Irish Short Film "Pentecost" Shortlisted For Oscars

An Irish Short film titled 'Pentecost' has been shortlisted for nomination for the Academy Awards.

Pentecost, a light-hearted film written and directed by Peter McDonald is one of just ten short films from across the globe that has made the shortlist. This will be scaled down to an ultimate five for the real night of the Oscars. The makers of Pentecost will get to know if their film is among the last 5 nominations on 24 January next.A total of 107 films had been initially selected in the category.

Peter McDonald’s nominated short film 'Pentecost' was funded by the Irish Film Board and stars Andrew Bennett, Michael McElhatton and Don Wycherley. It narrates the story of a young altar boy who is compelled  to serve at an important Mass and has to make a hard choice whether conform to the status quo or serve an extended ban from his passion in life… football.

The Academy Awards will be held on 26 February next in Los Angeles.

Electronic Voting To Be Used for The Academy Awards

The annual mailing of the official Oscar ballots, one of the rituals in the annual Academy Awards cycle will soon be a thing of the past. Lately, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), which presents the Oscars, sent a letter advising its 6,000 voting members that an electronic system for Oscar voting will be implemented at the earliest and will positively be in effect by next year.

The letter, which was signed by Kimberly Roush, the academy’s director of membership asked its members for a personal email address which is different from anything that goes to an assistant or intermediary. Ms Roush stated that at some point, once the system is up and running, mailed ballots will be eliminated.

The much expected shift to electronic voting could have a huge impact for the awards season. By eliminating the lag time that arrives with paper ballots, which were sent through the mail, the academy’s governors could change the awards night from late February to an earlier weekend.

Nicole Kidman Allows Fans to Touch Her Oscar

Nicole Kidman has said jokingly that people are welcome to visit her parents' house and touch her Oscar Award. She had won an Academy Award for her portrayal of Virginia Woolf in The Hours in 2002 and had narrated the experience as magical. 

The Hollywood star was raised in Sydney, Australia during most of her childhood, and it carries an exceptional place in her heart. Hence she decided the iconic golden statue should remain at her parents' home in the city.

She told the British edition of InStyle, that it’s on the mantle of her parents' house in Sydney. People in the neighbourhood could come and touch that gold Oscar.

Remembering her childhood, the Australian actress also explained that as a little girl, Hollywood seemed like a fairy-tale place to her. Nicole recalled watching the Academy Awards on TV and compared the American movie industry to a magical, yet surreal, place.

She mentioned that as a little girl in Australia, she had watched the American film industry from afar. She added that she remembered being six or seven and watching the Oscars in her pyjamas, drinking hot chocolate, in this tiny little suburb of Sydney and that it had seemed like a faraway land, like Oz.

Her words were…There's a bit of magic involved in winning an Academy Award .

Christian Bale Wins Best Supporting Actor for "The Fighter" for Oscars 2011

Christian Bale won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in "The Fighter" and it's his first Academy Award.The film is directed by David O. Russell.

The movie also stars Mark Wahlberg,Amy Adams and Melissa Leo. The movie centers on boxer "Irish" Micky Ward (Wahlberg) as well as his crack-addicted older half-brother Dicky Eklund (Bale). Amy Adams co-stars as Ward's tough-as-nails girlfriend and Mellisa Leo stars as Ward's and Eklund's scrappy mother.

"The Fighter" was nominated for 7 Oscars along with Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress (for both Adams and Leo).Lately in January, Bale won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor.

When Brad Pitt and Matt Damon stepped out of "The Fighter" due to conflicts in scheduling, Wahlberg suggested Bale for the role. And the role brought out great results for the actor. Just as he did in 2003's "The Machinist," Christian Bale lost an unbelievable amount of weight in order to bear a resemblance to Eklund, who, at the time, was addicted to drugs.

At the age of 13, Bale was cast in Steven Spielberg's "Empire of the Sun" as an English boy who is separated from his parents during World War II and is lost in a Japanese internment camp.From then on, he's received critical acclaim for several performances including portraying Bruce Wayne in Christopher Nolan's Batman films and as the yuppie serial killer Patrick Bateman in "American Psycho."

Academy Award Winner Colin Forth Might Obtain Knighthood

Oscar winner Colin Firth is reportedly in order for the utmost honour that can be bestowed on anyone. The 50 year old adored actor is being considered for a Knighthood after the royal family were so awed with his performance in The King's Speech.

A source close to the royals stated that Colin has been a huge ambassador for Britain all through his career and his insightful portrayal of King George VI has won him much admiration among the royal family and of course, the film's many fans.

While another source commented on the Queen's private viewing of The King's Speech stating that The Queen loves a good film.'The King's Speech' is close to the bone as it is a portrayal of her family in the 1930s. But she found it poignant and enjoyable. She was clearly pleased by some of the lighter moments.

Colin Firth will get to know if he has made the honours list the week before the Queen's Birthday Honors list when it is declared in June.

For the meantime Colin is set to star in My Fair Lady and will next be seen at the side of Gary Oldman when Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy opens across the UK on September 16.

As the 83rd Academy Awards Approaches…

The Academy Awards anxiety is building as 5755 nomination ballots for the 83rd Oscar ceremony were mailed. The ballots were sent to voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences(AMPAS).

