The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is giving the Oscars a makeover for 2009, doubling the number of Best Picture nominees to ten and relegating its honorary Governors Awards to a separate non-televised ceremony that took place Saturday night.

Lauren Bacall, Roger Corman receive awards

Part of the idea behind separating the Governors Awards, generally given for career and industry achievement, from the gala Oscars that will take place in March is to cut a slow-moving segment from the broadcast during which many viewers get up from the couch to use the bathroom, make popcorn or turn off the show altogether. The Academy’s Governors say it’s also about dedicating more time to the honorees rather than rushing them through the show in a few minutes — especially when, as with Lauren Bacall on Saturday,  it’s a case of a movie legend getting a long-awaited first Oscar.

Listening to Hollywood oldies like Bacall and Kirk Douglas recount stories from the Golden Years of Tinseltown is priceless for those that grew up watching their movies but increasingly lacks relevance for Twitter-age youngsters with a short attention span — hence the bathroom break.

Many at Saturday’s dinner liked the change. Producer Norman Jewison said the lack of TV cameras was great. Warren Beatty relished being able to talk freely without worrying whether there were 36.5 million or only 29.2 million people watching.

The intimate atmosphere saw Bacall make cheeky remarks she might not have made on TV, joking about how she would flirt on set with Gregory Peck but his wife “got in the way”.

The censor-defying Quentin Tarantino paid tribute to Roger Corman, king of offbeat low-budget thrillers, by praising “the f**king coolness of this man”.

The shame is that a goodly chunk of Oscar viewers would have relished a peek at the private ceremony, whose guests included Jack Nicholson, Anjelica Huston, Peter Fonda, George Lucas, Tom Hanks and Jeff Bridges.

With a bit of luck they still will: the dinner was taped and the best clips might still be shown at the main Oscar broadcast on March 7. And if they do show it and you don’t care about Hollywood’s golden oldies, well, there’s your bathroom break.

They aren’t exactly Laurel and Hardy, or Hope and Crosby, or Lewis and Martin (that’s singer Dean) or even Rowan and Martin (as in Laugh-in’s Dick Martin). So when Oscar organizers on Tuesday named Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin as the co-hosts of the upcoming Academy Awards, it left more than a few Hollywood watchers scratching their heads. You can read the story here.

After all, their only two pull quotes from the press release issued by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ranged from Martin’s mildly funny “I am happy to co-host the Oscars with my enemy Alec Baldwin,” to a decidedly mixed statement from Baldwin, “I don’t play the banjo but I’m thrilled to be hosting the Oscars — it’s the opportunity of a lifetime.”

Baldwin’s first reference is, of course, a joke about Martin’s love of the banjo, but the last half of the statement sounds rather serious.

It seems like salt and pepper, oil and water, but maybe that’s exactly what Oscar organizers are hoping for. And, if nothing else, it looks to generate some publicity and maybe even some controversy given Baldwin’s history with social and political activism. Yet, no matter how you slice it, it’s an odd pick and left more than one or two Hollywood publicists scratching their heads in Hollywood.

So, we leave it to you. Martin (the standup comedian) and Baldwin (the actor) co-hosting the world’s top film awards. Good choice? Bad? Or somewhere in between, which in some ways would be the worst choice of all because it might not elicit any reaction. And if they were successful, could it be a new comedy team: Martin and Baldwin? Or would it be Baldwin and Martin? We’d love to be a fly on the wall in that conversation among Hollywood agents.

Tony Award winner Geoffrey Rush wants to return to Broadway in the next couple of years — with another production from his native Australia.

 ”I’m trying to find something because I definitely want to come back here in the next couple of years,” Rush told reporters backstage after winning the best actor in a play Tony Award on Sunday for his Broadway debut in “Exit The King.”

He wants to create a link between Australian theaters and Broadway similar to the “pathway” he said exists between top London theaters and Broadway, which helps some British productions find their way to New York’s Great White Way.

