Oscars still top draw for advertisers despite fickle ratings

The number of people who watched Sunday's Oscars was down and the critics were less than impressed, but Hollywood's biggest night is still a top draw for television advertisers.

This year's telecast - which producers believed could build off 2014's big audience of 43.7 million - attracted its lowest audience in six years and the oldest demographic ever with a median age of 53.

Despite a 15 percent drop in viewership to 37.3 million, however, it is still worth the price tag for advertisers and broadcaster ABC, analysts said.

"It's definitely a showcase place to be, and they (ABC) never have a problem selling it out year to year," said Steve Kalb, a director at ad agency Mullen.

This year's telecast hosted by actor Neil Patrick Harris commanded $1.9 million for 30 seconds of advertising time, up from last year's $1.76 million, the highest among awards shows.

Last year's Ellen DeGeneres-hosted ceremony reaped $95 million in ad revenue, according to Kantar Media. This year's figure is not yet available.

ABC pays $75 million annually to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for TV broadcast rights, said Brad Adgate, the research director at Horizon Media. The contract with Walt Disney Co's ABC and the Academy runs through 2020.

However, the search for a way to attract the younger viewers that advertisers prize most leads many to believe the Academy might have to make long-term changes to the ceremony.

Criticism this year focused on lack of diversity among acting nominees, clunky jokes and the perennial complaint that it is too long. The show clocked in at three hours and 40 minutes and went past midnight on the East Coast.

It also hurt that it was a lackluster year at the box office, and only one film that Americans went to see in droves, "American Sniper," was in the running for best picture.

"It's up to the Academy to change it," Adgate said. "It's up to them to make this awards show more compelling."

The Academy selects the show's producers and host, and its 6,100 members choose winners on merit. The biggest recent change was expanding the best picture nominees from five to up to 10 for the 2010 ceremony in an effort to boost interest.

"As we do each year, the Academy will meet in the coming months to evaluate not only the telecast but also our awards season in its entirety," an Academy spokesperson said in a statement.

ABC declined comment.

Although the Academy might be taking a long view on how to keep the show relevant in a world where TV viewership is on the decline, advertisers are not likely to complain. They like the Oscars reach, prestige and loyal viewers, particularly among women, said Kalb.

One-fifth of Oscar viewers this year said ads increased their likelihood to purchase a product, three times greater than the Super Bowl's audience, according Extreme Reach, a distributor of video advertising.

"It's sort of the Super Bowl for women," Kalb added.

(Editing by Mary Milliken and Andre Grenon)

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Lady Gaga in moving 'Sound of Music' Oscars tribute

HOLLYWOOD -- The Academy Awards hailed the 50th anniversary of its all-time greatest musical Sunday, recruiting Lady Gaga to gracefully sing a medley of memorable tunes from "The Sound of Music."

Starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, the cinematic tale of the musical von Trapp family in Austria and their mischievous governess is a Hollywood classic.

In contrast to her own flamboyant concerts, Lady Gaga was all about the voice as she sang highlights from the beloved 1965 movie to the accompaniment of a string combo and a choir.



She then gave way to Andrews, 79, to announce the winner of the Oscar for best original score -- Alexandre Desplat, for "The Grand Budapest Hotel."

"Dear Lady Gaga, thank you for that wonderful tribute. Oh my god, it really warmed my heart," said the British-born thespian.

Looking back at the making of "The Sound of Music," Andrews said it was "really hard to believe" that a half-century had passed. "I blinked, and suddenly here I am," she said.

Those involved in making the picture, she said, "all really felt blessed to have been a part of it. As for me, how lucky can a girl get?"

"It's a very special tribute performance," Gaga -- wearing a white Azzedine Alaia gown -- told ABC television earlier Sunday.

"I really put my heart into preparing for it," said the 28-year-old singer-songwriter.

"The Sound of Music" collected five Oscars in 1965, including best picture and best director.

