12/18/2001
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring unfolds with pomp and ceremony, sound and fury. Also, with a sense of fun and games.
04/05/2001
Wax figure of Julia Roberts loses her `Oscar'
LOS ANGELES – Julia Roberts had to give back her Oscar.
At least, a wax figure of the actress did.
Prism Award to Traffic for realistic depiction
LOS ANGELES – Traffic, the gritty,
docudrama about drug trafficking, was honored Wednesday with a Prism Award for offering the most realistic portrayal of drug, alcohol or tobacco use of any theatrical film this past year.
Reeling: Rotten razz-ma-tazz
Now that the golden dust has settled over this year's Oscar winners, it's time to take note of Hollywood's lesser lights. Yes, let's discuss the noncoveted Golden Raspberry Awards, which dishonor those who spend too much and entertain too few.
04/01/2001
A view of the Oscars from the back row
LOS ANGELES – Notes, quotes and anecdotes from the Academy
Awards, which you won't have to think about again for another 10 months or so.
03/28/2001
Oscar winner for animated short gets TV for shortest speech
LOS ANGELES – And the television set goes to ... Michael Dudok de Wit, who gave the shortest acceptance speech at Sunday's Academy Awards.
ABC wins ratings week behind Oscar telecast
NEW YORK – Television networks will usually jump for joy
at programs with nearly 43 million or 23 million viewers, but not necessarily this week.
03/27/2001
Cities of Nogales bask in praise, hope for best
TUCSON, Ariz. – The twin border cities of Nogales,
Ariz., and Nogales, Mexico, got an Oscar this weekend for best supporting actor in a way. Benicio Del Toro, the actual winner, dedicated it to the cities' residents.
Odd lot of films dominate Academy Awards
LOS ANGELES – When the year's big Academy Award-winning movies are an early-summer Roman action flick, a martial-arts fable in Mandarin and a docudrama about drugs with a hundred or so speaking characters, you have to wonder – this is Hollywood?
Oscar telecast draws its worse ratings ever
NEW YORK – A night to remember for Julia Roberts and Russell Crowe was a night to forget for many television viewers.
Crystal relishes lack of Oscar pressure
LOS ANGELES – Billy Crystal was like a lot of Americans
on Oscar night. He watched the Academy Awards at home with a friend
and ordered in dinner.
Hollywood strikes loom in background at Oscars
LOS ANGELES – Sure, Hollywood celebrated at Sunday's Academy Awards show. But many of those entertainers might not be
working several months from now.
Partying down
LOS ANGELES – You can live vicariously by watching the Oscars, sharing in the joys and triumphs of your favorite stars. Or you could get even closer to them by staking out the periphery of post-Oscar parties, those swanky affairs in the West Hollywood-Beverly Hills area that draw celebrity spotters like moths to a high-powered lamp.
03/26/2001
Going down to the wire, Oscars pick Gladiator
LOS ANGELES – The Oscars were like a sudden-death
overtime, with the best-picture announcement a three-way tiebreaker for Gladiator, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Traffic.
Bjork lays an egg on Oscar's red carpet
LOS ANGELES – Icelandic singer Bjork laid a fashion egg, literally, on the red carpet leading into the 73rd annual Academy Awards.
After the Oscars, the real fun begins
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. – It may have been Julia Roberts' night at the Academy Awards, but it was Sean "Puffy'' Combs who held court at the Vanity Fair party afterward.
Crouching Tiger is an example of Greater China's hidden
power
TAIPEI, Taiwan – Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon is much more than a film to many ethnic Chinese.
Soderbergh takes directing Oscar for Traffic
Steven Soderbergh took the top filmmaking honor Sunday for Traffic, defying predictions that he would lose because his votes were split by dual nods for that film and Erin
Brockovich.
Oscar show lowest rated since 1986
NEW YORK – The Academy Awards telecast was blessedly
more concise than normal and had an impressive debut by host Steve Martin. But it wasn't a hit.