“I’d love to try and now help establish even a stronger bond for some of the great original work that’s coming out of Australian theaters,” said Oscar winner Rush.

“Billy Elliot The Musical,” which won 10 Tony Awards including best musical, and “The Norman Conquests,” which won best revival of a play, both came to Broadway from London.

A veteran theater actor in Australia, Rush received rave reviews for his Broadway debut in “Exit The King,” which he and the play’s director Neil Armfield adapted from Eugene Ionesco’s 1962 play. The production, which played in Australia in 2007, finishes its three-month Broadway run on Sunday.

“I’m a very slow learner,” Rush, 57, joked of his late Broadway debut. “It took me into my 40s to find the right time to be in film.” 

“People have offered me roles before and I didn’t really feel like plunging into being a guest on four-week rehearsal period on some kind of classic,” he said. “I wanted to bring something out of our theatrical soil that we’d already tested.”

(PHOTO: REUTERS/Lucas Jackson)

In one of the biggest surprises on Oscar night, the animated Israeli documentary Waltz with Bashir did not walk away as many expected with the famed statuette in the Foreign Film category, which instead went to Japanese film Departures.

Even the star of Departures acknowledged he was expecting Waltz with Bashir to win the Academy Award.

The hype in Israel surrounding the movie- which won a Golden Globe earlier in the year - had provided a spark of optimism in the country where politics, regional relations and the economy have been weighing heavily on the public mood.

Some are already suggesting the failure of Waltz on Hollywood's biggest night was some form of censure for the recent Israeli offensive in Gaza.

An editorial cartoon in the Israeli press made the connection - showing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert presenting director Ari Folman with a consolation prize and saying "We made you a statuette out of Cast Lead". Operation Cast Lead was the Israeli code name for the Gaza offensive launched late last year with the stated aim of countering militant rocket fire from inside Gaza. It provoked much international criticism of Israel, notably over hundreds of civilians killed and wounded.

Echoing the glum mood elicited by Waltz's failure - another cartoon in Israel's leading Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper has a man reacting to the headline "Disappointment at the Oscars" saying "There's another failure of the Lebanon War" - a reference as much to the broadly unpopular and inconclusive 2006 battle with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon as to the 1980s invasion of Lebanon that is the subject of Ari Folman's astonishing animated flashback.

A more nuanced view, perhaps, comes from Israeli commentator Bradley Burston who says in this article that Waltz's failure was primarily down to Hollywood's unwillingness to move beyond its portrayal of Jews as either Holocaust victims and survivors, "cutesy, comic Yiddishers" or "noble, chiselled, ascetically moral kibbutzniks".

Folman's depiction of an angry, tortured, anti-war former soldier certainly does not fall in to any of those categories.

Burston recalls a 2005 episode of the edgy British comedy series Extras where Kate Winslet, playing herself playing a nun in a World War Two movie, prophetically explains backstage to an extra wearing a German military uniform that Holocaust movies are Oscar gold dust.

"I noticed that if you do a film about the Holocaust, you're guaranteed an Oscar. I've been nominated four times. Never won. The whole world is going, 'Why hasn't Winslet won one?'....That's why I'm doing it," she says.

Four years on and guess what - the Best Actress Oscar in the 2009 ceremony went to Kate Winslet for her role as a former Nazi prison guard in The Reader.

(Photo Credit: 'Waltz with Bashir' director Ari Folman at the 81st Academy Awards ceremony. REUTERS/Jason Reed)

Hugh Jackman brought his singing and dancing act to the Oscar awards ceremony and “Slumdog Millionaire” walked off with a leading 8 Oscars.

But who were the real stars of the show, and did the performances on the red carpet beat those on the stage of the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood?

Viewership for Sunday’s telecast was up from last year but how much did that have to do with new host Jackman, stars like Beyonce, and the much-anticipated best supporting actor award for Australia’s Heath Ledger after his death?