Andrews was nominated for best actress, an honor she won the year before for "Mary Poppins," only to lose to Julie Christie in "Darling."

Directed by Robert Wise, "The Sound of Music" brought to the silver screen the eponymous 1959 hit Broadway musical.

Several of its Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein songs -- like "Edelweiss," "My Favorite Things," "Do-Re-Mi" and the title track -- are enduring classics.

Based on Maria von Trapp's published memoirs, the film -- largely fictionalized, as Wise duly warned the family in advance -- remains the highest grossing musical of all time.

The von Trapps left Austria soon after its annexation by Nazi Germany, eventually settling in the US state of Vermont, where they opened an Alpine resort that remains in family hands.

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Neil Patrick Harris salutes movies, pokes Oscars on race

LOS ANGELES -- First-time Oscars host Neil Patrick Harris opened Hollywood's biggest night of the year on Sunday with a fleeting but pointed jibe at the homogenous field of Academy Award nominees, before launching into a spirited musical salute to the magic of movies.

"Tonight we honor Hollywood's best and whitest, sorry, brightest," Harris enthusiastically dead-panned to hearty laughter that seemed to break the usual pre-show jitters among the movie royalty packing the auditorium of the Dolby Theater.

The opening joke was a reference to the criticism Oscar voters faced this year for failing to nominate a single performer of color in any of the acting categories for the first time in many years.

Without wasting another moment, Harris, 41, segued into an opening song-and-dance tribute to the movies, showing off his chops as a live comedy-musical performer, and a conscious effort of Oscar producers to connect with tech-savvy younger television viewers.

"Check out the glamor, and glitter/people tweeting on the twitter, and no one's drunk and bitter yet/because no one has lost," he sang.

Before the number and the on-screen explosion of computer-graphic imagery of film classics had ended, Harris was joined by actress Anna Kendrick, a star of last year's fairy-tale film musical "Into the Woods," and then by Jack Black, leaping onto stage from the audience to play an angry contrarian before being driven away again by Kendrick's hurled shoe.

The performance ended with wild applause, as Harris notes a great paradox of the Oscar -- that few of the most honored movies at the Academy Awards are blockbuster successes.

One notable exception this year, as Harris pointed out, was "American Sniper," which alone grossed at least half of the box office earned by the seven other best picture nominees combined.

"To put that into perspective, everybody on this side of the aisle is the seven other nominees, and 'American Sniper' is Oprah," he said, adding as the camera cut to a perplexed Oprah Winfrey, "Because you're rich."

In one of his zanier escapades, and an homage to a memorable scene from Oscar front-runner "Birdman," Harris ventured from backstage to the show's main stage, followed by a camera, dressed only in his underpants, shoes and socks to introduce presenters of the sound-mixing award, with the words: "Acting is a noble profession."

Harris, who previously has won three Emmys for hosting Broadway's Tony Awards, was recruited by Oscar producers as a hoped-for bridge between older movie fans and younger viewers that the Academy Awards have been desperate to attract in greater numbers.

Harris has a young following himself as a star of the hit CBS sitcom "How I Met Your Mother."

One obvious sign of the outreach to younger viewers came in a musical performance of the pop duo Tegan and Sara teaming up with former "Saturday Night Live" star Andy Samberg and the Lonely Island trio for a rendering of the kids favorite "Everything Is Awesome."

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Oscars promise suspense and maybe some surprises

Hollywood's awards season reaches its apogee on Sunday at the 87th Academy Awards, where "Birdman" and "Boyhood" are locked in a battle for best picture and veteran actors are likely to grasp their first golden Oscar statuettes.

The film industry's biggest night will serve up its share of suspense as three top honors - best picture, best director and best actor - are proving hard to predict, even for the most seasoned experts.

But those nail-biters will come at the tail end of the three-hour ABC telecast from Hollywood's Dolby Theater, where first-time host Neil Patrick Harris will guide a show heavy on humor, magic and music from big names like Lady Gaga.

