TV ratings smile on Oscar as viewership rises
NEW YORK – An estimated 41.3 million people saw "The Hurt Locker" top the popular "Avatar" for best picture in the most-watched Academy Awards telecast since 2005.
Oscar viewership was up 14 percent over last year, the Nielsen Co. said Monday, keeping with a trend of bigger audiences for major events on broadcast television a month after the Super Bowl set the mark for most-watched telecast ever.
In true film fashion, the Oscars built to a big climax when the Iraqi war thriller "The Hurt Locker" and its director, Kathryn Bigelow, topped "Avatar," directed by her ex-husband James Cameron. Bigelow was the first woman to win the Oscar for best director.
The audience was up from the 36.3 million who saw "Slumdog Millionaire" win best picture last year and 32 million — Oscar's smallest audience on record — in 2008, Nielsen said. The Oscars had just over 42 million watch in 2005, when "Million Dollar Baby" was the big winner.
The Oscar ratings fall in line with bigger audiences for awards shows in recent months. The Golden Globes were up 14 percent over the year before, and the performance-heavy Grammys up 36 percent, Nielsen said. The Emmys, the Tonys and the Miss America pageant all saw higher ratings.
Analysts say fewer chances for Americans to gather in front of the television set for communal events may help make these events more popular. With a poor economy, more people are staying home, too. The Internet may also help draw viewers; experts say many people are online while the shows are on, and they comment about them to friends.
Ratings for the New York market appeared unaffected by a business dispute between Cablevision and ABC's parent, Walt Disney Co.
ABC had been dropped by Cablevision for its 3.1 million subscribers in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut on Sunday, and the network was not restored until 13 minutes after the Academy Awards telecast began.
Still, New York ranked No. 13 among among the 56 biggest media markets in the country, Nielsen said. New York's overnight rating was 11 percent above the average for all of the big markets.
Oscars bosses defend Fawcett snub
Bosses at the Oscars have defended their decision to leave Farrah Fawcett out of the memorial montage - insisting it's impossible to pay tribute to every star who passed away in the last year.
The Charlie's Angels actress, who died in June, was absent from the Academy Awards' tribute section on Sunday night, which marked the deaths of stars including Brittany Murphy and Patrick Swayze.
The snub sparked speculation she was left out because of her predominant television career, with some online critics slamming the ceremony heads for not adding her to the clip.
Jane Fonda was also shocked Fawcett was left out, and wrote on Twitter.com: "Where was Farrah Fawcett? She should have been included."
Screenwriter Roger Ebert added, "No Farrah in the memorial. They have a whole lot of 'splaining (sic) to do."
And U.S. TV personality Star Jones is fuming the actress was not included, because she appeared in movies including The Cannonball Run and The Apostle and was even nominated for a Golden Globe for 1987 film Extremities.
Jones writes on her Twitter page, "FYI (for your information)... Farrah had a very diverse career... that included Broadway, TV & Film. She even received a Golden Globe nom (sic)."
But Oscar bosses have defended their decision. Bruce Davis, the executive director of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, says, "It is the single most troubling element of the Oscar show every year. Because more people die each year than can possibly be included in that segment. You are dropping people who the public knows. It's just not comfortable."
Welcome To Your First Look At The 2011 Oscars!!
The Red Carpet at the Kodak Theater hasn’t even been rolled up, and Tinseltown is already talking about next year’s Oscar race.
Will Jeff Bridges and George Clooney be squaring off for Best Actor again?
Bridges is stepping into John Wayne’s Oscar-winning role as a grumpy old lawman in Joel and Ethan Coen’s remake of the western classic “True Grit,” while Clooney plays a hit man lying low in Italy before one last job in “The American.”
Welcome to Hollywood’s version of fantasy baseball, where insiders try to dope out the Oscar prospects of films that largely haven’t been completed, often don’t have firm release dates, and in a few cases, lack even a US distributor yet.
A year out, it’s mostly about the past performances of the talent and the pedigree of the material.
Clint Eastwood may have struck out with “Invictus,” but because he’s got two Best Picture and two Best Director Oscars on his mantle, you’ve got to seriously consider his globespanning supernatural thriller “Hereafter” starring Matt Damon.
Similarly, it probably isn’t wise to ignore the yet-untitled romantic dramedy from writerdirector James Brooks, especially since it stars Oscar winners Jack Nicholson and Reese Witherspoon.
