Monday, March 08, 2010

Academy Awards 2010 Oscar winners list‎

Finally, the Academy Awards 2010 Oscar winners list‎. The 2010 Academy Awards is history, in more ways than one, but before we focus on the many historic events that took place on and before Oscar Sunday, below is a video recap of some of Oscar's best moments, followed by the full list of winners, listed by category with the winner in bold.

Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin Opening The 2010 Oscars:




Sandra Bullock's Acceptance Speech for Best Actress:




Mo'nique's Acceptance Speech for Best Supporting Actress:




Jeff Bridges' Acceptance Speech for Best Actor:




Performance by an actor in a leading role: Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart
Performance by an actor in a supporting role: Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds
Performance by an actress in a leading role: Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side
Performance by an actress in a supporting role: Mo'Nique in Precious
Best animated feature film of the year: Disney / Pixar's UP
Achievement in art direction: Avatar
Achievement in cinematography: Avatar
Achievement in costume design: The Young Victoria
Achievement in directing: The Hurt Locker Kathryn Bigelow
Best documentary feature: The Cove
Best documentary short subject: Music by Prudence
Achievement in film editing: The Hurt Locker
Best foreign language film of the year: The Secret in Their Eyes (El Secreto de Sus Ojos)
Achievement in makeup: Star Trek
Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score): Up
Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song): “The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)”
Best motion picture of the year: The Hurt Locker
Best animated short film: Logorama
Best live action short film: The New Tenants
Achievement in sound editing: The Hurt Locker
Achievement in sound mixing: The Hurt Locker
Achievement in visual effects: Avatar
Adapted screenplay: Precious
Original screenplay: The Hurt Locker

The Oscars: Alec Baldwin at The Polo Lounge, The Beverly Hills Hotel's power outages

Beverly Hills, CA - If there's one rule in life this blogger learned this Oscar weekend in Hollywood and Beverly Hills, it's to do normal in your life path and you will get the extraordinary for better or worse. "Worse" already came in the form of my head injury; I was ready for something better.

After blogging, tweeting, and making videos about Oscar winners The Hurt Locker for Best Picture and Katheryn Bigelow for Best Director, at the Night of 100 Stars Oscar Party, and closing down the media section, being almost the last person to leave, relaxation was in order. The Beverly Hills Hotel's Polo Lounge was the destination.

The famous Polo Lounge is described by the hotel as "favorite breakfast spot and watering hole for generations of stars and Hollywood deal-makers" and it does live up to that claim. Before the Night of 100 Stars Oscar Party started, I made a bee line for The Polo Lounge for lunch.

Just about five minutes after I was seated at a prime table for seeing people or just being left alone, I saw a great pair of athletic female legs in a killer backless black dress walk elegantly but briskly by me, followed by a man in a dark grey suit with an upright walk and very tightly combed and moused hair. The man turned out to be the legendary actor and author George Hamilton, who I'm told is a regular at The Polo Lounge.
George Hamilton 


Then Hamilton and his lovely, leggy blonde female companion were seated at a round booth already occupied by a man who looked very much like Stephen Fry, who was also with a female companion. I'd never seen Fry in person before. It just so happens that Fry and I follow each other on Twitter, so I messaged him to confirm this. An update soon, assuming he answers back.

Just five minutes after that small celebrity event, and the arrival of my Ahi Tuna appetizer, I overheard someone behind me talking about what food orders their friends wanted. The voice was so close I had to turn my head to see who it was. It's was a casually dressed Byron Allen.

Byron Allen is best known as a television talk show host who most recently had a show I remember called The American Athlete but I don't know what he's up to now. To find out for this blog post, I did some quick internet poking about and learned he's head of a very interesting new media company called Entertainment Studios. The company produces shows like Comics Unleashed With Byron Allen. From what I've read Allen's fought to build an entertainment business on his own terms; it seems like he's finally found something that works for him.

There may have been other celebrities in my vision that I didn't know, but frankly I was starving and only had so much time before I had to get ready for the event. The food at The Polo Lounge is decent; nothing to really rave about but fills the bill. I enjoyed my salmon and scrambled eggs with a Mimosa, water, and coffee, and a copy of The Sunday New York Times provided by the restaurant. After the brunch offerings were consumed, I went to get ready for the event.

Fast forward to after The Night of 100 Stars Party. I went back to the same Polo Lounge and wound up having a lively conversation with two people - one is a woman who's such the regular at The Polo Lounge they call her "Miss" in a familiar way. (To explain, the staff calls everyone Mr. or Miss, but in her case one could tell she's a regular.) That was confirmed as she and I talked and she invited me to join her for dinner at a table not far from the bar.