Hours before Hollywood's A-list celebrities were due to walk the famous red carpet, a plastic tent remained in place for possible rain showers.

News crews from around the world, in tuxedos and gowns, set up for a telecast that will be seen by hundreds of millions of people in 225 countries and territories.

Meryl Streep will be vying for an Oscar for a record 19th time, in the best supporting actress category. But most, including several of the favorites, are first-time contenders.

"It's been a long journey up to here," said Pawel Pawlikowski, director of "Ida," Poland's nominee for best foreign-language film. "Of course, it would be nice to win as well, but I'm not going to collapse if we don't."

In a sign of how the Oscars might be split, the Film Independent Spirit Awards for small-budget movies on Saturday crowned Alejandro G. Inarritu's show business satire "Birdman" as best feature and its star Michael Keaton took best male lead. Richard Linklater won best director for his coming-of-age tale "Boyhood," made over 12 years with the same actors.

While both Linklater and Inarritu have been nominated for Oscars before, they have never won.

Together, "Birdman" and "Boyhood" have made $62 million at the North American box office, compared to $310 million for the most commercially successful of the eight best picture nominees, Iraq war drama "American Sniper" from director Clint Eastwood.

CRITICISM OF ACADEMY

The dearth of blockbuster movies at this year's Oscars could diminish the number of people who tune in to watch the biggest non-sports televised event in the United States.

Last year with host Ellen DeGeneres and her selfie that broke Twitter, the Oscars pulled in its largest audience in 14 years of 43.7 million viewers.

Forty percent of American adults plan to tune in to the awards telecast, according to the annual Reuters/Ipsos Oscars poll. Forty-five percent said they most enjoy seeing who wins.

The Oscars are determined by 6,100 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a body that has taken its knocks this year for nominating no actors of color in the acting races.

Civil rights groups have called a boycott of the Oscars to protest the lack of diversity and will demonstrate before the ceremony.

But experts believe the Academy, where actors are the largest voting bloc, will reward performers with long careers with their first Oscars.

Eddie Redmayne is front-runner for best actor for his portrayal of physicist Stephen Hawking in "The Theory of Everything." But there might be an upset from Keaton, whose "Birdman" role had him working in very long takes.

"I had no idea how precise we had to be, and how difficult, but you know there's no other way to do it, it's the only way you could make this movie," Keaton said after winning his Spirit Award Saturday.

Julianne Moore, nominated five times in her career, should win her first best actress for her role as a woman with early onset Alzheimer's in "Still Alice."

(Additional reporting by Jane Ross; Editing by Sandra Maler and Frances Kerry)

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Hollywood prepares for its Oscars close-up

LOS ANGELES -- Hollywood is preparing for its Oscars close-up Sunday, as Tinseltown's annual awards season comes to its climax with two films expected to face off for the top prize.

Dark comedy "Birdman" is vying with coming-of-age drama "Boyhood" for best picture at the Oscars, although a late surge by "American Sniper" could yet cause an upset.

Julianne Moore, Patricia Arquette and Britain's Eddie Redmayne are among those widely tipped to take home acting prizes during the show, hosted by song-and-dance man Neil Patrick Harris.

On the eve of the Oscars, "Birdman" got a new boost Saturday, taking best film at the Independent Spirit awards as well as best actor for Michael Keaton, while "Boyhood" took best director for Richard Linklater.

But the race for the biggest prize of the night Sunday remains too close to call, with less than 24 hours to go.

"Birdman," a fanciful yet dark tale of a washed-up superhero actor battling to revive his career on Broadway, has swept a string of prizes ahead of the Oscars including top prizes from the Screen Actors Guild and the Directors Guild of America.

But Linklater's "Boyhood" -- which was made over the course of 12 years with the same actors aging with their characters -- scooped up the biggest awards at last month's Golden Globes, as well as Britain's BAFTAs.

