- 2 January, Los Angeles: Follow the lead-up awards, read quotes, see the critics' picks and get your opinions polled at the Internet Movie Database's Road to the Oscars08. We know it's not theOscarSite, but -- hey -- it's a lot flashier!
- 2 January, Los Angeles: The domestic box office tallied a record $9.68 billion in ticket sales during 2007, up 4 percent over 2006, according to box-office trackers Media By Numbers. However, the entire increase appeared to be the result of higher ticket prices, as the number of tickets sold remained virtually flat with last year at 1.42 billion and well off the 2002 modern-day record of 1.6 billion set in 2002. Meanwhile, Daily Variety reported that the six major studios grossed $9.4 billion in 2007, up 9 percent from last year. -- IMDb
- 2 January, Beverly Hills: The Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has voted the Gordon E. Sawyer Award to David A. Grafton, a pioneering designer of lenses for optical effects printers, which at the time of their development were adopted by nearly every visual effects facility in the motion picture industry.
The award, an Oscar® statuette, will be presented to Grafton at the Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday, 24 February 2008, at the Kodak Theatre.
"David's innovative designs have enabled audiences to see the 'impossible' on movie screens, and his work has dramatically improved the quality of visual effects in the motion picture industry," said Academy President Sid Ganis. -- A.M.P.A.S.
- 3 January, Beverly Hills: The Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced another honorary award today. David Inglish, director of audio and video technology at Universal Studios, has been voted the John A. Bonner Medal of Commendation.
"For decades, Dave has conceived, designed and implemented an amazing array of technology-based projects," said Academy President Sid Ganis. "His commitment and expertise are truly admirable as is his unfailing dedication to the Academy." The award, an medallion, will be presented to Inglish at the Scientific and Technical Awards Dinner on Saturday, 9 February 2008, at The Beverly Wilshire.
Inglish has been an Academy member since 1992 and has served in the Visual Effects Branch since its inception. He is also a longtime member of the Scientific and Technical Awards Committee. In 2003 he became one of the founding members of the Academy's Science and Technology Council. -- A.M.P.A.S.
- 4 January, Beijing:
 After already causing an uproar at the Berlin Film Festival for being screened without first being submitted to Chinese censors, Yu Li's Ping guo (Lost in Beijing) has been ordered withdrawn from further exhibition in China. Citing the film's "pornographic" content and the fact that it was shown at the Berlinale without state permission, Chinese officials also said that the film's producer will be barred from making films for two years. Although the erotic scenes were heavily edited for its theatrical showing in China, bootleg copies of the uncut version were widely distributed throughout the country and on the Internet. The filmmakers themselves were accused of being the source of the pirated material. Producer Li Fang denied the charge, telling the Associated Press: "Why would I give the movie to pirates and hurt my own movie? ... We are victims of piracy. We are the biggest victims." -- IMDb
- 4 January, Beverly Hills: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced that seven films remain in contention for Achievement in Visual Effects for the 80th Academy Awards®. Here are the films in alphabetical order: The Bourne Ultimatum, Evan Almighty, The Golden Compass, I Am Legend, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, 300 and Transformers.
On Wednesday, 16 January, members of the Academy's Visual Effects Branch will view 15-minute excerpts from each of the seven shortlisted films. Following the screenings, the members will vote to nominate three films for final Oscar® consideration. The 80th Academy Awards nominations will be announced on Tuesday, 22 January 2008, at 5:30 a.m. PT in the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater. -- A.M.P.A.S.
- 7 January, Beverly Hills: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced that seven films remain in contention for Achievement in Makeup for the 80th Academy Awards®. Here are the films in alphabetical order: Le Scaphandre et le papillon (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, La Môme (La Vie en rose), Norbit, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and 300.
On Saturday, 19 January, members of the Academy's Makeup Branch will view 10-minute excerpts from each of the seven shortlisted films. Following the screenings, the members will vote to nominate three films for final Oscar® consideration. The 80th Academy Awards nominations will be announced on Tuesday, 22 January 2008, at 5:30 a.m. PT in the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater. -- A.M.P.A.S.
- 9 January, Los Angeles: Academy Awards® show producer Gil Cates insists that the Oscars® will be presented as scheduled on 24 February, whether or not the strike of the Writers Guild of America remains in effect through that date. "We are going to do it," Cates told the Associated Press Tuesday. "I can't elaborate on how we're going to do it, because I don't want anybody to deal with the elaboration in a way that might impact its success." Added Academy President Sid Ganis: "We're not panicking. We're preparing our show, and we're moving forward." Some studio executives were skeptical, however. Harvey Weinstein of the Weinstein Co. told A.P.: "No matter what anybody says, if the WGA goes on strike and SAG is in support, then there's no Oscar show. It's as simple as that." -- IMDb
- 9 January, Los Angeles:
 Sean Penn, known more for his acting abilities than his directorial talent, was nevertheless among the nominees for best filmmaker announced by the Directors Guild of America Tuesday. Penn was nominated for his Into the Wild, starring Emile Hirsch. Among the other DGA nominees were the Coen brothers for No Country for Old Men, Paul Thomas Anderson for There Will Be Blood, Tony Gilroy for Michael Clayton, and Julian Schnabel for Le Scaphandre et le papillon (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly). With rare exceptions, the DGA winner goes on to win the best-director Oscar® at the Academy Awards® presentations. -- IMDb
 - 10 January, New York: While the Writers Guild of America continues its strike, throwing much of awards season into question, it still has some awards of its own to hand out. The WGA on Thursday announced its nominees for the most outstanding achievements in writing for the screen in the past year. Among the nominees for best original screenplay were stripper-turned-scribe Diablo Cody for the teen pregnancy comedy Juno and Tony Gilroy, who wrote and directed Michael Clayton, about a fixer at an upscale New York law firm. Also nominated for best original screenplay were Judd Apatow for Knocked Up, another comedy about an unplanned pregnancy, Tamara Jenkins for The Savages, about adult siblings caring for their ailing father, and Nancy Oliver for Lars and the Real Girl, in which a loner falls for a life-size doll.
Many of the year's most acclaimed films were based on books, making the adapted screenplay category especially competitive. The nominees include Joel and Ethan Coen's adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's Texas crime novel, No Country for Old Men, and Paul Thomas Anderson's loose adaptation of Upton Sinclair's novel Oil!, which he turned into There Will Be Blood. Also nominated for best adapted screenplay were Sean Penn's script for Into the Wild, based on Jon Krakauer's book, Ronald Harwood's adaptation of Jean-Dominique Bauby's memoir Le Scaphandre et le papillon (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), and James Vanderbilt's script for Zodiac, adapted from Robert Graysmith's book about San Francisco's Zodiac killer.
Nominees for the third and final category, documentary screenplay, were Michael Moore's script for Sicko, as well as those for Nanking, No End in Sight, Taxi to the Dark Side, The Rape of Europa and The Camden 28. The Writers Guild Awards are set for 9 February at simultaneous ceremonies in Los Angeles and New York. -- Jake Coyle, AP
- 15 January, Beverly Hills: Nine films will advance to the next round of voting in the Foreign Language Film category for the 80th Academy Awards®. Sixty-three films had originally qualified in the category. The films, listed in alphabetical order by country, are:
· Austria, Die Fälscher (The Counterfeiters), Stefan Ruzowitzky, director
· Brazil, O Ano em Que Meus Pais Saíram de Férias (The Year My Parents Went on Vacation), Cao Hamburger, director
· Canada, L'Âge des ténèbres (Days of Darkness), Denys Arcand, director
· Israel, Beaufort, Joseph Cedar, director
· Italy, La Sconosciuta (The Unknown), Giuseppe Tornatore, director
· Kazakhstan, Mongol, Sergei Bodrov, director
· Poland, Katyn, Andrzej Wajda, director
· Russia, 12, Nikita Mikhalkov, director
· Serbia, Klopka (The Trap), Srdan Golubovic, director
Foreign Language Film nominations for 2007 are being determined in two phases. The Phase I committee, consisting of several hundred Los Angeles-based members, screened the 63 eligible films and their ballots determined the above shortlist.
