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Friday, February 20, 2015

Latest Movie News From Moviefone

Latest Movie News From Moviefone

Alex Gibney Takes Aim at Scientology With 'Going Clear' (VIDEO)

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Going Clear
One of the hottest tickets at Sundance was for "Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief," Alex Gibney's new documentary. The first trailer has arrived, and it gives you just a taste of the revelations to come courtesy of Gibney, "Going Clear" author Lawrence Wright, and former Scientologists like director Paul Haggis, Marty Rathbun, and Hana Eltringham.

The response at Sundance was overwhelming, and some critics reported receiving an email from a Church of Scientology spokesperson requesting that they amend their reviews with a statement from the organization. The Church of Scientology has also responded with advertisements and online media campaigns targeting Gibney himself.

HBO, which will be airing "Going Clear" on March 29, had 160 lawyers vet the documentary beforehand.



[Via EW]

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Kristen Wiig Wins Big in 'Welcome to Me' (VIDEO)

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Welcome to Me
What would you do if you won $86 million in the lottery? Well, if you're Alice Klieg (Kristen Wiig), you buy your own talk show in the hopes of becoming the next Oprah. Oh, you also quit taking your meds cold turkey, which is never a great idea. James Marsden, Wes Bentley, and Joan Cusack play some of her TV channel cohorts, with Tim Robbins as her shrink Dr. Moffat.

Although this is packaged like a comedy, and it's from Gary Sanchez Productions, it seems very likely that Alice's journey is going to go to a rather dark place. Wiig's known for her comedy chops, of course, but she's proven adept at drama as well, especially in last year's wrenching drama "The Skeleton Twins" with Bill Hader, and in the upcoming film "Diary of a Teenage Girl."

"Welcome to Me" will hit theaters May 1, 2015.



[Via Vulture]

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'Mission: Impossible 5' on Pause for New Ending

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Mission: Impossible 5
Summer seems so far away, but when you're working on a blockbuster like "Mission: Impossible 5," a July release date is closer than it seems. In a curious turn of events, production has halted on the latest Tom Cruise blockbuster so director Christopher McQuarrie and an anonymous writer could work out a new ending. Filming began last September, but hey, there's no time like the present for some good old brainstorming.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, McQuarrie's creative partner is "a writer friend whose identity remains a mystery and who will neither be paid nor credited." Their only reward will be the knowledge that they made Cruise's "Mission" possible.

This isn't the first time a studio has pressed paused on an expensive flick, and it's even possible that "M:I5" will still turn out to be a huge moneymaker. As per THR, Paramount pulled it off with "World War Z," which proved so successful that a sequel will begin filming in October. It's highly likely that Cruise's star power will still pull in mega-bucks around the world, no matter how this "Mission" ends.

[Via The Hollywood Reporter]

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What You Can Learn From New Streaming Service Shout! Factory TV

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Streaming video is a godsend if you want to catch up with recent seasons of TV series. But what's a TV fan to do who wants to stream older shows? Netflix has very little from before the millennium, and Amazon Prime has very little from before 1990.

That's not a knock; the big streaming services know their market. Still, it's worth remembering that Amazon's initial appeal as a bookseller was it's long-tail catalog, the notion that comprehensiveness was worthwhile because somebody somewhere would want that obscure or ancient title, that the markets for all those titles were collectively significant and worth catering to, and that the Internet had at last made it easier to connect those customers with what they wanted.

But until the big streaming services step into the long-tail breach, Shout Factory TV (at shoutfactorytv.com) is ready to make a home there. The boutique streaming service, which is free and requires no subscription, launched earlier this month, brought to you by the same Shout Factory archivists who put out on DVD for the first time the old "WKRP in Cincinnati" episodes with most of the original period music (a rights-clearance nightmare that kept the episodes as originally aired off home video for decades). Alas, Shout Factory TV is a separate entity and doesn't have "WKRP" -- or much of anything else yet. But the shows that are there are, for the most part, ones that classic TV fans will want to binge on -- and that viewers unfamiliar with TV milestones should really check out.

Shout Factory's comedy section is especially vital, featuring some of the cornerstones of TV comedy as we've come to know it. Everything from "The Ernie Kovacs Collection" to "The Dick Van Dyke Show" to "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" to both of Bob Newhart's classic series to "It's Garry Shandling's Show" and "Mystery Science Theater 3000" is here.

