Oscars | featured news

...Two different firms that study social media sentiment, Taykey and General Sentiment, have issued Oscar predictions based on what people are saying on Twitter, Facebook and other social platforms. They arrived at totally different conclusions.

Using formulas he says are derived from "only math and 15 years of data, no personal hunches," a college student named Ben Zauzmer is taking a Nate Silver-like approach to predicting the Oscar winners -- and he says last year, his model proved 100 percent effective at determining who'd take home trophies in all eight of the major categories.

Barbra Streisand will perform at the Oscars next month, the first time she's performed during an Academy Awards broadcast in 36 years. Streisand won the Academy Award for best original song for "Evergreen" in 1977. She also sang the theme from "A Star Is Born" that night.

A puzzling Academy Awards season will sort itself out a bit more on Sunday with the Screen Actors Guild Awards, where top performers gather to honor their own in what often is a prelude for who'll go home with an Oscar.

The Civil War saga "Lincoln" leads the Academy Awards with 12 nominations, including best picture, director for Steven Spielberg and acting honors for Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field and Tommy Lee Jones. Also among the 9 nominees for best picture Thursday: the old-age love story "Amour"; the Iran hostage thriller "Argo"; the independent hit "Beasts of the Southern Wild"; the slave-revenge narrative "Django Unchained"; the musical "Les Miserables"; the shipwreck story "Life of Pi"; the lost-souls romance "Silver Linings Playbook"; and the Osama bin Laden manhunt chronicle "Zero Dark Thirty."

For the first time in 40 years, the host of the Academy Awards will help announce the Oscar nominations....

Growing concern that problems with the new electronic Oscar voting system could lead to record-low turnout has prompted the motion picture academy to extend the deadline for members to vote for Oscar nominations....

End Of Watch, which opened to No. 1 at the box office in September, will be back in theaters nationwide December 7 to give awards voters another crack at the LA cop drama written and directed by David Ayer.

Thanksgiving is over and to Hollywood that means one thing: awards season. Let the Carpetbagger be your guide to all things Oscar.

Steven Spielberg’s “ Lincoln ” screened Monday night at the New York Film Festival and garnered a positive initial response, as well as predictions that Daniel Day-Lewis, Tommy Lee Jones, Sally Field and virtually everyone involved in the film will be nominated for Oscars.