A Phase II committee, made up of ten randomly selected members from the Phase I group, joined by specially invited ten-member contingents in New York and Los Angeles, will view the shortlisted films and select the five nominees for the category. Phase II screenings will take place from Friday, 18 January, through Sunday, 20 January, in both Hollywood and New York City. -- A.M.P.A.S.
- 16 January, Berlin:
 Shine a Light, Martin Scorsese's documentary on the Rolling Stones, will open the Berlin film festival next month. Scorsese and the band will attend the 7 February screening, organizers said Tuesday. The annual event, the first of the year's major European film festivals, ends 17 February.
"We are extremely excited to have the world premiere of this magnificent film as our opening gala," festival director Dieter Kosslick said. "Martin Scorsese has captured the pure essence of an iconic band on the big screen."
Shine a Light documents two concerts by the Stones at New York's Beacon Theatre, on 29 Oct. and 1 Nov., 2006. It also includes rarely seen archive and behind-the-scenes footage, as well as interviews, the festival said. Scorsese has made other films focusing on music stars, including the 2005 documentary No Direction Home: Bob Dylan and 1978's The Last Waltz, chronicling the all-star farewell concert by The Band. -- AP
 - 15 January, New York: The Producers Guild of America, whose choice of best film often is mirrored at the Oscars®, announced its nominees Monday. They include: No Country for Old Men, Juno, There Will Be Blood, Le Scaphandre et le papillon (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), and Michael Clayton. Conspicuously absent from the list is Atonement which was named best film at Sunday's Golden Globe announcements. Three films were nominated in the animation category: Bee Movie, Ratatouille, and The Simpsons Movie. The winners will be announced on February 2. -- IMDb
- 16 January, London:
 The British film Atonement, which received the Golden Globe award for best film Sunday, received a whopping 14 nominations for the BAFTAs, presented by the British Academy of Film and Television. The movie received nominations for best film, best British film, best actress (Keira Knightley), best actor (James McAvoy), best director (Joe Wright) and best supporting actress (Saoirse Ronan). Two films received nine nominations, No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood. All three films were nominated for best film, along with The Lives of Others and American Gangster. Several British critics expressed surprise at the poor showing for Sweeney Todd, which received nominations only for make-up, hair and costume design. Winners are due to be announced on February 10. -- IMDb
- 17 January, Park City: The Sundance Film Festival kicks off its opening weekend with the world premieres of two feature films: Tonight in Park City it's Martin McDonagh's In Bruges, which features an international cast starring Ralph Fiennes, Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson in a suspensful, twisted tale of two London hit men ordered to take a forced vacation in Bruges, Belgium, and how their subsequent time in exile goes awry; and, in Salt Lake City on Saturday night, Sean McGinly's The Great Buck Howard, starring Colin Hanks, Tom Hanks, John Malkovich and Emily Blunt, about a law school dropout who answers an advertisement to be a celebrity's personal assistant and finds himself staging the comeback of a lifetime for a mentalist whose flamboyant style is at once confounding and wholly authentic.
New for 2008, in an effort to draw attention to the screenwriters, cinematographers, and editors in the international arena, World Cinema Documentary and Dramatic Competition films are now eligible for the same juried awards as their U.S. counterparts. The new awards this year include: World Cinema Directing Award: Dramatic, World Cinema Directing Award: Documentary, World Cinema Screenwriting Award, World Cinema Documentary Editing Award, World Cinema Cinematography Award: Dramatic, World Cinema Cinematography Award: Documentary.
The Festival, founded in 1984 and presenting dramatic and documentary feature-length films in nine distinct categories and approximately 80 short films each year, continues through 27 January in Park City, Salt Lake City, Ogden and Sundance, Utah. -- Sundance Film Festival
- 21 January, Los Angeles:
 In his (often successful) annual attempt to steal the thunder from the Oscar® nominations which will be revealed tomorrow, John Wilson - founder of the Golden Raspberry Award Foundation and its Razzie Awards - announced his annual nominees for the Worst of 2007. Leading the pack were Lindsay Lohan and Eddie Murphy for I Know Who Killed Me and Norbit, respectively. Murphy scored multiple noms for Norbit: Worst Picture, Worst Actor, Worst Supporting Actress, Worst Supporting Actor and Worst Screen Couple. According to Wilson, Murphy's closest competitor for Worst Screen Couple is Lohan, who played a dual role in I Know... Other Worst Picture nominees are Bratz, Daddy Day Camp (with Cuba Gooding Jr. starring in a sequel to Murphy's Daddy Day Care), and I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry (with Adam Sandler and Kevin James as firefighters posing as a gay couple).
Sandler and Gooding joined Murphy in the Worst Actor category, along with Nicolas Cage for Ghost Rider and Jim Carrey for The Number 23. Lohan was cited twice as Worst Actress for I Know..., while the four Bratz stars - Logan Browning, Janel Parrish, Nathalia Ramos and Skyler Shaye - shared a nomination. Also nominated were Jessica Alba for three films, Awake, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer and Good Luck Chuck; Elisha Cuthbert for Captivity; and Diane Keaton for Because I Said So.
Razzie winners (?) will be announced on 23 February, the day before the 80th Annual Academy Awards® ceremony.
 - 22 January, Beverly Hills: Nominations for the 80th Annual Academy Awards® are announced at 5:30 a.m. PST in the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater by Academy President Sid Ganis and Kathy Bates. Use this link to view theOscarSite's treatment of this year's nominations, all 58 films and all the people who received the 200 nominations, 81 of whom were nominated for Oscars® for the first time.
Use this link to view theOscarSite's 2007 Oscars® nomination page.
- 30 January, Beverly Hills: Final ballots for the 80th Academy Awards® were mailed today to the 5,829 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Completed ballots must be returned to PricewaterhouseCoopers by 5 p.m. Tuesday, 19 February. Ballots received after the deadline will not be counted.
Listed on the ballots are nominees in 19 Awards categories. Separate ballots for five categories (Documentary Feature, Documentary Short Subject, Foreign Language Film, Animated Short Film and Live Action Short Film) will be distributed after verification of mandatory member attendance at screenings.
Following the tabulation of the votes, the winners' names will be placed in sealed envelopes to be opened on Oscar Night®, Sunday, 24 February at the Kodak Theatre, and televised live by the ABC Television Network beginning at 5 p.m. PT. The Oscar presentation also will be televised live in more than 200 countries worldwide. -- A.M.P.A.S.
- 31 January, Los Angeles: Gil Cates, the producer of this year's 80th Annual Academy Awards® telecast, has appealed to the Writers Guild of America not to picket the ceremonies. In an interview with the Associated Press, Cates said that the Oscars® will take place, strike or no strike, but that he has prepared a "contingency" production that he "would prefer not to do" just in case, featuring "history and packages of film and concepts." He was not more specific. "This show, in my view, is really above politics," he told A.P. "It is wrong to treat the show as anything other than a gift from all the people who work in this business, really, to the exceptional talent and the community and the country." Besides, he noted, the writers have already agreed not to picket next month's Grammy® or Image awards. "It's hard for me to believe that they would picket a show that really honors their own." Although the writers have not responded directly to Cates's comments, they have previously noted that the Oscars telecast traditionally draws the second-largest audience of the year, producing tens of millions of dollars in advertising revenue, and is also a promotional vehicle for movies from the studios that the writers are striking. -- IMDb
- 4 February, Los Angeles:
 New stars such as Ellen Page of Juno and veterans like Hal Holbrook from Into the Wild bathed in the Oscar® spotlight on Monday with little difference between generations when it came to being nominated for the world's top film honors.