If you're looking for a crash course on TV comedy, start with Kovacs, the 1950s innovator who experimented with the rules of television as they were being written. His let's-try-anything approach was a huge influence on David Letterman and, via Dave, on Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Kimmel, and Jimmy Fallon.

Continue with "Dick Van Dyke," which made stars out of Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore, and whose sharp writing about both suburban married life and television itself still hold up half a century later. Moore's own series was even more groundbreaking, both in its depiction of a divorced woman making it on her own and in its invention of the workplace-as-family sitcom. (It too offered a satirical behind-the-scenes look at television production that still holds up; TV news hasn't really improved much since dimwitted Ted Baxter was the anchor at Mary's station.) Want to see where Betty White's dirty-old-broad shtick started? This is the place.

Moore's successes included not just her own show, but also those she produced for others, including "The Bob Newhart Show" and "Newhart," both of which are streaming here. Both were sophisticated comedies about grown-ups (Bob and his TV wives in both shows had no kids). The earlier show made a star of Marcia Wallace, better known later as the voice of Mrs. Krabappel on "The Simpsons." The later show had what's generally regarded as the greatest series finale in sitcom history, an episode recently paid homage in Craig Ferguson's last "Late Late Show."

A rare find here is "Fridays," ABC's early-'80s late-night sketch comedy series, featuring the shockingly young, pre-"Seinfeld" Larry David and Michael Richards.(Also Rich Hall, Mark Blankfield, and Melanie Chartoff.) The show was a lot like "Saturday Night Live" but a lot more political and pointed. (It flourished during a period, 1980-82, when "SNL" was struggling to rebuild itself after Lorne Michaels and the original cast had departed.) It was also the site of the American TV debuts of The Clash, AC/DC, and The Stray Cats, who didn't yet have a record deal. The show wasn't on DVD until Shout Factory released a best-of collection of sketch highlights in 2013, but now you can watch full episodes at the streaming site.

Another '80s highlight is "It's Garry Shandling's Show," the highly self-referential sitcom starring the comic then best-known as a frequent guest-host on "The Tonight Show." Shandling didn't invent "breaking the fourth wall" -- that is, stepping out of character to address the audience directly, something George Burns did all the time on "Burns and Allen" back in the '50s -- but Shandling took the technique to new heights. More than any show before or since, "Shandling" deconstructed the sitcom, taking it apart to see how the rules worked before then putting it back together. Shandling would become even better known in the '90s for rewriting the rules of the sitcom with the first major single-camera, laughtrack-free success, "The Larry Sanders Show," but he learned the tricks he'd use later here.

Watching these shows is a revelation, in that the rhythms of the comedy are so different from those of today's sitcoms. One reason is that "Larry Sanders" gave rise to the cringe comedy shows of recent years, single-camera series like "The Office," "Modern Family," and "Parks & Recreation" that, instead of a laughtrack,would let each punchline be followed by an awkward pause, since the real joke is that the spoken joke wasn't really funny, and that the person uttering it was self-deluded.

The other reason is that multi-camera shows with laughtracks and some primetime cartoons (notably, "The Simpsons" and Seth MacFarlane's shows) operate at a rapid-fire pace, tossing forth a punchline every few seconds. (Don't like one? Don't worry, another will be along before you can change the channel.) One reason for the popularity of this style is the 1990s show with what may have been the fastest joke-per-minute rate ever, "Mystery Science Theater 3000." The series, streaming here, was a trailblazer of modern snark, with the three hapless "Satellite of Love" viewers maintaining their sanity by unleashing a torrent of wisecracks at the screen while being forced to watch bad sci-fi movies. In terms of the show's ability to flood the zone with insulting comments, "MST3K" may have accidentally invented the Internet.

There are some more standard, conventional sitcoms here that are plenty funny without being innovative -- the old-old-school repartee of the Abbott & Costello episodes of "The Colgate Comedy Hour," the almost creepily archetypal "Father Knows Best" (this show, the ostensible model of ideal family life on TV for decades, is why the setting of "The Simpsons" is called Springfield), the live-action "Archie" comic of "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis" (with the Jughead character, beatnik Maynard G. Krebs, played by a pre-Gilligan Bob Denver), the slapstick high jinks of "Laverne & Shirley," and "Mary Tyler Moore" spinoff "Rhoda" (which introduced another future "Simpsons" mainstay, Julie Kavner, who went from Rhoda's needy sister to the voices of Marge Simpson and her own annoying sisters, Patty and Selma).

