Is winning an Oscar a curse or a blessing?
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It's awards season in Hollywood, with all red carpets leading to the Oscars. But winning that prestigious award can sometimes lead to nothing more than bad roles and even oblivion.
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How does one get to be an  Oscar-nominated actor? Try a little torture to the soul. It  evidently worked for Joaquin Phoenix.
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No fan of awards shows, Sean Penn says there's at least one nice thing about receiving an Academy Award: He no longer has to worry about comments like, "Yeah, he's a great actor, but he still hasn't won an Oscar."
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The guessing game is almost over at the Venice film festival, where few clear frontrunners for the Golden Lion award for best picture have emerged ahead of the prize ceremony on Saturday evening. By the end of the annual 11-day marathon of movies, press conferences, interviews and parties, critics and journalists normally agree on a handful of films they think could win the top honor, although their predictions are not always correct.
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Academy Awards contenders demurely say it's nice just to be nominated. In this wide-open Oscar season, just about any nominee could end up winning.
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There's a fortune-cookie-style proverb that sounds like a blessing but, legend says, is really a curse: "May you live in interesting times."
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An Oscarcast first: the  award show host (or in this case hostess) running a vacuum  cleaner in the audience. As amusing as it was, DeGenerously  speaking, it did take the glamour of the Oscars down a notch or  two.
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Oscar voters proved to be a fickle bunch on Sunday giving early awards both to winners expected, such as supporting actress Jennifer Hudson, and unexpected, like supporting actor Alan Arkin.
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With nearly six months until Hollywood's biggest party, everyone already is thinking about the Academy Awards. Not many will admit that the thought of winning an Oscar crosses their mind, though.
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Even two-time Oscar winners like Kevin Spacey sometimes need a career makeover.
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LOS ANGELES  - If you wanted to take a few swipes at Sunday night's Oscar ceremony, it wouldn't be that hard.
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NEW YORK  - An Oscarcast first: the award show host (or in this case hostess) running a vacuum cleaner in the audience. As amusing as it was, DeGenerously speaking, it did take the glamour of the Oscars down a notch or two.
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When it comes to getting Oscars, Martin Scorsese is one of the unluckiest men in Hollywood. As we approach the 79th Annual Academy Awards this Sunday, the big question is "will his luck change?" This year, he is heavily favored to take home the Best Director Oscar, but an upset isn't out of the question. Martin Scorsese has been down this road before and always lost. The real question is, does it matter?    Of course it doesn't. If Crash winning Best Picture last year hasn't dispelled the myth that the Academy Awards have anything to do cinematic merit, then you're likely the type of person who thought Pearl Harbor should have won Best Picture. Even if Scorsese loses once again, that only means he's in the same boat as Stanley Kubrick, Alfred Hitchcock, John Cassavetes, Orson Welles etc. Also, I don't know anyone who still adores Ordinary People, but Raging Bull gets a spin in the old DVD player at least once a year. And the Goodfellas disc (despite being one of those early crappy "flipper" discs that splits the movie onto both sides of the DVD) gets watched even more than that. Kevin Costner? Didn't he direct The Postman?
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LOS ANGELES  - Oscar beckons: The musical "Dreamgirls" is the odds-on favorite to take home best picture honors.
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Is racial bias still keeping black  artists from being recognized when Hollywood hands out its  annual Academy Awards?
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Hollywood's major studios are parading their big Oscar contenders, but low-budget art films and even animated movies are stealing their thunder as the contest warms up for the U.S. film industry's top honors.
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When a big awards show goes starless, the result is something more dire than bad TV, writes Richard Corliss