"It's very surreal, very bizarre, and it doesn't always feel right to be associated with ... people you have so much respect for and so much admiration for," said Page, who turns 21 this month. "It's like: Are you sure? You want to double-check that?," she joked about her best actress nomination for her role as a pregnant 16-year-old girl in Juno.
"It's hard to describe. It's a tremendous thrill," said Hal Holbrook, 82, about his supporting actor nomination.
The Oscars will be given out by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on 24 February, and each year nominees gather for a casual luncheon before the gala awards ceremony. A-list celebrities like George Clooney (Michael Clayton) and Laura Linney (The Savages) mingled with the likes of French actress Marion Cotillard for La Vie en rose.
Among the younger set, the word "surreal" was mentioned often. Sarah Polley, 29, said she could not have dreamed the movie she wrote and directed, the Alzheimer's drama Away from Her, would earn her a nomination for best adapted screenplay. "I never expected to be here, but it's totally thrilling to meet so many filmmakers you admire," she said.
Clooney, nominated for best actor in legal thriller Michael Clayton, said even he can be a little star-struck at the Oscar luncheon. "There's something kind of exciting hanging around" other nominees, Clooney said. "You don't really run out of things to say just because it's a bunch of actors."
Director Ivan Reitman, 61, was most excited about one person in particular -- his son Jason, 30, who was nominated for best director for Juno. Reitman told of how Jason, as a 12 year-old, once asked why his father never went to the Oscars. Reitman, director of movies like "Ghostbusters," replied that he didn't want to go if he was not nominated, and the 12-year-old asked, "What if I get nominated, will you come?" The father looked at his son and said: "So I'm here, thank you." Then with big grin, he told reporters, "I love this guy." -- Bob Tourtellotte, Reuters
- 7 February, Berlin:
 The Berlin Film festival is set to open tonight (Thursday) with a screening of Martin Scorsese's Rolling Stones concert documentary, Shine a Light. At a news conference earlier today, the Stones' Keith Richards indicated that the group had been approached several times in the past about making films of their concerts -- something, he indicated, that had never really interested him. However, when he heard that director Scorsese wanted to make such a film, he said, "I thought, 'This is interesting.'" The film, he said, is "Martin's movie. We're just the leading men." Scorsese himself acknowledged that he wanted also to capture "the humor, the absurdity of trying to put [a Stones concert] on film." When a reporter observed that the film may also demonstrate the futility of attempting to do so, Stones front man Mick Jagger suggested that it was intended not merely to present a concert on the movie screen. Rather, he said, it's "that night [of the performance] set in amber." -- IMDb
- 7 February, Los Angeles: Despite numerous reports that the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television producers have reached an agreement and are currently hammering out the wording, the Screen Actors Guild on Wednesday urged its members to show up in force at the Walt Disney Studios today (Thursday) "to let management know that we stand firmly with our brothers and sisters at the WGA." Meanwhile, Sid Ganis, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, repeated his plea to leaders of the WGA to allow preparation for the Oscars® to go forward. In an interview with Daily Variety, Ganis noted that the show involves complicated production numbers and making travel arrangements for presenters and nominees. "I'm nervous," he told the trade publication. "We're getting down to the final moments; we need to make plans." The 80th Annual Academy Awards® telecast is scheduled to take place on 24 February. -- IMDb
- 9 February, Beverly Hills:
 The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented its annual Scientific and Technical Achievement Awards tonight in Beverly Hills, CA. Actress Jessica Alba hosted the black-tie presentation dinner. In addition to nine Technical Achievement Awards (certificates) and two Scientific and Engineering Awards (plaques), four Scientific and Technical Special Award recipients were recognized at the black-tie awards dinner: David A. Grafton, who received the Gordon E. Sawyer Award; to the Eastman Kodak Company, an Academy Award of Merit; David S. Inglish, the John A. Bonner Award; and Jonathan Erland, the Award of Commendation. -- A.M.P.A.S.
- 13 February, Beverly Hills: The end of the writers' strike (ratified overwhealmingly by the WGA membership yesterday) means that the the 80th Annual Academy Awards® show will go on employing producer Gil Cates's Plan A. (A contingency Plan B that would have seen the Oscars® show reduced to film clips had also been in the works.) "Until yesterday, we really had two shows we were preparing," Cates told an assemblage of production staff in Hollywood Tuesday. "I'm very happy the writers' strike came to a close," he said, "This is basically the last push before the big show." -- IMDb
 - 13 February, Berlin: A screening at the Berlin Film Festival of Errol Morris's S.O.P.: Standard Operating Procedure about the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in 2003 stunned not a few critics Tuesday night, several of whom suggested that the film could capture the top Golden Bear award. In reporting on the film's premiere, the French news agency Agence France-Presse observed that the "anemic lineup at the Berlin Film Festival has left critics searching for a challenger to the runaway favorite ... There Will Be Blood," suggesting that S.O.P. might fill that bill. Blood has already garnered numerous awards, and the Berlin festival -- the Berlinale, as it is known -- has in the past prided itself in rewarding worthy undiscovered films. If S.O.P. should win, it would surprise on a number of levels. No other documentary has ever been chosen for the main competition in the Berlinale's history. And it would place the non-political festival in the position of rewarding a film that accuses the U.S. of perpetrating torture on innocent civilians, many of whom were allegedly rounded up indiscriminately and imprisoned in the early days of the Iraq war. (Former Army specialist Lynndie England, who was sentenced to three years for her role in the torture, says in the film that she came to realize that many of the prisoners who were tortured were ordinary family men who had no role in the insurgency. She also expresses anger that higher-ups went unpunished.) -- IMDb
- 14 February, Beverly Hills:
 It's obvious that 80th Annual Academy Awards® telecast producer Gil Cates and Academy President Sid Ganis have not allowed any grass to grow under their feet during the recently-settled writers' strike. Today they announced the presenters and performers for the telecast who are scheduled to date, including all four of last year's winners in the acting categories -- Alan Arkin, Jennifer Hudson, Helen Mirren and Forest Whitaker -- as well as Amy Adams, Jessica Alba, Cate Blanchett, Josh Brolin, Steve Carell, George Clooney, Penélope Cruz, Miley Cyrus, Patrick Dempsey, Cameron Diaz, Colin Farrell, Harrison Ford, Jennifer Garner, Tom Hanks, Anne Hathaway, Katherine Heigl, Jonah Hill, Dwayne Johnson, Nicole Kidman, James McAvoy, Queen Latifah, Seth Rogen, Martin Scorsese, Hilary Swank, John Travolta, Denzel Washington and Renée Zellweger.
Cates and Ganis also announced the performers of the nominated songs. Amy Adams will sing "Happy Working Song" from Enchanted (music by Alan Menken and lyric by Stephen Schwartz). Also from Enchanted (and written by Menken and Schwartz) will be "That's How You Know," sung by Kristin Chenoweth and Marlon Saunders, and "So Close," to be performed by Jon McLaughlin. Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová will perform their nominated song, "Falling Slowly," from the motion picture Once and Jamia Simone Nash will perform "Raise It Up," from August Rush with the IMPACT Repertory Theatre of Harlem, headed by Jamal Joseph, who shares the song's music and lyric credit with Charles Mack and Tevin Thomas.
Also scheduled to return to the Oscar® telecast team will be writers Hal Kanter, Buz Kohan, Jon Macks and Bruce Vilanch. Second-time Oscar show host Jon Stewart will also bring on several writers to work on the telecast. -- A.M.P.A.S.
Go to theOscarSite's 2007 page, for links to selections from all the nominated songs (and scores).
- 15 February, Beverly Hills: Voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences must return their completed final Oscar® ballots to PricewaterhouseCoopers by 5 p.m. on Tuesday, 19 February. Ballots received after the 5 p.m. deadline will not be counted. Final ballots were mailed to the 5,829 voting members of the Academy on Wednesday, 30 January.