The bar scene at The Polo Lounge last night was wild, and one that's best viewed with someone who knows the run of the joint; that was my female companion. There were any number of women in short, short skirts and dresses, some from the "Night" party, others who came in from other Oscar-related events, and some who are hotel guests or live nearby.

There was the tall, blonde Jennifer Aniston look-alike with the booming voice who could not keep her dress from hiking up over her thighs talking to an obviously toasted man at the bar. Another quartet of women at a table next to us that my female friend saw looking at a photo of two women in an interesting position. The women at that table were joined by two well-dressed men, both white, and then another man who, in a t-shirt, was just out of place in the establishment. "Oh, look" my female friend said, "They're trying to make that t-shirt guy leave. Drama's developing." Whatever was said, the furor died down and he stayed.

Just as that matter was over, the lights went off. All of them. It was totally black. That was the third time that happened that evening. I don't know why. But what was funny was what I saw when the lights came up: one woman with her legs wrapped around some guy hugging him, who immediately got off him when the lights came up. Too funny.

Just as we were eating our appetizers, Mr. Alec Baldwin walked in like the conquering hero from a war, in this case, hosting the 82nd Annual Academy Awards. Alec Baldwin looked over to our area, apparently knew someone not me, and waved. I thought it polite to give a wave and nod back, and did so. My female companion said "No. Now, he'll never walk over here." I shrugged indifferently. Baldwin looked like he was on his way to another place in the hotel anyway, and I was just happy he walked by.

On the matter of walking, an aside. Alec Baldwin reminds me of my good friend Phil Tagami, who lives in Oakland and rebuilt the Fox Theater and The Rotunda. Phil and Alec both talk alike, walk alike and are built alike. They have that walk where their bodies are constantly leaning slightly forward. Phil Tagami and Alec Baldwin at the same table would be a hoot.

After we finished out meal, which was at closing time for The Polo Lounge, my female companion had some wine-fueled idea of going to what she believed was Alec Baldwin's party. I tagged along thinking she knew someone and having no idea what I was getting into.

So my female companion led me downstairs to another restaurant that had a large diner-like round table. In it was Alec Baldwin and a bunch of people I didn't recognize; I was along for the ride anyway. But just fast as the man who opened the door for us let us in and we sat down, the same guy came over and said "There's a problem because there's one bill and they are only buying food for their group." That was cool with me as I expected to pay for my own meal anyway. But he said they had no way of dividing the tab, and I didn't complain and I was just plain tired anyway.

But my female companion fell into tears.

So I had to explain that it wasn't the end of the World and we could go elsewhere. "No," she whispered, "they let us sit here and that's embarrassing to ask us to leave." But I got her to agree to leave and go upstairs. "OK," she said, "talk me down from this." So we sat down and I explained that being in or out of a room with Alec Baldwin or anyone else is not a measure of one's worth. The bottom line is we didn't know them. Period. "But did you see the woman from Vogue was in there?" she said. I didn't notice. The question is, I told my friend, "do they know us?"

Just as I managed to make her feel better, who comes up the stairs but Alec Baldwin himself, and in a rush. But as he went by, he looked over and again said hello, how are you, but was in stride, followed by six women, one of them dressed in a white bathrobe and slippers! I obviously was paying no attention to what was going on down there, but whatever happened, Baldwin departed as quickly as he came, walking again like Phil Tagami.

My female companion then gave me a tour of the hotel, which is divided into interesting bungalows. Then we bid our good-byes and I left. After one small adventure after another it was time for sleep. For a guy who didn't get an invite to The Vanity Fair Oscar Party, I have a feeling the party came to me.

Stay tuned. I'll post more videos and blogs from the Oscars after I return home today. But this one could not wait.

Sunday, March 07, 2010

Oscar winners 2010 - The Hurt Locker upsets Avatar



The 2010 Academy Awards is history and of the Oscar winners for 2010 the talk is how the The Hurt Locker upset Avatar. And at the Night of 100 Stars Party at The Beverly Hills Hotel, the conversation was thick with why Avatar lost to The Hurt Locker. (It wasn't an upset here. This blogger missed correctly predicting six of the total number of Oscar winner categories, and missed none of the major Oscar awards.)

First some housecleaning: congratulations to Katheryn Bigelow on becoming the first female director to win an Oscar for Best Director for The Hurt Locker, which then went on to win Best Picture. It really is about time.

Second, this issue in brief as they're taking down the light stands and breaking down the media room around this blogger after the Night of 100 Stars Party. The bottom line is that it's easier to make a movie with great special effects more so than it is a timely film with a good story. The Best Picture is the film that's a story that causes one to think about the World around them. The Hurt Locker, in so many ways, was that movie.