Roberts adds an Oscar to her list of triumphs
LOS ANGELES – In a scene from Mystic
Pizza, the film that first brought notice to Julia Roberts, her character pessimistically ticks off the things she has going for her. Twelve years later, Roberts has it all.
Behind the scenes during the 73rd annual Academy Awards
LOS ANGELES – Best actor and actress Oscar winners
Russell Crowe and Julia Roberts were full of high spirits backstage, toying with the reporters who held up numbers to ask questions.
Julia Roberts skips free TV for stage time
LOS ANGELES – Julia Roberts, who refused to limit her moment in the Oscar spotlight, didn't win the free TV set that went to the winner giving the shortest speech.
What was said at the Academy Awards
What was heard at the 73rd annual Academy Awards.
Oscars Scorecard: How the top Oscar winners did at the box office
Here are the top winners at the 73rd annual Academy Awards ceremony, the number of Oscars they won and their North American box office tally so far.
Dylan earns Oscar for Wonder Boys theme
LOS ANGELES – Three years ago, Bob Dylan conquered the Grammys. Now he's done the same at the Academy Awards.
Martin helps keep ceremony snappy
The length of the Oscars telecast, which set a record last year at 4 hours and 10 minutes, has become as big an issue as who wore the silliest dress or even who won the big awards. This year, the motion picture academy's annual attempt to move the show along finally paid off. Sunday night's awards came in at a mere 3 hours and 28 minutes, less than half an hour over the scheduled running time.
Goofy talk fills space from limo to door
The Academy Awards telecast is the Super Bowl of show business. And just as that sporting event on steroids is about much more than just a football game, the Academy Awards viewing experience is puffed up with hours of preshow programming.
Hollywood plays it safe, sophisticated
"Tonight, you're going to see what money can buy!" effused cable-show queen Joan Rivers from her privileged position on Oscar's red carpet. Her Middle America Majesty was right: The parade of luxe gowns, glittering jewels and proper tuxedos ambling into the Shrine Auditorium looked more "Monaco" than "metro L.A." – proving once again that Hollywood does love to play dress-up.
Analysis: 'Gladiator' comes out barely ahead
Oscar, bless his Britannica metal alloy heart, isn't a complete fuddy-duddy. The old boy still goes for those crowd-pleasing business-as-usual epics, making Gladiator No. 1, but he also can pull a gold rabbit out of a hat.
Oscar allows lots of happy endings
LOS ANGELES – Hollywood may be a bastion of fantasy, but this year's Oscars provided a case of art imitating life. Almost five months after the tightest presidential election in American history, the Academy Awards followed suit with a nail-biter of a race.
Oscar road leads to Rome as
Gladiator triumphs
LOS ANGELES – Gladiator, the best-picture
Oscar winner, emphasized democracy over domination in ancient Roman politics. How fitting, then, that the major honors Sunday were divided among a wealth of contenders.
List of 73rd annual Academy Awards
List of 73rd annual Academy Awards presented Sunday evening at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.
It's deja vu for 14-time losers Randy Newman, Kevin O'Connell
LOS ANGELES – When nominees Randy Newman and Kevin O'Connell failed to win Oscars on Sunday, it was definitely a case of deja vu: The songwriter and the sound expert each have lost 14 times.
What was said during the 73rd annual Academy Awards
What was heard inside and outside the Shrine Auditorium during Sunday's 73rd annual Academy Awards.
03/25/2001
Soderbergh takes directing Oscar for Traffic
LOS ANGELES – Steven Soderbergh won the best-director
Oscar on Sunday for Traffic, defying conventional wisdom that he would lose because his vote was split by dual nominations for that movie and Erin Brockovich.
Gladiator wins best picture
LOS ANGELES – Gladiator won five Academy
Awards on Sunday, including best picture, sound, costume design, visual effects and best actor – Russell Crowe.