Once PricewaterhouseCoopers has tabulated the votes, the winners' names will be placed in sealed, foil-lined envelopes. Brad Oltmanns and Rick Rosas, the lead balloting partners, will be the only people to know the results prior to the envelopes being opened on Oscar Night®. -- A.M.P.A.S.
- 17 February, Berlin:
 Tropa de Elite (Elite Squad), José Padilha's story on crime and corruption in the Rio slums, has won the Golden Bear at the 2008 Berlin International Film Festival while Errol Morris' doc on the Abu Ghraib scandal, Standard Operating Procedure, won the Jury Grand Prix Silver Bear.
Paul Thomas Anderson was awarded the Silver Bear for best director for There Will Be Blood while Jonny Greenwood was recognized for artist contribution in scoring the film. Chinese director Wang Xiaoshuai was credited with the best script for Zuo you (In Love We Trust), while the prize for an innovative film went to ¿Te acuerdas de Lake Tahoe? (Lake Tahoe), directed by Fernando Eimbcke of Mexico. Keiko Araki and Kumasaka Izuru won the Best First Feature award for Asyl - Park and Love Hotel. Actors winning Silver Bears include Reza Najie for Avaze gonjeshk-ha (The Song of Sparrows) and Sally Hawkins for her work in Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky.
The winners were chosen from among the 21 films in the competition by a six-member international jury under Constantin Costa-Gavras, the Greek-born director of Z and Missing. A popular event for the public, this year's Berlinale sold some 230,000 tickets to moviegoers for the more than 380 films that screened at the fest, which wrapped Sunday. -- (Visit Variety.com for a complete list of winners.)
- 19 February, Los Angeles: With a current gross of $125 million, Fox Searchlight's comedy Juno has become the biggest indie hit since 2002's My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which eventually grossed $241.4 million. Daily Variety also observed today (Tuesday) that it is also the only film this year to remain in the top-10 box office list every weekend since its debut. Moreover, it is the highest-grossing film nominated for a best-film Oscar®, taking in more than twice the revenue of its closest rival, the Coen brothers' No Country for Old Men, which has earned $61.3 million. -- IMDb
- 23 February, Santa Monica: A year after his Academy Awards® dream went up in smoke, Eddie Murphy has not just one consolation prize, but three: Razzie Awards® as worst actor, supporting actor and supporting actress for the comedy Norbit. The fourth acting "dis-honor" announced at Saturday's Golden Raspberry Awards® went to Lindsay Lohan, who actually was voted two worst-actress trophies for the thriller I Know Who Killed Me, the worst-picture winner in which she played dual roles.
I Know Who Killed Me set a new Razzies record with eight awards, including worst screen couple for Lohan in her double role. Topping the previous record of seven Razzies for both Showgirls and Battlefield Earth, I Know Who Killed Me also won for worst director (Chris Sivertson), screenplay (Jeff Hammond), horror movie, and remake or rip-off (Razzies organizers viewed it as a cross between torture flicks such as Saw and a twisted update of "The Patty Duke Show").
With his latest exercise in multiple roles, Murphy was the first person ever to win three acting Razzies in one year. He won as worst actor for the geeky title role, supporting actress as his tubby, shrewish wife and supporting actor as a stereotyped Asian man. Some awards watchers say Norbit cost Murphy an Oscar, landing in theaters shortly before last year's ceremony and potentially displeasing enough academy voters that the balloting went against him for Dreamgirls, for which he had been the supporting-actor favorite. Murphy lost at the Oscars to Alan Arkin for Little Miss Sunshine.
The Razzies ceremony at a magic shop in Santa Monica came a day before Sunday's Oscars, where Norbit ironically is up for the best-makeup prize against La Môme (La Vie en Rose) and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.
Between them, Norbit and I Know Who Killed Me won all but one of the Razzies. "We've never had two films so totally dominate, at least not since the heyday of Sylvester Stallone," said Razzies founder John Wilson. The remaining prize still had a Murphy connection, with worst prequel or sequel going to Cuba Gooding Jr.'s Daddy Day Camp, a follow-up to Murphy's Daddy Day Care. -- David Germain, AP
- 24 February, Hollywood:
 Dodging the bullet posed by the recently settled writers' strike, the 80th Annual Academy Awards® Ceremony was broadcast as scheduled. Unfortunately, TV viewers did not tune in. With an estimated average of 32.3 million viewers in the US, the show drew the smallest share of the US audience since it began to be telecast nationally in 1953. By the show's final half-hour in prime time, that audience had dwindled to 25.4 million. Analysts posed several reasons for its poor showing. Among them were the lack of blockbuster hits in the field of nominated films, a greater focus on international films (all four acting winners were non-US-born), and the dark tone of many of the films that received the most nominations.
This did not deter the Academy from donning its finest and putting on a glitzy show. Host Jon Stewart performed well and generally received good reviews in the press. One of his best moments came when he presented some of the features that might have been scheduled in a "writer-less" Oscars® show -- a tribute to binoculars and periscope shots and a montage of bad dreams. He also exhibited a lot of class when he brought Original Song co-winner Markéta Irglová back on stage after a commercial break to give her the opportunity to give her acceptance speech. (She had been previously played off by the orchestra before the break.)
Academy voters did not agree with the national film critics in several areas, most notably Leading Actress (Marion Cotillard bested critics' choice and SAG Award winner Julie Christie) and Supporting Actress (George Clooney's predicted dark horse Tilda Swinton received more votes than critics' choice Amy Ryan or SAG Award-winner and sentimental favorite Ruby Dee). However, there were no surprises in the other "major" categories: The Coen Brothers took home Oscar gold for Best Picture, Director(s) and Adapted Screenplay for their No Country for Old Men, and Javier Bardem claimed Supporting Actor for his creepy portrayal of the film's creepy Anton Chigurh. Daniel Day-Lewis capped a triumphant year by receiving his second Golden Guy, this time for delivering the goods as Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood.
For whatever reason, this year's Oscars repelled viewers as it went on. Stewart, who previously presided over the 2006 Oscars (the 3rd lowest-rated show), now goes down as the host of two of the three lowest rated Academy Awards in TV history. And in defense of Steve Martin, who hosted the 2003 75th Anniversary misfire, that ceremony competed for attention with the start of the Iraq War. Stewart, thusly, stands alone as the lowest-rated host of relatively peaceful Oscar nights.
Use this link to view our detailed coverage of this year's Awards Show.
- 26 February, Los Angeles:
 Some analysts were suggesting that in the haste to mount Sunday night's 80th Annual Academy Awards® telecast following the writers' strike, the show's writers failed to research their material sufficiently. That might have accounted for the omission of some names from the annual list of the "departed." Several writers immediately noticed the fact that Roy Scheider, who died on 10 February, was overlooked, as was Brad Renfro who died on 15 January. (The Academy's policy has been to include notable deaths from 1 February to 31 January.) A spokeswoman for the Academy said that Scheider's death came too recently to be included and of Renfro, she said, "Unfortunately we cannot include everyone." But a message on Nikki Finke's Dateline Hollywood Today blog observed that others not included in the list were such notables as Robert Goulet, Merv Griffin, Marcel Marceau, Tom Poston, and Charles Nelson Reilly, among many others.
Also setting off a major controversy was the omission of Whoopi Goldberg and Steve Martin from a montage featuring Oscar® hosts. Appearing on "The View", where she is a regular panelist, Goldberg, a four-time Oscar emcee, appeared emotional over the slight. Her fellow panelists observed that she was the first woman ever to host the Oscars, the first Oscar winner to host the affair, and that her entrance in white face as Queen Elizabeth ("The African Queen") was one of the most memorable Oscar incidents. "Did you make somebody at the Oscars mad?" she was asked. "Undoubtedly," she replied. -- IMDb
- 27 February, Los Angeles: Whoopi Goldberg has accepted an apology from producer Gil Cates for not including her in a montage featuring Oscar® hosts during Sunday's Academy Awards® telecast. Cates called her Tuesday and "talked about the fact that he had made an oversight, pure and simple. He said, `You know I love you,'" Goldberg said Wednesday on ABC daytime talk show "The View."
