Angie, Be a Bad Girl Again

Pitt's Benjamin Button scores 13 Oscar nods; Jolie scores for Changeling

(NEWSER) - Oscar was kind to Brangelina today, with both halves of the power couple landing nominations, People reports. Brad Pitt received a best actor nod for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, while Angelina Jolie is in the best actress running for Changeling. “I’m especially happy for David Fincher, for without him there would be no Ben Button,” Pitt said of the director whose film earned 13 nominations overall. More»

Streep, Hoffman earn nods; Pitt, Jolie, Penn join them

(NEWSER) - The Screen Actors Guild released its award nominees today, and left no Doubt which flick had the most star power in 2008. As with the Golden Globes, all four Doubt leads earned nods, which, combined with a best ensemble nomination, gave it the most potential honors overall. Brangelina again did well, with both halves of the power couple seeing nominations, the Los Angeles Times reports. More»

Melissa Leo's faux pas is sure to be watercooler fodder

(NEWSER) - Worst Academy Awards ever? E! thinks so, calling it “clunky, amateurish, and pretty much lacking in actual entertainment value for those of us not picking up awards," and New York suggests that the obituary reel "should include a mention of this show." Some of the highlights—or, in many cases, lowlights:

• Two opening montages? One too many—but anything involving Alec Baldwin and Morgan Freeman can’t be all bad. Watch that montage here .
• Bad material, worse transitions: Example? “One minute Hathaway is yelling something about lesbians and then … Tom Hanks comes talking about Gone With the Wind," writes Erik Pederson on E!.

Film critic: The problem is that they're usually right

(NEWSER) - As the film critic for the Los Angeles Times , Kenneth Turan loves the Oscars. But he hates the nonstop barrage of predictions that bombard us ahead of the show. His beef "is not that the pundits are often wrong but, frankly, that they are often right," he says. "The more academy votes and voters are studied, the more patterns emerge, the more identifiable signs and meanings become apparent, and the more the awards can be unceremoniously pinned to a board like a captured butterfly." More»

Article on black Oscar winners fails to mention her win

(NEWSER) - Whoopi Goldberg has lashed out at the New York Times for an article on how no black actors are being considered for Academy Awards this year. While Goldberg can sympathize with the article's main thrust, it's the fact that the authors—movie critics AO Scott and Manohla Dargis—seem to list every black Academy Award winner except her, Mediaite reports. Goldberg took her grievances—and her actual Oscar—to the View. More»