Roberts gets her Oscar for Brockovich
LOS ANGELES – Julia Roberts, Hollywood's box-office
queen, won the best-actress Academy Award on Sunday for her trash-talking, short-skirted turn in the legal drama Erin Brockovich.
Behind the scenes during the 73rd annual Academy Awards
LOS ANGELES – Even at the Oscars, Tom Hanks was upstaged
by his Cast Away co-star, Wilson.
Wide open field lends excitement to Academy Awards
LOS ANGELES – Benicio Del Toro, the honest Tijuana detective in Traffic, and Marcia Gay Harden, who played the long-suffering wife of artist Jackson Pollock in Pollock, won the Oscars for best supporting acting at Sunday night's Academy Awards.
Embracing the best
LOS ANGELES – The most wide-open Oscar competition in years started out with a surprise winner, as Texan Marcia Gay Harden grabbed the best supporting actress award for her role as artist Lee Krasner in the independent film Pollock.
Sparkling dresses, dull talk fill Oscar arrivals
The Academy Awards telecast is the Super Bowl of show business. And just as that sporting event on steroids is about much more than just a football game, the Academy Awards viewing experience is puffed up with hours of preshow programming.
Wide open field lends excitement to
73rd Academy Awards
LOS ANGELES – Hollywood's elite donned their custom
tuxedos and $100,000 designer gowns Sunday for the 73rd Academy Awards with more than the usual aura of excitement. The reason: Few of the major-category nominees appeared to be a slam-dunk.
Oscar still clicks as cultural icon
Lights! Cameras! Ratings! The annual Academy Awards ceremony still has an abundance of all three in times when television is getting down to a bare handful of communal viewing experiences.
Charles Ealy: Reeling
Every year, the producers of the Academy Awards show say they're taking steps to keep the running time in check, but every year, the telecast runs well past four hours. Then we ask, as if surprised, "What went wrong?"
The Irving G. Thalberg award goes to Dino De Laurentiis
This year, Oscar's Oscar, a k a the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, goes to a bigger Comeback Kid than Bill Clinton. Only Dino De Laurentiis is no kid at age 81.
Who was that guy, anyway?
Who was Irving G. Thalberg anyway? Warned by doctors that he wouldn't live past 30, he skipped college to become Hollywood's Boy Wonder and one of the most influential
production execs of the 1920s and `30s.
All eyes are on Steve Martin, making his debut as Oscar host
When Steve Martin made his first indelible impression –
hosting Saturday Night Live in 1976 with an arrow through his head – no one could have imagined he'd still be around 25 years later.
This year's nominees for best documentary feature
Change happens at a glacial pace at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. But when it does occur, it's usually for the best. After years of complaints, the academy in 1999 changed both its criteria for feature-length documentary as well as its voting procedure.
03/24/2001
Sacred silver screenings
The Oscars being handed out Sunday night are only one outfit's list of best films of last year. The United States Catholic Conference has its own litany.
03/23/2001
Soderbergh nominations blur the line between indies and
Hollywood
It was just four years ago that all the Oscar buzz revolved around the blurring line between Hollywood and independent films. Then, just one year after the alleged year of the little guy, the mega-budget Titanic sank
the competition. What's the story this year?
Multiple Oscars, the joys of winning again and again and ...
?
If Tom Hanks were to win the best-actor award Sunday for his
performance in Cast Away, he would be the first male
performer ever to win three lead-actor Oscars. How rare are multiple winners?
Before the red carpet, there's Oscar's shopping mall
During the week before Oscar Sunday, hotels across Beverly Hills and along the tonier avenues of Los Angeles are filled with fashion designers, urging their goods on anyone with a chance of appearing in the award-show limelight.
Oscar scaffolding collapses but show will go on
LOS ANGELES – Sunday's Academy Awards spectacle will go
on as planned, despite a scaffolding collapse that sent five workers to the hospital, Oscar officials said.
Oscar Watch: Best Picture
The last of our weekly looks at the top Oscar categories focuses on the biggest prize of all – best picture.