There are also some important dramas here -- "Hill Street Blues" (the cop drama that all modern cop dramas are drawn from), "Peter Gunn"( the late '50s private-eye series best known for its still-badass theme song), "Route 66" (the 1960s series about two adventurers on the road in a muscle car -- think of it as "Supernatural" without monsters -- which has a reboot in development), and 2000s legal drama "The Practice."

And then there's a handful of feature films -- mostly Roger Corman B-movies, a couple of Ed Wood howlers, and one unimpeachable classic (John Ford's "Stagecoach," the movie that made John Wayne a star). But none of the categories here are as strong as the TV comedy section.

Even that has its frustrations. Some -- but not all -- of the shows will play on your iOS device. Many of the series have just one season posted; this seems to be less of a rights-clearance issue than Shout Factory's way of getting you to come back later for more once additional seasons are posted.

Still, it's worth paying the site a visit. If, rather than catch up on your favorite TV comedies, you want to catch up on the shows that made those comedies possible, you would do well to spend a half-hour here, or an hour, or two, or 10...

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Oscar Predictions 2015: What Will Win Best Picture?

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Best Picture 2015 Oscars
Can you smell the Oscars yet?!

With the 87th Academy Awards almost here, Moviefone will be releasing a set of staff predictions each day this week (in countdown fashion) for the four major categories. We kicked it off with Best Actress and Best Actor, and now turn our attention to another hotly-contested race: Best Picture.

We've already given you the beat on the 2015 Oscars race, so now let's break down our favorites to win the award. Here, we've listed the movie we expect to win, and then, more importantly, what we think should win.

Tim Hayne
What Will Win: "Boyhood." Let's face it: There only two contenders in this race: "Boyhood" and "Birdman." And the advantage belongs to the former. The 12-years-in-the-making, Richard Linklater-directed drama has already been racking up the awards, most notably taking home a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture, Drama. Also, the Academy loves a good backstory, and the fact that Linklater and his cast committed to making the movie for a dozen years is kinda nuts. Not that "Birdman" is without a backstory -- former Batman Michael Keaton playing a version of himself is certainly notable -- but, in the end, the Academy looks for heart in their Best Picture winners, and "Boyhood" has plenty to spare.

What Should Win: "Boyhood." I'm a huge fan of any movie that offers up something new (hey, I'm in the minority of people who believe "Gravity" should have won over "12 Years a Slave" last year), and the family drama's conceit is just that: new. Director Richard Linklater and his cast took a risk (and a lot of time) chronicling the life of a family over 12 years for "Boyhood," and that kind of innovative, dedicated filmmaking should be rewarded. Plus, if "Boyhood" wins, there's at least a chance that longtime Linklater enthusiast Matthew McConaughey will rush the stage and deliver a meandering, nonsensical speech honoring his friend, making it all worth it.

Alana Altmann
What Will Win: "Boyhood." It won Best Picture at the BAFTAs, Golden Globes, and the Critics' Choice so it seems to be on track for the big cinematic prize of the year. And keep in mind that this is one movie that relates to pretty much anyone with a family and explores the human condition (unless you happen to be an unnecessarily mean drum teacher or a delusional washed-up actor) so it means a lot to audiences.

What Should Win: First of all, A for effort. This was a 12 year commitment! And that was during Patricia Arquette's busy "Medium" years! But project loyalty isn't the only reason its an important film. The novelty of authentically spanning over more than a decade just assists in poignantly capturing a universal experience that holds a mirror up to our own lives. Sometimes the "everyday" can be more powerful than the extraordinary, and that's what this film does right.

Jonny Black
What Will Win: "Birdman." Barely. "Boyhood" vs. "Birdman" is going to come down to the wire and, honestly, "Boyhood" feels like the nice, nostalgic, and inspirational film the Academy loves to give Best Picture, but I just can't help believing "Birdman" is going to pull this one out. It's a gut decision (in other words, I might be crazy). The dark themes, the incredible acting, and the tight, technically spectacular directing are what will make the Academy voters tip the scale in favor of "Birdman."

