Baz Luhrmann's Bid For His Foremost Academy Award With Great Gatsby Against Peter Jackson, Ang Lee And Kathryn Bigelow

With Luhrmann's latest Academy Award hope “The Great Gatsby” slated for a December 26 release in the US, no fewer than 8 major movies are set for release around the same time .Few of them include the following:

Kathryn Bigelow's "Zero Dark Thirty",
Ang Lee's "Life Of Pi"
Dustin Hoffman's "Quartet"
Peter Jackson's latest "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey"

With seven months pending until release, Baz Luhrmann still has plenty of time to rectify a glaring error uncovered lately by the release of the first trailer for The Great Gatsby, with a shot of New York's Times Square showing a billboard of the Broadway revue Ziegfeld Follies spelled incorrectly as "Zeigfeld".

The Best Jack Nicholson Movies of All Time On His 75th Birthday

Jack Nicholson, one of the greatest actors of Hollywood turned 75 on April 22, 2012.A brief history on his entry into movies…

When he initially got to Hollywood in the late fifties with a dream to make a living in the movies, Jack was not an immediate hit. For some time, he was an assistant at Hanna-Barbera, and essentially showed promise as an animator. But drawing cartoons wasn't his reason for being there. So he gave up.

He then worked with  Roger Corman now and then for several years, appearing in such cult items as ‘The Little Shop Of Horrors’ (1960) and ‘The Raven’ (1963).By the late sixties,though he was not successful as an actor,he was step by step resigning himself to working behind the camera as a writer/director. Then providence played a hand.

His good friend Dennis Hopper was getting ready to shoot ‘Easy Rider’  and had a huge tiff with  character actor Rip Torn, who'd been cast to play gonzo lawyer George Hanson in the film.All of a sudden, Rip was out, and Jack was in.

Jack almost stole that movie, earning himself his first Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Though clearly he'd broken through, it was hardly predicted the level of success that was to follow.

Over the next six years, Jack was nominated for Best Actor four times, and won his first Oscar in 1976, for ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest’. Thus far, he has been nominated 12 times, and won three Academy Awards.

Though Jack is 75, he seems ageless, chiefly when you revisit his best films which includes:

• One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
• Chinatown
• Easy Rider
• The Last Detail
• Carnal Knowledge
• About Schmidt
• The Shining
• Terms Of Endearment
• A Few Good Men
• Something's Gotta Give
• As Good As It Gets

2011 Oscar Predictions for the Best Picture Category

February 2011 might seem like a long, long time away, but that doesn't signify that the Oscar season hasn't kicked into gear. The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences(AMPAS) announced lately 3 new electees to their Board of Governors, together with latest Oscar-winner, director Kathryn Bigelow and the next Oscars ceremony's producers, Bruce Cohen and Don Mischer.

Together with this , there are rumors as to who will host (probably Ricky Gervais) and a possible move to January.Also here are some daring predictions as to which 10 films will receive Best Picture nominations.

Toy Story 3
Inception
Another Year
The Social Network
The Fighter
Love and Other Drugs
The Way Back
Conviction
The American
True Grit

All the Best to all these movies.

Academy Awards Extends the ‘Visual’ Effects Category to 5

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS),for decades has offered three films for consideration for Best "Visual" Effects at the Academy Awards. But from the 83rd Annual Academy Awards , there will be five nominees in this category.

In finalizing the rules for the 2011 Oscar event and broadcast at its June 22nd meeting, the AMPAS Board of Governors elected to increase the list from three to five, the most noteworthy rule change to come out of that meeting.

Only once in 1979 were actually 5 movies recognized, though there was an option to include upto 5 nominees in the nomination. Between 1980 and 1995, 2 or 3 movies could be nominated. But by 1996, rules were changed so that exactly 3 could be nominated.

But the new Visual Effects nomination number is not the only alteration to come out of the June 22nd meeting.In another Tweak,AMPAS has reduced the eligibility for Best Animated Feature Film nominees  from 70 minutes to 40 minutes.

The 83rd Annual Academy Awards will be held on Sunday,February 27, 2011, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center, and will be telecast live on the ABC Television Network.

Best Actress in a Leading Role: Sandra Bullock for "The Blind Side"

Sandra Bullock has eventually earned the top appreciation from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS),after being a part of  Hollywood for more than 20 years.Sandra Bullock has won her first Oscar as the Best Actress for her performance  in 'The Blind Side'. The role  she played in 'The Blind Side' was  an extremely challenging one.In the movie , she plays a prosperous home maker who adopts a black teenager and helps him tremendously to develop into a football star.

