It’s always a big deal which star presents the year’s Best Picture — last year, Steven Spielberg did the honors for the third time — and now we’re wondering will secure the top spot for 2012.
Some presenters have already been announced — two-time Best Picture presenter Tom Hanks, Angelina Jolie, Tom Cruise and the cast of “Bridesmaids” — but now “Wall Street” star Michael Douglas is being thrown into the mix.
Will Douglas present the night’s biggest honor?
Perhaps! The Oscar-winner has presented Best Picture three times before, most recently in 2003. That was quite the family affair for Douglas, who not only presented with father Kirk Douglas, but also bestowed the trophy on “Chicago,” which his starred his wife, Catherine Zeta-Jones.
[via EW]
On Sunday February 26, the biggest stars in Hollywood gather to bestow Oscars on the best movies of the year. With Billy Crystal hosting the festivities once again, movie fans will be watching how many Academy Awards are racked up by “The Help,” “Hugo” and more.
And since we won’t know who wins the big gold until that 8pm ET start-time on February 26, this is your chance to test your award show expertise.
Every weekday between now and February 24, we’ll post new questions about what will happen on Hollywood’s big night. (Right there on the right side of your screen) Submit your best guesses and you’ll automatically be eligible for a daily prize of two free movie tickets. The grand prize — a YEAR’S worth of free movie tickets — will be awarded to a user with the most correct predictions.
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Best Picture: ‘The Artist,’ ‘The Help,’ ‘The Descendants’ And The Rest Of The 2012 Nominees (VIDEO)
To paraphrase the old baseball adage, you can’t tell a Best Picture contender without a video mashup. Thank goodness, then, for Moviefone’s Best Picture montage — a look at all nine nominees, from presumed frontrunner “The Artist” to just-happy-to-be-here “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.” Which of these nine will win the gold on Sunday night? OK, “The Artist.” But if you’re on Team “Descendants” or Team “Help,” don’t lose hope just yet!
Hosted by Billy Crystal, the 84th annual Academy Awards air Sunday night on ABC.
On Feb. 8, longtime adventurer John Fairfax passed away at age 74 and his New York Times obituary has bested even the most ambitious bucket lists. Filled with amazing character details — traversing oceans via rowboats, jaguar-as-hemlock suicide attempts — the obit compares him to the heroes of Graham Greene, Hemingway and Ian Fleming. But, for the movie-literate, one might imagine being told these tales in the velvety narration of Alec Baldwin. So, let’s take that one step further: how does Fairfax’s life compare to the lives of cinema’s premier family of eccentrics, the Tenenbaums?
Tastelessly, see if you can tell the difference. R.I.P. John!
1. “In 1972, he and his girlfriend, Sylvia Cook, sharing a boat, became the first people to row across the Pacific, a yearlong ordeal during which their craft was thought lost.”
2. “For the past year he had been traveling alone on an ocean liner called the Cote d’Ivoire and had seen both poles, five oceans, the Amazon and the Nile.”
3. “On a camping trip when he was 9, he concluded a fight with another boy by filching the scoutmaster’s pistol and shooting up the campsite. No one was injured, but his scouting career was over.”
4. “At 13, in thrall to Tarzan, he ran away from home to live in the jungle. He survived there as a trapper with the aid of local peasants, returning to town periodically to sell the jaguar and ocelot skins he had collected.”
5. “Four years later, disappeared alone for almost two weeks and came back with half a finger missing.”
6. “At 20, he attempted suicide-by-jaguar. Afterward he was apprenticed to a pirate. To please his mother, who did not take kindly to his being a pirate, he briefly managed a mink farm, one of the few truly dull entries on his otherwise crackling résumé, which lately included a career as a professional gambler.”
7. “Ran away from home one winter, and camped out in the African wing of the Public Archives. They shared a sleeping bag and survived on crackers and root beer.”
8. “In the sixth grade, he went into business, breeding dalmatian mice, which he sold to a pet shop in Little Tokyo. He started buying real estate in his early teens and seemed to have an almost preternatural understanding of international finance.”
9. “Bitten on the arm by a shark, and he and Ms. Cook became trapped in a cyclone, lashing themselves to the boat until it subsided. Unreachable by radio for a time, they were presumed lost.”
10. “Died Tragically Rescuing His Family From The Remains Of A Destroyed Sinking Battleship.”
Key:
1. Fairfax
2. Richie Tenenbaum
3. Fairfax
4. Fairfax
5. Margot Tenenbaum
6. Fairfax
7. Richie and Margot Tenenbaum
8. Chas Tenenbaum
9. Fairfax
10. Royal Tenenbaum
According to the popular consensus, “The Artist” is going to win every major award at the Oscars this year, including Best Picture. However, there’s always room for an upset. Over the years, there have been plenty of surprise Academy Award winners, from “Crash” beating “Brokeback Mountain” in 2005 to “Rocky” taking out “Network” for Best Picture in 1976.
In honor of this year’s Academy Awards — airing Sunday — let’s take a look at the biggest upsets in Oscar history.
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