Some have even suggested that Clint Eastwood's "American Sniper" could sneak up on the inside as a dark horse, boosted by the film's box office success as the highest-grossing war movie of all time.

Ballots cast

When nominations were announced last month, "Birdman" shared the most nods with Wes Anderson's stylish crime caper "The Grand Budapest Hotel," at nine each, followed by World War II thriller "The Imitation Game" with eight. "Boyhood" followed with six.

That fired the starting gun on the frenzied final weeks of frantic schmoozing and self-publicizing that defines Hollywood's awards season, which gains momentum until the star-studded Oscars night.

While the best picture race is on a knife-edge, several of the other key categories are seen as much easier to predict.

Veteran star Moore is almost universally expected to win best actress for playing a linguistics professor suffering from early-onset Alzheimer's Disease in "Still Alice."

Arquette is the favorite for best supporting actress as the single mother raising two kids in "Boyhood," while J.K. Simmons is widely expected to win best supporting actor honors for jazz drama "Whiplash."

The best actor race is still seen as up for grabs -- a two-man contest between Redmayne -- as astrophysicist Stephen Hawking in "The Theory of Everything" -- and "Birdman" star Michael Keaton.

Best picture/director split?
For best director, the frontrunners are Linklater and Mexico's Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, the creative force behind "Birdman."

This has led to speculation that the best picture and best director prizes could be shared, as they were last year when Mexican Alfonso Cuaron won best director for "Gravity," while the best picture Oscar went to "12 Years A Slave."

A star-studded cast of presenters will hand out the prizes at Sunday's show, including Ben Affleck, Scarlett Johansson, Nicole Kidman, Eddie Murphy, Liam Neeson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Meryl Streep and Oprah Winfrey.

The show, which starts at 5:30 p.m. (Monday morning in Manila), will be preceded by the traditional red carpet parade, featuring a bevy of stars kitted out in their formal finest.

One unwelcome guest could be rain -- forecasts say there is a 60 percent chance of what is a rare LA phenomenon. Last year, a last-minute freak storm forced organizers to scramble to make sure it didn't rain on the party.

They will be hoping the clouds hold off for as long as possible.

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How Oscars number-crunchers keep winners secret

LOS ANGELES, United States - By day, they are accountants with global consulting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers. But from Friday, for two days only, they become keepers of one of the most closely-guarded secrets in the world.

Brian Cullinan and Martha Ruiz will be the only people who know the winners of the coveted golden Oscar statuettes, cinema's most prestigious prizes.

They are the people who tally up the votes of the 6,100-odd members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), who choose the Oscar winners.

"We print everything" for fear of possible leaks or online hacking, Cullinan told AFP, explaining how the voting process has been revolutionized over the last few years.

"For 84 years, (it) was only done by paper. Over the last three years, they have allowed members to vote electronically, with a password. An increasing number, the majority, now vote electronically," he said.

The pair have a team of five or six people to help. But they make absolutely sure that no single person counts all the votes in a category, to ensure nobody but them knows any of the winners, said Ruiz.

There are 24 categories, and over 6,000 votes to be counted by hand. That's a lot of counting. The vote ended Tuesday evening. They hope to have the results collated by Friday evening, said Cullinan.

- Results tied six times -

Most categories -- best actor, actress, best song, et cetera -- are decided simply by counting the votes and seeing who gets the most.

On six occasions over the decades, there has been a tie, in which case two statuettes are handed out. The last time that happened was in 2013, for best sound editing.

For best picture, it is more complicated: the winner has to get 50 percent of votes plus one.

To achieve this, voters have to rank their favorites from the eight nominated movies. The first-choice votes are then counted, and if none gets 50 percent, then the film with the least votes is dropped and its votes redistributed to the other seven, based on the second choice.

The process continues until one film gets the crucial amount, the idea being that the winning movie enjoys a consensus of support, rather than say just getting 20 percent but beating the others.