Ok. I've got to jam out of here. More videos and blog posts coming from a great Oscar Sunday!

Sean Young on The Hurt Locker and being a woman in Hollywood



Sean Young is not a fan of The Hurt Locker for Oscar's Best Picture award: "I don't like movies that glorify war," she said. Sean Young was a guest at The Night of 100 Stars Oscar Viewing Party, and an amazingly engaging person.

Ms. Young's not shy with her views and is wonderfully refreshing. Aside from the fact that Kathryn Bigelow directed The Hurt Locker, and "she's doing well, Young said, "I'm very opposed to this war in Iraq and have been from the start." So much so that even if some in the military hate The Hurt Locker, she says the fact that the main character goes back to the war after all of his experiences essentially makes war something tolerable.

Interesting.

For someone who told EW.com she "didn't like doing interviews", Sean Young seemed to be enjoying herself. She talked openly about something this blogger did not want to bring up: her being "blacklisted."

Sean Young said she was as a very matter of fact answer to my question "What's your next project." Sean Young said "No, I got drunk at the DGA a couple of years ago. You know they say to Downey, Jr. and Kiefer Sutherland, 'Hey. Go to prison. Come back. You'll be ok. It's a man's business and they're not real kind to women."

Sean Young has a YouTube channel msyPARIAH that I encouraged her to make into a YouTube Partner video channel as a way to launch her comeback in film and media. She thinks it's a good idea.

Stay tuned.

Oscars 2010: Oscar Red Carpet, Sunday morning (video)



This Oscars 2010: Oscar Red Carpet, Sunday morning blog post is being written as this blogger's taking a much needed break from covering The Night of 100 Stars Party at The Beverly Hills Hotel. What's so frustrating and yet fun about this star-studed event is that, even though many of the celebrities are what are called "B" listers, they are a hell of a lot of fun to talk to and to be with. So much so that I've missed the first 35 minutes of The Oscars!

Of all the names, David Leisure, James Cromwell, Sean Young, Stephanie Powers, Stephen Collins, and Jason Ritter, among them, all great people, Ms. Young was the most fun to talk with. Sean Young has been characterized in the media in ways that are not kind. The person I met is amazingly bright, very engaging and a lot of fun. She's open and brutally honest, which I can see may set some people a bit off, but it's endearing.

Earlier in the morning I visited The Red Carpet during the media setup period. While stars had not come through at that time before 11 AM, the place, as you can see in the video, was abuzz with the life of people. From the people in the bleachers to the media representatives on The Red Carpet it was the place to be. Yours truly found the perfect role for his outsized personality: revving up the people in the Kodak-sponsored bleachers area. (That's Tina from Kodak in the video thumbnail photo.)

My visit became a YouTube Partner roundup, as Jamal from Blacktree Media and his team, Cerk from The Young Turks, and me as Zennie62 got together in the middle of The Red Carpet, the future of media.

This future of media had to leave at 11 AM. I got a limousine and headed over to The Beverly Hills Hotel for The Night of 100 Starts event. That's where I am now, happy for Geoffrey Fletcher's win of the Bsst Adapted Screenplay Oscar for Precious.

Stay tuned.

The Oscars 2010 Date and Time, 5 PM PST; 8 PM EST; not in New York

Beverly Hills, CA - Today's Oscar Sunday! The 82nd Annual Academy Awards, or "The Oscars" will start at 3 PM PST and 6 PM EST for coverage of The Red Carpet and 5 PM PST and 8 PM EST for the Oscars.

It's all on ABC Television except for those poor people in the New York City area, you're caught in the middle of the feud between ABC and Cablevision and may not be able to see The Oscars.

The ABC v. Cablevision issue is over monthly customer fees. Reportedly, according to the Wall Street Journal, Disney wanted to charge $1 per subscriber per month, but Disney says it is half that request.

Whatever the case, much of New York will miss the Oscars. But you can catch it online. ABC will have a live show from The Red Carpet here: ABC Live. Also, search around carefully, because some pages that read they have an "Oscars live stream" really don't have it.

Betty Nguyen leaving CNN for CBS News

Beverly Hills, CA - As we get ready for The Oscars (time at 5 PM PST, 8 PM EST), there's a news that popular and beautiful CNN anchor Betty Nguyen is leaving CNN for CBS News according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Betty Nguyen did confirm that Oscar Sunday will be her last day with CNN on her Twitter page:



Aww. Last morning on the show. I'm really going to miss CNN. My friends & colleagues here are truly top notch.
about 5 hours ago via web


Nguyen finished her last week at CNN with an inteview with His Holiness, The Dalai Lama. While Nguyen's leaving for CNN for CBS, the AJC reports Anderson Cooper's staying put.

