Searching...

THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST MOVIE

By Nicole Sperling

Since the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences sent out a " Save the Date" notice last week inviting its entire 6,000-person membership to an unprecedented general meeting, Hollywood has been buzzing about just what would be on the agenda.

Now, academy President Hawk Koch is unveiling his motives for calling the confab.

"It's about time the academy is finally doing this, " said, koch, a longtime Board of Governors member whose term as president will end in August after one year, due to academy term limit rules. "The membership has been asking about this for many, many years. It's a good thing to do and I was lucky enough to be president this year where I was pushing for as many changes as I could make."

PHOTOS: Movies Sneaks 2013

According to the invitation that went out Thursday, the academy intends to update the members on the latest developments surrounding the academy's new movie museum being built on the campus of LACMA; electronic voting for the Oscars; and how the organization intends to deal with new technology, both as it relates to the awards distributed at the annual telecast and how it effects the membership at large.

The meeting will be held at the samuel Goldwyn Theater at the academy headquarters on Saturday morning, May 4, and simulcast to the Lighthouse International theater in New York and to Pixar Studios in Emeryville, Calif. Koch, academy Chief Executive Dawn Hudson and academy Chief Operating Officer Ric Robertson will make a formal presentation followed by a question-and-answer period.



The academy is requesting that members submit questions ahead of time in an effort "to increase communication" and "to hear what's important to you," the invite said.

Koch is optimistic that the event will " be a full house," and hopes members submit a lot of questions ahead of time. "We want to address what the majority of our members are asking about," he said.

One academy member said he was encouraged by the meeting, hoping that it would delve into issues being presented by the new technologies that are creeping into every area of film-making.

"Most of the guilds have at least one annual, membership meeting, "said the member. 'Why not AMPAS?"








Academy raises $100 million for movie museum project 

The long-awaited movie museum in Hollywood moves another step closer to fruition with the announcement today by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that it has raised its first $100 million in its goal to generate $250 million towards the new institution.

The academy also announced its vision for the museum, slated to open in 2016, by architects Renzo Piano and Zoltan Pali, which will include the complete restoration of the old May Co. building-- a 1938 Streamline Modern structure -- located on Wilshire and Fairfax. It was purchased by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and its 300,000 square feet of space will house the academy museum.

Oscars 2013: Ang Lee is worthy, but better than Steven Spielberg?
Now that the dust has settled and cold reality has replaced airy speculation, it's clearer than ever that as far as the 2013 best picture Oscar was concerned, Hollywood's directors gave and took away.

Not content with being the powers on the set, the 300-some members of the director's branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences demonstrated power of another kind. By setting into motion what has come to be known as the Year of the Snub, they left two key directors off of their nominations list and sealed the fates of both pictures involved, elevating one and all but burying the other

 
World Latest Article New Trends by DevaNaresh