Cash-Strapped Studios Spend Big on Oscars

Benjamin Button, Slumdog lead the pack

(NEWSER) - Exactly a year after his death, Heath Ledger has been nominated for an Academy Award, AP reports. Ledger's Supporting Actor nod was the only nom for The Dark Knight, while The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Slumdog Millionaire rose to the top with 13 and 10 nominations respectively. Other nominees:

• Best Picture: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Milk, The Reader, Slumdog Millionaire
• Best Director: David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon; Gus Van Sant, Milk; Stephen Daldry, The Reader; Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire

First directing honors for a woman as Iraq thriller reaps 5 awards

(AP) - The Iraq war thriller The Hurt Locker earned the Best Picture Academy Award tonight, and Kathryn Bigelow won for best director. Bigelow is the first woman in the 82-year history of the Oscars to earn Hollywood's top prize for filmmakers. Among those Bigelow beat were ex-husband James Cameron, the best director winner for 1997's Titanic, who was nominated this time for his sci-fi spectacle Avatar. Bigelow and Cameron were married from 1989 to 1991. More»

Food, drink, and fashion flubs start awards season off right

(NEWSER) - Awards season unofficially begins with tonight's Golden Globes ceremony, an alcohol-addled free-for-all that makes the Oscar telecast feel like a prayer meeting. Breeanna Hare of CNN runs down 10 reasons the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's shindig beats the Academy Awards:

• Booze: "The Globes would not be the Globes if the nominees weren't loose enough to potentially shirk their handler's instructions and drop an F-bomb or two during an acceptance speech."

Dark Knight , Wall-E would have been in running

(NEWSER) - We should all thank the Academy for its decision to double the number of Best Picture nominees next year, writes Lane Brown in New York. A few reasons why:

• More “crowd-pleasing hits” will be in the running, meaning a ratings jump—which in turn means more exposure for the lesser-known gems.
• Comedies will finally get a chance to take center stage.
• We’ll see more Oscar campaigning, meaning more ad money: “Journalism, consider yourself saved.”

It'll give more films a chance: Academy

(NEWSER) - Next year’s Academy Awards will feature 10 contenders for Best Picture, up from five, the Los Angeles Times reports, a return to how the show ran in 1932-43. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences “is returning to some of its earlier roots, when a wider field competed for the top award,” its academy president says. More»