Ensuring that the ballots are prepared is quite a process. Prior to mailing, the PricewaterhouseCoopers's staff administers a methodical confirmation process to be sure that there are no duplicates and that nothing is missing. In addition to being counted and sorted, the ballots are numbered to assure that each one is addressed to the suitable voter.The completed ballots must be returned to PricewaterhouseCoopers by 5 p.m. PT on Friday, January 14, 2011.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) is considered the world's paramount

movie-related organization. Its members are more than 6,000 of the most proficient men and women working in cinema.

The 83rd Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Tuesday, January 25, 2011, at 5:30 a.m. PST in the academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater.The awards for marvelous film achievements of 2010 will be presented on February 27, 2011, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood.The presentation will be telecast live in more than 200 countries.

2011 Oscars To Be Co-Hosted By Actor James Franco and Actress Anne Hathway

Actor James Franco and Actress Anne Hathaway to Co-Host the 2011 Academy Awards that will be held on 27 February at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles.

They will be the youngest hosts of the ceremony for decades, as the show's producers Bruce Cohen and Don Mischer look to catch the attention of a new generation of viewers to the live telecast.

Hathaway was nominated for an Oscar in 2009 for  "Rachel Getting Married", while Franco is popular for his Harry Osborn role in the Spider-Man films.

The shows producers stated that James Franco and Anne Hathaway epitomize the next generation of Hollywood icons - fresh, thrilling and versatile.He also added that they hope to create an Oscar broadcast that will both showcase their unbelievable talents as well as entertain the world during this event.

James Franco, 32, and Hathaway, 28, will be the youngest hosts of the show ever since the 29-year-old Goldie Hawn took on co-hosting duties in 1975.They capture from this year's successful, but older partnership of Alec Baldwin, 52, and Steve Martin 65, which attracted 41 million viewers, the maximum audience since 2005.

Best Animated Film Category - 3 Nominees To Compete For The 2011 Oscars

The contest to win an Oscar for Best Animated Film will be less competitive this year.On November 15, the Academy announced that they have only acknowledged 15 films for consideration for the Best Animated Feature prize, which implies there will be only 3 nominees in the category.If there been one more film accepted, the category would have augmented to five slots.

This year's top grossers "Toy Story 3" and "Shrek Forever After" are among the competition, joined by other hits "How to Train Your Dragon" and "Despicable Me" as well as newly-released "Megamind". Other animations in the contest are "Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue", "Alpha and Omega", "Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore", "Idiots and Angels", "Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole" and "My Dog Tulip".

For the moment, the concluding 4 of the academy's 15 accepted films still need to commence a one-week run at a Los Angeles theater by December 31 to qualify for this upcoming annual awards event. The films include "Tangled", "The Illusionist", "The Dreams of Jinsha" and "Summer Wars".

Noomi Rapace, The Actress of 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' Might Be An Oscar Contender

Noomi Rapace, a Swedish actress who plays baffling computer hacker Lisbeth Salander in the 2009 film "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo", directed by Niels Arden Oplev may be a contender for an Oscar at the 2011 Academy Awards.

Rapace has been obtaining a lot of buzz for her role, which sees her similar to a punk rocker with heavy eye makeup as well as multiple piercings, that Hollywood studios have already begun to invite her for parts in upcoming blockbusters Sherlock Holmes 2 with Robert Downey Jr.  and  Mission Impossible 4  with Tom Cruise.

Rapace, is being compared to Marion Cotillard, a French actress who was moderately unheard of in Hollywood until she won an Oscar in 2008 for her depiction of singer Édith Piaf in the film La Vie en Rose.

The nominations for the 83rd Academy Awards would be announced on Jan. 25, 2011 at 8:30 a.m. and the Oscar Awards ceremony will be held on Feb. 27, 2011, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood.

In the intervening time, a remake of the film The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is being produced that will star Rooney Mara in Rapace's role and Daniel Craig as journalist Mikael Blomkvist.

In the film, which is based on the first book in a crime novel  Millennium Trilogy written by Stieg Larsson, Salander helps Blomkvist deal with a freelance assignment by an elderly businessman who wants to unearth what happened to his grand-niece.

Hopes are High for “Inception” in the 2011 Oscars

It appears to be an inevitable conclusion that Christopher Nolan's twist-your-brain-until-it's-a-pretzel thriller "Inception" is  going to get some Oscar love,though at this point the Academy Awards seems to be months away.

Christopher Nolan has yet to win an Oscar, though he was nominated earlier for writing "Memento." On the other hand ,there were some who thought that he was overlooked for his direction of "The Dark Knight."

There are high hopes that Inception is going to get recognition (and possibly wins) in virtually every technical category : editing, sound mixing, sound editing, art direction, cinematography and positively visual effects. A nomination for best score could happen as well.

All in all , a nomination/win of around 10 is expected. With its blend of technical magic and intellectual drama, "Inception" stands poised to become the "Avatar" of the 2011 Academy Awards ceremony.Except that with fewer blue people and a plot that's far less standard than what James Cameron came up with.

We need to wait until next year to see if this dream of  Inception winning the maximum awards at the Oscars would be a reality !