What Should Win: "Boyhood." Sometimes your gut isn't what you necessarily want. Despite believing that "Birdman" will win, I think "Boyhood" should win. Director Richard Linklater started filming this over a decade ago -- and it could have gone nowhere. Instead, Linklater sculpted a narrative with 39 days of shooting over 12 years that makes every person remember what it was really like to grow up. Tell me you didn't relate to at least something that happened in the film. "Boyhood" is a movie that makes you feel deeply at almost every turn. That's an accomplishment. As the film scales so many years, each moment is fleeting and, therefore, feels spectacularly important.

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From Sesame Street to Oscar Sunday, Watch the Terrific Spoof 'Big Birdman' (VIDEO)

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The Oscar race is getting pretty heated, with the big showdown on Sunday seemingly between "Birdman" and "Boyhood," but to take some edge off of that tension, why not watch a truly brilliant and terrific "Sesame Street" spoof, entitled "Big Birdman or The Unexpected Virtue of Orange Pants." It's awesome.

What's notable about the video is that it features Carol Spinney, who has essayed the Big Bird character since 1969. (Since 1998 Matt Vogel has performed the character more regularly, and he appears as the character in the final segment of this video.) Rarely are the performers behind the characters ever seen, much less a performer dealing with their alter egos. It's pretty heady stuff, captured in the "Birdman" single-take style. Anyone who is a fan of the Muppets, "Sesame Street," or Spinney, who was recruited by Jim Henson during the embryonic days of the series, will get a kick out of this short.



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'McFarland, USA' Director Niki Caro on Her Return to Hollywood (EXCLUSIVE)

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Niki Caro is one of the more fascinating filmmakers working today. The New Zealand native made a splash, both literally and figuratively, with her breakout feature "Whale Rider," a tender fairy tale laced with subtext about female empowerment and the cultural subjugation of women the world over. She followed it up with a brassy Hollywood debut, with the "Norma Rae"-esque "North Country" (starring Charlize Theron), before returning to New Zealand to direct another small film.

Now she's back, with the tremendous "McFarland, USA," a Disney based-on-a-true-story sports movie starring Kevin Costner as Jim White, a coach who, in the late '80s, led a group of inexperienced Latino kids to become champion cross-country runners. It's a typical Disney sports movie -- full of grit and hardwork and determination, but with a wonderful cultural specificity and gorgeous (35 mm!) photography.

We sat down with Caro (who, it should be noted, was rocking some amazing rings) and talked about what brought her back to Hollywood, why this story was so important, whether or not the movie had more of a feminist bent before the final cut, and if her adaptation of "The Zookeeper's Wife," starring the lovely Jessica Chastain, is still next on her docket.

Moviefone: Why come back to Hollywood?

Niki Caro: Because I was inspired by this story. It's as simple as that. I'm not useful for a lot of Hollywood movies. My agent despairs, she says there's only about three percent of actual product in this industry that I am useful for. But this was one.

What about this story spoke to you?

Look, it would have been more than enough -- Jim White, that team, and what they achieved. And obviously that legacy that they have left and will endure. If that wasn't enough to inspire me to make a movie, it was, for me, personally, the people. I was profoundly unaware of what life is like for immigrant field workers and I am astonished, impressed, absolutely floored by their endurance, and I felt very privileged to be in that world for a little while and appreciate the contribution they make to this country, which is undeniable. When I wrote that speech for Kevin -- "You guys are superhuman..." They freakin' are! There is not a piece of lettuce in a burger that has not been picked by somebody there. Central Valley contributes seventy-five percent of the fresh food to this country. It's not picked by a machine, my friend! It's picked by people like you and me. But a lot tougher.

What was it like working with actors as seasoned as Costner alongside relative unknowns?

It's been mentioned to me a couple of times today that I've taken a big risk on kids who have never acted before. And I don't. I take casting very, very seriously and I take equally seriously my instinct for who can be great. I need no instinct to know that Costner or Maria [Bello] are going to be great but with these kids we had to cast unknowns because there's just not a deep enough pool of Mexican teenage boys that can act and run really fast. There's just not. There's one. And we had to teach him to run. So we did huge open calls, saw thousands of kids, and I knew when I had my seven -- and I had to fight for some of them -- that I had gold. I knew they had the goods, I knew I had the goods and I came to appreciate that Kevin Costner was not just going to be magnificent on screen, but off screen as well, supporting those boys and allowing them to have confidence to stand with him on set. It was perfect.