03/22/2001
Oscar producer says thanks for short speeches with prize
LOS ANGELES – Winning an Academy Award: priceless.
Giving a really short speech when accepting that award: Worth a $2,500 television.
Poll: Public likes Erin Brockovich, Gladiator for Oscars
Americans would prefer to see either the movies Erin Brockovich or Gladiator win the Oscar for best picture of
the year on Sunday, says a Gallup Poll released Thursday.
And the winner ... or loser ... is Oscar host Steve Martin
LOS ANGELES – Steve Martin is an actor, comedian,
musician and author. On Sunday, he has the chance to add the title of Oscar hero – or goat.
Scaffolding along Oscar red carpet
collapses, injuring workers
LOS ANGELES – Scaffolding along the red carpet for
Sunday's Academy Awards ceremony collapsed Thursday, injuring five people.
Maryln Schwartz: And the winner is ...
The big guessing game these days is who is going to win the Oscars on Sunday night. But the real competition is in the office pools. Academy Award lotteries are in full swing, and it can get vicious.
AP film writers offer Academy Awards
picks
Three Associated Press writers predict who will win – and declare
who should win – in top Academy Awards categories Sunday.
Not-so-ordinary folks pick their
Oscar favorites
LOS ANGELES – Picking a winner is a difficult thing. Just ask Raye Hollitt, who once had her pectoral muscle torn
from her rib cage while performing – under the name Zap – on the TV show American Gladiators.
Oscar certain to have an
international look
LOS ANGELES – The Oscars have taken on more of an international flavor than ever before. Consider this: None of the nominees for best picture was made in a Hollywood studio.
Oscar voters are exclusive, eclectic
bunch
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is Hollywood's most exclusive club. Though Oscar viewers may deride it as a homogeneous body that makes bad calls come awards time, the academy actually is a big, broad assemblage of people with wildly different backgrounds and fiercely individualistic tastes.
03/21/2001
Credits and production data for Oscar telecast
Following are credits and production data for "The 73rd Annual Academy Awards Presentation" airing Sunday, March 25.
Best-picture contestants enjoy box-office gold
Even though four of the five best-picture nominees will lose the top prize at the Academy Awards on Sunday, they're already winners. Each has rung up tens of millions of dollars in box-office receipts since last month's Oscar nominations, which sent many moviegoers scrambling to catch them
before the awards broadcast.
Studios old and new vie for best-picture Oscar
LOS ANGELES – If they had to name the best part of an
Oscar nomination – the prestige or the cash – studio bosses
would invariably pick the cash. But bragging rights are always a pleasant complement.
03/20/2001
Roberts is belle of the ball this
awards season
LOS ANGELES – Just how giddy with success can Julia
Roberts get? Everything she touches these days turns to box-office gold.
03/19/2001
Simple gowns and champagne shirts may
be toast of Oscars
NEW YORK – The red carpet at the Academy Awards is
arguably the biggest fashion show of the year, and TV viewers around the world have front-row seats. The top trends, modeled by Hollywood's most beautiful actresses, will be embraced and adopted by women of every age, of every type, in every city.
All Oscar eyes on Julia Roberts
NEW YORK – For fashion designers, this year's Oscar "It Girl'' is Julia Roberts. From the moment she emerges from her limousine on March 25, all eyes will be on the star of Erin Brockovich – and
the designer of her gown surely will get a lot of attention and publicity.
03/18/2001
Soderbergh's choice: One director's
chair or two?
LOS ANGELES – Two chairs were set out for Steven
Soderbergh at the annual meet-the-nominees forum at the Directors Guild of America. The reason: Make two of the year's best movies, get two
seats on stage.
Bardem philosophical about his nomination
He's the surprise guest at this year's big Hollywood shindig, a Spanish actor who had never made an American film before the extraordinary Before Night Falls. But don't expect Javier Bardem to get starry-eyed about the Oscars, even if he pulls off an upset and wins the big trinket. After some 10 years working without the benefit of an international spotlight, Mr. Bardem knows his priorities.
