Oscar

The wildlife footage is astounding in DisneyNature's new documentary "Chimpanzee. " Legendary primatologist Jane Goodall is on board as both spokeswoman for and beneficiary of the film, and a portion of opening-week ticket sales will be donated to her research. In general, the more young people who see the film, the more who will be made aware of a fascinating, complicated near-relative whose numbers are dwindling rapidly. Does all this mean "Chimpanzee" has to be so Disneyfied?

Oscar-nominated actress Viola Davis urged graduating seniors at the high school in the struggling Rhode Island city where she grew up to treasure "hard times and joyous moments. " Davis spoke to Central Falls High School seniors, members of student government and student actors Thursday morning. She is a 1983 graduate of the school and has continued to support education in Central Falls. Davis told students that "the privilege of a lifetime is being who you are. " The city of 19,000 residents is in the middle of a bankruptcy proceeding.

Hollywood celebrated its own roots last night at the 84th annual Academy Awards. The Oscar for best picture of 2011 went to "The Artist," the only silent film to take the top prize other than "Wings," which won at the very first Academy Awards in 1929. The film also won statues for Michel Hazanavicius's direction, Jean Dujardin's lead performance as a silent star struggling with the coming of sound, costume design, and musical score. "Hugo," Martin Scorsese's enchanted salute to the very earliest days of cinema, also won five Oscars in the "craft" categories of cinematography, art...

WASHINGTON - Joyce Redman - the Anglo-Irish actress who brought a mischievous sparkle to the most suggestive scene ever filmed at a dining table, the unforgettable display of gluttony and lust in the 1963 movie "Tom Jones" - died May 10 in Kent, England. She was 96. Her son, actor Crispin Redman, announced the death and said his mother had pneumonia. In a career spanning eight decades, Ms. Redman was a stalwart of the British theater. She appeared in productions at the Old Vic, the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, and the National Theatre and opposite actors such as...

During a nostalgia-heavy Academy Awards ceremony Sunday - winners included not only a silent movie, but also veteran actress Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher - it was all too easy to forget the power Hollywood can have on current events. Yet the first Oscar for Iran has launched a new form of award: the Oscar as diplomacy. Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, whose film "A Separation" won the best foreign film award, gave a mesmerizing speech in which he chastised war talk and intimidation "exchanged between politicians.

11:34 p.m. Best Picture Tom Cruise presents a good montage of the nominees and declares "The Artist" the winner. It's not a shock, and Michel Hazanavicius said some wonderful things about Billy Wilder -- namely "Billy Wilder, Billy Wilder, Billy Wilder. " There's no discounting the average Academy voter's age (it's 62), and there no discounting how much the people who like that movie found it charming. It's profoundly old-fashioned, which feels just right for a night in which a black woman won a supporting-actress Oscar for playing a maid decades after Hattie McDaniel and some young women roamed the...

The major mystery about this year's Academy Awards may be what Billy Crystal and company are planning for the show: The producers have been unusually mum (after the train wrecks of previous years, that may be the smartest approach). But while some races are tight, "The Artist" seems on an unstoppable journey to a best picture Oscar - unless Hollywood's social conscience (or voters' collective guilt about their maids) sends "The Help" to the top of the pile. Here is Globe movie critic Ty Burr's picks and odds.

After a tumultuous week that saw the departure and replacement of the Oscar show's host and producer, the film academy enjoyed a night of good vibes Saturday at its third annual Governors Awards. You might even say the force was with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Armed "Star Wars" storm troopers ensured guests were in their seats and paying attention as Darth Vader opened the evening honoring James Earl Jones, Oprah Winfrey and makeup artist Dick Smith. Under Vader's helmet was academy president Tom Sherak, who welcomed the audience of industry...

ROME - Italian scriptwriter Ugo Pirro, who wrote the screenplays for two Oscar-winning movies, including "The Garden of the Finzi-Continis," died Friday in Rome, city officials said. He was 87. Mr. Pirro co-wrote the screenplays for "Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion," directed by Elio Petri, and Vittorio De Sica's "The Garden of the Finzi-Continis. " Both films, released in the early 1970s, went on to win Academy Awards for best foreign-language movie. Mr. Pirro was nominated for his screenplays, but he did not win. Over his career,...

MEXICO CITY - Demian Bichir learned an important lesson when he left his native Mexico to launch a US acting career and ended up working in a Mexican restaurant in New York: how to live the invisible life of an illegal immigrant with dignity. It's a subtle quality he brings to his Oscar-nominated role of Los Angeles gardener Carlos Galindo in the movie "A Better Life. " Like Galindo, Bichir came to the US illegally. The US amnesty program in 1986 put him on the road to a Green Card.