The movie has such an amazing cultural specificity. Did you have to fight for that?

No. We shouted it from the rooftops. Disney wanted that as much as I wanted it, they backed me one-hundred-and-fifty percent.

Your previous movies have a decidedly feminist bent. And when reading about this story, I discovered the Maria Bello character had a much stronger connection to the team than she does in the movie. Was there any inclination to bring that to the forefront?

Of course there was. When I watched it assembled, every scene, it was three and a quarter hours long. Something had to go. And it was very clear to us that no matter how magnificent Maria and the whole family story was, where the gold was was the boys. That was the more dynamic story. Unfortunately, you can look at the DVD extras. It's not that there wasn't great work but the movie couldn't be three hours long.

The "Disney sports movie" is its own genre now. Do you like these movies and was there any pressure to live up to what had come before?

Disney sports movies, particularly the films of the past ten years, are all made by the same producers, who produced this. For me, the sports was the least attractive of all the attractive elements. If I had to put all the elements in order, it wasn't the sports that drew me to this -- it was the people, the culture, the expression of family, of community, of home. Although shooting the sports was extremely cool because it was so cinematic. It's the body in motion but you can also take them to amazing landscapes.

I was going to ask you about the look of the movie. It's absolutely stunning. How did you develop that?

Well Adam [Arkapaw], the DP, is a very young Australian guy. This was his first big movie. He had shot Jane Campion's "Top of the Lake" in New Zealand. And when I saw that, I thought that he really gets it. Because he didn't shoot New Zealand like a chocolate box -- very picturesque, which it is. Instead, he really got under it and found that sense of place and that's what I demand from all of my photography. It's as it is but we light it up, we make it as beautiful as it can be. We wanted to photograph McFarland as a very hostile place when Jim White first gets there. And over the course of the movie, it begins to feel like home and he did that. The other big thing was that we were one of the few films allowed to shoot in California. Go Disney! They stood by their whole authentic, specific thing, and allowed us to shoot in California even though it's more expensive. The other thing is that we shot on film. What Adam was he ran the numbers and he said, "Look this is how much it's going to cost to shoot digitally, this is how much it will cost to shoot film." Oh! It's the same! So they took film. It's a very subtle thing but it's the dust in the air, it expresses that place better than a digital camera can.

Has there been any movement with "The Zookeeper's Wife"? Is that still the next thing for you? And Jessica Chastain is still attached?

Yes. There is a lot of movement, a lot of forward momentum. I am pinned to the back of my chair actually. It's going to be amazing.

"McFarland, USA" is in theaters now.

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Zack Snyder Tweets First Image of Jason Momoa As Aquaman (PHOTO)

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Late Thursday night, "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" director Zack Snyder tweeted the first official photo of former "Game of Thrones" star Jason Momoa as Aquaman, with the caption: "There is only one true king." The photo, which, true to call the "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" images thus far, has a washed out, monochromatic look, features Aquaman staring down the camera and looking really, really badass, with a patchwork of tattoos covering his skin and a fearsome trident. Across the image are the words "Unite the Seven," presumably meaning the seven seas. Fear him!

"Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" also features Henry Cavill as Superman, Ben Affleck as Batman, Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, Ray Fisher as Cyborg and Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor. The cast also includes Amy Adams, Laurence Fishburne, and Diane Lane in more grounded, human roles. 'Batman v Superman' will be released next March, with Aquaman subsequently starring in his own film before re-teaming with the group for 'Justice League.' Whew, that's a lot of Aquaman!

What do you think of Aquaman's jacked-up look? How do you think he'd fare under the sea?



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Oscars Facts: 25 Things You (Probably) Don't Know About the Academy Awards

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Oscars Facts 2015The 87th Academy Awards are this Sunday evening, and we're counting down the minutes!

We've already given you our Oscar predictions, and now we're bringing you a few of the best (and craziest) Academy Awards facts. From the first Best Actor winner to the "one dollar" Oscar rule, here are 25 things you (probably) don't know about the Oscars.