With 10 Best Picture slots, you can’t even rule out something as unlikely sounding as “The Beaver,” starring Mel Gibson as a depressed man who finds solace in . . . a hand puppet. Jodie Foster directs and plays his wife.
Here’s a far-from-complete list of contenders:
“Inception” — Christopher Nolan (“The Dark Knight”) directs Oscar winners Leonardo DiCaprio and Marion Cotillard with nominee Ellen Page in a futuristic sci-fi thriller.
“Fair Game” — Biopic with Naomi Watts and Sean Penn as outed CIA agent Valerie Plame and her husband.
“The Social Network” — Jesse Eisenberg in the story behind the creation of Facebook, directed by David Fincher (“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”).
“Tree of Life” — Brad Pitt and Sean Penn in a family drama spanning half a century, from Terrence Malick (“The Thin Red Line”).
“The Green Zone” — Matt Damon hunts for WMDs in Iraq.
“The Black Swan” — Dark thriller with Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis as rival ballerinas.
“Somewhere” — Sofia Coppola directs Benicio del Toro as a hard-living Hollywood celebrity who re-examines his life after the arrival of his 11-year-old daughter (Elle Fanning).
“Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” — Michael Douglas reprises his Oscar-winning role in Oliver Stone’s belated sequel set during the Great Recession.
“Love and Other Drugs” — Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway in a fact-based story about a Viagra salesman.
“Eat Pray Love” — Julia Roberts travels the world after a divorce, finds Javier Bardem.
“The Town” — Boston-set thriller directed by and starring Ben Affleck; with Jon Hamm and Jeremy Renner.
“The Fighter” — Christian Bale and Mark Wahlberg as half-brothers in the ring, one on the way up, the other on the way down.
“The Tempest” — Julie Taymor (“Across the Universe”) directs the latest version of the Shakespeare fantasy with Russell Brand and Helen Mirren.
“Never Let Me Go” — Adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro novel about three former classmates (Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan, Sally Hawkins) who reunite to face their dark past.
“Secretariat” — Diane Lane as the great thoroughbred’s owner, John Malkovich as his trainer. Well, nobody expected “Seabiscuit” to be nominated as Best Picture, either.
“Toy Story 3” — Because it is from Pixar’s and it is “Toy Story 3”!!
Why small film blew away giant 'Avatar'
This isn't exactly the kind of Blue Monday that disappointed "Avatar" fans were expecting.
Oscar voters passed over the top-grossing film of all time, and instead gave Best Picture to "The Hurt Locker," which sold the fewest tickets of any Best Picture winner in academy history.
The academy also made history by choosing Kathryn Bigelow of "The Hurt Locker" as the first woman ever to win the Oscar for Best Director -- over her ex-husband, "Avatar" director James Cameron.
"Avatar" and Cameron seemed unbeatable in January after winning at the Golden Globes and becoming a genuine international cultural phenomenon.
But experts say the film's Oscar campaign failed to capitalize on its momentum and allowed the flick to get swamped in the inevitable backlash.
"Avatar" was widely mocked by the chattering classes for being derivative ("Dances With Smurfs"). A lightly revised script for the Disney cartoon "Pocahontas," underlining the similarities between the two films, circulated through the blogosphere.
Meanwhile, the film's campaigners pushed unsuccessfully to get a Best Supporting Actress nomination for Zoe Saldana, who appears in the film only in animated form.
"The campaign was overly defensive, focusing too much on convincing the voters that the motion-capture performances were real acting," says a veteran Oscar consultant.
"Instead, they should have emphasized on what a game-changer 'Avatar' is for the way movies will be made."
It probably didn't help that many Oscar voters still remember Cameron's boastful "king of the world" speech from the night when his "Titanic" won 11 Oscars in 1998.
So Oscar voters continued the recent trend of embracing small, art-house flicks such as "The Hurt Locker."
Bigelow pioneers Oscars with `Hurt Locker' win
LOS ANGELES – Kathryn Bigelow played field commander to bring her raw, relentless Iraq War thriller "The Hurt Locker" to the screen.
After her film triumphed at the Academy Awards with six prizes and made her the first woman ever to win the directing Oscar, she graduated to diplomat with her deft handling of some uncomfortable personal questions from reporters after the show.
Bigelow's rivals included a man from her past — ex-husband James Cameron, whose science-fiction epic "Avatar" also was nominated for the best picture and director that she won.
Backstage, Bigelow judiciously handled reporters' queries about Cameron, who was seated right behind her at the Oscars and joined the standing ovation she received, clapping heartily and saying, "Yes, yes" after she won best director.