NEW NAME: The theater that hosts the Oscars will be called the Dolby Theatre following a sponsorship deal with the audio technology company Dolby Laboratories Inc. NEW LEASE: In a separate deal, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences revealed a new agreement to keep the annual Oscars extravaganza there for 20 more years. HISTORY: The posh four-level, 3,400-seat theater, formerly known as the Kodak Theatre, has been home to the Academy Awards since 2002. A bankruptcy court judge approved the early exit of 131-year-old Eastman Kodak Co. from a 20-year naming rights deal it signed...

The Oscars will be in Dolby. The CIM Group, which owns the Hollywood & Highland Center, announced a 20-year deal on Tuesday with the audio technology company Dolby Laboratories Inc. to rename the Academy Awards venue as the Dolby Theatre. In a separate deal, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences revealed a new agreement to keep the annual Oscars extravaganza at the theater for 20 more years. "We are thrilled that Dolby is now the name of the theater because Dolby stands for excellence," said Tom Sherak, president of the motion picture academy.

The wildlife footage is astounding in DisneyNature's new documentary "Chimpanzee. " Legendary primatologist Jane Goodall is on board as both spokeswoman for and beneficiary of the film, and a portion of opening-week ticket sales will be donated to her research. In general, the more young people who see the film, the more who will be made aware of a fascinating, complicated near-relative whose numbers are dwindling rapidly. Does all this mean "Chimpanzee" has to be so Disneyfied?

The wildlife footage is astounding in DisneyNature's new documentary "Chimpanzee. " Legendary primatologist Jane Goodall is on board as both spokeswoman for and beneficiary of the film, and a portion of opening-week ticket sales will be donated to her research. In general, the more young people who see the film, the more who will be made aware of a fascinating, complicated near-relative whose numbers are dwindling rapidly. Does all this mean "Chimpanzee" has to be so Disneyfied?

It's been stuck in my head for weeks like a psychotic episode: "My Heart Will Go On," Celine Dion's big, bombastic ballad from "Titanic. " Now that James Cameron has finally released the 3-D redo of his 1997 shipwreck epic — the winner of 11 Academy Awards, including best original song — it still won't go away. It goes on … and on … But we're all about turning a negative into a positive around here, so we're using this as an opportunity to talk about five other great winners of the best original song Oscar.

It is not unprecedented for inanimate objects to receive a Best Supporting Actor nod for an Academy Award, and if Mark Wahlberg's Oscar-nominated performance for the 2009 film ‘‘The Departed" just popped into your mind, well, that Boston accent was a bit rough for a proud son of Dorchester. So perhaps the thought ventures only slightly beyond the whimsical to suggest that Fenway Park, a frequent star of television and film and a pop culture icon for at least the most recent decades among its 100 years, deserves Oscar consideration.

SYDNEY - Oscar-nominated Australian actress Diane Cilento, who was once married to James Bond actor Sean Connery, has died in northern Australia, an official said yesterday. She was 78. Ms. Cilento - a veteran of dozens of films, television shows, and stage productions - died Thursday night, said Anna Bligh, premier of Queensland state. No cause of death was given. The Queensland-born actress rose to fame in the 1950s and 1960s, starring alongside screen legends such as Charlton Heston and Paul Newman.

Viola Davis has spent the last six months defending herself and her movie in a way I've never known an Academy Award nominee to have to do. She tussled with Tavis Smiley. She was candid with The Wall Street Journal. Alongside Charlize Theron and George Clooney on a Newsweek panel, she was searching and blunt. Davis isn't running for office. She didn't ruin the economy. She's not trying to get some new piece of legislation passed. All Viola Davis did was play a maid. All she's about to do (probably)

At the Academy Awards a few weeks ago, there was a close call on the red carpet. A husky high school football coach from Memphis was improbably mingling with acting royalty, because his team was the subject of a little film nominated in the feature-length documentary category. The coach turned away from Ryan Seacrest "and damn near knocked George Clooney over," he recalls. Clooney took one look at redheaded Bill Courtney and said, "Well, hey, coach!" "At that point I recognized this thing had gone way beyond any of our expectations," says Courtney.

Awake 10 p.m., Channel 7 This new police-procedural-with-a-twist didn't do big numbers out of the box last week, but the intriguing new Jason Isaacs double-life drama did do better than several other recent denizens of this timeslot, including "Prime Suspect" and "The Playboy Club. " Hopefully, that will be enough to keep it on the air as we learn more about what's happening in Detective Michael Britten's two worlds. In this episode, he searches for a "little guy. " Saving Face 8:30 p.m., HBO The TV premiere of this powerful film should draw more notice since it...