The first time Oscar nominee has beaten previous Oscar winners like Merryl Streep and Helen Mirren who were competing for the same honor. The other contenders  include Gabourey Sidibe of   'Precious' as well as Carey Mulligan of  'An Education'.

Before winning the Oscars ,Sandra  Bullock had won the Screen Actors Guild and Golden Globe awards, and the Broadcast Film Critics award which was mutual with Merly Streep.Bullock rose to prominence with her incredible performance in the 1994 box office hit, ‘Speed’. Her other box office hits includes ' While You Were Sleeping', 'Miss Congeniality', 'The Proposal' .She also earned admiration from movie critics for her supporting role in the 2004 Oscar nominated movie 'Crash'.

In her acceptance speech she said 'Did I really earn this or did I just wear you all down?' She thanked all the  fantastic actors and actresses she's worked with, and looked forward to working with many more of them in future.  In a touching moment of her speech, Bullock thanked her mother for instilling the workaholic character in her to practice,practice,practice.

In reference to her mother, Bullock closed with 'She said to be an artist, you had to practice every day, and for reminding her daughters that there's no race, no religion, no class system, no color, nothing, no sexual orientation that makes us better than anyone else. We are all deserving of love. So, to that trailblazer, who allowed me to have that. Thank you.'

Best Director for 2010-Predictions

The oscars would be held within a few months,yet most movies buffs are just trying their luck to predict the nominees for the Best Director Category:

Here are a few of them:

Kathryn Bigelow for "The Hurt Locker"

Peter Jackson for "The Lovely Bones"

Joel and Ethan Coen for "A Serious Man"

Jason Reitman for "Up in the Air"

Michael Haneke for "The White Ribbon"

2010 predictions for the Academy Awards

It might be too early to even mention the possibilities of who would be winning the Oscars, the forthcoming year but unofficial reports has just come up with some guesses:

The most awaited categories in this award is that of the best actor and best actress:

Best Actor:
Jamie Foxx in 'Soloist': Foxx plays the character of a schizophrenic destitute man who also is a Juilliard-trained violin prodigy.

Johnny Depp in 'Enemies': Johnny Depp portrays the role of a notorious criminal ‘John Dillinger’.

Adam Sandler in 'People':Its said that comedies don’t have a place at the Oscars,but the trailer of this movie suggests that Adam Sandler might change the cliché.

Brad Pitt in 'Basterds': Though the title of the movie sounds extremely silly,Brad Pitt isan actor constantly surprising his fans.

Mark Wahlberg in 'Lovely Bones': Mark Wahlberg exhibits his talents in this movie, and has every chance of accomplishing an Oscar.

Best Actress:
The guesses for this category seems to be only a couple..probably others would join in sooner or later...

Meryl Streep in 'Julie & Julia':Meryl Streep plays the character of the late chef Julia Childs.Meryl Streep,as usual always has a place at the Academy Awards.

Hilary Swank in 'Amelia':Hilary Swank with her portrayal of the pilot ‘Amelia Earhart’ has every possibility of achieving success in this category.

10 nominees for The Best Picture Category for Oscars,2010

Including double the nominees for the Best Picture category for the Oscars next year….Will it attract more viewers for the Oscars next year?Will this culminate in a tough competition for the judges for selecting the best picture?Whats the final event gonna be like is hard to predict!

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Sid Ganis made the announcement on June 24th that the Oscars for 2010 to be held on March 7 will have 10 nominees for the Best Picture category. This decision was taken as the governors of the academy board felt that there were several other films which deserved to be in this category.The other qualified movies like 'Dark Knight', 'Iron-Man', 'Happy-Go-Lucky', 'The Wrestler' were left from this category due to the restriction of 5 nominees. Also,there was a debate with 'The Dark Knight', not being chosen in the Best Picture Category as it had sold $1 billion in tickets worldwide.

This brings us back to the days of 1943 when, for the 16th Academy Awards,there were 10 nominees for the best picture.The movie 'Casablanca' won the Oscars for the Best Picture that year.Those in Hollywood might feel that this is a brilliant opportunity for their movies to vie in this category.

On February 2nd, 2010 , movie buffs and those awaiting the Oscars will get to know the nominees for the 82nd Academy Awards.

Katharine Houghton Hepburn

" Everyone thought I was bold and fearless, and even arrogant... but inwardly I was always quaking.. I've never cared about how afraid I may have been inside-I've always done what I thought I should."

