By Drew Grant 2/24 6:56pm

The 85th Academy Awards

The Best Picture category isn't the only thing that bulked up.

The 85th Annual Academy Awards Live Chat, Hosted by the Dog From Family Guy

Update: Well, now we have an extra hour and a half of the red carpet! Talk amongst yourselves!

What is it about the Academy Awards? Intellectually, it’s hard to muster up that much enthusiasm about who “wore it best” (Ang Lee) or how modest Katniss will be in her acceptance speech, hopefully avoiding a First Wives’ Club reference that sounded like she was hating on Meryl Streep this time. And yet … we still feel compelled to watch. Maybe it’s because secretly, deep down, we still find it fascinating that the guy who does the voice of Stewie looks like the host of a reality game show about finding true love by having a dance-off on a stripper pole.

Or maybe it’s because we’re just suckers, who deep down believe that Beasts of the Southern Wild might still possibly have a chance against Argo or Lincoln.

Come join us, will you, on this the most magical of evenings for producers, people who are married to movie stars, and dress designers? We’ll be hosting a live chat below. Just click the big countdown button and you’re all set. Got it?

Great. Read More

By Drew Grant 2/24 10:59am

Academy Awards

9 Photos

oscar predictions

Leo and Tigers and Ben Affleck, (Arg)O My!: Who Will Be the Sorest Loser at Tonight’s Academy Awards?

Tonight is the 85th Academy Awards, and for all intents and purposes it should be a good one. Look at all those serious films, and the one movie by Quentin Tarantino! And with big snubs for Best Director for both Argo and Zero Dark Thirty, does that mean one of them will be be sweeping up the Best Picture Award as a consolation prize? And most importantly, is it too late to write in a ballot for Javier Bardem in Skyfall? Because he was great. Read More

By Kat Stoeffel 7/03/12 4:45pm

Publishing

Mr. Bowden at Tribeca Film Festival in 2003.

Happy Birthday, America! Mark Bowden Got You a Book About Killing Osama Bin Laden

In a bit of holiday-appropriate news, The Atlantic national correspondent Mark Bowden has sold a book about the death of Osama Bin Laden to Morgan Entrekin at Grove/Atlantic, reports Publishers Marketplace. The book, to be published in October 2012, is “an account of the Bin Laden strike written in Bowden’s signature ‘you are there’ style, going inside the war room as decisions were made and onto the ground as directives were executed.” It’s titled The Finish: The Killing of Osama Bin Laden. Read More

By Alexandra Peers 7/10/10 6:35pm

Gala Affairs

MoMA Picks Kathryn Bigelow for Film Prize/Party

The Museum of Modern Art has picked Kathryn Bigelow to honor at its annual fund-raising Film Gala. (It’s MoMA’s recently-hatched version of the Met’s tony cash-cow, the Costume Institute Ball.) Apart from her shiny Oscars, of course, Best-Director Bigelow’s an unlikely candidate: The two previous winners, Baz Luhrmann and Tim Burton, were known for extremely Read More

By Christopher Rosen 3/08/10 1:51pm

Box Office Breakdown: Alice in Wonderland Rings Up Millions

Forget Kathryn Bigelow and The Hurt Locker, the big winners over the weekend were Johnny Depp and Tim Burton. Alice in Wonderland, the tandem’s seventh collaboration, crushed the competition with a ridiculous $116.3 million opening. For reference, that was roughly $50 million more than the other nine movies in the top-ten grossed combined. As we Read More

By Sara Vilkomerson 3/08/10 6:34am

Snoozy Oscar-fest Ends Big With Bigelow!

Well, so that happened! Was it just us or were these just the most tediously boring Oscars in ages? And who should we blame? Maybe we should start with the very strange stage design, which we’re guessing was intended to be a nod to old Hollywood glamour, but felt more like an early-’70s Read More

By Molly Fischer 3/01/10 8:21pm

Oscars: New York vs. L.A.

The Academy Awards may belong to Los Angeles, but that doesn’t mean that The Observer and fellow New Yorkers can’t boldly declare what Ought To Be. We give you Oscar picks by coastal sensibilities–and who’s got the edge in the end.

View the Slideshow >

By Molly Fischer 2/28/10 1:29am

12 Photos

Best Sound Mixing

Oscars: New York vs. L.A.

The Academy Awards may belong to Los Angeles, but that doesn’t mean that The Observer and fellow New Yorkers can’t boldly declare what Ought To Be. We give you Oscar picks by coastal sensiblities–and who’s got the edge in the end.

View the Slideshow >