Halle Berry (Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic); Sandra Bullock (Steve Granitz/WireImage); Nicole Kidman (Steve Granitz/WireImage); Reese Witherspoon (Steve Granitz/WireImage)

Who better to hand out an Oscar than someone who already knows what it's like to have one? Four actresses who have won Academy Awards for Best Actress have been confirmed as presenters at the upcoming Oscars telecast on February 24.

Neil Meron and Craig Zadan, who will be producing this year's Academy Awards show, have announced Halle Berry, Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon will be presenting awards during the broadcast.

Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty ImagesFor almost twenty years, the “In Memoriam” montage has been a fixture of the Oscar ceremony, paying tribute to movie industry personages from both sides of the camera who've passed away since in the past year. While generally the list of people memorialized is who you'd expect, some years there are some confusing omissions, such as Eartha Kitt in the 2009 ceremony. It turns out that—shockingly—industry politics plays a role in the selection process.

Steven Spielberg during the filming of 'Lincoln' (Photo: DreamWorks, Twentieth Century Fox, David James)

The best director race remains the most unsettled, and there's less than a week of voting remaining for academy members. The elephant in the room is the academy's snub of Ben Affleck for "Argo." What does it mean when the Directors Guild of America winner -- also anointed by the Producers Guild of America and the British Academy of Film and Television, among so many others -- does not have skin in the game?

If past history is a guide, the winner will be chosen from the DGA nominee shortlist. That would leave only Steven Spielberg ("Lincoln") and Ang Lee ("Life of Pi") as Oscar contenders. But if neither Spielberg nor Lee wins, then who will?

SEAL Team 6 members, as portrayed in 'Zero Dark Thirty' (Photo: Columbia Pictures)There is one real-life moment that wasn't portrayed in "Zero Dark Thirty" that is as cinematic as the Oscar nominated film itself.

We still don't know his true identity, but, for the first time ever, we are hearing from the man directly responsible for the death of al Qaeda and 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden. He is only identified as "The Shooter" by Esquire Magazine writer Phil Bronstein. And the Shooter is the SEAL Team 6 member who shot bin Laden dead on May 2, 2011.

After the Shooter returned from his mission, he gave the CIA operative -- portrayed by Jessica Chastain as "Maya" in the film, and whose identity is not public -- the magazine from his gun as a souvenir. It didn't happen that way in the movie, nor did Chastain cry upon seeing bin Laden's body. But the Shooter says the female operative responsible for finding the terrorist leader did, in fact, cry in that moment.

Over the past year, Bronstein spent time on-and-off with the military operative -- hanging out with him in his back yard and even going to see the Oscar-nominated film that is based, in part, on his life.

Courtesy of Olly MossYou should probably clear your schedule for the next several hours, because once you start really looking at this thing, there's no looking away.

Renowned graphic designer Olly Moss was recently commissioned by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to create the official "85 Years of Oscars" poster. That may sound like a simple enough endeavor, though the Academy had an angle in mind that made the assignment a rather challenging one: find a way to visually reference every single Best Picture winner in Oscar history, limited to individual variations on each corresponding Oscar statue.

Photo: WireImageTom O’Neil was watching the reactions after Emmanuelle Riva took best actress at last night’s BAFTA’s televised on BBC America. Jessica Chastain (“Zero Dark Thirty”) quickly recovered her initial disappointment to raise a gracious smile, but director David O. Russell took Jennifer Lawrence’s loss hard with a scowl that Bradley Cooper’s “Silver Linings Playbook” character reserved for Ernest Hemingway.

Will octogenarian “Amour” star Riva now win at the Oscars? It’s a possibility, but O’Neil told Thelma Adams in our most recent podcast that it’s unlikely. He’s sticking with Lawrence because, in his jaundiced eyes, the cigar-smoking men who dominate the Academy “vote and back the actress they most want to bonk.” How would Katniss Everdeen feel about that?

Here’s our latest podcast post BAFTA’s and pre the 65^th Annual Writers Guild Awards coming next Sunday, February 17^th:

Listen to the podcast at Goldderby.com