"Jim is very inspiring. I think he inspires filmmakers around the world, and for that, I think I can speak for all of them. We're quite grateful," Bigelow said.
Asked what she might say to Cameron about winning over him, Bigelow gave a big laugh and shrugged off the question.
"You left me speechless," Bigelow said. She and Cameron were married from 1989-91, and Cameron won best director and picture for his 1997 blockbuster "Titanic."
First-time winners took all four acting prizes: Sandra Bullock as best actress for "The Blind Side"; Jeff Bridges as best actor for "Crazy Heart"; Mo'Nique as supporting actress for "Precious: Based on the Novel `Push' by Sapphire"; and Christoph Waltz as supporting actor for "Inglourious Basterds."
Bigelow downplayed descriptions of herself as a female filmmaker throughout awards season. After the Oscars, she reiterated that sentiment but made it clear she was eager for other women to follow her lead in winning Hollywood's top filmmaking honor.
"I hope I'm the first of many, and of course, I'd love to just think of myself as a filmmaker. And I long for the day when that modifier can be a moot point," Bigelow said. "But I'm very grateful if I can inspire some young, intrepid, tenacious male or female filmmaker and have them feel that the impossible is possible, and never give up on your dream."
Bullock's win came a day after she won worst-actress for her romantic comedy flop "All About Steve" at the Razzies, a spoof of the Oscars that mocks Hollywood's low-points of the year.
The Razzie win makes Bullock the only actress to receive that dubious prize and an Oscar on the same weekend. Bullock became one of the few Razzie winners ever to collect her trophy in person, showing up at the ceremony Saturday pulling a little red wagon filled with DVDs of "All About Steve" for the audience there.
Where will she keep her Oscar and Razzie?
"They'll sit side by side on a nice little shelf somewhere. The Razzie maybe on a different shelf. Lower," said Bullock, who was a great sport throughout awards season, joking about her worst-actress Razzie nomination. "You take the good with the not-so-good."
The Oscar marks a career peak for Bridges, a beloved Hollywood veteran who had been nominated four times in the previous 38 years without winning. Describing his long career, he borrowed some lines from one of his most endearing and enduring characters, the laid-back bowler the Dude from "The Big Lebowski."
"Ups and downs. What does the Dude say? Strikes and gutters, man," Bridges said backstage. "I'm big on the Dude. I love him."
Known mainly for brazen comedy routines and roles in lowbrow films, Mo'Nique startled audiences with a dark turn as a reprehensible welfare mother in "Precious."
Asked backstage if things would change for her, Mo'Nique declared, "I am a standup comedian who won an Oscar."
Austrian-born Waltz, a veteran TV and stage actor in Europe but virtually unknown in Hollywood before Quentin Tarantino cast him in "Inglourious Basterds," reflected on his sudden Oscar celebrity.
"It's mind-boggling. It's fantastic. It's very intense," Waltz said. "And tomorrow I'll probably be sorry it's over," he said.
"The Hurt Locker" scored a victory for war-on-terror dramas, which until now had found little favor with audiences shell-shocked by nightly news coverage of the action in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The film stars Jeremy Renner as the ace leader of a bomb-disposal unit in Iraq, a man whose addiction to the adrenaline rush of war endanger his colleagues (Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty).
War films normally are the arena of male directors, but Bigelow has made action and stories about tough men a specialty, her films including the Keanu Reeves-Patrick Swayze thriller "Point Break" and Harrison Ford's submarine adventure "K-19: The Widowmaker."
"K-19" was a 2002 flop, and it took Bigelow years to get back in action with "The Hurt Locker," which premiered at the Venice and Toronto film festivals in September 2008.
While it pulled in $12.6 million domestically, a respectable showing for an independent film without big stars, "The Hurt Locker" is the lowest-grossing best-picture winner in this modern era of detailed box-office bookkeeping.
It took in less than one-fourth the haul of 2005 best-picture winner "Crash," itself one of the least commercially successful recipients of the top Oscar.
Along with "Avatar," the biggest modern blockbuster with $720 million domestically, the best-picture competition included the $200 million smashes "Up" and "The Blind Side" and the $100 million hits "District 9" and "Inglourious Basterds."
Like "Crash," "The Hurt Locker" was a rare film that swooped in from outside the Hollywood studios to earn the industry's highest tribute. "The Hurt Locker" was acquired by Summit Entertainment after the film played at the Toronto festival, where "Crash" also was bought by distributor Lionsgate.
