The backdrop of the stage with the Oscar Award is seen onstage during the 84th Academy Awards announcement held at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Samuel Goldwyn Theater on Jan. 24, 2012 in Los Angeles.; Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

KPCC staff

The Academy Awards have made history with breakthroughs for minorities in the past — but with this year's nominations, observers are noting how white the Oscars are, with no actors of color nominated in any of this year's acting categories.

It marks the least diverse nominations since 1998. People have been speaking out about this disconnect, with films like "Selma" being shut out of the acting nominations (though it did pick up a Best Picture nomination).

 

 

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

A large The Actor statue is placed on stage during 21st Annual SAG Awards Behind The Scenes At The Shrine Auditorium Jan. 23, 2015 in Los Angeles.; Credit: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

Mike Roe

Click here for KPCC's Awards Tracker

This Sunday's Screen Actors Guild Awards aren't as high profile as the Academy Awards, or even the Golden Globes, but they serve as one of the best predictors of who's going to take home a gold statue come Oscar night. Here's why.

Who votes for the SAG Awards?

SAG Award nominees are chosen by a committee of about 2,100 of the guild's members, according to awards news site Gold Derby. Then, all of the 111,228 members of the Guild have the chance to vote for their picks.

Meanwhile, the acting nominees for the Academy Awards are chosen by the 1,100 members in the Academy's actors branch, before being voted on by the Academy's full 5,700 members. Those actors are all part of SAG, so you're likely to see a strong correlation most years between the awards, particularly in the acting category.

How often do the SAG Awards predict the Oscar winners?

The SAG Awards have proven to be the best Oscar predictor in the acting category of any other major awards season prize since they began in 1995, both in nominations and winners. Of the 20 nominations and four winners from each shows, the overlap between the SAG Awards (aka "the Actors") and the Academy Awards in the last few years:

• 2009: 18 nominations; 3 winners
• 2010: 19 nominations; all 4 winners
• 2011: 17 nominations; all 4 winners
• 2012: 16 nominations; 3 winners
• 2013: 15 nominations; 3 winners
• 2014: 14 nominations; all 4 winners

This year, 17 nominees crossed over between the awards shows, with the Oscars matching up on all five nominations for best supporting actor and four of the five nominations in the other three acting categories.

Where have the SAG Awards differed from the Oscars?

SAG voters have lined up with the Academy on Best Actor 16 out of 20 times. The last time they differed from the Oscars was 2003, when Johnny Depp won at the SAG Awards for "Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl" before Sean Penn took the statue home at the Oscars for "Mystic River."

For Best Actress, SAG last split from Oscar in 2011, going with Viola Davis for "The Help" over eventual Oscar winner Meryl Streep for "The Iron Lady." They've matched up 14 out of 20 years.

In the supporting categories, the SAG Awards haven't fared as well. They went 12 for 20 in Best Supporting Actor, and 13 for 20 in Best Supporting Actress. That one also has an asterisk — one of those was a tie, so if you don't count that one, they're also only 12 for 20.

What does this all mean for the Oscars?

The SAG Awards remain the ones to watch when it comes to the acting awards — though their Best Ensemble category, the SAG Awards version of Best Picture, doesn't have a particularly strong correlation to the Oscars Best Picture winner. (For that, you'll want to watch for the Producers Guild Awards.)

We're tracking awards season and what experts are predicting; see KPCC's Awards Tracker below or click here to see the full page. You can watch the Screen Actors Guild Awards this Sunday at 5 p.m. Pacific, 8 p.m. Eastern on both TBS and TNT.

Disclosure: Mike Roe, along with other members of KPCC's staff, are members of the Screen Actors Guild as part of their employment with KPCC.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Announcement cards and envelopes by designer Marc Friedland which are used by presenters at the Oscars to announce winners are on display at the food and decor preview Feb. 4, 2015 of this years Governors Ball, the post-Oscar celebration which follows the 87th Oscars ceremony on Feb. 22 in Hollywood.; Credit: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images

Lisa Brenner and Mike Roe

Ready for your 2015 Oscars party? We've got printable Oscars ballots and the bingo cards you need to prove your superiority over your movie-loving friends during your Academy Awards viewing party. Here are the party printables you'll need to play along with Sunday's show, with TV coverage kicking off at 4 p.m. Pacific. (Get caught up on KPCC's 2015 Oscars coverage right here to have more fun and help make your picks!)