The cute “Slumdog” kids in their mini tuxedos and party dresses, flown over from Mumbai, melted the hearts of those on the red carpet.

But Miley Cyrus got the thumbs down from some fashionistas for her  flouncy gown and got the “worst red carpet quote” award from readers of the Moviefone.com site for this gem.

“Hopefully I’ll be here getting something for it next year. It’s a lot more real and deeper than people would expect the movie to be,” the 16 year-old Disney teen star said of her Oscar wishes for the upcoming “Hannah Montana: The Movie.”

Some 73 percent of  Popeater.com readers polled said they hadn’t even seen “Slumdog Millionaire.”

Will that Oscar haul now encourage you to go and see the movie? Should Hugh Jackman come back next year as Oscars host, and who were the night’s winners as far as you were concerned?

 ***Veteran showman Hugh Jackman pulled out all the stops in his first stint as Oscar host, gamely singing and dancing his way through the night’s five best picture nominees with rarely seen Broadway flair.

In the musical number that traditionally kicks off the awards ceremony, Jackman — deadpanning that the Academy had cut back on the glitz this year because of the recession — pranced between cut-outs illustrating the reverse-aging of Benjamin Button; sat at a bare-bones set of the fictional quiz show in “Slumdog Millionaire”; roped in an ostensibly bemused Anne Hathaway to recreate the “Frost/Nixon” interview; stood on a “soapbox” Milk-crate; and, finally, stood on the top ropes of a make-shift wrestling rink as paper Oscars unfurled on either side.

“Because of the recession, everything is being downsized. Next year I’ll be starring in a movie called ‘New Zealand’,” the “Australia” actor remarked just before breaking into song.

Pundits had been undecided on Jackman before the show, given the Academy’s decision not to go with a comedian. But if the standing ovation and raucous applause from his toughest critics — the royalty of Hollywood seated in the front rows — were any indication, Jackman may just pull it off.

***Ben Stiller got laughs onstage and backstage for his riff on former Oscar nominee Joaquin Phoenix, who is giving up acting to for rapping and should get an online Oscar for his portrayal of the “Unibomber” on David Letterman.  Natalie Portman should get a prize for keeping a straight face.

***Heath Ledger, the evening’s shoo-in, won a posthumous Oscar for his depiction of The Joker in “The Dark Knight.”

Backstage, Ledger’s mom, Sally Bell, said he would have been “quietly pleased” with the award.

“Heath was never one to be over-the-top with anything,” she said.

Ledger’s award is destined for his daughter, Matilda, but it will have to be put in a trust until she can sign for it when she is 18, dad Kim Ledger said.

Matilda, who is the daughter of actress Michelle Williams, is “totally like her daddy,” Bell said. “She has the same mannerisms, I really feel like he’s in her.”

***Danny Boyle wins Best Director prize for “Slumdog Millionaire,” the night’s big winner.

***Kate Winslet takes home the Best Actress award for “The Reader” — finally an Oscar win for her after five previous nominations.

“I want to acknowlege my fellow nominees,” Winslet said. “These goddesses. I think we all can’t believe we were in the category with Meryl Streep at all. I’m sorry, Meryl, but you just have to suck that up.”

***Sean Penn picks up the Best Actor prize for “Milk,” saying “You commie, homo-loving sons of guns.” It’s his second Oscar.

***”Slumdog Millionaire” proves it’s top dog with Best Picture Oscar and 8 awards overall. Aren’t those kids adorable?

Don’t miss us live at the Oscars on Twitter at http://twitter.com/reuters_fanfare

(Written by Edwin Chan, Nichola Groom and Lisa Baertlein)
    
(Photos\Reuters)

With little time left until Hollywood’s big show, this could be your last chance to put in your picks on all those Oscars.

Will “Slumdog Millionaire” take home the Golden Boy for best movie, as is widely expected?

