Welcome to our exclusive look at events and excitement surrounding the 81st Annual Academy Awards of Merit. Last year, this author encouraged a more respectful showcase for the Golden Boy, and on Feb. 22 the talents behind this year’s lively broadcast defied the naysayers.
Backstage in the press room, calling the events “just extraordinary,” DGA and Academy Award-winning Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle proudly credited “Bollywood, who gave us virtually all our cast and crew, and Hollywood, which has been responsible for the elevation of the film, culminating tonight.” The British filmmaker declared, “The world is shrinking a bit, in a wonderful way, and it will benefit. Because in culture, fusion is a wonderful thing.”

With all due respect to the Academy Award honorees and the institution itself, we sometimes forget the craft and technology that make it all happen. By the time of the Oscar ceremony, every single professional guild had already honored the creative forces behind the Best Picture winner.

A glamorous case in point was the 23rd Annual American Society of Cinematographers Outstanding Achievement Awards, where Anthony Dod Mantle won the feature film competition for Slumdog Millionaire. Presenter Amy Adams charmingly cooed, “This year’s nominees demonstrated a mastery of enchantment,” and directors Clint Eastwood and Paul Mazursky were also on hand to celebrate the work accomplished with their creative partners.

Eastwood’s frequent DP Jack Green earned a Lifetime Achievement Award and Donald McAlpine received the International Achievement Award. The ASC Board of Governors Award was given to Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan in recognition of his “contributions to the art of filmmaking” and for “pushing the limits” with DP Wally Pfister by shooting several action sequences in the 65mm film format. Subsequent IMAX runs had exhibitors reeling with joy.
Another joyful event was the 17th Annual Art of Motion Picture Costume Design Exhibition at Downtown L.A.’s Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising. In addition to the Caped Crusader’s cape and The Joker’s color-coordinated socks, the displays featured the Oscar-nominated menswear of Milk and Benjamin Button as well as the winning wardrobes of The Duchess (2009) and Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2008). The FIDM presented 125 costumes from 25 movies in all, smartly grouped together and imaginatively integrated into a drive-in theme replete with speakers and snack-bar trailer.

Coinciding with the Oscars each year are the much less coveted Razzie Awards from the Golden Raspberry Foundation. Mike Myers’ karma was huge indeed, as his Love Guru was razzed as worst picture, screenplay and lead actor, while Paris Hilton earned no less than three bad-acting swipes. Other Razzie recipients were Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (“worst prequel, remake, rip-off or sequel”), Pierce Brosnan (listlessly supporting Mamma Mia!), and Germany’s Uwe Boll, hailed as “world-class worst moviemaker.” Boll was bombarded for directing not one, but three of the most terrible titles of 2008 (1968: Tunnel Rats, Postal, and In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale), along with an honorary nod for a lifetime of underachievement. Though Boll, like the vast majority of Razzie recipients, did not show up in Hollywood to collect the fruits for his labor, he was good sport enough to send a video message: “The f******g Razzies destroyed my life!”

Back in Hollywood, entertainment anchor Leeza Gibbons graced the Chamber of Commerce during a “Night to Make a Difference” and posed with a waxen Beyoncé on advance display from the new $55 million Madame Tussaud’s. Anticipated for an August opening, the ninth location will be the first one in the company’s 200-year-history to be built from the ground up—directly adjoining Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and across the Boulevard from the famous Roosevelt Hotel. After a $30 million renovation in 2005, Thompson Hotels is currently refurbishing the Roosevelt’s Blossom Ballroom, home of the very first Academy Awards dinner.

In other Chamber news, plans are underway for the original office building to rise atop the magnificent auditorium of the Pantages Theatre, home of the first Oscar telecast. Across the street at the W Hotel & Residences, Hollywood stars and studios will soon enjoy the first meeting spaces specifically designed for media junkets with all electrical, a/v hook-ups, broadband data feeds and several party options, including a penthouse pool deck. According to Scott Rynders, VP of construction and design at developer Gatehouse Capital, suites at the location close to movie premiere hot spots such as Arclight Cinemas, Grauman’s Chinese and El Capitan have been booked already. Best of all, perhaps, the W Hotel’s open-air courtyard will feature a retractable projection screen.