Printable official Oscars ballot

• Download, print, and play at home. Listen to "The Frame's" preview of the Academy Awards, see what "FilmWeek's" critics have to say about who will win, then make your own decisions on Sunday. Our crystal ball Oscars predictor/awards tracker can also help the prognostication efforts with a rundown of nominee buzz, awards already won, official trailers, photos and more.
• You can also play along with friends online on the official Academy Awards site or with the New York Times. (If you want to see KPCC's Mike Roe's picks and play against him in either online game, go here for the official site and here for the New York Times.)

2015 Oscars ballot

Printable Oscars bingo cards

• Download, print and play at home. Use our custom generator to create as many cards as you need for your party.
• How to play: Mark off each block when you hear these words or see these things happen during the Oscars telecast on Sunday. When you get five blocks in a row (horizontally, vertically, or diagonally) stand up and shout "OSCAR!!" Alternate rules: Play as a drinking game and for every block, take a sip. Finished a row? Finish your scotch.

Interactive Oscars bingo cards 

• WNYC pays tribute to the annual exercise in entertainment award show parody with a portable, computerized bingo. Play on your phone, iPad, computer or print a card. Refresh for new combinations.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Ryan Reynolds feels the Academy did Eddie Murphy a disservice by not awarding him Oscars for his roles in these comedies (and he's right to say it).

Variety Awards Circuit section is the home for all awards news and related content throughout the year, featuring the following: the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars, Emmys, Grammys and Tony Awards ceremonies, curated by Variety senior awards editor Clayton Davis. The prediction pages reflect the current standings in the race and do not reflect personal preferences for any individual […]

On November 12, a new poster for the film was revealed, accompanied by a caption that read, "Official entry: India. Best International Feature Film - 97th Academy Awards."

With bands like Scars, I'm reminded of how pop music, Top 40 and underground alike, and regardless of genre, is all about flavor-of-the-month trends. As with everything else available in our capitalist marketplace, we must create an abundance of choice and maintain a level of homogeneity while simultaneously seeking out first-, second-, and third-place winners in order to maintain focus and inertia. As the rewards for the winners are high, there's incentive to throw one's hat in the ring, despite the fact the odds of success—and sustained success—are minuscule. And you only have one shot; five years or so is the average lifespan of a band, and those that exist longer will never be cool in the most valuable way—via novelty—again.

Last Friday, a group of podcast publishers and related operatives announced the formation of something called the Podcast Academy, which they described as a nonprofit organization dedicated to “elevating awareness and excitement for podcasts as a major media category and advancing knowledge and relationships in and around the business.”

Its various activities will involve things like holding educational webinars, organizing networking events, and publishing white papers. But its flagship endeavor seems to be an awards program to be called the Golden Mics — or, as people are already calling it, the Oscars of podcasting.

Podcasting Is Getting Its Own Oscars. Will It Work?

Well, the Oscars happened last night, and for the first time in 21 years I didn’t bother to watch. Pretty ironic given how many of these movies I ended up seeing and loving, but that’s neither here nor there. I did watch the video of Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper musically fucking on stage while […]

The post A Mediocre Rundown of the 2019 Oscars appeared first on HecklerSpray.

It was slightly surprising - but not altogether unexpected - that on the weekend when my book The Sex Myth has its first excerpt and interview in the Telegraph that "feminists" would immediately take objection. Interestingly though the shape this appears to have followed, rather than an actual criticism of work I have done or books I have written, is a number of nasty "terrible skin" remarks about me from lady columnists who really ought to know better.

It speaks volumes about the preoccupations of critics that when faced with a woman whose attitudes, thought processes, and life experience are almost orthogonal to their own their first response is to criticise her looks. I am not conventionally attractive, but to paraphrase Steve Martin: when presented with all this, that's the best you can come up with?

Last year I wrote a commentary on the ubiquitous blogging that was going on surrounding the bullying of feminist bloggers. As I pointed out then, bullying does not only happen to feminists, and some of the people who were getting group hugs out of being the victims of trolling have themselves trolled other people. (Top tip: just because you write above the line doesn't make you not a troll. @'ing someone in to your insults of them on Twitter? Does.)

So to make explicit in case it was not clear: I will never ridicule someone I disagree with because of their looks. If you can't craft a sensible argument against someone's thoughts and actions and have to go for the low-hanging fruit instead, you have failed at rational discourse. And arguably also failed at feminism.

I wrote previously about the experience of having facial scars on my original blog but have since taken that content down. However Emily Hornaday archived it and so I reprint it here. If you are someone who is going through a rough time confidence-wise, please know that while haters never, ever change, how you feel about yourself will. It really does get better. (Update: I have also written about this theme for Guardian Weekend magazine.)

mercredi, janvier 13

Let me tell you about the best gift I ever received. And it's not a bit of sparkly jewellery, or a shiny car, or even a thoughtful trinket of affection.