Stay tuned for more intense Oscar Coverage from Hollywood and Highland and Beverly Hills.  Check Zennie62.com for Twitter updates.

The Oscars predictions - Avatar loses Best Picture to The Hurt Locker

Also: The Oscars, The Hurt Locker, Best Picture, Kathryn Bigelow, 2010 Oscars Predictions, 82nd annual Academy Awards, Avatar director James Cameron

Beverly Hills, CA - The general habit here is to wait until the last possible minute until predictions for The Oscars are made. That's to give this blogger enough time to research how politics has impacted the Oscars race.

The question is annually asked "Did you see every movie?" which has nothing to do with predicting which movie will win what award at The Oscars. Getting one's Oscar predictions correct means taking one's heart out of it, and just using their head. What you have to do is guess how the Academy's going to pick and why.

The Hurt Locker is a dramatically powerful film. So much so that an arguably questionable decision to ban Nicolas Chartier, one of the fllm's producers, from the Oscars on Sunday for an email he wrote to friends in the Academy asking them to vote for his picture, will not hurt its momentum.

The reason is the overwhelming desire to give the Best Director Award to The Hurt Locker's brilliant director Kathryn Bigelow, and make her the first woman in history to win an Oscar for Best Director. The momentum to make this happen is enormous, so much so that I'm going out on a limb and say there's no contest. And The Academy tends to believe that a film can't have the best director and not be the best picture. This powerful desire will override the new-for-2010 preference voting system and give The Hurt Locker the prize.

 Now, with that information in place and compared with "precursor" awards, here's Zennie62's Oscar Predictions for 2010:

Performance by an actor in a leading role: Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart
Performance by an actor in a supporting role: Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds
Performance by an actress in a leading role: Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side
Performance by an actress in a supporting role: Mo'Nique in Precious
Best animated feature film of the year: Disney / Pixar's UP
Achievement in art direction: Avatar
Achievement in cinematography: Avatar
Achievement in costume design: Coco before Chanel
Achievement in directing: The Hurt Locker Kathryn Bigelow
Best documentary feature: The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
Best documentary short subject: The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant
Achievement in film editing: Avatar
Best foreign language film of the year: The White Ribbon
Achievement in makeup: Star Trek
Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score): Up
Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song): "Down in New Orleans" from The Princess and the Frog, Randy Newman
Best motion picture of the year: The Hurt Locker
Best animated short film: A Matter of Loaf and Death (Nick Park of Aardman)
Best live action short film: The New Tenants
Achievement in sound editing: Star Trek
Achievement in sound mixing: Star Trek
Achievement in visual effects: Avatar
Adapted screenplay: Up in the Air
Original screenplay: The Hurt Locker

Saturday, March 06, 2010

The Oscars - The Red Carpet has black version of District 9



Saturday before Oscar Sunday and the 82nd Annual 2010 Academy Awards is setup day on The Red Carpet. Media representing hundreds of outlets are here on The Red Carpet, but what's shocking is that in 2010 - in the 21st Century - The Academy Awards has its own version of District 9. In this case, three African American media outlets are all grouped in one place near the very end of The Red Carpet: BET, TV One, and American Urban Radio.

This came to light during my video interview with Jamal Finkely and Mike Melendy of Blacktree TV. It was Jamal, who's also doing double duty with another media outlet, who brought the issue to my attention. As an aside, Jamal's a YouTube Partner I met at the YouTube Partners Roundtable of last November 2009.

Jamal and his associate Mike Melendy cover entertainment events at Blacktree.tv and at their companion YouTube channel Blacktreemedia. While happy to be on The Red Carpet, the physical placement of the three black media firms together in one remote area was something that had to be mentioned.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), or more accurately someone working for AMPAS and perhaps unchecked, set up the media organization to have what is The Red Carpet's version of the alien ghetto in the 2010 Best Picture nominee movie District 9.

In District 9, aliens from a ship that had become "stuck" in position over Johannesburgh, South Africa, were segregated by the government to one place called "District 9". Hopefully there's not a Latino section or any other kind of racial or ethnic divisions along The Red Carpet for The Oscars. We didn't look from that perspective; the area Jamal pointed to is the one he works in.

AMPAS must end this practice ASAP. It's shocking to think that an organization which has such a large public presence and exists in the 21st Century would segregate media in this way. Moreover, it's terrible that AMPAS' overall media approach is so very antiquated.