1. The youngest Oscar winner was Tatum O'Neal, who won Best Supporting Actress for "Paper Moon" (1973) when she was only 10 years old. Shirley Temple won the short-lived Juvenile Award at 6 years old.

2. At 82, Christopher Plummer became the oldest person to win an Academy Award. He received the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his work in "Beginners" (2010) opposite Ewan McGregor.

3. After winning Best Actress for "Cabaret" (1972), Liza Minnelli became (and still is) the only Oscar winner whose parents both earned Oscars. Her mother, Judy Garland, received an honorary award in 1939 and her father, Vincente Minnelli, won Best Director for "Gigi" (1958).

4. Nameplates for all potential winners are prepared ahead of time; in 2014, the Academy made 215 of them!

5. The first Academy Awards were presented in 1929 at a private dinner of about 270 people. It was first televised in 1953, and now the Oscars ceremony can be seen in more than 200 countries.

6. Only three women have received Best Director nominations, while Kathryn Bigelow is the lone winner for "The Hurt Locker" (2009). Interestingly, Bigelow beat out ex-husband James Cameron, who was nominated for the technological wonder "Avatar."

7. Peter Finch ("Network") and Heath Ledger ("The Dark Knight") are the only actors to be awarded an Academy Award posthumously. Ledger's Oscar -- and his entire fortune -- was gifted to his young daughter, Matilda.

8. With another nomination this year for "Into the Woods," Meryl Streep has been nominated a record 19 times. She has won three Best Actress Oscars -- the last for "The Iron Lady" (2011).

9. Katharine Hepburn won a record four Academy Awards -- all Best Actress Oscars -- the last for "On Golden Pond" (1981), which starred another Hollywood legend, Henry Fonda.

10. Jack Nicholson is the most-nominated male actor, receiving 12 Oscar nominations beginning with 1969's "Easy Rider." His three wins tie him with Walter Brennan and Daniel Day-Lewis.

11. The first Oscars were held at the famous Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Today, the ceremony takes place at the Dolby Theatre (around the corner from the Roosevelt), its tenth venue over the decades.

12. "Ben-Hur" (1959), "Titanic" (1997), and "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" (2003) are the most successful films in Oscar history, each winning a shocking 11 Oscars. "The Return of the King" is the only one to win every award for which it was nominated.

13. Oscar statuettes are technically property of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. As a result, before an Academy Award winner or his estate can sell his Oscar, he must first offer to sell it to the Academy first for one dollar (yes, one dollar). This, of course, is to discourage winners from selling the award for financial gain. Oscars awarded before 1950, however, are not bound by this agreement. Orson Welles's 1941 Oscar for "Citizen Kane" was sold at auction for over $800,000 in 2011!

14. Only three films have won all of the "Big Five" Academy Award categories: "It Happened One Night" (1934), "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975), and "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991). The "Big Five" categories are: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay (either adapted or original).

15. In 1940, the LA Times broke the Academy's embargo and published the names of all the Oscar winners prior to the ceremony. As a result, the Academy introduced the sealed envelope tradition that is present to this day.

16. The legendary Alfred Hitchcock was nominated five times for Best Director, but never took home the Oscar.

17. Composer John Williams is the most-nominated living person, having earned 49 Oscar nominations throughout his storied career, beginning with 1967's "Valley of the Dolls."

18. The longest Oscar acceptance speech ever given was five and half minutes by 1943 Best Actress winner Greer Garson ("Mrs. Miniver").

19. Oscar statuettes were made from painter plaster during World War II due to metal shortages. After the war ended, these Oscars were replaced with the traditional statues.

20. Bob Hope hosted the ceremony a whopping 19 times, making him the most frequent Oscar host.

21. The first Best Actor awards were given to Emil Jannings for "The Last Command" and "The Way of All Flesh" (yes, both!).

22. At the 29th Academy Awards ceremony in 1957, the Best Foreign Language Film category was introduced. Previously, the best foreign language film was simply acknowledge with a Special Achievement Award.

23. In 1999, Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench were both nominated for playing Queen Elizabeth in "Elizabeth" and "Shakespeare in Love." Dench won Best Supporting Actress despite only appearing in the film for a total of eight minutes. Meanwhile, Blanchett lost the Best Actress Oscar to Gwyneth Paltrow -- also for "Shakespeare in Love."

