March 16, 2010 - 9:54 pm
By Jay A. Fernandez
 Well, I’m a little late with these SXSW feature awards, since I foolishly decided to fly back to L.A. during the Tuesday night ceremony, but I hear a bunch of people broke the embargo early, which is a shameful bungle.
The narrative feature jury award was given to Lena Dunham’s “Tiny Furniture,” which had its world premiere Monday. The documentary feature jury award was handed to Jeff Malmberg’s “Marwencol,” about a brain-damaged man who creates a 1/6-scale model of a World War II-era town in his backyard. Runner-up in the doc category was Rebecca Richman Cohen’s “War Don Don.”
March 12, 2010 - 8:47 am
By Jay A. Fernandez
Last month, we tallied the Oscar nominations collected by each of the major agencies. That chart looked like this:
March 9, 2010 - 12:49 pm
By Jay A. Fernandez
Juan Jose Campanella’s “The Secret in Their Eyes” (El secreto de sus ojos), which won the Oscar for best foreign-language film Sunday night, will screen at the Miami International Film Festival after its awards ceremony March 13 at the Gusman Center for the Performing Arts. A second screening will be held the following afternoon at Regal Cinemas South Beach.
March 9, 2010 - 11:19 am
By Jay A. Fernandez
Last night, “The Daily Show” did a typically brilliant segment conflating the Iraqi parliamentary elections with Oscar night. The second half of this clip, at the Huffington Post, features Jon Oliver giving a hilarious acceptance speech with regard to our involvement in Iraq (and Samantha Bee bullies in right on time).
March 8, 2010 - 6:56 pm
By Jay A. Fernandez
Every public event has its quirks and misfires, its head-scratching moments and gleeful absurdities. The Oscars inevitably has its share.
And I’d like to take this opportunity to remind you of just how many there were.
Indeed, so much misguided flailing made its way onstage that I have to limit this to just 10 or I’ll still be writing when next year’s ceremony starts.
March 7, 2010 - 10:55 pm
 By Jay A. Fernandez
While the Oscars ceremony played much like a film directed by show co-producer Adam Shankman — cozy, a bit precious and pretty tame — there were some great unexpected lines delivered from the stage. Here are my favorites, but I invite you to send in your own nominations.
Steve Martin, during the opening bit with co-host Alec Baldwin, referred to Meryl Streep’s record for most acting Oscar nominations: “Or as I like to think of it: most losses.”
Baldwin, during the opening, described Gabourey Sidibe’s character in “Precious” as being told she’s worthless and that nobody likes her. Then: “Hey, I’m with CAA, too!”
March 7, 2010 - 5:37 pm
 By Jay A. Fernandez and Lesley Goldberg
Well, the drizzle threatens to dampen dresses outside the Kodak Theatre, but the air seems to crackle as always in the run-up to this most glamorous and ludicrous of awards shows. Before we get to the meat of the ceremony, THR staffer Lesley Goldberg is manning the press bleachers out front, feeding me chatter from the carpet arrivals.
Here are some of her dispatches:
February 22, 2010 - 5:11 pm
 By Jay A. Fernandez
I’ve been wanting to get this up since Thursday night, when the Writers Guild held its annual star-studded Beyond Words panel, but too many events piled up. The WGA’s awards-season closer turned out to be a bizarre laugh-riot that managed to skirt almost completely any discussion of the craft of writing.
In attendance were James Cameron (”Avatar”), Jon Lucas & Scott Moore (”The Hangover”), Scott Neustadter (”(500) Days of Summer”), Mark Boal (”The Hurt Locker”), Alex Kurtzman (”Star Trek”), Geoffrey Fletcher (”Precious”), Scott Cooper (”Crazy Heart”) and Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner (”Up in the Air”). Missing were Nora Ephron (”Julie & Julia”), Roberto Orci (”Star Trek”), Michael H. Weber (”(500) Days of Summer”) and Joel and Ethan Coen (”A Serious Man”).
February 12, 2010 - 5:20 pm
By Jay A. Fernandez
More than a few people have been wondering about this off-the-grid political satire “In the Loop,” which has been scoring award nominations for its screenplay. IFC Films picked up the feature after last year’s Sundance Film Festival, where it premiered, and the indie outfit wants Academy voters to give the script a read before their votes are due March 2.
You’re welcome to take a gander yourself.
The adapted screenplay, written by Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Tony Roche and Armando Iannucci, who also directed, has drawn best screenplay nominations from BAFTA, the London critics, the Chicago critics and the Academy. The British Independent Film Awards and the New York Film Critics Circle awarded it best screenplay honors.
And here’s a special note from Iannucci about the script.
February 2, 2010 - 5:28 pm
By Borys Kit
How did the major agencies do in today’s Oscar-nomination frenzy? Let’s take a gander. (They just love it when we do this.)
But first, some asterisks:
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