I'm talking about my scars.

I had terrible acne as a teenager. By the age of 16 it was so bad a dermatologist said it was the worst she'd ever seen, which, ya know, is not super encouraging. At the hospital where I volunteered mothers pulled their children away from me, convinced I was plagued with something contagious. Strangers avoided making eye contact.

It was so bad I could not wash my face without bleeding. Many mornings I woke up stuck to the pillowcase. And oh yeah, it was only on my face. Not one blemish anywhere else on my body. To this day, I still never have seen a photo of anything like it - apart from some daguerrotypes of smallpox patients.

It was a very long, and very expensive, journey to improving my skin - remember, this all went down in America where having a disfiguring condition you have no control over is not covered by health insurance, and duh, there's no NHS.

Long story short a lot of Roaccutane and Dianette did for the acne. And more importantly here's what I learned:

1. Beauty is fleeting. Thank fuck for that.

I had a narrow escape from being just another boring blonde - not to mention an early release from the cycle of self-hatred and frantic desperation that plagues many women as they age. Corollary 1a: The larger part of how people perceive you is how you present yourself.

2. People can be hurtful to strangers. That's their problem.

My best childhood mate had spina bifida. She walked on sticks and refused to use a wheelchair for reasons I only started to appreciate years later. Looking like a medical oddity gave me, for a very brief time, a very small taste of what she encounters every day of her life. It made me pity people who equate someone's appearance with their value as a person. This generalises magnificently to strangers judging you for, in fact, anything at all. Corollary 2a: The most vocal critics are often the most insecure.

3. Other people have things you don't. Big deal.

There is no such thing as the Most Beautiful Woman in the World (sorry Buttercup). Who cares? What is considered desirable is not especially worth getting hung up on. You may not be a six-foot Amazon so will never have legs up to your neck - but for all you know, that same supermodel would give her left arm to have your hair. This concept generalises to wealth, success, talent, and intelligence as well. Corollary 3a: Envy of other women's looks is a zero-sum game, and uses far too much time and energy to be bothered with.

4. Quality of love is not a function of attractiveness.

Elizabeth Taylor, for instance, has been married eight times. Beautiful people have dry spells and get their hearts broken like everyone else. The most worthwhile and loving relationships in my life all happened after my skin problems. And for what it's worth, I've been fortunate to date some pretty nice, smart (and attractive) men in my time. See Corollary 1a above.

5. Confidence doesn't come overnight.

It also doesn't happen in a vacuum; it requires nurturing. As with anything else worth having it's work. But let me tell you, it is so worth the work. A mate recently told me about a magazine 'happiness quiz' in which one of the questions was, "are you comfortable with your body, and do you exercise regularly?" If you can see why this should not have been a single question, you're on the way. Corollary 5a: Confidence happens when you let it happen. No one gives it to you, which is great, because it also means they can't take it from you.

6. When someone says I am beautiful, they really, really mean it.

There is something about knowing someone sees you, quirks and all, and likes what they see... something rare and kind of overwhelming (in a good way). 'Beautiful' is one of those words (a bit like 'awesome') that has lost meaning in being overused as a generic affirmative. We call all sorts of people beautiful in one sentence and tear them down in the next. I'm happy to be different enough that anyone who uses it to describe me sees more than just hair and makeup.

Every scar comes with a story. And if you’re telling the story, it means you survived whatever gave you that scar.In this episode, stories about things that left a mark.

For today’s #MovieSpotlight, we are joined by film critics Jason Bechervaise and Darcy Paquet  to celebrate Han Kang’s Nobel Prize in Literature win! #한강...

[more...]

Three-day weekend-long event planned November 11-13 featuring giveaways, prizes, discounts and more! The store is giving away unopened boxes of sports cards, branded merchandise including shirts and hats & more!

Oscar Nominees and A-List Celebrities were Honored with over $100K in Gifts and Trips at the Luxurious Beverly Wilshire Hotel

When you sit down to watch the Oscars, what you are really watching is the final battle in a months-long war of financial engineering and campaign strategy. Because in Hollywood, every year is an election year. A small army of Oscars campaign strategists help studios and streamers deploy tens of millions of dollars to sway Academy voters. And the signs of these campaigns are everywhere — from the endless celebrity appearances on late night TV to the billboards along your daily commute.

On today's show, we hit the Oscars campaign trail to learn how these campaigns got so big in the first place. And we look into why Hollywood is still spending so much chasing gold statues, when the old playbook for how to make money on them is being rewritten.