24. With a Best Actor nomination for "American Sniper," Bradley Cooper has now been nominated for an acting Oscar three years in a row. If he's nominated in 2016, Cooper will tie Marlon Brando for the most consecutive acting nods.

25. Although "Boyhood" (2014) was filmed over 12 years, it only took a total of 39 days to film.

[Sources: Wikipedia, The Wrap, Empire, ET Online]

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20 Oscar-Winning Movies to Watch on Netflix Right Now

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Love all things Oscar? Netflix currently has more than a dozen Oscar-winning films to stream, including 12 Best Picture winners ranging from "Marty" to "The Silence of the Lambs." Many racked up multiple awards on Oscar night, a tribute to their excellence or some really great Oscar campaigning. we're looking at you, Harvey Weinstein, who helped push "Shakespeare in Love" and "The English Patient" to Academy glory.

You can also stream Oscar-winning performances from Meryl Streep ("Sophie's Choice" and "The Iron Lady"), Robin Williams ("Good Will Hunting"), Cher ("Moonstruck") and Frances McDormand ("Fargo").oscar movies on netflix

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Best of Late Night TV: Snoop Dogg's Plizzanet Earth and Craig Robinson's Jam Session (VIDEO)

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If you're like us and value your sleep, you probably nodded off into your Ambien dreamland before the party started on post-prime time TV. Don't worry; we've got you covered. Here's the best of what happened last night on late night.

Time for another addition of Plizzanet Earth with Snoop Dogg, who stopped by "Jimmy Kimmel Live" to muse on -- what else? An enormous cold-blood seal humping an innocent penguin. It goes without saying that his profound thoughts are not to be missed. Also, why hasn't Animal Planet picked up this show yet?

Kelly Ripa also stopped by "Kimmel," and Jimmy shared a super old-school clip of her chatting about how men and women should alternate paying for dinner. Sigh, a progressive feminist even when rocking an 80s perm and a turtleneck, guys. Also, please prepare yourself for the best dance moves you've ever seen.


Time for a game of Word Sneak on "The Tonight Show!" This week's contestant was comedy legend Martin Short, who had to work random words into a casual conversation with Jimmy Fallon. Our favorites include Bill Paxton, fishsticks, enchiladas and back hair.

Mae Whitman visited "Late Night" (sob, RIP "Parenthood"), and told Seth Meyers that she's made out with not one, not two, but three "Friday Night Lights" cast members. Living the dream, to be honest.

Over on "Late Show," Don Cheadle chatted about the first time he went to The Oscars and was told by some angry paparazzi to "get the f-- out of the way" because Cher and Jack Nicholson were coming through. Honestly, it's a realistic hazard of trying to share the spotlight with Cher.

Finally, Craig Robinson, Clark Duke and Adam Scott teamed up on "Conan" to play a live rendition of the song from Flashdance...only with customized lyrics about "Hot Tub Time Machine 2." It was literally, utterly and completely amazing. And no, those electric guitars are not plugged in.

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Harris Wittels, 'Parks and Rec' Producer, Dead at 30 After Apparent Overdose

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12th Annual AFI Awards - ReceptionHarris Wittels, a comedian and executive producer on NBC sitcom "Parks and Recreation," has died. He was 30.

Wittels was reportedly found unresponsive in his Los Angeles home on Thursday around 1 p.m., and pronounced dead shortly thereafter. The suspected cause of death is a drug overdose, with TMZ reporting that drug paraphernalia was found in Wittels's home.

Known for his writing on television series including "The Sarah Silverman Program" and "Eastbound & Down," Wittels was also an actor and producer on "Parks and Rec," playing an animal control employee with a penchant for pot. The sitcom is ending its run on NBC next Tuesday after seven seasons.

Tributes poured in for Wittels as news of his death spread, with comedians and actors taking to social media to express their grief. Silverman tweeted, "You should know that Harris was brilliant beyond compare. That his imagination was without limit. That he loved comedy more than anything."

Wittels -- who also popularized the term "Humblebrag," and authored a Twitter account and book of the same name -- was open about his struggles with drug addiction, having reportedly entered rehab twice. He was a prolific and frequent stand-up comedian, performing as recently as the night before his death, where he said that he was currently sober.

