Nielsen is reporting that the 80th annual Academy Awards telecast was the least watched in history (or at least since 1974 when they started tracking the event). This was pretty much expected, as most of the films and contendors were art-house level favorites, and not mainstream efforts like Titanic or Lord of the Rings. Public interest was at an all time low, resulting in 32-million viewers.

via slashfilm.com

Here is a listing of the 2008 Academy Award winners, followed by some commentary. Tell me what you think of the winners and losers in the comments below.

Best Picture
No Country for Old Men
Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
There Will Be Blood

Best Director
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen for No Country for Old Men
Julian Schnabel for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Jason Reitman for Juno
Tony Gilroy for Michael Clayton
Paul Thomas Anderson for There Will Be Blood

Best Actor
Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood
George Clooney in Michael Clayton
Johnny Depp in Sweeney Todd
Tommy Lee Jones in In the Valley of Elah
Viggo Mortensen in Eastern Promises

Best Supporting Actor
Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men
Casey Affleck in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Hal Holbrook in Into the Wild
Philip Seymour Hoffman in Charlie Wilson’s War
Tom Wilkinson in Michael ClaytonRead the rest of this entry »

via slashfilm.com

No Country gets the final two major awards, Best Director(s) and Best Picture, making it the clear winner of the night (4). The final two wins for the Coens’ feature tops off what was largely an uneventful night: the winners of all the major Oscars were top candidates save for Marion Cotillard’s win in the best Actress category. (Well, and The Golden Compass winning for Best Special Effects, but that’s a geek thing.)

I thought Jon Stewart was a better host than comedian; his insistence that the other singer/performer for the Best Original Song come back to deliver her thank you speech after the commercial break was really classy.

I wonder where the big party will be now that Vanity Fair’s annual shindig was called off.

via movieblog.ugo.com

I have such a huge Oscars hangover this morning. Did anyone theme it for the night? I cooked some mean-ass burgers in honor of Juno, then attempted to make a few milkshakes (in honor of There Will be Blood) before realizing I had no ice cream. Anyone get nutty and make Ratatouille? Anyway, when it comes to the day after the Oscars, talk usually surrounds the big surprises. What were the shockers? Personally, I totally thought Transformers would walk away with at least one Oscar for special effects or sound, and Marion Cotillard winning best actress came somewhat as a surprise. I mean, a French actress winning best actress for a foreign language film that practically NO ONE saw?

via cinematical.com

And a big fat 'Fuck You!' to Old Man Oscar and his inability to think that anyone under the age of 25 can be half as talented as someone in their mid-fifties. I talk, of course, about the snubbing of Ellen Page - who should have won best Actress for her amazing performance in "Juno". Yet, she didn't. I tell ya, the day someone like Page or Justin Timberlake or even Mandy Moore (and anyone else from the cast of "Southland Tales" for that matter) win an Oscar, they'll be giving out free penises at your local GP so women can get themselves pregnant with no need for us, the man.

But yet, I'll keep watching the Oscars and only because they do get 'em right sometimes - "No Country for Old Men" did deserve to be best film, Javier Bardem did deserve best Supporting actor, and Daniel Day Lewis was a shoe-in for Best Actor (for "There Will Be Blood"). Dunno about Tilda Swinton though, nor that chick whose name I can't pronounce who won Best Actress. And what's with the Oscar for "The Golden Compass"? Does the Academy give out Pity Awards now?

via moviehole.net

BEST PICTURE
"Atonement" (Focus Features)
A Working Title Production
Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner and Paul Webster, Producers
"Juno" (Fox Searchlight)
A Dancing Elk Pictures, LLC Production
Lianne Halfon, Mason Novick and Russell Smith, Producers
"Michael Clayton" (Warner Bros.)
A Clayton Productions, LLC Production
Sydney Pollack, Jennifer Fox and Kerry Orent, Producers
"No Country for Old Men" (Miramax and Paramount Vantage)
A Scott Rudin/Mike Zoss Production
Scott Rudin, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, Producers
"There Will Be Blood" (Paramount Vantage and Miramax)
A JoAnne Sellar/Ghoulardi Film Company Production
JoAnne Sellar, Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Lupi, Producers Read the rest of this entry »

via variety.com

'Tis the season for panels and seminars with the artists who helped to craft the Oscar-nominated movies. These American Cinematheque panels on Saturday, February 23 are free; tickets are available on the day of the seminar at the box office only.