If AMPAS is happy with the media coverage it's getting for The Academy Awards, it has no idea of what's possible and what it should expect today. There's no place for bloggers or vloggers and no "Big Tent" for New Media. No collaboration with firms like YouTube, Flickr, or Twitter or Google.

What's going on at AMPAS in this New Media area is the question for this day. If the New Media problem's taken care of, the apparent racial discrimination problem on The Red Carpet will end too. Or it should.

Stay tuned.

Oscar Buzz: American Idol's Ryan Seacrest at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel



Ryan Seacrest, host of American Idol and Executive Producer of "On the Air with Ryan Seacrest, appeared at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel for a what seemed to be a New York minute as this blogger was collecting himself from the Hollywood and Highland slip and fall and making new blog posts.

Still, shaken marbles weren't enough to stop me from having the presence of mind to stop uploading a video and turn the camcorder to capture Seacreast as he was doing "photo-ops" with fans.



The desired focus here is video, so I asked Mr. Seacrest for an interview later rather than throwing my camcorder in his face TMZ-style. Nothing against TMZ, it's just not what's done in this space.

Ryan Seacrest is known as the hardest-working person in Hollywood. He's the host of American Idol. The executive producer of On The Air with Ryan Seacrest, and The Dick Clark New Year's Rockin Eve with Ryan Seacrest.

Stay tuned.

Zennie's slip and fall on way to Oscar Red Carpet for press conference



Hollywood and Highland is the place where the Kodak Theater is which is the location of Sunday's Oscar telecast and The Red Carpet. The pavement next to The Red Carpet that's used for pedestrians and has the Hollywood Stars on it, is of some kind of tarrazo material such that during a rain it gets so slippery that it's dangerous.

I should know because as I explained in the video, I fell twice.

The first time I slipped as I was walking onto the pavement after crossing Highland Avenue to get to a press conference announcing the winner of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and MTV-U student competition to be the interviewer on The Red Carpet Sunday. I managed to catch myself that time as I was falling backwards. After that, I tried to walk carefully and slowly. A lot of good that did.

On my slippery way to the press event, I had an idea to turn back and make a quick video to explain to someone to take steps to prevent someone from falling the way I did. I turned and then took two steps onto the pavement and the next thing I saw was black. I felt like I was alive in a black tunnel, then saw light, then a security person asking me if I wanted help from the end of the tunnel. I said "yes" and reached out. I felt a number of people grab me at once and pulled me up; at that point I fought to clear my head, and did.

It was scary. What happened was I'd slipped and fell back; my head hit the steel plate of a steel girder that was part of the support structure for The Red Carpet.

What went through my head, which is still now a bit fuzzy as I concentrate to write this, was how much I needed to stay alive for my Mother as I'm the only child. That was what made me fight to get back to normal and once I did, I resolved to try to return to normal, so I headed for the press conference. But I was, and am not, the same.

Beyond me, someone should do something about that pavement. I was told several people fell, and met the mother of a little girl who told me her daughter fell. Reportedly, the property in question belongs to the City of Los Angeles, so I'm going to tweet this over to Mayor Vililaragosa and bring it to his attention, especially since he follows me on Twitter.

I want to take this time to thank the security staff at Hollywood and Highland for their care and assistance.

It's one thing for this to happen today, but it would be a disaster if it were to happen on Oscar Sunday. Pray for no rain.

The Oscars: Danny Glover calling on boycott of Hugo Boss suits

As Sundays Oscars approaches, we'll see styles that set the trend for the year and some wearing traditional brands, like Hugo Boss. Actor Danny Glover's not going to be one of them and he's issuing a call to celebrities like Sean Penn, who's presenting and Oscar nominees Colin Firth, Matt Damon, and Quentin Tarantino, to name just some of the male actors, not to wear Hugo Boss suits.

In a letter, Danny Glover says that he's writing to take a "small stand" for American workers. Hugo Boss is reportedly set to close American plants and fire "more than 300 workers".

According to the SEIU Workers United...

They say they want to make suits more cheaply in Turkey or Eastern Europe. They don’t even claim the Cleveland factory is losing money -- they just say they need to make a bit more money. Please.

It's clear that the one major cause of America's economic decline has bee the offshoring of jobs. This blogger estimates that $976 billion in wealth has been lost in over 30 years of this process; over $400 billion over the last eight years. Some economists have pointed to the sub-prime loan system as the reason for America's problems, but it takes a job to pay a loan. The real problem has been that the rate of growth in the number American jobs has been negative, not positive.

No word on the reaction of Oscar stars to the boycott of Hugo Boss by Danny Glover.

Stay tuned.