Oscar News

• The Artist was the big winner at the 84th Academy Awards, taking the top prizes of Best Picture and Best Director. It tied with Hugo for most awards won with 5 apiece. The acting awards went to Jean Dujardin, Meryl Streep, Christopher Plummer and Ocatavia Spencer.
• Ratings for the Oscar telecast were up 4% from last year.
• Moonrise Kingdom, the new film by Academy Award nominee Wes Andersen, will open the Cannes Film Festival in May.

Review Round-Up

• There was a time when each of Lasse Hallstrom’s films were Oscar contenders, but the lukewarm reviews of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen do not seem to signal a return to that time. The film has a 60 on Metacritic, with Owen Glieberman in Entertainment Weekly calling the film ” a reasonably nice time” and Time Out New York‘s David Fear saying it is “simply hokum.”

Oscar Box Office

• The Artist got a nice bump after its Best Picture win, going up 24% at the box office last weekend.

Oscar Farewell

• Robert B. Sherman, who with his brother Richard wrote scores of hit songs from Disney through the years, died at the age of 86. The Sherman Brothers won two Oscars for their work on Mary Poppins.
• Oscar nominated cinematographer Bruce Surtees passed away last week at the age of 74. Surtees received an Oscar nomination for his work on Lenny in 1974.