Goldberg, who called Cates a "great gentleman," accepted his apology. She said she has "moved on" since choking up on Monday's show when her fellow co-hosts discussed how she was left out of the clip. The 52-year-old actress-comedian hosted the Oscars in 1994, 1996, 1999 and 2002. -- AP
- 29 February, Los Angeles:
 New Line Cinema has reached the end of the line. Time Warner announced Thursday that it will merge the studio into Warner Bros. and lay off hundreds of employees, including Co-Chairmen and -CEOs Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne. The company's plans were originally reported last month by L.A. Weekly columnist Nikki Finke but were strenuously denied at the time by a New Line spokeswoman. Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes indicated that the New Line banner will continue to exist but that it will no longer greenlight, market or distribute its films. "Between the cost savings and the revenue enhancements, we believe we can at least double the earnings of New Line," Bewkes told the Los Angeles Times. In an email to New Line staffers, Shaye called his departure "painful" but added that he was proud to have been a part of creating "some of the most popular and successful movies of all time." (Use this link to view all the films released by New Line since its founding in 1967.) Shayne said that he and Lynne "intend to remain actively involved in the industry in an entrepreneurial capacity" but otherwise gave no hint of their future plans. -- IMDb
 - 4 March, Toronto: First-time Canadian film director Sarah Polley was showered with awards and praise Monday night as her film Away From Her captured seven awards, including best actor (Gordon Pinsent), best actress (Julie Christie), and best director, at Canada's version of the Oscars®, the Genie® Awards. David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises also won seven awards, dominating the lower-profile categories.
The awards presentations also turned out to be an effective platform for opponents of proposed Canadian legislation that would deny tax credits to any film regarded as offensive. Host Sandra Oh remarked that the bill would result in a comeback for censorship, adding: "I don't know about you, but that doesn't sound very Canadian to me." (Visit Genie Awards.ca for more details.) -- IMDb
- 5 March, Paris:
 Some 4.4 million French moviegoers paid $39.7 million to watch the comedy Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis (Welcome to the Land of the Ch'tis) during its first week in theaters, setting a record, its distributor Pathé said Tuesday. The previous record was held by the 2006 comedy Les Bronzes 3: Amis pour la vie, which took in $27.8 million in its first week. Reporting on the results, the French news agency Agence France Press observed that the film "looks set to be the movie of the year" in France. It cost $18 million to produce. By Tuesday, the wire service observed, the film's total box office had already exceeded that for Astérix aux jeux olympiques (Asterix at the Olympic Games), which debuted in January -- France's most expensive film ever at an estimated €78 million (US$ 93.7 million). -- IMDb
 - 9 March, Hong Kong: Se, Jie (Lust, Caution) star Tang Wei has been banned in the Chinese media because of the sexual nature of her performance in director Ang Lee's steamy drama, according to local press reports. An internal memo from China's State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT) was reportedly sent to all television stations and print media in China on Thursday night, stating that a new television commercial starring Tang for skin care brand Pond's was to cease broadcast immediately. All print ads and feature content using the actress also were to be pulled. The memo gave no reason for the ban. Tang's deal with Pond's is worth a reported 6 million yuan ($843,000). Neither Tang's manager nor SARFT could be reached for comment.
In addition, all awards shows in China were advised to exclude Tang and the producers of Se, Jie from their list of guests, while discussions about the film and Tang on online forums were deleted, Hong Kong newspaper Oriental Daily reported Friday. A spokesperson for the Asian Film Awards, where Tang was announced Friday as a presenter, said organizers had no knowledge of any ban and had not been contacted by Tang's management. The awards are set for 17 March in Hong Kong. It was not clear whether the ban would extend to awards shows in the former British colony.
The announcement comes during the annual meeting of China's highest legislative body, the National People's Congress, in Beijing. The yearly event is an occasion for a shuffling of government positions and the introduction or renewal of regulations and policies.
Se, Jie, Lee's artsy thriller, reportedly upset China's central government, where top officials were said to have criticized the film's content as "glorification of traitors and insulting to patriots." SARFT reportedly was singled out in the censure for permitting the film to be released in China last year, even after seven minutes of graphic sex scenes were cut from the film's theatrical release.
Se, Jie is 28-year-old Tang's first major film, and both audiences and critics lauded her for holding her own, particularly given the intense nature of the sexual scenes with co-star Tony Leung Chiu-wai. Se, Jie was controversial in China for both its political and sexually provocative content. Some Chinese tourists traveled to Hong Kong during the 1 October national holiday to watch the full version of the film. The film earned HK$48.8 million ($6.2 million), making it the highest-grossing Chinese-language film in Hong Kong in 2007.
The banning of a film, along with its cast and crew, months after release is not uncommon in China. In early January, SARFT banned the producers of Yu Li's Ping guo (Lost in Beijing) for two years and ordered the film's theatrical and home video release to be recalled. The Lost cinematic release had been delayed because of sexual content, which was ultimately cut from both the theatrical and home video editions. -- Karen Chu, Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
 - 10 March, Beverly Hills:
 Tex Avery and Michael Maltese, the Warner Bros. collaborators who brought several beloved Looney Tunes characters to life, will be honored in a double centennial tribute by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Monday, 24 March, at 7:30 p.m. at the Linwood Dunn Theater at the Academy's Pickford Center for Motion Picture Study in Hollywood.
"Putting Looney in the Toons" will return to the big screen some of the short cartoons Avery and Maltese worked on together as well as selected highlights from their prolific individual careers in animated theatrical films. The screenings will be complemented by audio presentations of rare recorded interviews with both Avery and Maltese discussing their careers with film historian Joe Adamson. In addition, the evening will feature a panel discussion with Brenda Maltese Moulthrop, daughter of Michael Maltese, and several of Avery and Maltese's collaborators, including Martha Sigall, Jerry Eisenberg and Don Jurwich.
Avery and Maltese, both born in 1908, crossed professional paths at the Warner Bros. animation studio back when it was Leon Schlesinger Productions. Avery began his career at Walter Lantz's Universal cartoon studio, working on Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. In 1935 he moved to Warner Bros., where he would create Daffy Duck and crystallize the personality of Bugs Bunny. From 1941 to 1954 Avery directed cartoons for MGM, introducing audiences to Screwy Squirrel, Droopy Dog and a whole new style of animated humor. In 1954 he initiated his final theatrical cartoons for Walter Lantz, including several Chilly Willy classics.
Maltese began at Warner Bros. in 1937 and actually appeared on camera as a studio guard in You Ought to Be in Pictures, a 1940 Porky Pig short. After working with Avery and many other Warner Bros. directors, Maltese would go on to collaborate primarily with Chuck Jones, writing and storyboarding some of the most memorable Warner Bros. cartoons ever made, including What's Opera Doc?, Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century and One Froggy Evening. -- A.M.P.A.S.
