Showing posts with label March 03. Show all posts

Monday, 3 March 2014

“12 Years A Slave” Wins Best Picture And Makes Oscars History

Director Steve McQueen becomes the first black man to win an Academy Award for Best Picture.

AMPAS

In the 86 years since The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences started handing out Oscars, not a single black man has been given a statuette associated with the Best Picture category. That changed on March 2 as director Steve McQueen accepted the Best Picture award for 12 Years a Slave.

The film's win is remarkable not only for making Oscar history, but for how infrequently black people even have been nominated in this category — there have been a few previous nominations, including Quincy Jones for The Color Purple, Lee Daniels for Precious, Broderick Johnson for The Blind Side, and Reginald Hudlin for Django Unchained.

Speaking in the press room backstage, McQueen said of the history of the win: “Obviously, it's a mark of development. It's just obviously a progression. The background characters are now in the foreground and their lives are being recognized in a way, more ever than before. I think people are ready for this narrative. People want to look at this history. If we don't know our past, we'll never know our future.”

With the Academy's recent efforts at expanding diversity — through membership and leadership (Cheryl Boone Isaacs became the first black president of the organization) — as well as recognizing diverse nominees and winners over the last 15 years, this win points to a hopeful broadening of voices and stories within filmmaking in general. And McQueen's win was accompanied by a win for Best Director for Latino Alfonso Cuarón for Gravity, another historic event.

Also, backstage, 12 Years a Slave producer Brad Pitt said, “I love this film and I love this filmmaking. I think it's important that we're dealing with our history. It's important that we understand our history, not for any kind of guilt, but so we can understand who we were so we can understand who we are.”

When John Ridley, who won the award for Best Adapted Screenplay for 12 Years a Slave (based on Solomon Northup's 1853 memoir), was asked in the press room what it means to be the second black screenplay winner (the first being Geoffrey Fletcher for Precious), he said, “I'm very proud, I'm very humble, and I'm very hopeful for the future.”

AMPAS

Monday, 3 March 2014

Best Supporting Actor:

Best Supporting Actress:

Best Actor:

Best Actress:

This is Robert Lopez, the 39-year-old songwriter behind Frozen's massive hit “Let It Go.”

On Sunday, he won an Oscar for Best Original Song with his wife, Kristen Anderson-Lopez, which makes him a new member of the elite EGOT club, meaning he's won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony.

Here are the Lopezes with their daughters, whom they thanked during their acceptance speech (which they partially sang).

Olivia Wilde

Viola Davis

Maria Menounos

Naomi Watts

This is how John Travolta pronounced “Idina Menzel” while introducing her performance at The Oscars:

Jart Liters

Stanley Hooper

We asked a bunch of celebrities to share their hidden talents on the Oscars red carpet…

Did you know Kristen Bell can move her eyes independently?

Since 1989 the Tatars have been flooding back to the Crimea region. According to the last Ukrainian census in 2001, Tatars accounted for 12.1% of the population of Crimea.

During the protests, many waved the ethnic flag of the Crimean Tatars. Local media outlets reported that more than 10,000 Muslim Tatars rallied in support of the interim government in Ukraine.

Zac Efron

Jason Sudeikis

Tyson Beckford

Kevin Spacey

We know that the audience (especially Kerry Washington) was definitely up for pizza if it was ordered in…

And then Ellen followed through!

And started handing out pizza to everyone…

And she made Brad Pitt the plate guy…

Leo sees his name up on the screen with the other nominees for the Academy Award for Best Actor.

And he's excited. He's like, Hey, that's me up there.

He thinks to himself, Heh, this is our year L.D. This is ouuurrrrr year.

Then Jennifer Lawrence announces that the Best Actor award is actually going to Matthew McConaughey, for his role in Dallas Buyer's Club.

Sunday, 2 March 2014

The “Awwscars” are the real deal.

Wolf of Wall Street

Gravity

Nebraska

Step 1: Arrive at the Oscars, wave to the fans.

Step 2: Fall down (because you are Jennifer Lawrence).

Step 3: Get back up (because you're Jennifer Lawrence).

Step 4: Have a giant laugh.

So now you know!

Worst Actor: Jaden Smith for After Earth

Pharrell left his amazing hat at home tonight.

Instead, he's wearing a SHUX.

That's a shorts tuxedo.

It's made by Lanvin, and it's awesome.

More than 300 visual effects artists, their families and supporters protested Sunday at the intersection of Hollywood and Vine, a mile from the Dolby Theater where the Oscars are being held.

The man who plays Superman and takes pictures with tourists on Hollywood Blvd. was even there.

They wore green symbolizing green screens. “Without visual effects, this is what you're going see: people in front of green screens,” Daniel Lay, protest organizer and founder of visual effects group ADAPT said.

Protestors are upset over the tax incentives arms race. For more than a decade, states and countries have offered studios subsidies and tax incentives to pursuade them to leave California to film.