kushner and composer John Williams -- the film appears poised to fulfill its promise as an awards-season juggernaut.  "You could feel the respect in the room, but it went beyond that," said one academy member in attendance.

Since the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences sent out a "Save the Date" notice last week inviting its entire 6,000-person membership to an unprecedented general meeting, Hollywood has been buzzing about just what would be on the agenda. Now, academy President Hawk Koch is unveiling his motives for calling the confab.  “It's about time the academy is finally doing this,” said Koch, a longtime Board of Governors member whose term as president will end in August after one year, due to academy term limit rules.

Academy award-winning screenwriter Frank Pierson, who recently served as the 31st president of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences, died Sunday evening at Cedars Sinai hospital, according to his manager Susan Landau. He was 87. Pierson, who won his Oscar in 1976 for his "Dog Day Afternoon"screenplay, spent many years of his career in service to the Hollywood organizations that made him a success. He served as the president of the Writers Guild of America for two distinct terms, taught at the Sundance Institute, was an adjunct professor at USC's film school and was the artistic director of the American Film Institute.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is aiming to expand and diversify its ranks by relaxing a cap on membership that has restricted new admittances since 2004. The academy has about 5,800 voting members; in recent years, fewer than 200 people have been invited to join annually. The number of openings is essentially determined by how many members have retired, resigned or died. In the last decade, the overall ranks have not grown by more than 30 members a year. Academy leaders say they are not loosening the qualifications for membership.

Hawk Koch remembers sitting with his family at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in 1989 and watching as his father, Hollywood producer Howard W. Koch, received the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences' Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Oscars. The elder Koch had served as academy president in the 1970s and had worked on films as diverse as"The Manchurian Candidate"and "Airplane. " He addressed his son - who by then had produced "Gorky Park" and had served as first assistant director on"Chinatown" - from the dais.

James Earl Jones, Oprah Winfrey and pioneering makeup artist Dick Smith will be honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in November with Governors Awards. Jones and Smith will receive Honorary Awards, while Winfrey will be presented with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. The Honorary Award is presented for "extraordinary distinction in lifetime achievement, exceptional contributions to the state of motion picture arts and sciences, or for outstanding service to the academy.

Officials from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Wednesday that they are throwing the USC School of Cinema-Television a big party this fall for its 75th anniversary. The school was established at the suggestion of the academy in 1929. The USC School of Cinema-Television also announced the formal launch of a $75-million endowment initiative, the largest of its kind ever undertaken by a university film school.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Center for Motion Picture Study in Beverly Hills, once a broken-down waterworks building, recently received national recognition for its renovation. Building Design & Construction, a magazine for architects, designers and engineers, awarded one of four Reconstruction Project Awards to the film industry showcase.

TEHRAN -- Since the news from Hollywood flashed early Monday in Iran, text messages have been passing the word: A film widely denounced here as a stereotyped, anti-Iranian caricature won the coveted Oscar for best picture. "I am secular, atheist and not pro-regime but I think the film 'Argo' has distorted history and insulted Iranians," said Hossain, a cafe owner worried about business because of customers' lack of cash in a sanctions-battered economy. "For me, it wasn't even a good thriller.

"Tonight, for the first time, the Oscars have a theme," Seth MacFarlane said at the start of this year's Academy Awards, adding that Sunday night's show would be celebrating the marriage of film and music. Moments later, the host was cavorting around the stage singing a song that seemed pulled from the writers room at his animated series "Family Guy" rather than one built for the regal Oscar proceedings. "We saw your boobs," MacFarlane cheerily sang, a performance  William Shatner, who was dressed as Capt.

In the week since Oscar nominations were announced, we've sat through two award shows - the Critics' Choice Awards, thrown by a group of junketeers who, according to Anne Hathaway at least, can't even spell the names of their winners right, and the Golden Globes, hosted by the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., a wacky bunch of journalists whose news conferences require actors to pose for pictures with each and every member. Both these groups gave "Argo" awards for best motion picture drama over "Lincoln.

Even in 1912, movies audiences had their favorite stars. Like Maurice Costello, the great-grandfather of Drew Barrymore. In the lighthearted "The Picture Idol," a devoted fan can't stop following him. So Costello sets up a clever ruse of introducing the female admirer to a phony wife and child so she will leave him alone. "The Picture Idol" is one of the many films screening during the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' program "A Century Ago: The Films of 1912" Thursday evening at the Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood.

Oscar season means hopefuls in the race for the trophies make their faces seen around town, and that doesn't mean just for film academy voters or the press. Case in point: Actress Keira Knightley and director Robert Zemeckis both have films that have great awards potential and both are making in-person appearances at the American Cinematheque's Aero Theatre in the next week. On Sunday, the Cinematheque is screening "Flight" as part of a multi-film tribute to Zemeckis' work, and the filmmaker himself will be there following the 7:30 p.m. screening.

Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" and Sam Mendes' "Skyfall," the latest installment in the James Bond series, both enjoyed overflow crowds at theaters this weekend, including one venue of particular note -- the 1,012-seat Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills -- which had to turn away film academy members who showed up too close to the movies' 7:30 p.m. start times. "Lincoln" screened Saturday night and, judging from the ovations afforded the post-screening panel -- director Spielberg, producer Kathleen Kennedy, leads Daniel Day-Lewis and Sally Field, screenwriter Tony Kushner and composer John Williams -- the film appears poised to fulfill its promise as an awards-season juggernaut.  "You could feel the respect in the room, but it went beyond that," said one academy member in attendance.

In response to a DreamWorks Oscar advertisement earlier this year that was deemed "an attack" on another film, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has added a new rule governing next year's Academy Awards. "Ads, mailings, websites or any other forms of campaign communication that attempt to promote a particular film or achievement by casting a negative or derogatory light on a competing film or achievement are not permitted," the academy's new rule says.

It may seem hard to believe now, but there were awards given out in Hollywood before the Oscars came along. Nine years before the first Academy Awards were handed out in 1929, the movie fan publication Photoplay magazine created the first motion picture awards. Unlike the Oscars, which are voted on by the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Photoplay Magazine Medal of Honor winner was selected by readers. All the surviving winners of the medal of honor from 1920 to 1928 will be screened Monday evenings during the academy's "Summer of Silents" at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

The conventional wisdom is that Tina Fey and Amy Poehler were picked to co-host the Golden Globes in January to burnish the ceremony's cool factor. But some Hollywood insiders regard the high profile selection as a way for the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. to poke the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for recently opting to announce Oscar nominations three days before the 2013 Globes ceremony. Fey and Poehler are "really a smart and wonderful choice," says HFPA member H.J. Park, who writes for the Korea Times and reviews movies for Radio Seoul.

Hey lady!! Oscar-winning visual effects supervisor and sound designer Ben Burtt will be chatting with the one and only Jerry Lewis on Thursday evening at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater. “Both Sides of the Camera: The Innovative Jerry Lewis,” presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science's Science and Technology Council, will examine the advances in technology Lewis made during his long film career. The following evening at the Goldwyn, Oscar-winning animator/animation historian John Canemaker will host “An Academy Salute to John and Faith Hubley.” The innovative animation team who were blacklisted in the 1950s earned three Academy Awards.