LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Sunday’s Oscar ceremony is set for a cliffhanger ending after a topsy-turvy awards season that has left the two top prizes – Best Picture and Best Director – too close to call.

With just days to go before the movie industry’s highest honors are handed out on February 24, awards watchers are keyed up for one of the most exciting nights in recent Academy Awards history.

LOS ANGELES, Feb 19 (Reuters) – Voting for Sunday’s Oscars,
the highest honors in the movie industry, closed on Tuesday
evening after a big spending campaign by Hollywood studios and
the first online balloting system in the 85-year history of the
Academy Awards.

More than 5,800 movie industry professionals who are
members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences were
invited to vote in 24 Oscar categories, starting on Feb. 8 and
ending at 5 p.m. PST on Tuesday (0100 GMT On Wednesday).

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – If there is one sure bet in this roller coaster movie awards season, it is that Daniel Day-Lewis will take home the Best Actor statuette at the Oscars on Sunday.

Day-Lewis, known for his meticulous preparation, would become the first man to win three Best Actor Oscars, and awards pundits say it’s not hard to see why.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – History is alive and kicking at this year’s Oscars in an unusually rich year for movies that plumb the distant and recent American past and have resonated with both audiences and voters.

Four of the nine Best Picture nominees at Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony – Iran hostage drama “Argo,” Osama bin Laden thriller “Zero Dark Thirty,” slavery revenge fantasy “Django Unchained” and U.S. presidential drama “Lincoln” – are the most discussed films of the awards season, with their very different takes on historical events.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Grammy host LL Cool J called it a “death in our family” and it was he who suggested starting the Grammy Awards show last year with a prayer for Whitney Houston.

Behind the scenes, Grammy Awards producers had worked all night to re-shape the music industry’s biggest night just 24 hours after the drowning death of the troubled superstar in a Beverly Hills hotel.

BEVERLY HILLS (Reuters) – With a high five from 9-year-old actress Quvenzhane Wallis, and a pledge that Oscar night will have something for everyone, the Academy Awards kicked into high gear on Monday at a luncheon for more than 160 nominees.

Jennifer Lawrence, Steven Spielberg, Jessica Chastain, Naomi Watts, Joaquin Phoenix, Kathryn Bigleow, Anne Hathaway and Denzel Washington were among the Oscar-nominated actors, directors and producers who mingled over cocktails and lunch at a Beverly Hills hotel before gathering for the traditional group photo of the Academy Award class of 2012.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Tommy Lee Jones and Anne Hathaway took home prizes at the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards on Sunday, as Hollywood actors picked the best performances of 2012 in film and television on an evening that will likely define some of the top Oscar races next month.

Jones, 66, won the best supporting actor trophy for his turn as Thaddeus Stevens, the radical congressman in “Lincoln,” beating strong competition from Robert De Niro’s gruff father in “Silver Linings Playbook.” The category is seen as one of the closest races at the Oscars on February 24.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Hollywood actors name their picks for the best performances of 2012 in film and television at the annual Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards on Sunday in a ceremony that will likely define some of the top Oscar races in four weeks time.

“Lincoln,” about U.S. President Abraham Lincoln’s battle to end slavery, French revolution musical “Les Miserables,” and comedy “Silver Linings Playbook,” about a bipolar man’s unlikely romance, head into Sunday’s show with four nominations apiece, including the top prize of best ensemble cast.

LOS ANGELES, Jan 21 (Reuters) – Kevin Bacon is hardly the
first movie star to make the leap to television. But his new
show – serial killer thriller “The Following” – may qualify as
one of the creepiest projects he has ever done.

Needless to say, Bacon – the charming teenager who turned a
small American town on to dancing in “Footloose” in 1984 – plays
the good guy in the new Fox television series premiering on
Monday.

LOS ANGELES, Jan 18 (Reuters) – Oprah Winfrey’s exclusive TV interview with disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong drew 3.2 million American viewers – less than the record number who watched the talk show queen interview the family of singer Whitney Houston a month after her death.

Ratings figures on Friday from Winfrey’s struggling cable channel OWN showed the 90-minute interview with Armstrong, in which the cyclist admitted taking performance-enhancing drugs for years, was the second-most-watched telecast in OWN’s short history.