03/16/2001
Oscar Watch: Best Director
It's Soderbergh vs. Soderbergh on Oscar night.
Snarling about 'Traffic'
MEXICO CITY – The acid test for the wildly popular American drug film Traffic starts Friday in Mexico. It will open amid great buzz on 250 screens throughout the country, the largest opening here in recent memory for any movie, domestic or foreign.
03/12/2001
Guild awards offer Oscar lead-in
Julia Roberts won the best-actress honor at the Screen Actors Guild awards Sunday for her sharp-tongued, flashily dressed fling in Erin Brockovich. Benicio Del Toro took the best-actor prize for his worldly wise take on a Mexican drug cop in Traffic.
Hooked on a feeling
Gasps could be heard when Chocolat was
named a best-picture nominee for this year's Academy Awards. Yes, it's a
nice little movie, and yes, the Miramax cash machine plunked down long green
for another hefty advertising campaign. But one of the five best films of
the year?
03/09/2001
Harris drawn to Pollock's contradictions
The toxicity of fame claimed Jackson Pollock, the Grand Poobah of modern
painters who shot to the cover of Life Magazine in August 1949 - and rammed his
car into a tree seven tempestuous years later.
Oscar Watch: Best Actress
This year's best-actress run for the Oscar fields a formidable slate. Only Juliette Binoche, propelled by media-savvy Miramax, seems out of place. Her hedonistic chocolatier is a lovely creation but hardly worthy of nomination.The odds-on favorite is Julia Roberts, winner of a bellwether Golden Globe, for the title role of a sexy, smart-mouthed single mother turned legal eagle in Erin Brockovich.
03/08/2001
Could Gladiator pull a Rebecca at Oscars?
The Roman epic Gladiator leads the Oscar field with 12 nominations and is the odds-on favorite for best picture. But it has not fared well in other key categories.
A boy's death, a family's struggle – a 'legacy'
worthy of Oscar nod
CHICAGO – He was a straight-A student with a
scholarship, his family's best hope to escape the poverty that held them prisoner in public housing. The day before he was to be interviewed for a documentary, Terrell Collins was gunned down. He was 14.
03/02/2001
Oscar Watch: Best Actor
When Steve Martin comes to the mike on March 25, a Spaniard, two Americans and a couple of blokes from Down Under will be waiting to see who gets this year's big paperweight. All give head-turning perfs, but the money right now is on Russell Crowe.
02/28/2001
O'Brien takes back Oscar from AIDS
auction at academy's request
SACRAMENTO – Legendary child actress Margaret O'Brien
has pulled her Oscar from a charity auction, officials at the Sacramento AIDS Foundation said Wednesday.
Final Oscar ballots hit the mailroom
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. – Attention Academy Awards voters: Your Oscar ballots are in the mail. And this time, Oscar overseers expect them to arrive.
02/25/2001
Gladiator gathers five British
Academy Film Awards, including best film
LONDON – Gladiator battled its
way to best film and
four other British Academy Film Awards, while the martial arts romance Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon trailed
close behind with four prizes, including best director for Ang Lee.
Winners of the British Academy Film
Awards
List of winners for the Orange British Academy Film
Awards.
02/24/2001
Margaret O'Brien's Oscar up for sale
in AIDS auction
SACRAMENTO – Margaret O'Brien, a legendary child star
from the 1940s, has given her Oscar to the Sacramento AIDS Foundation.
02/23/2001
Special effects artist Stan Winston
gets Hollywood star
LOS ANGELES Creature-creating designer Stan Winston,
who won Oscars for his special-effects work on Jurassic Park, Terminator 2 and Aliens, received a star Friday
on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Oscar Watch: Best Supporting
Actress
To get the role that landed her first Oscar nod, Marcia Gay Harden had to
audition again and again for Pollock director/star Ed Harris.