- 11 March, Beirut: The award-winning French animated film Persepolis has been banned in Lebanon, a country with strong cultural ties to France. Daily Variety commented today (Tuesday) that Lebanese authorities acted in order to avoid offending pro-Iranian members of the Lebanese opposition, which includes Hezbollah. Last year the Bangkok Film Festival banned the movie, which had been scheduled to open the festival, after officials at the Iranian embassy protested. The film concerns a young girl's experiences growing up in Iran at the time of the Islamic revolution in 1979. It won the jury prize at last year's Cannes Film Festival. -- IMDb
- 17 March, London:
 The British box office set a record in 2007 with ticket sales rising 7.7 percent and admissions gaining 3.7 percent, according to figures released over the weekend by the Film Distributors' Association and reported today (Monday) by Britain's Guardian newspaper. The group also predicted that this year's box office will build on last year's success, despite predictions of an overall downturn in the British economy. "Given the lineup, we do not foresee a downturn this year at all -- quite the reverse," Mark Batey, the FDA's CEO, told the Guardian. -- IMDb
 - 19 March, Chiba, Japan: Some 250 pieces of original Disney animation art that wound up lying in a janitor's closet at Chiba University in Japan for nearly a half century are due to be returned to the Walt Disney Co. after being rediscovered. In return, Disney has agreed to provide high-resolution digital copies of the artworks and $1 million to be used by the university to further studies in animation art. Items in the collection had originally been selected by Walt Disney himself to illustrate both the history of animation and its processes. It includes artwork from the 1932 short Flowers and Trees, Disney's first animated film in Technicolor. Since the exhibit was also intended to promote the Japanese opening of Sleeping Beauty, a large portion of the material focuses on that film, but there are also cels and background paintings from such movies as Fantasia, Bambi, and Cinderella. "There is no way to put a price on these works -- they represent our artistic heritage," Lella Smith, creative director of the Disney Animation Research Library, told the New York Times. "That said, their value as archival materials for study and research is very high." -- IMDb
- 27 March, Paris: The oldest recording in history has been discovered by U.S. audio historians at a Paris archive, Reuters reported Thursday. It was made on 9 April 9 1860 -- 17 years before Edison's invention of the phonograph -- by Parisian inventor Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville on a device called the phonautograph. The device converted sound waves into a visual image on a sheet of paper, but, unlike Edison's device, was not meant to be played. However, using modern technology the recording has been recreated digitally, revealing 10 seconds of a person singing. In an interview audio historian David Giovannoni said of the recording, "It's like discovering the world's oldest photograph and learning that the photograph was taken 17 years before the invention of the camera." -- IMDb
 Use this link to hear the reconstructed sound file.
- 10 April, Paris: After already breaking a box-office record, the French comedy Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis (Welcome to the Land of the Ch'tis) has now broken an attendance record, too. Pathé, the film's distributor, reported Wednesday that theaters in France have recorded 17.5 million admissions, breaking a record for a homemade French film set in 1965 by the wartime comedy La grande vadrouille. The all-time attendance champ in France is Titanic, which sold 20.7 million tickets. "Now we can steam ahead and sink the boat," Pathé distribution chief Henri Demoulin told the French wire service Agence France Presse. The film, which cost $17 million to produce, has grossed $163 million after six weeks. -- IMDb
- 10 April, Beverly Hills:
 The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, in association with the Film Department of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, will present "A Centennial Tribute to Bette Davis" on Thursday, 1 May, at 8 p.m. in the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater. Hosted by Robert Osborne, the program will honor the legendary actress with an evening featuring clips of her indelible screen performances as well as onstage discussions with several of her colleagues, friends and family, including Joan Leslie, James Woods, Kathryn Sermak, Gena Rowlands, and Davis's son, Michael Merrill.
In the studio era, Bette Davis was a star in a Hollywood constellation that included Katharine Hepburn, Joan Crawford, Olivia De Havilland and Barbara Stanwyck. While she was well known for her expressive eyes and instantly recognizable voice, Davis distinguished herself by excelling at untraditional, often unsympathetic characters in a range of genres, earning in the process the considerable respect of her peers. Among her nine Best Actress nominations during that era were an unprecedented five consecutive nominations between 1938 and 1942; she took home Oscars® for her performances in Dangerous in 1935 and Jezebel in 1938. She received her 10th and final Academy Award® nomination in 1962 for her role in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Her performances in such notable films as Of Human Bondage (1934), Dark Victory (1939), The Letter (1940), The Little Foxes (1941), Now, Voyager (1942), Watch on the Rhine (1943) and All About Eve (1950) secured not only her stardom, but her reputation as a versatile and fearless performer.
Davis was an equally strong presence off the screen. She was elected the Academy's first female president in 1941, although her tenure was brief and contentious. A staunch supporter of the war effort, Davis was one of the founders of the Hollywood Canteen and an active fund-raiser on the home front.
Tickets for the Academy's "A Centennial Tribute to Bette Davis" may be purchased online at www.oscars.org, in person at the Academy box office or by mail. Doors open at 7 p.m. All seating is unreserved. The Academy is located at 8949 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. For more information and the 2-31 May movie schedule at LACMA, call the LACMA box office at (323) 857-6010 or visit www.lacma.org. -- A.M.P.A.S.
- 14 April, Beverly Hills: Academy President Sid Ganis announced the key dates for next year's Awards today. The dates are in keeping with those of recent years. However, one notable change for the 81st Awards is the move of the Nominations Announcement from the traditional Tuesday (20 January) to a Thursday (22 January). The switch was made to avoid a conflict with the 2009 Presidential Inauguration. The 81st Awards Show will be at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood on Sunday, 22 February. -- A.M.P.A.S.
- 15 April, Sequim: Ollie Johnston, the last surviving member of Walt Disney's "nine old men" who created such classic animated films as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Cinderella, Fantasia, Sleeping Beauty, and Alice in Wonderland, has died in Sequim, WA at age 95. In a statement, Roy Disney, Walt's nephew and the third-largest shareholder in the company (after Steve Jobs and Michael Eisner), said, "Ollie was part of an amazing generation of artists, one of the real pioneers of our art, one of the major participants in the blossoming of animation into the art form we know today." Disney Chief Creative Officer John Lasseter said that Johnson "taught me to always be aware of what a character is thinking, and we continue to make sure that every character we create at Pixar and Disney has a thought process and emotion that makes them come alive." -- IMDb
- 11 April, Berlin:
 The German box office soared an astounding 33 percent during the first quarter versus the same period a year ago, Daily Variety reported today (Friday). Total ticket sales amounted to $378.3 million, 24 percent going for German-produced films. Admissions were up 30 percent to 38.7 million. The top performer of the year was Keinohrhasen (Rabbit Without Ears), which has grossed $60.3 million and has remained on the top-ten list for the past 16 weeks. -- IMDb
- 21 April, Burbank: Bambi will soon have lots of new friends at the Walt Disney Co. The entertainment giant on Monday announced the launch of a new film label, Disneynature, dedicated to producing wildlife and environmental documentaries for the big screen, starting with a 2009 U.S. release titled Earth.
The new venture marks one of the most conspicuous moves by a major Hollywood studio to capitalize on growing public fondness for all things green since the 2006 success of Al Gore's global warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.
"Our goal is to bring event films, as only nature can tell, to audiences around the world and for generations to come," Dick Cook, chairman of the Walt Disney Studios, said in unveiling the production banner on the Disney lot in Burbank, California. Cook said he expected Disneynature to produce roughly one film for commercial release each year.
The new label will be run by Jean-François Camilleri, a veteran France-based Disney executive who co-produced the surprise 2005 hit La Marche de l'empereur (March of the Penguins) which won the Oscar® for best documentary the year before Inconvenient Truth did.
