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Sunday, February 25, 2007

Oscars 2007

79th ANNUAL ACADEMY AWARDS

........ and the nominees for 2007 are .........

BEST PICTURE
“Babel”“The Departed”“Letters from Iwo Jima”“Little Miss Sunshine”“The Queen”
BEST ACTOR
Leonardo DiCaprio in “Blood Diamond” Ryan Gosling in “Half Nelson” Peter O'Toole in “Venus” Will Smith in “The Pursuit of Happyness”Forest Whitaker in “The Last King of Scotland”
BEST ACTRESS
Penélope Cruz in “Volver” Judi Dench in “Notes on a Scandal”Helen Mirren in “The Queen” Meryl Streep in “The Devil Wears Prada” Kate Winslet in “Little Children”
BEST DIRECTING
“Babel” Alejandro González Iñárritu“The Departed” Martin Scorsese “Letters from Iwo Jima” Clint Eastwood “The Queen” Stephen Frears “United 93” Paul Greengrass

This star-studded extravaganza will be beamed live from the Kodak Theater in Hollywood over on ntv7 at 8am, beginning with a half-hour red carpet arrivals segment, The Road to the Oscars. The station will also show a repeat of the awards ceremony at 8.30pm on the same day.

OSCAR FACTS: The official name of the Oscar statuette is the "Academy Award® of Merit."
- Each statuette stands 13½ inches tall and weighs 8½ pounds.
- Each statuette is cast in brittania, a metal alloy, and is then plated in copper, nickel, silver, and finally, 24-karat gold.
- It was designed by Cedric Gibbons, chief art director at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
- The Oscar statuette depicts a knight holding a crusader's sword, standing on a reel of film. The film reel features five spokes, signifying the five original branches of the Academy (actors, directors, producers, technicians and writers.)
- How Oscar received his nickname is not exactly clear.The most popular story is that Margaret Herrick, an Academy librarian and eventual executive director, remarked that the statuette resembled her Uncle Oscar, and the Academy staff began to refer to it as Oscar.
-The name Oscar was only officially used in 1939.
-The Oscar statuette is arguably the most recognized award in the world.