Debut actresses do well at Oscars; not so for men (AP)

LOS ANGELES – The Academy Awards have been kind to actresses making their big-screen debuts. But men in debut performances? Not so much.

With her supporting-actress nomination for the Western "True Grit," 14-year-old Hailee Steinfeld is the 73rd first-time performer to compete for an Oscar in the show's 83-year history.

Fifty-year-old veteran Melissa Leo is considered the favorite to win supporting actress for "The Fighter." But Steinfeld is nominated in the category that has been especially competitive for beginners — and for child actors.

Of the 72 previous Hollywood novices nominated for Oscars, 31 were up for supporting actress. Eight won, including Jennifer Hudson for 2006's "Dreamgirls," Eva Marie Saint for 1954's "On the Waterfront" and Jo Van Fleet for 1955's "East of Eden."

Two first-timers who won supporting actress were even younger than Steinfeld — 10-year-old Tatum O'Neal for 1973's "Paper Moon" and 11-year-old Anna Paquin for 1993's "The Piano." The only other child actor to win an Oscar, 16-year-old Patty Duke, also earned it in the supporting-actress category, for 1962's "The Miracle Worker."

Men in debut roles have earned 22 nominations for supporting actor, but only one took the Oscar, Haing S. Ngor for 1984's "The Killing Fields" (that was a fruitful year for male big-screen debuts; along with Ngor, two others were nominated for supporting actor, Adolph Caesar in "A Soldier's Story" and John Malkovich in "Places in the Heart").

Sixteen lead actresses picked up Oscar nominations for their first films, most recently, Gabourey Sidibe a year ago for "Precious." Four first-timers won best-actress Oscars: Marlee Matlin for 1986's "Children of a Lesser God," Barbra Streisand for 1968's "Funny Girl," Julie Andrews for 1964's "Mary Poppins" and Shirley Booth for 1952's "Come Back, Little Sheba."

Best-actor nominations have been hard to come by for men in their first big-screen jobs. Only three have been nominated: Lawrence Tibbett for 1930's "The Rogue Song," Orson Welles for 1941's "Citizen Kane" and Montgomery Clift for 1948's "The Search." All three lost.

With "Citizen Kane," Welles also was the first of 21 first-time filmmakers to earn best-director nominations (he lost that one, too, though he did win for original screenplay).

Six first-time filmmakers won the best-directing Oscar, including Robert Redford for 1980's "Ordinary People" and Kevin Costner for 1990's "Dances With Wolves."

Among other supporting players earning Oscar nominations for their first time on screen are Oprah Winfrey (1985's "The Color Purple"), Glenn Close (1982's "The World According to Garp"), Edward Norton (1996's "Primal Fear"), Mikhail Baryshnikov (1977's "The Turning Point"), Lily Tomlin (1975's "Nashville"), Angela Lansbury (1944's "Gaslight") and Sydney Greenstreet (1941's "The Maltese Falcon").

Other best-actress nominees for debut roles include Catalina Sandino Moreno (2004's "Maria Full of Grace"), Keisha Castle-Hughes (2003's "Whale Rider"), Emily Watson (1996's "Breaking the Waves"), Julie Walters (1983's "Educating Rita"), Martha Scott (1940's "Our Town") and Greer Garson (1939's "Goodbye, Mr. Chips").

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Industry tried to get doc disqualified from Oscars (AP)

ALLENTOWN, Pa. – The natural gas industry has spent months attacking the documentary "Gasland" as a deeply flawed piece of propaganda. After it was nominated for an Oscar, an industry-sponsored PR group asked the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to reconsider the film's eligibility.

The reply: Let Oscar voters have their say.

"We do not have the resources to vet each claim or implication in the many (documentary) films that compete for our awards each year, and even if we did there would be no shortage of people disputing our conclusions," Bruce Davis, the academy's executive director, wrote in a reply obtained by The Associated Press.

"Gasland" is up for best documentary at Sunday's Academy Awards ceremony. Director Josh Fox's dark portrayal of greedy energy companies, sickened homeowners and oblivious regulators has stirred heated debate among the various stakeholders in a natural gas boom that is sweeping parts of the U.S. The film has galvanized anti-drilling activists while drawing complaints about its accuracy and objectivity.

In a letter to the academy, Lee Fuller, the executive director of an industry-sponsored group named Energy In Depth, called "Gasland" an "expression of stylized fiction" with "errors, inconsistencies and outright falsehoods."

He asked the academy to consider "remedial actions" against the film.