The first U.S. release from the new venture, slated to debut on Earth Day, April 22, 2009, is titled Earth, adapted from popular BBC television series "Planet Earth." Narrated by actor James Earl Jones, it will explore animal migration patterns, focusing on the journeys of polar bears, elephants and humpback whales over the course of a single year. -- Steve Gorman, Reuters
- 23 April, Cannes:
 Clint Eastwood's Changeling, starring Angelina Jolie, will compete for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival next month, festival organizers announced today (Wednesday) as they unveiled the titles of 19 movies, selected from 1,792 films submitted from 96 countries, that will vie for the prestigious award. (A 20th film, from France, is due to be announced soon.) Steven Soderbergh's four-hour Che, about Cuban revolutionary hero Che Guevara and made up of two films (The Argentine and Guerrilla), will also contend for the prized trophy. German director Wim Wenders will be coming to the festival with his The Palermo Shooting. U.S. screenwriter Charlie Kaufman is also entered in the competition with his first film as a director, Synecdoche, New York, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman. "There are films that are hair-raising because they break new ground," festival president Gilles Jacob told a news conference in Paris. Among U.S. films screening out of competition will be the Steven Spielberg-George Lucas production of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull; Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona, starring Penélope Cruz, Scarlett Johansson and Javier Bardem; and the animated DreamWorks comedy Kung-Fu Panda, featuring the voices of Jolie, Jack Black, Lucy Liu and Dustin Hoffman. The festival runs from May 14 to May 25. -- IMDb
- 23 April, New York City: Robert De Niro's Tribeca Film Festival is due to kick off in New York tonight (Wednesday) with the screening of the comedy Baby Mama starring former "Saturday Night Live" players Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. The film concerns a single woman who hires a surrogate mother to give birth to her baby. While mostly small, independent, films are screened at the festival -- some 120 of them are scheduled, many of them shot in New York -- it will also feature the world premiere of the Wachowski brothers' big budget Speed Racer on May 3, the festival's closing night and a week before the film's domestic opening. -- IMDb
- 28 April, Cannes:
 For only the second time in the 61-year history of the Cannes Film Festival, a Canadian film has been selected as the opening-night film. Blindness, directed by Fernando Meirelles, will kick off the 12-day festival on 14 May. The film features an international cast, including Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo and Danny Glover of the U.S.; Gael García Bernal of Mexico; Sandra Oh of Canada; and Yusuke Iseya of Japan. It concerns an international epidemic that causes blindness in its victims. (Many of the actors wore contact lenses that blocked their vision.) The Toronto Star reported today (Tuesday) that the film will also compete for the festival's Palme d'Or prize, unusual for an opening-night movie. (It was not among those on the list of competition films released by the festival last week.) Blindness is the first Canadian film to open the prestigious festival since Fantastica, from Quebec director Gilles Carle, did so in 1980. -- IMDB
 - 28 April, Cambridge: Following a five-week run at New York City's Film Forum, a 90th-anniversary "tribute" to United Artists will go on the road beginning Friday, when the Brattle Theater in Cambridge, MA screens 20 restored UA films that Film Forum described as "some of the most entertaining, adventurous, and Oscar®-laden American (and foreign) movies of the last nine decades." While UA was founded in 1919 by Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith, the films being screened were mostly produced during the last half of the 20th century. They include Dr. No (1962), the first James Bond movie, starring Sean Connery; the original Pink Panther film, starring Peter Sellers; Some Like It Hot (1959), starring Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe; the fight films Raging Bull (1980) and Rocky (1976); and the political dramas The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and Judgment at Nuremberg (1961). The restored prints are scheduled to make a cross-country road-show tour over the next year. -- IMDB
- 8 May, Cannes:
 The Cannes Film Festival announced plans on Wednesday to pay tribute to Warner Bros. on the studio's 85th anniversary by screening a classic movie from the studio's archives during each night of the festival. The festival said that it will also premiere film critic Richard Schickel's documentary, You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story, narrated by Clint Eastwood, as well as a night of Looney Tunes shorts. The tribute begins with a screening of Mervyn LeRoy's 1932 I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang and ends with 1999's The Matrix. Somewhat surprisingly, the film series does not include a screening of The Jazz Singer, the first sound film, produced in 1927 and starring entertainer Al Jolson. -- IMDB
- 14 May, Cannes: The 61st Cannes Film Festival kicked off with Blindness, a tale of an epidemic that causes people to lose their vision, based on a novel by Portuguese Nobel laureate Jose Saramago and directed by Brazilian Fernando Meirelles. This marked a departure for the festival, which usually opens with a movie that's more festive, glitzy or crowd-pleasing. Past openers include The Da Vinci Code and Moulin Rouge!.
Another highlight of the films vying for the top prize, the Palme d'Or, is Clint Eastwood's Changeling, a missing-child drama starring Angelina Jolie. Eastwood is a regular at Cannes. He led the jury in 1994 and has shown films including Mystic River -- but has never won the top prize. Also competing for prizes are James Gray's Two Lovers, a romantic drama starring Joaquin Phoenix and Gwyneth Paltrow, and Steven Soderbergh's 4½-hour marathon Che, starring Benicio Del Toro as Argentine revolutionary Ernesto Guevara.
Dark themes abound as usual in the competition films. Palme d'Or laureates Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, who took top honors at the 1999 and 2005 festivals, are back with a gritty drama about an illegal immigrant and her sham marriage, Le Silence de Lorna (Lorna's Silence). Israeli writer-director Ari Folman's Waltz With Bashir -- an animated film -- tackles the subject of war and repressed memories. And Italian film Gomorra, by director Matteo Garrone, takes on the Naples-based Camorra mob.
This year's jury is led by Sean Penn and includes Alfonso Cuarón, Natalie Portman and comic book artist-direct Marjane Satrapi. Awards will be handed out on 25 May. -- Angela Doland, AP
 - 14 May, New York:
 A pair of faux granite tablets that Charlton Heston cradled in the 1956 biblical epic The Ten Commandments is expected to fetch as much as $60,000, said Marc Kruskol, a publicist for the auction Profiles in History. It is the fourth set of tablets that remains from the film that featured Heston as Moses.
The five-piece costume Heston wore in 1959's Ben-Hur -- the film that won him a best actor Oscar® -- is also among the 1,000-plus pieces of Hollywood memorabilia the auction is selling this summer. The central piece is the dark green kaftan worn by Heston's Judah Ben-Hur in the scene when he hears Jesus give a sermon.
Heston died 5 April at his Beverly Hills, CA, home at the age of 84. The auction runs 31 July-1 August. -- AP
- 15 May, Beverly Hills: Eleven students from eight colleges and universities have been named winners in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' 35th Annual Student Academy Awards® competition. They will participate in a week of industry-related activities and social events, culminating in the awards ceremony on 7 June at the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater. One film student from Germany has also been selected to receive this year's Honorary Foreign Film award. The winners are (listed alphabetically by film title within category):
Alternative:
Circles of Confusion, Phoebe Tooke, San Francisco State University
Viola: The Traveling Rooms of a Little Giant, Shih-Ting Hung, University of Southern California |
Animation:
Simulacra, Tatchapon Lertwirojkul, The School of Visual Arts
The Visionary, Evan Mayfield, Ringling College of Art and Design, Florida
Zoologic, Nicole Mitchell, California Institute of the Arts |
Documentary:
As We Forgive, Laura Waters Hinson, American University, Washington, D.C.
If a Body Meet a Body, Brian Davis, University of Southern California
Unattached, J.J. Adler, Columbia University |
Narrative:
A Day's Work, Rajeev Dassani, University of Southern California
Pitstop, Melanie McGraw, University of Southern California
The State of Sunshine, Z. Eric Yang, Florida State University |
Honorary Foreign Film:
On the Line (Auf der Strecke), Reto Caffi, Academy of Media Arts, Cologne, Germany |
While the U.S. winners know they will each receive an award, their placement -- Gold, Silver or Bronze -- will not be revealed until the ceremony on 7 June. In addition to a trophy, Gold Medal winners receive $5,000, Silver Medal winners receive $3,000 and Bronze Medal winners receive $2,000. The Honorary Foreign Film winner receives $1,000 in addition to a trophy. -- A.M.P.A.S.
- 16 May, Cannes: Reporting on IFC Films' acquisition of the U.S. film The Pleasure of Being Robbed at the Cannes Film Festival -- it is set to close the Directors' Fortnight section of the festival next week -- New York Post film critic Lou Lumenick noted today that the title could serve as a motto for Cannes, "where a café au lait costs $10, a five-minute taxi ride goes for $20, and a daily Internet connection at a hotel will set you back $40. Not to mention the muggers and burglars who every year prey on the wealthy crowd that flocks to the Riviera festival." -- IMDB
- 25 May, Cannes:
 The French film Entre les murs (The Class), a frank tale about classroom life using real students and teachers at a junior high school, won top honors Sunday at the Cannes Film Festival. Directed by Laurent Cantet, this was the first French film to win the main prize, the Palme d'Or, at Cannes since 1987. The docudrama was shot in a raw, improvisational style to chronicle the drama that unfolds over one school year. The win was a unanimous decision among the nine-member Cannes jury, said Sean Penn, who headed the panel.
