oscars

With the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, all eyes where on 2016 Oscars host Chris Rock as he returned to add a little diversity to this year’s Academy Awards, and he did not disappoint.

Ready for the Oscars this Sunday? Need help winning your Oscar pool? The ScreenCrush staff — Editor-in-Chief Mike Sampson, Managing Editor Matt Singer and Senior Editor Erin Whitney — are here to help, or at least try their best anyway. They’ve seen all the movies (yes, even those documentary shorts!) and have come back with a definitive list of who will win at the 2016 Oscars. Normally these lists might have a lot of disparity, but strangely this year’s panel of experts largely agrees on the winners. That could mean good things for you and your office pool. Follow these selections to Oscar glory and bring home all the spoils. Or, come back on Monday morning to yell at them for they gave you really bad advice.

In a Variety exclusive late on Friday, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences announced that they had dumped two of the five scheduled performances of the Best Original Song nominees from this Sunday’s upcoming telecast. Ordinarily, the news that the notoriously lengthy Oscar ceremony would be shortened in any way at all would be cause for celebration, but the particulars of this decision should give readers pause. It’s true that the song performances can be the most time-consuming parts of the show, and though they’re definitely the least necessary, it’s some real bull-tonky that the show would appear only to cut the performances without adequate star-power behind them.

14 actors.

British actress Charlotte Rampling was one of the lower-profile performers to secure a nomination at this year’s Academy Awards, impressing voters with her devastating and controlled performance in Andrew Haigh’s relationship drama 45 Years. Ms. Rampling is currently sixty-nine years old, which is to say she was born in 1946 and came of age during the ’50s and ’60s — a different time, to be sure. Like many individuals at a relatively older age, she reflects the social norms of her era, many of which society has since advanced past. Older folks sometimes express opinions that younger generations find objectionable, and while such comments ought not to be excused outright, they also must be considered within the cultural context from they originated.

The greatest outrage stirred by last week’s announcement of the Oscar nominees was not the Best Picture snub for Carol or the absurd exclusion of Todd Haynes from the Best Director category, but rather the troubling homogeneity of the twenty men and women nominated in the acting categories. Specifically, many have taken issue with the fact that this year’s Oscar slate looks about as white as a Whole Foods before noon on a Sunday. The social media hashtag OscarsSoWhite resurfaced within minutes after the nomination announcement had finished, and Spike Lee has even called for a boycott of the ceremony as a response to the blatant lack of diversity in this year’s picks.

Every year, when the Oscar nominations are announced, a considerable amount of time is spent debating who was snubbed. But for every film that was expecting to get nominated and didn't, there's a film that no one was expecting to get nominated and did. This is the story of those films. The movies you'll look back on and wonder exactly how the heck it ever got nominated for an Oscar.

It's been announced that the 2014 Oscars host will be famed funnywoman Ellen DeGeneres!

You can all stop clutching your pearls: Seth MacFarlane has announced that he will not be returning to host the Oscars next year, but he does have a rather hilarious replacement in mind.

At this year Oscars, Seth MacFarlane caused quite a controversy as he hosted the ceremony with a number of risque bits and jokes (most notably the "We Saw Your Boobs" song from the opening monologues) but that was exactly what Oscar producers hoped MacFarlane would bring to the normally staid production. The 'Family Guy' creator previously said he has no interest in returning, the produc

Only a day after Seth MacFarlane said, in no uncertain terms, that he would not be returning to the Oscars after his much-criticized stint as host, we're slapped with the news that the ideal choice to replace him, Tina Fey, won't be taking the stage either.

There's been no shortage of controversy following the 2013 Oscars, most of it dealing with host Seth MacFarlane's particular brand of comedy, which is either hilariously crude or mean-spirited and misogynistic, depending on who you ask. But with ratings higher than last year's ceremony (40.3 million people tuned in to watch 'Argo' win Best Picture), you'd wonder if the Academy would decide that fu