When added together, the cumulative length of 2013′s Best Picture nominees totals a staggering 1,345 minutes — or nearly one full day of movie. (Fun fact: This year’s Best Picture hopefuls are the longest on average since 2005, when 170-minute The Aviator was nominated.)
By contrast, it’ll take you just 54 seconds to watch CollegeHumor’s excellent Vine parodies of all 9 nominiated films. Starting with, say, their biting take on The Silver Linings Playbook:
Image Credit: ABC For the second year in a row, ABC plans to feature its second screen experience “Backstage Pass” on the official Oscars app.
As part of “Backstage Pass,” EW’s Jess Cagle will be hosting the “Winner’s Walk,” where he’ll interview each of the night’s victors. Other features include a “Thank You Cam,” “Press Room Cam” and a “Control Room Cam.”
Download the app here.
Related:
‘Behind the Ballot’: Film editors weigh in on their craft
‘Behind the Ballot’: Production design
‘Behind the Ballot’: Oscar makeup and hairstyles
‘Behind the Ballot’: Video series launches
We know that Jimmy Fallon and the Roots are the kings of producing fun hip-hop and rap songs about pop culture. See here with Obama, here for the “History of Rap,” and here for a collection of TV theme songs.
Therefore, when an audience member asked Fallon to have someone catch him up, through a rap song, on the Oscar-nominated films, we knew it was going to be epic. Tariq ‘Black Thought’ Trotter took on the duties and completely killed it.
Props to Tariq for realizing that Fandango rhymes perfectly with Django and for pronouncing Quvenzhané flawlessly.
Watch the full clip below: READ FULL STORY »
Les Misérables has a heart full of likes on Facebook. (We can keep these puns coming all day.) The Tom Hooper movie has the most Facebook fans of any best picture nominee with 1.2 million, followed by Django Unchained with 723,000.
Oscar predictions are all about compiling data (and also who gave the best performance and deserves the award most and stuff like that), but even though Les Misérables has fans on Facebook (and here), it still has only 50/1 odds of winning Best Picture, according to Las Vegas Sports Betting. READ FULL STORY »
Those who appreciate the finer things in life are generally against the idea of sequels; they’re so crass, so money-grubbing, so… déclassé, unless you’re talking about the Ring Cycle. But snobs and slobs alike should be delighted to hear that Grey Poupon, the label that single-jar-edly made it okay for America to move beyond French’s yellow mustard, is bringing back its iconic “Pardon Me” ad campaign for one night only.
Anyone who watched television in the ’80s or ’90s will remember the campaign’s general conceit: A fancy-looking man drives through a quaint country scene in a chauffeured car when another expensive automobile pulls up alongside him. The back window rolls down to reveal a similarly fancy-looking man, who asks, “Pardon me, would you have any Grey Poupon?”
“But of course,” the first man replies, handing over a jar of dijon mustard. The tagline: “One of life’s finer pleasures.”
Question: Can an Oscar nominee help or hurt himself by hosting Saturday Night Live in the heat of the awards’ race?
One month after Silver Linings Playbook star — and Best Actress nominee — Jennifer Lawrence hosted, Django Unchained actor and Best Supporting Actor nominee Christoph Waltz took the Studio 8H stage at 30 Rock. For the most part, he lived up to his reputation as a generous supporting player — squiring Regine and playing a partygoer in a Tippy sketch. But when he did step into the main spotlight, there was something delicious about his cruel gameshow host, something creepy about his secret admirer, and something glorious about his Djesus Uncrossed parody trailer. READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Nick Wall/PBS
Could there be something happening next Sunday that we’re excited about? Hmm… Hmm… maybe something we’ve had two covers of, have seen all the movies for, and have debated and debated for months now? Yes, of course the Oscars are next weekend, but first up is this week’s exciting season finale of Downton Abbey, followed by the narrowed-down field on American Idol, Dark Skies opening in theaters, and more. Have a great week!
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Andy Samberg is hosting this year’s Independent Spirit Awards, and in new promos for the ceremony, he demonstrates that he’s got just the right amount of indie flair.
In the first titled “Bear Legs,” he… Well, you’ll see: READ FULL STORY »
Image Credit: Darius Khondji
Name: Amour
Release date: Dec. 19, 2012 (US limited)
DVD release date: Unknown
Run time: 2 hours, 7 minutes
Box office: Domestic — $3.09 million, Foreign — $13.1 million
Rotten Tomatoes score: 93 percent
Amour movie math: (Love and Other Drugs + The first scene of Up!) x The Diving Bell and the Butterfly + (Million Dollar Baby - all the boxing.)
Tweetable description: Love means never having to say I’m sorry you have to change my diaper. (And there is a pigeon.) READ FULL STORY »
Seth MacFarlane is well aware of his Achilles heel — it’s his Achilles heel.
“It’s the dancing that’s just kicking my ass. I’m not a dancer,” the soon-to-be Oscar hosts admits in this week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly, which goes behind the scenes of the Academy Awards to see just how the Family Guy and Ted creator intends to pull off the biggest live show of the year. With the animated TV hits Family Guy, American Dad, and The Cleveland Show to oversee, a comedy Western film starting in the spring, and a particularly song-and-dance heavy awards telecast to emcee, everyone needs a piece of him right now — while MacFarlane is just trying to hold it all together.
After releasing Music Is Better Than Words, an album of swinging jazz songs, he feels he has the song part of “song-and-dance man” down, but a flu virus has left his vocal chords scratchy at a time when he’s pre-recording some comedy bits for the Feb. 24 show. “For the Oscars, it’ll be fine,” MacFarlane promises. “It’s Family Guy that’s always a nightmare. … Sometimes I have no choice but to record even if I’ve got a cold, and you can hear it in the fact that Stewie, Quagmire, and Peter all have a cold at the same time.”
READ FULL STORY »
