Memorable moments from the 75th annual Academy Awards held March 23: “¢bull; “The Pianist’s” surprising triumph in Best Actor, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay Miramax’s dual campaigning for “Chicago” and “Gangs of New York” may have split the Best Director vote for Rob Marshall and Martin Scorcese, clinching the award for the infamous Roman Polanski. Read more...

This guy can stand the heat. Louis Horvitz, UCLA alumnus, will direct the Academy Awards for the seventh time this year. He may feel pressure from the breakneck production schedule and the impending telecast’s 3-hour time frame, but experience keeps him cool. Read more...

Bending and twisting, shaking and shouting, 38-year-old actor and comedian John Leguizamo’s mother is spanking him with her chancleta (a flip-flop sandal). With a backdrop of hundreds of twinkling lights, his jerking body moves to a danceable beat. Read more...

Best Picture will win: Chicago should win: The Hours The race is essentially between “Chicago” and “The Hours.” Though “The Hours” is full of great performances and simmering emotion, “Chicago” looks a lot more like what a best picture should be: a box office success, full of applause-worthy great performances, and it’s a respectable period piece hailing from a time-honored Broadway musical. Read more...

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10. Alfonso Cuaron “Y Tu Mama Tambien” is a great teenage road movie, and Cuaron, who is nominated for writing the film with his brother Carlos, also did a great job directing it. Read more...

During a span of seven years in the 1960s and 1970s, actor Cheng Pei-pei made twenty-some films that redefined the Chinese martial arts film, starting with King Hu’s 1966 film “Come Drink With Me.” “I did a lot of movies but no one recognizes them (as much as) “˜Come Drink With Me,'” Cheng said. Read more...