Davis, the executive director, wrote to Fuller that if the academy were to act on every complaint made about a nominated film, "it would not be possible even to have a documentary category." He said the academy must "trust the intelligence of our members" to sort out fact from fiction.

"If facts have been suppressed or distorted, if truth has been twisted, we depend on them to sniff that out and vote accordingly," he wrote.

The letter was given to the AP by Energy in Depth, whose spokesman, Chris Tucker, said the group had no expectation that "Gasland" would actually be disqualified from Oscar consideration. The point, he said, was to educate academy voters.

"I think it's a fairly good bet that a large majority of the folks who are going to be voting on this film don't have a background in petroleum engineering," quipped Tucker, who put together a 4,000-word rebuttal of "Gasland" last summer.

Fox said the industry's campaign against "Gasland" has backfired.

"What they're doing is calling more attention to the film, so I think it works against them," the director said from Los Angeles. "But I think it shows how aggressive they are, how bullying they are, and how willing they are to lie to promote the falsehood that it's OK to live in a gas drilling area."

The documentary category is no stranger to controversy. Michael Moore films like "Bowling for Columbine" and "Sicko," as well as Al Gore's 2006 global-warming tale, "An Inconvenient Truth," have likewise been attacked as biased and inaccurate.

Like Moore, Fox defends his film as accurate. But he rejects comparisons to the bombastic, ideological director.

"What they're trying to do is make ('Gasland') look like a liberal, elite, Michael Moore thing, which of course it isn't. It's bipartisan," he said.

Fox, a 38-year-old New York City theater director, took an interest in drilling after a gas company approached him in 2008 about leasing his family's wooded 20-acre spread in Milanville, near the Delaware River in northeastern Pennsylvania, where he has lived off-and-on since childhood.

Camera in hand, he went on a cross-country tour of places where large-scale drilling is already under way, interviewing residents who say they were sickened by nearby drilling operations and aiming his lens at diseased livestock and flammable tap water that he also blames on gas industry malfeasance.

Though it had a tiny theatrical run, Fox has taken "Gasland" on the road for screenings in more than 100 towns and cities throughout the U.S., England and Australia. It has also aired on HBO.

"The point was to get the film to the people who needed it most, who were in the middle of making these decisions" on whether to lease their land for drilling, Fox said.

Fox isn't the only Oscar nominee critical of natural gas drilling. Mark Ruffalo, who was nominated for the supporting actor award for "The Kids Are All Right," lives in upstate New York, where there's a fierce debate over gas extraction, and has emerged as a high-profile anti-drilling activist.

Energy In Depth's Tucker said he plans to watch Sunday's Academy Awards telecast, but doesn't think the award ceremony will be the end of the discussion.

"If it wins the Oscar, the conversation continues on," Tucker said. "If it doesn't win the Oscar, the conversation continues on."

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The bumpy budget road to Oscars glory (AFP)

HOLLYWOOD (AFP) – Winning an Oscar will taste even sweeter for some films up for Hollywood's highest honors Sunday -- many less commercial movies struggle to get financed, and will savor success all the more intensely.

"Investing in independent films are financially very speculative, and generally anybody with a modicum of sanity stays away from them," said Jeffrey Levy-Hinte, producer of "The Kids are All Right."

The lesbian parenting film is on the 10-strong shortlist for best picture Oscar -- at least half of which, including frontrunner "The King's Speech," had to battle financially just to get off the ground.

The British historical drama, in the running for 12 Oscars, only made it because the powerful Weinstein brothers took a shine to the film's screenplay, about the stammering George VI.

The same goes for boxing movie "The Fighter," which was saved when mini-major Relativity Media put $25 million on the table after the initial investor Paramount pulled out, as did many of the original actors.

Films like Facebook movie "The Social Network" -- vying to edge out frontrunner "The King's Speech" at the Academy Awards -- were always expected to be box office hits, but for others prospects were less clear.

"The financing of 'Kids' was a long and winding road. Over the years studio divisions were interested, but ultimately none of them would greenlight the movie," recalled Levy-Hinte.

"In 2005 we entered preproduction only to have our financing evaporate. Ultimately, we brought in Celine Rattray who worked with us to bring in UGC-PH, Gilbert Films, and a dozen other equity investors to finance the movie."

The producer acknowledged that without the major league cast -- Julianne Moore, Annette Bening and Mark Ruffalo -- the film could never have been financed.

"Without a first rate and recognizable cast there would be no possibility of financing the film, and even after we assembled our incomparable cast, we were only able to raise about 5 million dollars," he added.

In the end they had to make the movie in 23 days.