Can Mickey Rourke wrestle the best actor Academy Award away from Sean Penn, or might veteran Frank Langella slip in with a victory? And what happened to Brad Pitt?

Does veteran Meryl Streep have the clout to overpower British sweetheart Kate Winslet for best actress. Weigh-in now.

And follow us the rest of the night at Reuters.com, on the Fan Fare Blog and the Twitter we’ll have going throughout the show that begins in Hollywood around 5 p.m. pst/ 8 p.m. est.

Good Luck!

Listen up, all you Oscar fashion watchers.

Black is back in a big way because “it’s practical,” New York designer Francisco Costa told Reuters after his fall Calvin Klein Women’s runway show at New York Fashion Week, which ended on Friday. Black is also among the “in” colors for gowns on the red carpet this year and will very likely make a major appearance at the Oscars on Sunday. Kate Winslet already has been showing a penchant for black during Hollywood’s awards season.

Actress Kate Beckinsale, in a skintight black leather dress, was among the celebrities who packed the Calvin Klein showroom this week to see Costa’s fall collection of  tailored coats and sculptured dresses. Many had asymmetrical hems. The horsehair boots and shoes featured high rectangular heels that were open in the middle.

Vogue’s editor at large Andre Leon Talley said after the show: “It’s hard to do an almost all-black collection, but he pulled it off! These are clothes for women who have some place to go and don’t want to look like everybody else.”

Costa talks to Reuters below:

The choice of Hugh Jackman to host the Oscars on Sunday has generated plenty of talk, because he is no comedian and Hollywood is wondering how a song-and-dance man like Jackman will fare at the high-pressure job, which usually goes to funny men and women such as Billy Crystal, Jon Stewart or Whoopi Goldberg.

But average folks on the Web think the Australian actor will do just fine. In a poll on celebrity news site PopEater.com, 85 percent of respondents think he will do either “great” or “OK”. Only 15 percent of the 31,000 respondents expect Jackman will be “terrible” at hosting the Oscars.

Jackman, who stars in the upcoming film “X-Men Origins: Wolverine”, and who has hosted Broadway’s Tony awards, was chosen after last year’s Oscar broadcast, hosted by television’s “The Daily Show” star Stewart, hit a record low of 32 million U.S. viewers, compared to 39.9 million in 2007. 

Oscar show producers are expected to bring a fresh look to the ceremony on Sunday, and have dropped the traditional comic opening monologue.

 Web site Moviefone.com also conducted a poll and found that “Slumdog Millionaire” is the clear favorite to win the best picture Oscar.

 A whopping 83 percent of respondents wanted the late Heath Ledger to win best supporting actor for his role as Joker in Batman movie “The Dark Knight,”  while Kate Winslet was picked to win best actress for “The Reader” and Mickey Rourke to win best actor for  “The Wrestler.”

After months of watching movies, listening to punditry and seeing critics’ picks, the Oscar race has rounded the final corner and is in the home stretch. Nomination ballots are due at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences this week, and the world’s top film awards will be given out on Sunday, Feb. 22, in Hollywood.

Most Oscar watchers favor ”Slumdog Millionaire” to take the best motion picture award and its director Danny Boyle to win the directing trophy. Danny gives it the thumbs up. After all, ”Slumdog” has scooped up nearly every other award in sight this Oscar season, and it is clearly a crowd pleaser with an overall U.S. box office slowly inching upward to the $100 milion mark.

But is it really the best movie? Does it have the artistry and cinematic appeal of rivals “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and “Frost/Nixon”? Can it match the hope and inspiration of gay themed “Milk” with Sean Penn in an award-winning performance? Is it missing the weightiness of Holocaust-era drama “The Reader” led by star Kate Winslet?

Will the popular appeal and critical success of “Slumdog,” the rags-to-riches tale of an Indian boy competing for love and money on a TV game show, be enough to sway Academy Award voters. Now may be your last chance to weigh-in here. How would you vote?