Joining Bigelow to collect the best-picture Oscar were "Hurt Locker" producers Mark Boal, who also won the prize for original screenplay, and Greg Shapiro.
A fourth producer — financier Nicolas Chartier, a key money man behind the film — was barred from attending as punishment for violating awards rules by sending e-mails to Oscar voters urging them to back "The Hurt Locker" over "Avatar."
Oscar overseers said Chartier still will receive his best-picture Oscar, but at a later time.
"We haven't spoken to him yet," Shapiro said. "He sent me a very beautiful e-mail. He had a party thrown for him, and I think he's very pleased."
Japan defends dolphin hunt in Oscar-winning 'Cove'
TAIJI, Japan – The Japanese fishing village featured in "The Cove," which won an Oscar for best documentary, defended its practice of hunting dolphins Monday as a part of a long tradition.
The movie, which mixes stunning underwater shots of gliding dolphins with covertly filmed grisly footage of their slaughter, also claims that dolphin meat is laden with toxic mercury.
Taiji, a quiet fishing village on the rocky coast of southwestern Japan, kills only a small fraction of the dolphins hunted by the country each year. But it has long been a target of environmentalists and animal lovers because it uses a method called "oikomi," in which the dolphins are chased into shore, making the hunt more visible.
Though few residents said they had seen the film, there was universal disgust at its portrayal of the town. Taiji proudly bills itself as "Whale Town" and a main bridge is adorned with dolphin statues, but after years of what locals see as unfair treatment by the foreign press, few are willing to talk on the record. One young dolphin trainer turned and ran away when asked for her opinion.
"This is a close-knit group of fishermen. The more they feel squeezed, the more they will close off to outsiders. They won't stop this hunt because of such pressure," said Hisato Ryono, a local councilman who appears in the film.
The mayor's office handed out a statement that said Taiji's dolphin hunt is lawful and argued that the movie contained statements that were not based on science. Otherwise, most town officials refused to talk.
"There are different food traditions within Japan and around the world," the statement read. "It is important to respect and understand regional food cultures, which are based on traditions with long histories."
Director Louie Psihoyos said "The Cove" isn't meant to bash Japan but that it is "a love letter to the Japanese people."
"Our hope is the Japanese people will see this film and decide themselves whether animals should be used for meat and for entertainment," Psihoyos said backstage after receiving the Oscar at the Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles.
The town of Taiji kills about 2,000 dolphins every year for their meat. Some are captured and sold to aquariums.
The Japanese government, which allows about 19,000 dolphins to be killed each year, acknowledges that dolphin meat is contaminated with mercury, but denies it's dangerous unless consumed in huge quantities.
In September, amid an international outcry following the screening of the movie abroad, villagers released several dozen dolphins that had been caught. But locals say they will continue with the hunt.
The movie has not yet been released in Japan, but it will start showing here in June at 20 to 30 theaters nationwide. It was shown at the Tokyo International Film Festival in October, where viewers gave it mixed reviews.
Still, most Japanese don't know about the annual dolphin hunt, and dolphin meat is hardly eaten in Japan.
Takeshi Kato, president of Unplugged in Tokyo, which is distributing the film in Japan, said the faces of dozens of Taiji residents are being blurred out for the Japan version to ward off possible lawsuits under Japanese law that protects privacy.
"Our purpose is not to attack the people of Taiji," he said.
"If this movie can serve as an opportunity for people to find out, it would be great," he told The Associated Press on Monday.
He said he hopes the film will help open the debate in Japan on preserving nature, including dolphins and whales.
"Receiving the top award in the movie industry will work as a big plus for our efforts to show this movie in Japan," he said.
Ryono, the local councilman, and Tetsuya Endo, an associate professor at Health Sciences University of Hokkaido, both appear in the current version of the film and say they were interviewed under false pretenses. Both say they have asked the filmmakers to remove footage, and Endo says he hasn't ruled out legal action.
"I feel that they should have declined the award," Endo said.
Psihoyos was unable to get permission to access the cove where the dolphins are killed. Fishermen blocked it with barbed wire and fences. So he and his film team secretly broke into the restricted area — which is in a national park — at night to set up cameras that capture the slaughter.
Japanese government officials have defended the fishermen's right to hunt dolphins and called the film unbalanced.
"There are some countries that eat cows, and there are other countries that eat whales or dolphins," said Yutaka Aoki, fisheries division director at Foreign Ministry. "A film about slaughtering cows or pigs might also be unwelcome to workers in that industry."