- Katharine Hepburn

Katharine Houghton Hepburn is a well-known actress who has to her credit, won the maximum number of Best Actress Oscar awards.She had won the award 4 times and she was nominated 12 times for an Oscar.

The movies for which she won Oscars include the following:
-The Morning Glory in the year 1933
-Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner in the year 1967
-The Lion in Winter in the year 1968
-On Golden Pond in the year 1981

Born in 12 May 1907,she was one of the finest American actresses of her times and has also been successful in television and stage shows.Known to be a maverick,she had deep interest in sports for instance canoeing,,tennis,diving as well as riding her bike.

John "Jack" Joseph Nicholson

Known by most people as Jack Nicholson,he was a versatile personality in Hollywood.He is known to be an efficient director,producer and a well known face as an actor.He is one of the male actors who has won the maximum number of oscars.He has been nominated 12 times for an Oscar.He won 2 oscars for Best Actor and 1 for his role as a Best Supporting Actor.The movies which earned him the oscars include the following:

'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest': Best Actor in the year 1975
'Terms of Endearment':Best Supporting Actor in the year 1983
'As Good as It Gets':Best Actor in the year 1997

Nicholson is also the first actor to have earned the Stanislavsky Award at the Moscow International Film Festival in the year 2001.

The longest acceptance speech at the Oscars

A very interesting fact-The longest speech ever made while receiving the Oscar.

The longest speech was delivered by Greer Garson in 1942 when she won the Best Actress Award for her performance in the movie "Mrs Miniver".The speech lasted for 5 mins 30 seconds and it is recorded in the Guiness Book of Records.Here full name is Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson and she was an extremely popular actress during the time of Second World war.In the movie, Mrs. Miniver she portrayed a character of a strong British woman,as a wife and a mother.

The longest movie to win an Oscar

The Russian movie "War and Peace" (Voyna i mir in Russian) is the longest movie with a duration of 8 hours to win the Academy Awards.The movie which won the award in the year 1968 for the Best Foreign Language Film film is based on Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace.

Wall-E

Wall-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth) won the Best Animated feature at this year's Academy Awards.The movie is directed and written by Andrew Stanton and produced by Pixar Animation Studios. The story is about the distant unrealistic future, where a robot named Wall E is left to clean the earth that is covered by garbage due to the products that is sold by multi-national Buy N Large corporation.WALL-E is left in this earth with just another pet cockroach. Later another robot named Eve is sent to the earth to find if there is life existing on earth still.Life turns wonderful for WALL-e when he falls in love with Eve.Eventually both their lives turn adventurous when they move into outer space ,which turns the destiny of robots and human beings.

The special feature of this film is that majority of the characters in this film do not have human voices. Instead these characters communicate through body language as well as special robotic sounds which are designed by Ben Burtt. This animated feature was released in US and Canada in June 2008.The movie was ranked #1 at the box office during the opening weekend.For Pixar film it marked their third highest grossing film in the opening weekend. The movie is distributed by Walt Disney Pictures.

Smile Pinky

Smile Pinky is a very touching documentary about the struggles of a 8 year old kid who was born with a cleft lip.Its a 39 minute duration documentary which was short in Rampur Dahaba village in Uttar Pradesh,India.

This documentary depicts how the kid Pinki Kumari(in picture) was being considered a social outcast by her village people due to her deformity.This little child was not even allowed to attend school by her village people.Since her parents were hailing from an extremely poor family ,they were unable to afford the surgery to correct the cleft problem.Rescue comes their way when Pankaj,a social activist from the "Smile Train" met Pinki's parents.Smile Train which is an international charity was found in 2000 and aims at helping children with cleft lips.The social activists of Smile Train move from village to village and gather poor children with cleft lip problems and perform surgeries for them free of cost.The documentary also shows how after the surgery, performed by Dr Subodh Kumar Singh,Pinky Kumari is able to lead a normal childhood like the rest of the children in her village.

Directed by Emmy-nominated producer Megan Mylan,the film is shot in Bhojpuri and Hindi with English subtitles.The film which won the Best Short Documentary at the Oscars this year has raised immense hopes for children who are born with cleft lips.

