Thompson on Hollywood

Oscar Presenters 2013: Multiple Oscar-Winners Jack Nicholson and Dustin Hoffman On Board

Awards

Oscar producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron announce that multiple Oscar-winners Jack Nicholson ("One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," "As Good as It Gets," "Terms of Endearment") and Dustin Hoffman ("Kramer vs. Kramer," "Rain Man") will present at the February 24 awards show.

By Sophia Savage and Beth Hanna
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February 22, 2013 11:13 AM
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Why 'Searching for Sugar Man' is a Slam Dunk for the Documentary Oscar

Awards

There are few reasons to envy the membership of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, but there have probably been times when the Academy hierarchy has turned an envious eye upon the HFPA’s policy regarding the Golden Globe for Best Documentary: Namely, that there isn’t one. If one thinks of Oscar as the Titanic, and documentaries as an iceberg, the Academy membership – or some derivation of same – has managed to punch a hole in their own hull more often than not.

By John Anderson
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February 21, 2013 3:38 PM
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Oscar Watch: Why Actor-Directors Have the Advantage at the Oscars

Awards

What’s been overlooked amid all the wringing of hands, gnashing of teeth and what-were-they-thinking hysteria surrounding Ben Affleck’s alleged “snub” as a Best Director nominee, is the degree to which the director’s branch has defied Oscar history. “Argo” is a fine, sturdy entertainment, a movie everyone should be proud of.

By John Anderson
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February 21, 2013 1:22 PM
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Immersed in Movies: Assessing the Makeup and Hairstyling Oscar Race

Features

You couldn't find three more diverse choices for makeup and hairstyling than in "Hitchcock," "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey," and "Les Misérables." A portrait of Hitch that effectively blends Anthony Hopkins with the Master of Suspense...

By Bill Desowitz
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February 20, 2013 2:06 PM
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Oscar Predictions 2014

Awards

And so it all begins again. So far there's only one frontrunner for the 2014 Oscars: Sundance hit "Before Midnight," directed by Richard Linklater and written by him and his two stars, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy.

By Anne Thompson
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February 18, 2013 4:24 PM
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Oscar Q & A: Meet Tom Van Avermaet, Director of Darkly Glimmering Short 'Death of a Shadow' (TRAILER)

Interviews

Of all the Oscar-nominated shorts, Tom Van Avermaet's gorgeous "Death of a Shadow" occupies the most complex and entrancing alternative reality. Matthias Schoenaerts ("Rust and Bone") plays Nathan Rijckx, a deceased WWI soldier stuck in a limbo where an intricate steam-punk machine selects each person's moment of death. He has a second chance at life if he agrees to work for a Grim Reaper figure who collects shadow images of the moment that people die. Rijckx agrees to shoot 10,000 shadows in order to return to life and find the woman he fell in love with at the moment he died.

By Maggie Lange
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February 18, 2013 2:56 PM
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Writers Guild Awards Go to 'Argo,' 'Zero Dark Thirty,' and 'Searching for Sugar Man'

Awards

The East Coast WGA Awards show got under way at New York's BB Kings a good hour before the pokey West Coast, and attendees tweeted up a storm. Soon the trades ran with the news that the key film awards had gone to the adapted screenplay for "Argo" and original script for "Zero Dark Thirty." WGA West was still running clips from nominated screenplays like "Silver Linings Playbook" after the winners had been announced ("Argo"'s clip was the WGA joke, natch.)

By Anne Thompson
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February 18, 2013 3:06 AM
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Oscar Watch: Emmanuelle Riva Talks Her Surprise Late-Life Role in 'Amour'; French Veteran Could Beat Lawrence

Interviews

A seamstress, poet and photographer, Emmanuelle Riva lives alone in Paris. She has enjoyed a long and happy career as a film actress, most notably starring at age 30 in Alain Resnais's 1959 drama "Hiroshima Mon Amour," and working in theater until 2001. "I liked the roles I had both on the stage and in cinema," she wrote me in an email. "My preference is for both. Going from one role to the other is a healthy exercise; no time for them to leave any mark on us. It is others who leave a mark on us. And I don't want to be a prisoner of any part, or to specialize in any genre. I don't want to cultivate my image (how boring!). I would rather always feel the freshness of something newly born."

By Anne Thompson
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February 17, 2013 7:26 PM
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'Lincoln,' 'Argo,' and' Zero Dark Thirty': Reordering History

Awards

Oops! For months, screenwriter Tony Kushner has been considered a shoo-in for an Oscar. But the award-winning playwright with impeccable credentials -- “Angels in America, his 1993 play about AIDS, won the Pulitzer Prize and the Tony award as well as half a dozen awards from drama critics -- tripped, if not tumbled, last week.

By Aljean Harmetz
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February 17, 2013 7:48 AM
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Immersed in Movies: Assessing the Music Oscar Race

Awards

Like cinematography, production design, editing, and sound, the Oscar-nominated music scores are all organically tied to their movies in very personal ways. So it's hard to pick a winner among such stalwarts as Alexandre Desplat ("Argo"), Thomas Newman ("Skyfall"), Mychael Danna ("Life of Pi"), and Dario Marianelli ("Anna Karenina") along with the venerable old warhorse, John Williams ("Lincoln"). Still, I keep hearing a lot about Danna being the favorite in a very close race.