Blog Posts by Mark Deming

Oscar host Seth MacFarlane (Photo: Matt Petit/AMPAS)

There's a long-standing tradition at the Academy Awards -- at the end of the night, after hours of waiting, the winner of Best Picture is finally announced. After a brief acceptance speech, the show's producers and host then scramble to end the program as quickly as humanly possible. But this year is going to be different.

For the 2013 Oscars telecast, producers Neil Meron and Craig Zadan promise to close out the program with a splashy musical number featuring host Seth MacFarlane and singer and actress Kristin Chenoweth. It should be a fitting closer to a show dedicated to the close relationship between music and the movies.

Jennifer Lawrence and David O. Russell (Photo: WireImage)

Jennifer Lawrence and filmmaker David O. Russell are looking to make lightning strike twice.

Their first collaboration, "Silver Linings Playbook" proved to be both a box office hit and an awards season darling. The movie is up for eight Academy Awards this Sunday, including a likely Best Actress trophy for Lawrence and directing and screenwriting nominations for Russell. So it's not terribly surprising that Lawrence has signed on to Russell's next project "The Ends of the Earth."

Photo: Columbia Pictures

"Zero Dark Thirty" has earned rave reviews from critics, been nominated for five Academy Awards (including Best Picture), and become a surprise box office hit. But that doesn't mean everyone likes it. Though the movie has yet to officially screen in Pakistan, where the real-life raid to capture Osama bin Laden took place and much of the film is set, those Pakistanis who have seen it are not happy with the finished product.

"Zero Dark Thirty" has been circulating in Pakistan on bootleg DVDs and through pirated internet downloads, and while it should come as no surprise that many object to the film's political slant, a number of commentators have also called the picture's factual accuracy into question.