Other notable guests at the Hollywood Chamber affair included 80-year Paramount veteran A.C. Lyles; FilmLA’s communications VP Todd Lindgren; Donelle Dadigan, president and founder of the Hollywood History Museum in the Max Factor building; and celebrity photographer Frank Trapper, who presented 21 Years of Fashion and Fame. Collected in over 1,000 images on 532 pages—including 32 for last year’s highlights alone—Trapper’s Red Carpet picture book is as ravishing as Nicole Kidman in Chanel and Salma Hayek in Versace. Readers can also savor 1980s excess and ever-changing carpet couplings.

Void of all celebrity pizzazz, an exhibit of the still photography of Steven Poster was featured at LaserPacific Media Corporation (a Kodak company). In “Around the Edges,” the cinematographer who has worked and assisted on 40-plus films such as Southland Tales, Donnie Darko, Blade Runner and Close Encounters of the Third Kind captures artful moments in stunning black-and-white. Viewing the intentional grain in his oversized prints almost seemed ironic at a post-production facility that is known for its digital intermediate mastering. The screening theatres and mixing boards there are truly a sight to behold.

Cinemas Catch Oscar Fever
“The Oscars is the ‘Biggest Movie Event of the Year,’ so it makes perfect sense for us to have a presence in theatres,” commented the Academy’s director of marketing, Janet Weiss, on the occasion of the partnership for Regal Entertainment Group’s fourth annual Red Carpet Dreams sweepstakes (FJI March 2009).

Even though art-house group Laemmle Theatres can lay claim to its “Umpteenth Annual Oscar Contest,” where a “showroom full of fabulous prizes (movie passes)” awaits that person “who most accurately predicts the Academy’s choices in ten major categories,” there are a more contenders in the category of Academy Awards fever.

Torrence-based Krikorian Premiere Theatres has had the fever for some ten years. Last year, more than 5,000 entries were received from ballot boxes in theatre lobbies and, like Laemmle, through an interface on the theatre website. Explains Krikorian director of marketing Nikki Kealalio, “The online contest form drops responses into a database that will later sort out the winners for us by theatre location and in order of the number of correct answers.” Nonetheless, “the majority of our entries come in the form of paper ballots that are available at each theatre location and hand-graded in-house.”

In prior years, the Oscar contests have been presented in conjunction with a tour of owner George Krikorian’s very own collection of Oscar statuettes and other award memorabilia throughout his theatre circuit. “Mr. Krikorian has recently doubled his collection,” Kealalio notes of their absence this year. “We are in the process of building a new display case to safely bring all 31 statues plus additional collectibles to our guests again next year.”

One-of-a-kind miniatures of the hallowed spaces where Academy Awards are handed out were on display at The Landmark in West Los Angeles (FJI July 2007). “Each year the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences selects a production designer to create the set for the Oscar awards presentation,” details Dan Gorski, The Landmark’s director of event marketing. “The designer and his creative team typically build a very detailed model of the proposed setting to allow the show’s producers and director, as well as the Academy’s board of governors, to envision how the final set will look.” Nine of these very same presentation models made over the past 15 years could be seen throughout the lobbies until Oscar Day.

Kicking off the celebrations of Feb. 22, and topping off our review, Vista, CA-headquartered UltraStar Cinemas presented their annual Oscar live broadcast—which has quickly become a mainstay at the fully digital circuit since debuting in 2004—to eight of its 13 locations. Surprise, Arizona hosted the event for the first time. “It shows people we do have the digital capabilities to go outside the realm of showing movies,” director of promotions and special events Jill Rosenow told The Arizona Republic.