The Los Angeles Police Department is currently investigating Wittels's cause of death.

[via: TMZ, Vulture]

Photo credit: Getty Images for AFI

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Recap of 'The Blacklist' Season 2 Episode 12: The Kenyon Family

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THE BLACKLIST --
You'll never want to walk around in the woods again after watching this week's episode of "The Blacklist," because apparently they're crawling with feral hill people who want to kill us all. Yep, Raymond Reddington's newest blacklister is a polygamous cult leader with a fleet of child brides and crazy backwoods love children, and it's up to Elizabeth Keen to take them down. In other words, just another day on the job.

Keen and Ressler Take On Their Weirdest Cast Yet, We Run and Hide

Meet Justin Kenyon, a polygamous preacher who runs Church of the Shields, which is basically the creepiest cult ever. Here are two important things to know about this fellow: he lets terrorists store cargo in shipping containers on his property, and he has a master plan wherein he wants to disappear for six days and then kill everyone in the USofA. Which is bad news considering that he disappears at the beginning of this episode.

It's obviously imperative to find Kenyon so he doesn't...ya know...murder everyone, and though the FBI initially have a few reservations about raiding his compound , they change their mind when his people blow up a van and kill a couple of policemen. Samar, Ressler, and Lizzy join forces with the local law to raid Kenyon's digs, and realize that it's actually children who are blowing up the vans -- killing themselves in the process. Fortunately, Samar manages to rescue one of said children, while Ressler and Lizzy's troll the other side of the compound and stumble across a church filled with corpses. Turns out Kenyon was marrying another child bride when his service was raided, and everyone was killed with the exception of one kid (who basically spends this episode looking like the girl from The Ring only creepier).

Red Heads To Saint Petersburg, Samar Hangs with Terrifying Small Child

Remember when Alan Fitch told Red that he had a safe in Saint Petersburg, and then his head exploded and you spent the rest of the evening dry-heaving into a paper bag? Well this week Red gets to work finding Fitch's safe, and hits up Saint Petersburg with his tracker friend Glen. These two find the safe hidden behind a painting in a swank apartment, and discover that it contains a simple telephone number of all things!

Back in Washington, Samar interviews a former cult member, who voluntarily explains the rules of Kult Kenyon. Apparently, each man was required to take three wives when the church got off the ground -- which became problematic due to the unbalanced boy-to-girl ratio. Kenyon solved the problem by shoving all the unwanted boys into the woods to die (because that definitely makes the most sense!), but instead they formed a weird feral army and started an uprising. To be honest, Kenyon kind of had it coming.

Keen and Ressler Get Kidnapped, Red Gets Presidential

Despite the ominous warnings of the creepy kid they found hiding in church, Lizzy and Ressler decide to drive around Kenyon's compound only to have their tires blown out by some disgruntled youths known as The Watchers (aka Kenyon's rejected all-boys club). Naturally, Lizzy and Ressler get themselves kidnapped, and The Watchers bring them back to the same camp where they're keeping Kenyon.

Meanwhile in Saint Petersburg, Red pays a visit to a fellow terrorist and asks for the activation codes for missiles she'd been storing at Kenyon's compound, and he uses their cameras to get a lead on Lizzy's location. Samar manages to rescue everyone with Red's trans-Atlantic help -- but not before Kenyon's murdered with a bunch of twigs. That's right, twigs. What a pleasant way to die, said no one ever.

In other totally terrible news, Agent Cooper still has what appears to be cancer -- but at least he's starting a clinical trial. And on a less devastating note, Red buys Lizzy an apartment (she cruelly rejects it) and then hits up Kenyon's bunker to check in on his storage unit. Turns out he's been keeping a car with presidential plates in the basement of Kenyon's church, and he quickly grabs a cell from the trunk and uses it call the number listed on Fitch's business card. Who answers? No one Red recognizes, that's for sure. Looks like we have a new blacklister on our hands!

And Now, For Some Burning Questions:
Who was the voice on the other end of Red's phone call?!
Is Elizabeth still being investigated for murder? Because that plot was definitely dropped this week.
Will Agent Cooper make it through the season alive?
Lizzy still isn't budging in her friendship with Red. Will she ever forgive him?

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