Security is, needless to say, a key concern.

Both Cullinan and Ruiz each get a set of 24 envelopes with category names pre-printed, together with 24 cards. But they fill in the winning names by hand before sealing them.

As a double fail-safe, each of them memorizes the category winners by heart, just in case. Nobody apart from the two of them knows the results.

From the moment that the results are finalized, and a set of envelopes is placed in each of two briefcases, both of them are escorted by armed guards until the start of the ceremony Sunday evening.

They also split up, in case one of them is unable for some reason to get to the Dolby Theatre in time when the curtain goes up at 5:30 pm (0130 GMT Monday).

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Ellen hands Oscars pizza guy $1,000 tip

MANILA - The delivery man who handed out boxes of pizza to some of Hollywood's most famous stars at the recently concluded Academy Awards finally collected his tip on Monday -- and its a hefty one.

Edgar Martirosyan, owner of Los Angeles' Big Mama’s and Papa’s Pizzeria, appeared on the "Ellen DeGeneres Show" to recount his "crazy" experience and to collect his $1,000 tip.

"They told me I’m just gonna deliver for some writers. And then when I was there they just told me just wait here. And then you came out," he told host Ellen DeGeneres. "And then I was on the stage. I was just shocked."

He added that it felt surreal handing out pizza to his favorite actress, Julia Roberts, who gamely took a slice along with several others including Oscar winners Jared Leto and Lupita Nyong'o.

"She was like my woman in dreams. I was always watching her movies back in Moscow. So it was something crazy to me to deliver [her pizza]," he said.






DeGeneres, who collected tips for the delivery using Pharrell William's hat at the record-breaking awards show, then handed Martirosyan his tip, which amounted to $600.

"So you left before, I wanted to get you a tip and I passed Pharrell's hat around and I ended up getting around $600 something like that. Here is some more, here's a total of $1000."

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And the Oscar goes to...

LOS ANGELES -- The slavery drama "12 Years a Slave" won the Academy Award for best picture on Sunday, making history as the first movie from a black director to win the film industry's highest honor in 86 years of the Oscars.

British director Steve McQueen's unflinching portrayal of pre-Civil War American slavery also won two other Oscars, including best supporting actress for newcomer Lupita Nyong'o and best adapted screenplay based on the memoir of Solomon Northup, a free man sold into slavery in Louisiana.

"Everyone deserves not just to survive but to live, this is the most important legacy of Solomon Northup," said McQueen in his acceptance speech.

It prevailed over space thriller "Gravity" from Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron, which nevertheless racked up the most Oscars of the night with seven, including the best director honor for Cuaron, a first for a Latin American director.

"Gravity," starring Sandra Bullock as a stranded astronaut, swept the technical awards like visual effects and cinematography, a reward for its groundbreaking work on conveying space and weightlessness.

In one of the strongest years for film in recent memory, the 6,000-plus voters of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences scattered golden Oscar statuettes among the many acclaimed movies in contention.

It was a good night for the scrappy, low-budget film "Dallas Buyers Club," a biopic of an early AIDS activist two decades in the making that won three Oscars, including the two male acting awards.

Matthew McConaughey, in a validation of a remarkable career turnaround, won best actor for his portrayal of the homophobe turned AIDS victim turned treatment crusader Ron Woodroof, a role for which he lost 50 pounds (23 kg).

His co-star, Jared Leto, won best supporting actor for his role as Woodroof's unlikely business sidekick, the transgender woman Rayon, for which he also slimmed down drastically.

Australia's Cate Blanchett won the best actress Oscar for her acclaimed role as the socialite unhinged by her husband's financial crimes in Woody Allen's "Blue Jasmine."

"Thank you so much Woody for casting me," Blanchett said.

The tale of Nordic princesses, "Frozen," won best animated film, a first for Disney Animation Studios since the category was introduced in 2002.

