Reading-born Kate’s turn in The Reader was clearly a hit with readers, whose votes awarded her the best actress title with 51 per cent. This year’s ceremony might be the lucky one for the actress, who’s been nominated five times but always walked away empty handed. She pipped Changeling actress Angelina Jolie – who garnered 35 per cent – into second place.

The biggest winner of our poll was Heath, who blew all the other best supporting actor contenders out of the water. He’s hotly tipped to win a posthumous Oscar, and you clearly agreed, awarding him a staggering 78 per cent. Robert Downey Jr came in second, while Phillip Seymor Hoffman took third.

Voters may have predicted one of the night’s big shocks if the Academy agrees that Brad Pitt, rather than hot favourite Mickey Rourke, should be the man adding a best actor statuette to his mantelpiece. With just over half of the vote on his side the screen idol left The Wrestler star trailing behind with just under a quarter of the vote. And Sean Penn came in third with 18 per cent.

Brad’s movie The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button proved almost as popular. It took the top spot in our best film section with 41 per cent. Coming second, meanwhile, was multiple Academy Award nominee Slumdog Millionaire.

Vicky Christina Barcelona cast member Penelope Cruz took 42 per cent of the best supporting actress votes, making her the favourite to win, ahead of Doubt actress Amy Adams who took a 18 per cent.

Originally posted in hellomagazine.com

The 2009 Grand Trophy winners include Munich, Germany’s klink, liedig werbeagentur gmbh, winning the Grand Award for “We Love Cinema” in the Business Theater category for Germany’s Tele 5. The winning piece was created to engage viewers and brand the new station as the preferred movie channel. Mexico City, Mexico’s Televisa SA de CV won the Grand for “Imaginantes Serrat, Cortazar” in the Craft: Animation category. The award-winning entry used bold animation to introduce the audience to a different way of looking at television. Wilder of London, England was awarded the Grand Trophy in the Short Film category for their entry “Ripple,” a black comedy about the randomness of fate and the results of one malicious act. Gothenburg, Sweden’s Stark Film & Event took home the Grand in the Industrial Productions: Internal Use category for their film titled “Night at the Elyseum,” a historic piece celebrating 100 years of the electrical network Goteborg Energi AB Nat.

For the second year in a row, England’s The Edge Picture Company swept the awards, taking home the title of Production Company of the Year. The London-based company was awarded 6 Gold Medals, 3 Silver, 5 Bronze and 7 Finalist Certificates. Entries receiving Gold Medals in the category of Industrial Productions: Internal Use, include: “Our Story,” for agri-business client Syngenta, “The Impossible Story,” for professional services firm Deloitte, depicting a 3D pop-up book brought to life, and “Make It Happen,” for the financial organization RBS Group. “Make It Happen” also won a second Gold Medal in the Craft: Cinematography category. The following entries received Gold Medals in the Industrial Productions: Public Relations category: “Dreams,” a piece created for Thompson, the travel company, to help employees change the way they see the world, and “Opening Doors,” a film about domestic abuse for Surrey Domestic Abuse Outreach Service.

The 2009 NYF International Film and Video Awards received entries from 30 countries spanning 5 continents. The competition honors “The World’s Best Work™” in feature-length, short and documentary films, informational, educational, corporate and industrial film productions, home video, and student productions.

All entries were judged by a panel of industry experts, including producers, directors, writers and other media professionals. All winning entries are promoted by our network of representatives in 62 countries around the world.
Originally posted by Gayle Mandel at MarketWire.com.

Oscar trophy trend, fact or fiction?

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) – Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt almost certainly are strong contenders in the best actor award category — shining, word has it, in their respective upcoming movies, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and “Revolutionary Road.”
But they and others might be up against a subtle force they can do little about in the best actor race: Oscar award voters tend to favor actors playing real people.

In the past six best actor races, there were three years in which an actor playing a real person was nominated for an award alongside actors portraying fictional characters, and each time the actor playing a true-life person won the award. You have to go all the way back to the awards for 2001 to find a counter-example: Denzel Washington’s victory for playing Alonzo Harris in “Training Day,” which bested Will Smith as Muhammad Ali and Russell Crowe as John Nash. Otherwise, it was actors playing real-life figures — Ray Charles, Idi Amin, Truman Capote — who took the statue award.

This year that means if even one from among the stellar group that includes Frank Langella (as Richard Nixon), Sean Penn (as Harvey Milk) and Josh Brolin (as George W. Bush) lands a best actor award nomination, everyone else will have to weigh that added factor.

Best actress favors real personnages even more; the statuette award has gone to women playing real people six of the eight years this decade. But with frontrunners such as Meryl Steep, Nicole Kidman and Sally Hawkins taking on fictional roles this go-round, this year may break form.

It’s hard to pinpoint what makes Oscar trophy award voters tilt this way. But one likely factor is a frame of reference: Philip Seymour Hoffman acting and sounding like Capote probably will move the voter more than Terrence Howard’s acting and sounding like Djay from “Hustle & Flow,” a person the Academy Award member has never seen outside the movie (and hasn’t seen at all if they’ve never seen the movie).

Plus, there’s the impersonation factor: How could a voter not think Jamie Foxx is good; he even looks like Charles.

It wasn’t always this way. In the 1990s, fictional characters bested real people in the best actor award category seven out of nine times they went up against one another. And an actress playing a real person won the award only twice in the 1990s.

So what’s changed?

For one thing, the rise of celebrity culture. The TMZs of the world have made it harder to separate actors from their roles since we now know them as real people — unless they’re playing other real people, in which case voters can identify with the person they’re playing.

Even if DiCaprio and Pitt are unable to buck the recent trend favoring real-life portrayals, they can take solace in the likelihood they’ll have other shots at the top prize award. But the seeming voter bias toward real-life bios could also impact a few once-in-a-lifetime performances. Those include the comeback for Mickey Rourke, whose Randy the Ram in “The Wrestler” is a tragic figure to rival Willy Loman; Richard Jenkins, whose understated Walter Vale in “The Visitor” is exquisitely subtle; and Christian Bale, whose Batman in “The Dark Knight” is so darkly evocative.

Originally written by Steven Zeitchik, The Hollywood Reporter