"The movie that we wanted to make had to resemble French society, had to be multifaceted, a bit teeming, complex, and had to sometimes portray frictions that the film didn't try to erase," Cantet said.
Italian films won the second-place grand prize and third-place jury prize. Matteo Garrone's Gomorrah, a study of the criminal underworld in Naples, took the grand prize, while Paolo Sorrentino's Il Divo, a lively portrait of former Premier Giulio Andreotti, won the jury award.
Benicio Del Toro won the best-actor prize for Che, Steven Soderbergh's four-hour-plus epic about Latin American revolutionary Che Guevara. Presented as two films, Che follows Guevara and Fidel Castro's triumphant guerrilla campaign to overthrow Cuba's government in the late 1950s and Guevara's downfall and execution after trying to foment a similar rebellion in Bolivia in the 1960s.
Sandra Corveloni was chosen as best actress for Linha de Passe, in which she plays the mother of four brothers struggling to make better lives for themselves in a Brazilian slum. It was her first role in a feature film.
Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan was named best director for Three Monkeys, which centers on a father who takes the rap for his employer's crime in exchange for financial support for his wife and son, only to have the scheme backfire amid bitter repercussions.
Belgian siblings Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, two-time winners of the Palme d'Or, received the screenplay prize for Lorna's Silence, about an immigrant woman who enters a sham marriage to gain Belgian citizenship.
The prize for a film by a first-time director went to British filmmaker Steve McQueen's Hunger, set at a Northern Ireland prison where IRA volunteer Bobby Sands and other inmates seeking Irish independence staged a hunger strike in 1981.
The Cannes jury awarded special prizes to Clint Eastwood, who directed the competition film Changeling, and Catherine Deneuve, who appeared in two films at Cannes this year. -- David Germain, AP
- 1 June, Los Angeles:
 A large fire tore through a back lot at Universal Studios early Sunday, destroying a set from Back to the Future, the King Kong exhibit and thousands of videos and reels in a vault. The blaze broke out on a sound stage at the theme park in a set featuring New York brownstones façades around 4:30 a.m. at the 400-acre property, Los Angeles County Fire Chief Michael Freeman said. The fire was contained to the lot but still burning several hours later.
Roughly 40,000 to 50,000 videos and reels were in the video vault, but there are duplicates stored in a different location, said Ron Meyer, NBC Universal president and chief operating officer. Firefighters managed to recover hundreds of those titles from the vault. "Nothing is lost forever," Meyer said.
The fire broke out along New York Street, where firefighting helicopters swept in for drops and cranes dumped thousands of gallons of water on flames in the early morning. More than 100 firefighters worked to ensure the flames didn't spread to nearby brush. At least one building had burned and as many as three blocks of movie façades were destroyed, Jacobs said. A thick column of smoke rose thousands of feet into the air. At one point the blaze was two city blocks wide, and low water pressure forced firefighters to get reserves from lakes and ponds on the property. Three firefighters suffered minor injuries.
Universal Studio, nine miles north of downtown Los Angeles, has thrill rides and a back lot where movies and television shows are filmed, including scenes from War of the Worlds, When Harry Met Sally... and the TV series "Scrubs."
A major fire erupted at Universal Studios in November 1990, destroying sets for several TV and movie productions, including Dick Tracy and The Sting and causing $25 million in damage. A security guard was sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty to starting the blaze. -- Greg Risling, AP
- 18 June, Los Angeles:
 Snow White, Dorothy Gale, the HAL 9000 computer, Charles Chaplin's Little Tramp and Marlon Brando's Godfather share top billing among the American Film Institute's best genre movies. Films featuring those characters were among the No. 1 picks Tuesday on the AFI's top-10 lists of the finest flicks in 10 genres, including mystery, Westerns, sports tales and courtroom dramas.
The winners included Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs for animation; The Wizard of Oz, featuring Dorothy and her little dog, for fantasy; 2001: A Space Odyssey, with HAL the demented computer, for science fiction; Chaplin's City Lights for romantic comedy; and Brando's The Godfather for gangster flicks. The other No. 1 movies: Westerns, The Searchers; sports, Raging Bull; courtroom drama, To Kill a Mockingbird; epics, Lawrence of Arabia; and mysteries, Vertigo.
Not surprisingly, Alfred Hitchcock dominated the mystery category. Besides Vertigo, he landed three others on that top-10 list: Rear Window at No. 3, North by Northwest at No. 7 and Dial M for Murder at No. 9.
Chaplin's City Lights from 1931, one of only two silent films to make the genre lists, was a surprise, beating such popular modern romances as Annie Hall (No. 2), When Harry Met Sally... (No. 6) and Sleepless in Seattle (No. 10).
"This is why these shows are so important. They keep these films in the cultural conversation," said Bob Gazzale, AFI president. "When City Lights is honored as the No. 1 romantic comedy, millions of people will go back and watch it again."
The best genre movies were announced in the CBS special "AFI's 10 Top 10," the latest in the institute's annual best-of shows. The winners were chosen by actors, filmmakers, critics and others in Hollywood from ballots that included 50 nominees in each genre. -- Full story: David Germain, AP
- 19 June, Beverly Hills:
 The governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences approved the rules for the 81st Academy Awards® at their evening meeting on 17 June. The only significant changes were in the Music - Original Song category. Other modifications of the rules include normal date changes and minor "housekeeping" changes.
Three items of note were altered in the Original Song rules. First, while there continues to be no limit on the number of songs from a given film that can be submitted for consideration, no more than two songs from any one film may be nominated for an Academy Award.
Also, in addition to the annual screening event at which members of the Music Branch view clips featuring the eligible songs as they appear in the films and vote, DVDs of those same clips will be made available to branch members who are unable to attend the screening; ballots will accompany the DVDs and must be returned by mail.
Music Branch members who have one or more songs in contention for nominations do not vote in that phase of the balloting. They remain eligible to vote on the final ballot to select the winner.
The only other category with a notable change is the Foreign Language Film Award and as was the case in 2006, the alteration is a procedural one rather than one in the rules per se. For the 81st Academy Awards, the two-phase process by which the nominees are selected will remain intact. However, the Phase I committee, which is open to any voting member who views a minimum number of the eligible films, will now vote to determine only six of the nine films that will ultimately go to the Phase II committee. The other three titles will be determined by those members of the 20-member Foreign Language Film Award Executive Committee who have qualified to vote in the category. The executive committee's selections will be made after the Phase I voting has been tallied. -- A.M.P.A.S.
- 23 June, Beverly Hills: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is extending invitations to join the organization to 105 artists and executives who have distinguished themselves by their contributions to theatrical motion pictures. Those who accept the invitation will be the only additions in 2008 to the Academy's roster of voting members.
"These individuals are all incredibly talented and a credit to the world of filmmaking," said Academy President Sid Ganis. "They exemplify the high standards of the Academy and I welcome each and every one of them to our ranks."
The membership policies that the Academy adopted in 2004 in order to slow the growth of the organization would have allowed a maximum of 137 new members in 2008, but as in the previous years, the various branch committees sometimes endorsed fewer candidates than were proposed to them. Voting membership in the organization has now held steady at just under 6,000 members since 2003. Use this link to view a list of all those invited to join the Academy this year.
New members will be welcomed into the Academy at an invitation-only reception at the Fairbanks Center for Motion Picture Study in Beverly Hills in September. -- A.M.P.A.S.
- 25 June, London: The 52nd Times-BFI London Film Festival has selected the movie version of Frost/Nixon as its opening-night feature on 15 October. The film, directed by Ron Howard and produced by Brian Grazer, stars Michael Sheen and Frank Langella as British interviewer David Frost and former President Richard Nixon respectively, in a repeat of their stage roles. -- IMDb
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Russell Lloyd, film editor -- natural causes