10:00 AM, the INVISIBLE ART, VISIBLE ARTISTS seminar offers an open discussion with this year's Oscar-nominated editors:

"The Bourne Ultimatum" (Universal): Christopher Rouse; "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" (Miramax/Pathé Renn): Juliette Welfling; "Into the Wild" (Paramount Vantage and River Road Entertainment): Jay Cassidy;"No Country for Old Men" (Miramax and Paramount Vantage) Roderick Jaynes [the Coens]; "There Will Be Blood" (Paramount Vantage and Miramax): Dylan Tichenor.

via weblogs.variety.com

This may be the strongest batch of Oscar nominees in some time, but general audiences don't care, according to a recent look by the Associated Press. The five Best Picture nominees combined have grossed about $246 million to date, compared with $297 million last year and $245 in 2005. (Juno is the sole exception, which has grossed over $100 million on its $2.5 million budget.) In 2003, the winner, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King alone grossed more than $300 million, making this year's batch of nominees look small and paltry.

via cinematical.com

What the stars are saying about the nominations for the 80th Annual Academy Awards!

“You never expect something like this! I was on the way to London from Paris and we heard. Very exciting!” – Ellen Page, best actress nominee for “Juno.”

"You put me shoulder to shoulder with a group of fine actors. I'm proud to be in their company and to have the broader recognition for the film is a lovely thing." — Daniel Day-Lewis, best actor nominee for "There Will Be Blood."

via accesshollywood.com

It looked like a glaring snub when Jonny Greenwood's music for "There Will Be Blood" wasn't among the five Academy Award nominees for best original score.

Turns out it wasn't eligible — because it wasn't entirely original.

Much of the searing music from the Radiohead guitarist had appeared elsewhere previously, said Charles Bernstein, chairman of the music branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which chooses the nominees.

"The Oscar is given for the best original score — 'original' meaning written for the picture — and the majority of the music in `There Will Be Blood' was not eligible because it was not written for the picture," Bernstein said Wednesday.

via movies.msn.com

BEST PICTURE
"Atonement" (Focus Features)
A Working Title Production
Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner and Paul Webster, Producers
"Juno" (Fox Searchlight)
A Dancing Elk Pictures, LLC Production
Lianne Halfon, Mason Novick and Russell Smith, Producers
"Michael Clayton" (Warner Bros.)
A Clayton Productions, LLC Production
Sydney Pollack, Jennifer Fox and Kerry Orent, Producers
"No Country for Old Men" (Miramax and Paramount Vantage)
A Scott Rudin/Mike Zoss Production
Scott Rudin, Ethan Coen and Joel Coen, Producers
"There Will Be Blood" (Paramount Vantage and Miramax)
A JoAnne Sellar/Ghoulardi Film Company Production
JoAnne Sellar, Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Lupi, Producers

via variety.com

Announcement of the Oscar nominations will stream live at Oscar.com for the first time on Tuesday. It will be the centerpiece of expanded content offerings leading up to the big event, including an Oscar prediction game and an Oscar widget that can be embedded on social networking sites...

via hollywoodreporter.com

Nomination ballots for the 2007 Academy Awards were mailed Wednesday to the 5,829 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts Sciences...

via variety.com

Though my first column tracking the Oscar race was written in such a breathless frenzy-- so many critical awards! So little consensus!-- things are calming down, believe it or not. The crazy week last week was capped off by the Golden Globe nominations, which, depending on who you ask, are either a telling preview of the Oscar nominees or a meaningless dog and pony show intended only to get celebrities at the tables and drinking the free booze...

via cinemablend.com

A lot of people were disappointed with the Golden Globe nominations because they failed to include any tracks from Once in the category for Best Original Song. Will the Oscars make the same mistake? We won't know for another month, but we can at least see that the Academy is deeming the film's songs as eligible...

via cinematical.com