"At this breakneck schedule .. we had to greatly simplify the production of the film. The performances were never compromised, but we did not have the luxury of creating a more elevated, cinematic approach to the film," he said.

"We are looking forward to the next film where I anticipate more ample resources."

Meanwhile, "Black Swan," the disturbing ballet thriller for which Natalie Portman is tipped to win best actress Oscar, faced a similarly bumpy path when trying to get off the ground.

"We thought that we had a deal with somebody and they fell out at the last minute," said producer Mike Medavoy, recalling how investors Cross Creek came in the last minute.

"As usual in this kind of movie, it's really hard to put the financing together."

Even having director Darren Aronofsky -- who made the Oscar-nominated "The Wrestler" with Mickey Rourke in 2008 -- did not especially help.

"Nobody could have said that Aronofsky was about to do a movie that has done over 205 million dollars at this moment. Nobody in his right mind would have said that," said Medavoy.

He said films with medium-sized budgets -- around $20 millions -- "are always more difficult, because there is so much money to be spent on advertising and marketing.

"It's usually ten times the amount that you spend on making the movie. You really have to thread the needle. In this case, 'Black Swan' is a perfect example of a movie that threads the needle," he added.

Levy-Hinte lamented: "Every year it seems that financing is getting more difficult, and 'Kids' was by far the most difficult film that I have tried to finance.

"My hope is that we have reached the low point and the next one will be easier. That said I am not interested in making formulaic films that fit into the financiers preconceptions, and thus it probably will never be that easy."

Medavoy added: "I'm on my 214th movie and it's always difficult. There's always been a balance between the business and the artistic part of it.

"I'm never surprised in this business. It has always been difficult. If you look at almost every film that has won the Academy award, whether it's 'Amadeus,' 'Platoon,' 'Rocky,' 'Cuckoo's Nest,' they are all difficult films."

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Details of dramatic changes for Oscars telecast (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – The Oscars are entering the world of virtual reality.

This year's Academy Awards telecast is taking a radical departure from past years. Producers of the February 27 show are abandoning the concept of a traditional set. Instead, they will rely on a series of "projections" to give the show a constantly changing look.

"Our design this year is actually going to reflect more content than you would usually expect of an awards show of this type," producer Don Mischer told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview with fellow producer Bruce Cohen in the Kodak Theater. "We're using our environment to take us to different places, different times, and it will change dramatically. The look will change from act to act."

Producers plan to take viewers on a trip through Hollywood history.

"We're doing six or seven scenic transitions during the show, but they are each sort of a different concept," Cohen explained. "In other words, one might be a scene from a film, one might be a more specific time in history, one might be a specific event, one might be a specific genre. The hope is that we briefly leave the Kodak in 2011 -- not literally, but metaphorically -- and take the audience, both in the room and on television, to a specific time and place."

Pressed for more detail, Cohen added, "This is the tenth anniversary of the best animated feature Oscar, so we go to an animated environment to present that Oscar -- actually two, animated feature and animated short -- but the reason we are there is to celebrate that this is the tenth anniversary of the best animated feature Oscar."

The transitions, Mischer explained, will not be long segments, but 30-45 second set-ups. "We are not going back to teach history, but to put the awards in context."

The design scheme grew out of the theme that the two producers devised once they began working on the show back in June. In an extensive review of past broadcasts, they were struck by the two-fold nature of the assignment. On the one hand, they have to come up with something new and different. On the other, they wanted to recognize the previous 82 years of Oscar history.

"Is there any way to approach the show where those two ideas are working together and not fighting each other with every single decision?" they asked themselves. The solution, they decided, was somehow to combine the old and the new.

To that end, they cast Anne Hathaway and James Franco -- two of the youngest hosts to ever front the Oscars -- as audience surrogates for the journey.

"Yes, they are famous, but they are on their way up," Cohen said of the two stars. "They are not untouchable, they are not unreachable. We hope they will offer a way in. So everyone come along, and we'll see through the eyes of these two up-and-coming stars."

The hosts' job, he said, will be "to take the audience on this journey of a show that will hopefully start in one place, and if it all goes according to plan, it will take you back to where we started at the end."

To realize that on stage visually, the producers have been working with production designer Steve Bass, who's previously worked with Mischer on such shows as the "62nd Primetime Emmy Awards" and "We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial."

While the production has moved into the Kodak to set up the show, it's been using the daytime hours to hang the physical scenery on which the projections will be displayed, and then during the night another team has been programing the projections. Working throughout this weekend, the goal is to have the whole system up-and-running by Monday.

(Editing by Zorianna Kit)

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