Comedian and talk show star Ellen DeGeneres returned as Oscar host on Sunday in an appearance many saw as calculated to project a lighter, more affable tone for Hollywood's biggest night after the provocative performance of her immediate predecessor, Seth MacFarlane.

In the comedian's easy breezy style, DeGeneres mixed with the crowd, taking a star-studded selfie with the likes of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie that broke the record for retweets on Twitter.

The big loser of the night was director David O. Russell's 1970s crime caper "American Hustle," which walked away empty-handed despite earning 10 nominations, the same number as "Gravity."

Kenyan actress Nyong'o was one of the big stars of the night, not only for her winning pale blue Prada gown on the red carpet, but for her touching speech.

In accepting the first award of the night for "12 Years a Slave," Nyong'o, 31, paid homage to her character.

"It doesn't escape me for one moment that so much joy in my life is thanks to so much pain in someone else's, and so I want to salute the spirit of Patsey, for her guidance," a tearful Nyong'o told the audience.

Following is a list of winners in leading categories:

BEST PICTURE: "12 Years a Slave"

BEST ACTOR: Matthew McConaughey in "Dallas Buyers Club"

BEST ACTRESS: Cate Blanchett in "Blue Jasmine"

BEST DIRECTOR: Alfonso Cuaron for "Gravity"

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Jared Leto in "Dallas Buyers Club"

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Lupita Nyong'o in "12 Years a Slave"

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: "12 Years a Slave"

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: "Her"

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: "The Great Beauty," Italy

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM: "Frozen"

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: "20 Feet from Stardom"

BEST ORIGINAL SONG: "Let It Go" from "Frozen"

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE: "Gravity"

BEST COSTUMES: "The Great Gatsby"

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: "Gravity"

BEST MAKE-UP AND HAIRSTYLING: "Dallas Buyers Club"

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS: "Gravity"

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Ellen's Oscars 'selfie' sets Twitter ablaze

HOLLYWOOD -- Oscar host Ellen DeGeneres shattered a record on Twitter Sunday after the selfie photograph she took with Hollywood stars at the Academy Awards became the most retweeted message ever.

"We crashed and broke Twitter. We have made history," she told the crowd during the broadcast, when her picture went viral with more than 1.9 million retweets so far and the number rising fast.

She dwarfed the previous record-holder, President Barack Obama, whose post about securing "four more years" in the White House in November 2012 earned 800,000 retweets.

"See, Meryl, what we did, you and I?" she boasted, referring to multiple Oscar-winner Meryl Streep, who crowded in next to a grinning DeGeneres in the photo.

DeGeneres, who joked with A-listers throughout the show, corralled a crowd of stars including Brad Pitt and Jennifer Lawrence.

"You get in here, too, Julia. Lean in," she said to Julia Roberts.

The crowd also included Kevin Spacey, recently of Netflix's "House of Cards" fame, and Lupita Nyong'o, who moments later won an Oscar for best supporting actress for "12 Years a Slave."

"Channing (Tatum), if you can get in also. Bradley (Cooper), come in," the host quipped to loud laughter.

Eventually the group -- which also included Jared Leto, Nyong'o's brother and Angelina Jolie -- grew big enough that Cooper kneeled in front of DeGeneres and snapped the pic with her smartphone.

"If only Bradley's arm was longer. Best photo ever," DeGeneres posted along with the photograph on her Twitter feed, @TheEllenShow, during a break in her hosting duties.

DeGeneres, who said Twitter officials contacted her to say she broke the record, had her eyes on the prize even before posting the photo, encouraging viewers of the widely-watched show to retweet it and break the record.

Viewers obliged. Within five minutes, it had nearly 100,000 retweets. Less than 90 minutes after that, her tweet had garnered more than 1.9 million retweets and nearly 900,000 "favorites."