A.R Rehman

A.R Rehman(Allah Rakha Rehman) known as the Mozart of Madras became the first Indian to won 2 Oscar awards.He was awarded 2 oscars for Original Score and Best Song for "Jai Ho" of "SlumDog Millionaire" at the recently held Oscar Awards Ceremony.He delivered a touching speech while receiving the Oscar Award - "All my life, I have had a choice of love and hate. I chose love and I am here." He is India’s finest music maestro and most of his compositions reflect a fusion of east and west .A.R Rehman has won 4 National Film Awards,Malaysian National Award, Mauritius National Award, Malaysian National Award,honorary award from Stanford University for contributions to global music including the BAFTA and Golden Globe awards.

Rehman began his career as a jingle composer in the year 1987. He has composed jingles for ads of brands like Parry's,Asian Paints,Airtel,Titan,Airtel etc.With 5 years in the field of advertising he composed around 300 jingles.In the year 1989, Rehman started his own music recording and mixing studio Panchathan Record Inn in the backyard of his house.This small studio has now become one of India's most well equipped and advanced recording studios.In the year 1992,he got his major career break with the Tamil film "Roja" which made him immensely popular. He received the Indian National Award for the Best Music Composer for this movie, the first time ever by a debutant.From then on he has composed brilliant music for the Indian film Industry.

He was born to K. Shekhar and Kasturi (alias Kareema Begum) in the year January 6,1966 in Chennai (Madras),India.He is married to Saira banu and has 3 children - Khatija, Rahima and Amin.

Penelope Cruz Sanchez

Penelope Cruz Sanchez, a Spanish actress won the best supporting actress award at the Oscars this year for her outstanding performance in the movie "Vicky Cristina Barcelona". She is the first female actress from Spain to win an Oscar.Her career started with Spanish movies like "Jamon, jamon" and "Belle Epoque" in the year 1992.Both these movies won critical acclaim for her as a young actress. She is appreciated immensely for her performances in the movies "Volver" and "Todo sobre mi madre". She has delivered outstanding performance in many American movies too.

She was born in Madrid,Spain in April 28,1974 and had learnt classical ballet for 9 years at Spain's National Conservatory.Penelope Cruz speaks four languages such as Spanish, Italian, French and English. She is also known to have contributed sufficient time and money to charity.In one of her interviews, during the year 2007,she even expressed her wish to adopt a child in future.

Heath Andrew Ledger

Heath Andrew Ledger was posthumously awarded the Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars for his outstanding portrayal of his character Joker in the movie The Dark Knight. He is the first actor to win an award posthumously. His family accepted the awards on behalf of him at the Academy Awards. He also won the Golden Globe Awards for the same role which was received by the director of the movie Christopher Nolan.

The Dark Knight is the sequel to the 2005 film "Batman Begins", directed by Christopher Nolan. The character of Joker is a psychopathic criminal mastermind who is unstoppable in his venture to outwit and humiliate Batman.

In order to prepare for his role, Ledger locked himself in a hotel room in London for nearly a month, formed a diary and experimented in various ways for his voice. He did this in his quest for an iconic voice and laugh. Eventually he ended up in being a psychopath, as a person with almost no conscience to his acts. The director Christopher Rolan had given him complete freedom to create his role. Ledger found his role very exciting as there were no boundaries to what his role can create.

Heath Ledger was an Australian film and Television actor. He had performed several roles in Australia during the 1990’s .By 1998 he moves to the US in order to improve his film career.His acting career began with the Australian Television Series "Clowning Around (1992)".

Few people are aware that Heath Ledger had "KAOS" tattooed across one wrist. They stood for Kate, Ashleigh, Olivia and Sally which are the names of his mom and three sisters.He died on January 22 2008, at the age of 28, due to an accidental overdose of toxic combination of prescription drugs.

The others oscar winners:

Best Original Song :
'Jai Ho'-A.R Rehman and Gulzar
'Slumdog Millionaire'

Best Film Editing:
'Slumdog Millionaire'
Chris Dickens

Best Documentary - Short Subject:
'Smile Pinki'

Best Cinematography:
'Slumdog Millionaire'
Anthony Dod Mantle

Best Costume Design:
'The Duchess'
Michael O'Connor

Best Sound Mixing:
'Slumdog Millionaire'
Ian Tapp, Richard Pryke, Resul Pookutty

Best Sound Editing:
'The Dark Knight'
Richard King

Best Live Action Short Film:
'Spielzeugland (Toyland)'

Best Animated Short Film:
'La Maison de Petits Cubes'

Best Makeup:
'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button'
Greg Cannom

Best Art Direction:
'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button'
Donald Graham Burt, Victor J. Zolfo

Best Visual Effects:
'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button'