02/16/2001
Oscar nominations prompt sadness, celebrations
I shouted, "Hallelujah!" I whimpered, "Oh, no-o-o." Reading this year's list of Oscar nominees can do that to a dedicated film fan.
Oscar Watch: Best Supporting Actor
After a few years of picking and choosing through
supporting parts in small, quirky films - including Basquiat in 1996
and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas in 1998 - Benicio Del Toro had a strong 2000 that
culminated in the role of his career.
02/14/2001
Marcia Gay Harden only Texan in
batch
With the exception of a single nominee, Texas didn't figure Tuesday in the Oscar nomination proceedings.
Glory days
The battle lines were drawn Tuesday with the announcement of the 73rd annual
Academy Award nominations. The big winner, as expected, was director Ridley Scott's sword-and-sandals
epic Gladiator.
Director's dilemma: Brockovich or
Traffic
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. – Steven Soderbergh kept his head
low Tuesday about his rare Oscar achievement: two best-director nominations in the same year.
International flavor runs through
Oscar nominations
LOS ANGELES – An international flavor ran through many
of the Academy Award nominations Tuesday, led by the Taiwanese Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which collected 10.
Music veterans square off in Oscar
race
LOS ANGELES – Veteran rockers Bob Dylan, Randy Newman
and Sting each collected Oscar nominations Tuesday for best movie song, competing against Icelandic pop singer Bjork and the composers of the theme to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
Roberts, Hanks, loads of Romans lead
Oscar parade
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. – Hollywood's box-office queen may finally get an Academy Award. One of the academy's favorite sons
may win his third. And next month's Oscar bash could turn into a
major toga party.
Box office performance for best
picture Oscar nominees
North American box office performance for Tuesday's Oscar nominees for best picture.
Oscar nominations facts and trivia
Some facts and figures about Tuesday's 73rd annual Oscar nominations.
Las Vegas bookmakers give odds on
Oscar contenders
LAS VEGAS – Oddsmakers like "Gladiator,''
Russell Crowe and Julia Roberts as favorites to win Academy Awards this year.
02/13/2001
Gladiator's bloody Romans lead
Oscar battle
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. – Hollywood's resurrection of Rome marches on: Gladiator, the glitzy successor to
Ben-Hur and Spartacus, led the Oscar field Tuesday with 12 nominations, including best picture, actor and director.
Complete list of 73rd annual Academy
Award nominations
Complete list of 73rd annual Oscar nominations announced Tuesday in Beverly Hills, Calif., by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
02/12/2001
Clash of the titans
LOS ANGELES – Six weeks before the Academy Awards are presented, a handful of films are positioned to cash in on Oscar
gold.
02/11/2001
Duck and cover from fallout of Oscar nods
At approximately 7:30 a.m. CST Tuesday, Academy Award nominations will be
announced. At approximately 8 a.m. Tuesday, Academy Award nominations fallout
will begin.
02/08/2001
Soderbergh brings `Traffic' to
Berlin, guarded on Oscar prospects
BERLIN – Steven Soderbergh brought his drug-war drama "Traffic'' across the Atlantic to the Berlin film festival Thursday, saying the star-studded movie has helped break a "huge silence'' in the United States.
02/07/2001
Oscar winner Bates to unveil
nominees
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. – Oscar winner Kathy Bates will
help announce nominations for the 73rd Academy Awards.
02/05/2001
Oscar field takes shape as Academy
prepares nominations
LOS ANGELES – From ancient warriors to modern crusaders, historical hedonists to latter-day sensualists, Hollywood is about to pare down the list of invitees to its biggest bash.
02/01/2001
British cast
contenders
LONDON - Gladiator and
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon dominated nominations Wednesday for the 53rd
British Academy Film Awards, with 14 apiece. Local favorite Billy Elliot was
close behind with 11 nominations.
01/31/2001
Actors Guild announces contenders
Nominations for the seventh annual Screen Actors Guild
Awards were announced Monday, reiterating the suspicion that anything is
possible in the upcoming Oscar race.