"The envelope please... to @TheEllenShow - this is now the most retweeted Tweet with over 1 million RTs. Congrats!" Twitter said on its own feed.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Oscar, the golden statuette coveted by Hollywood

HOLLYWOOD - He stands only 13.5 inches (34 centimeters) tall and weighs just 8.5 pounds (3.85 kilos) -- but Oscar, in all his bald gold-plated glory, is the holy grail of Hollywood.

The iconic statuette was created in 1929, two years after the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, by the head of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) studios, Louis Mayer.

The idea came from MGM's artistic director, Cedric Gibbons, and it was a Los Angeles artist, George Stanley, who sculpted the first statuette of a knight standing on a reel of film gripping a crusader's sword.

Although there are only 24 categories at Sunday's ceremony, the Academy always has more made just in case of multiple recipients -- notably for producers, who receive the Oscar for best picture.

Engraved on the base of each Oscar is the statuette's individual serial number, together with a plaque telling the owner that it cannot be sold, given or transferred to anyone else without having been offered to the Academy.

The Academy has the right to buy them back for $10, and won a legal battle in 2008 with Mary Pickford's heirs, who wanted to sell the prestigious award.

In 1993, the Oscar won in 1945 by Joan Crawford for her role in "Mildred Pierce" was sold at auction for $68,500, and in December 2011, Orson Welles's statuette for iconic movie "Citizen Kane" sold for $861,000.

Initially the little figures were made of gold-plated solid bronze, but that was abandoned after a few years for britannia metal, a pewter-like alloy which is then plated in copper, nickel silver, and finally, 24-karat gold.

Due to a metal shortage in World War II, Oscars were made of painted plaster for three years -- recipients were invited to redeem their statuettes for gold-plated ones after the war.

They have been made since 1982 by Chicago company R.S. Owens, and cost about $18,000 each.

The obvious question: where does the name come from?

They are officially called Academy Awards of Merit, but the story goes that Academy librarian (and eventual executive director) Margaret Herrick remarked that it resembled her Uncle Oscar.

The Academy did not adopt the nickname officially until 1939, but it was widely known enough by 1934 that Hollywood columnist Sidney Skolsky used it in referring to Katharine Hepburn's first best actress win.

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Presidential Day-Lewis set for record third Oscar

HOLLYWOOD - This year's Oscars race may be one of the least predictable in recent memory -- but there is one virtual certainty for Sunday night: Daniel Day-Lewis will likely win a record third best actor prize.

The British-Irish actor has won the main acting category in almost every show so far in Hollywood's annual awards season, which reaches its height with the 85th Academy Awards this weekend.

And, while the other four actors nominated all put in great performances, Day-Lewis looks set to take the best actor Oscar, confirming his status as one of the finest actors of his generation.

"If there is one slam-dunk winner, it's... Day-Lewis for his awe-inspiring performance as America's 16th president," wrote Scott Feinberg, awards analyst for The Hollywood Reporter.

The 55-year-old is known for his incredible range and astonishing attention to detail.

His uncanny performance in "Lincoln" could hardly be further removed from "My Left Foot," in which Day-Lewis played a man with cerebral palsy to win his first Oscar in 1990.

The actor also played a gay man in an inter-racial relationship in 1985's "My Beautiful Laundrette," in the same year he appeared as a quintessentially upper-class Englishman in "A Room with a View."

Day-Lewis -- who won his other Oscar as a ruthless oil tycoon in 2007's "There Will Be Blood" -- is renowned for the selectiveness and intense research with which he approaches each of his roles.

He has made only four films in the last decade. But without exception, Day-Lewis has immersed himself in each of his roles to a degree that has become legendary.

For 1989's "My Left Foot," he insisted on staying in his character's wheelchair during the shoot to the consternation of crew members forced to carry him above or around camera cables and lighting.

In 1992's historical epic "The Last of the Mohicans," Day-Lewis buffed up and learned to live off the land as his character had done.

After 1997's "The Boxer," Day-Lewis retreated into a mysterious five-year break from acting that has been the subject of intense speculation.