This episode was hosted by Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. It was produced by Emma Peaslee and edited by Jess Jiang. It was engineered by Cena Loffredo and fact checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.

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Folks, it's been quite the ride. A final thought before everyone hands tonight's top award to "Argo" -- the Academy gave "Life of Pi" 11 nominations without any for acting. That's some broad support. Not that I had the guts to turn away from the "Argo" freight train in my...

My recap of tonight's Oscar results, which can be found here, includes some good trivia ... ... With Chris Terrio's award for adapted screenplay and William Goldenberg's for editing, "Argo" ended up with three Oscars, the fewest for a best-picture champ since 2005's "Crash." (The last grand-prize winner to win...

Now that "Argo" has won best picture, we know who's No. 1 this awards season. But what about the rest? With the confetti having fallen Sunday on this year's Oscars, here’s a final 2012-13 awards-season film top 40. To be clear, this isn’t an artistic ranking of the films, but...

Mathilde Bédouet's 'Summer 96' qualified for the Oscars by winning the prestigious César Award, France's equivalent of the Academy Award.

The NFB film earned its Oscars qualification by winning the Helen Hill Award for animated short at the New Orleans Film Festival.

In this Oscar-qualified short, a group of friends go on a roadtrip as their car – and their country – falls apart.

Three-time Oscar nominee Torill Kove, who won the Academy Award for her short 'The Danish Poet,' is back in the Oscars race this year with a new film about her memories of growing up in Kenya.

Jerusalemite of the week: India Abraham is a practitioner of medical tattooing who had already helped scores of people before Oct. 7, but her work has taken on even greater significance since then.

Wendy Shirey, principal of Pinecrest Academy Horizon in Henderson, Nev., was awarded the $25,000 cash prize, which is known as the "Oscars of Teaching."

It takes two weeks to dress the venue (which is in a mall, remember) for the occasion each year

Engineers Use CAD To Adapt Standard Parts, Assemblies To Fit In Custom Body Design from 1950s

Laapataa Ladies has been directed by Kiran Rao

The title of Laapataa Ladies has been changed to Lost Ladies for the Oscars

Movies can’t, by definition, be all things to all people, and yet Anora—winner of the Cannes Film Festival’s highest honor, the Palme d’Or—manages to vacillate between assorted registers with stunning, and ultimately affecting, aplomb.

Another of The Florida Project and Red Rocket writer/director Sean Baker’s tales of marginalized individuals struggling to survive and find themselves in an often-unforgiving world, the film is a character study, romance, crime saga, screwball comedy, and vérité drama all wrapped into one unique and dexterous package. More impressive than its nimbleness, however, is its poise and empathy, the latter of which is chiefly bestowed upon its protagonist, whose life is thrown for a rollercoaster-grade loop-di-loop thanks to a chance introduction.

Ani (Mikey Madison, in a star-making turn) is a Brighton Beach 23-year-old who lives with her sister and earns a living stripping at a local club. Anora, which hits theaters Oct. 18, introduces her at the end of a long pan along a bench where men are receiving lap dances from erotic professionals. Fixating on Ani’s face as she flashes the fake smile that her customers crave and her superiors demand, Baker’s camera creates immediate, intimate engagement with the young woman, and that continues as it presents snapshots of her daily (or, rather, nightly) routine at her place of employment.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

By Arthur O. Tzianabos, PhD, CEO of Lifordi Immunotherapeutics, as part of the From the Trenches feature of LifeSciVC As the biotech industry continues to pick up steam, I have been getting a number of phone calls from folks in

The post Stars and Scars… Some Lessons Learned About Leadership appeared first on LifeSciVC.

Raja Sen analyses the contenders for the Best Director category at the Oscars.

Raja Sen analyses the contenders for the Best Actress category at the Oscars.

Who do you think will win? Let us know!

Raja Sen analyses the contenders for the Best Supporting Actor category at the Oscars.

Do let us know!

Raja Sen lists the highlights from the 89th annual Academy Awards.

Take a look at the pictures.

A look at the red carpet pictures.

An infographic for all the things you don't know!

Dunkirk may have been missed at the year's earlier awards shows, but thanks god, Chris Nolan's classic gets enough play at the Oscar noms.

Another reason why we just *love* JLaw!

Looking at the glamorous Oscar red carpet!

He's been quite entertaining this evening.

The 90th Annual Academy Awards have been announced. A quick glance at the winners, listed in bold.

Here are our top 10 moments from this year's Oscars.

It's party night in Hollywood!

Stars get ready for Oscars!