The most widely reported version of events is that Day-Lewis spent part of the period living in Italy learning to become a shoemaker in exchange for teaching a cobbler how to act.

Whatever the truth, Day-Lewis has studiously avoided talking about the period. Once asked what he had done during those years, Day-Lewis replied: "Different things, some of which I've resolutely chosen not to speak about."

Day-Lewis returned with a vengeance in 2002, teaming with Martin Scorsese once again to play the murderous Bill "The Butcher" Cutting in "Gangs of New York," a role that earned him his third Oscar nomination.

He appeared in the 2005 drama "The Ballad of Jack and Rose" in which he was directed by his wife, before reemerging to link with director Paul Thomas Anderson in "There Will Be Blood" six years ago.

His only movie between that and "Lincoln" was 2009's "Nine," in which he played a film director struggling to find harmony in his professional and personal lives.

The diffident actor has remained modest despite repeatedly taking the stage for acceptance speeches over the last two months.

"Members of the Academy love surprises, so about the worst thing that can happen to you is if you've built up an expectation," he said, after winning the Screen Actors Guild best actor award last month.

"I think they'd probably be delighted if it was anybody else."

source: abs-cbnnews.com

Oscars means big business for Hollywood industries

HOLLYWOOD - The Oscars are big business for stars and filmmakers -- but they also spell big bucks for limo firms, caterers, designers and thousands of others as Hollywood rolls out the red carpet.

In fact, the Academy Awards on Sunday are the climax of the annual awards season which generates fortunes for those behind the scenes in Tinseltown, who keep the champagne flowing, parties buzzing and posh frocks just right.

From the Golden Globes to the Grammys, the Screen Actors Guild ceremony to the Razzies, the awards shows -- and all those pre- and after-parties, keep everyone busy from November to February every year.

You don't have to go far to stumble on a red carpet in Hollywood -- even outside awards season, film premieres regularly attract scrums of cameramen, photographers and fans spilling across sidewalks outside key movie theaters.

So a visit to the cinema can sometimes turn into a scramble through a melee created by an arriving celebrity, lensmen's flashlights and shouts of "Angelina, over here!" ricocheting around the cinema lobby.

But Angelinos are used to it, and many depend on it for their livelihoods, as -- like the annual harvest elsewhere -- the first two months of the year bring huge crops of orders for everything that surrounds the shows.

Tony Adzar, founder & CEO of Red Carpet Systems, is one of those reaping the benefits: in February, he sells twice as much carpet as he does in August, and his is only one of dozens of similar firms.

"January and February are the busiest months of the year for us. We do service most of the majors, pre- and after-parties for the Golden Globes, Grammys, Oscars," he told AFP.

"On average we have 12-15 events a month, and in awards season, 20-25 events a month," he added, saying they make between $150,000-250,000 a month in awards season -- double the takings at other times of the year.

To get to the parties, people of course need limousines.

"It takes most of the companies in the Los Angeles and Orange County area to handle the volume created by the major award shows," said Jonna Sabroff, head of Integrated Transportation Services (ITS).

The larger companies, which have a fleet of maybe 25 luxury vehicles, "are booked to capacity and are able to give their affiliates and subcontractors a lot of business," she added.
ITS works closely with Sequoia Productions, which has organized Hollywood events for 23 years and produces the traditional post-Oscars soiree known as the Governors Ball.

The ball brings together the governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which organizes the Oscars. On Sunday night, 1,500 people will attend.

For Sunday's ball alone, Sequoia employs 150 technicians, 400 catering staff and a management team of 30. The company unveiled its menu last week, chosen by Austrian celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck, also an Oscars veteran.

"We have been working on the Governors Ball and the other Oscar-related events for the past six months," said Gary Levitt, vice president of Sequoia Productions.

Red Carpet provider Adzar said awards season is exhausting, but essential for his and many other businesses in Hollywood.

"We love to be busy!" he said.

source: interaksyon.com