80th Annual Academy Awards Presented Feb. 24; Chenoweth Sings Menken-Schwartz

By Andrew Gans
February 24, 2008

Emmy Award winner Jon Stewart hosts the 80th Academy Awards telecast, which will be broadcast live Feb. 24 from the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood and Highland Center on ABC-TV.

The half-hour red carpet arrivals will be telecast beginning at 8 PM ET. Regis Philbin, Samantha Harris, Shaun Robinson, executive producer Gil Cates and producer Dennis Doty will co-host the 30-minute segment that features interviews with the various stars as they arrive for the film world's biggest night of the year.

(This year, red-carpet mavens Joan and Melissa Rivers will bring their their signature Oscar-night commentary to AOL's StyleList.com.)

Presenters for the Academy Awards, which begins at 8:30 PM, include Alan Arkin, Jennifer Hudson, Helen Mirren, Forest Whitaker, Amy Adams, Jessica Alba, Cate Blanchett, Josh Brolin, Steve Carel, George Clooney, Penelope Cruz, Miley Cyrus, Patrick Dempsey, Cameron Diaz, Colin Farrell, Harrison Ford, Jennifer Garner, Tom Hanks, Anne Hathaway, Katherine Heigl, Jonah Hill, Dwayne Johnson, Nicole Kidman, James McAvoy, Queen Latifah, Seth Rogen, Martin Scorsese, Hilary Swank, John Travolta, Denzel Washington and Renee Zellweger.

Tony Award winner Kristin Chenoweth, who has been busy this past season delivering cheese-infused pies on the acclaimed ABC series "Pushing Daisies," will perform on the Oscar program. The Broadway favorite will duet with Marlon Saunders on the Oscar-nominated Alan Menken-Stephen Schwartz song "That's How You Know" from the film "Enchanted." Amy Adams, who stars in "Enchanted," will also perform a song from the film, Menken and Schwartz's "Happy Working Song." The third Oscar-nominated "Enchanted" song, "So Close," will be performed by Jon McLaughlin.

Other performers will include Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova (singing "Falling Slowly" from "Once") and Jamia Simone Nash, who will be joined by the IMPACT Repertory Theatre of Harlem on the song "Raise It Up" from the film "August Rush."

Nominations for the 80th Annual Academy Awards were announced Jan. 22 at the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater in California. Although Tim Burton's acclaimed version of "Sweeney Todd" picked up a Golden Globe Award for Best Picture-Musical or Comedy, the film of the Stephen Sondheim-Hugh Wheeler musical failed to pick up an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture. The movie musical, however, did earn its star, Johnny Depp — who played the Demon Barber of Fleet Street — a Best Actor nomination. "Sweeney Todd" was also nominated for Art Direction and Achievement in Costume Design.

Other nominees of interest to theatre fans: Laura Linney, soon to return to the New York stage in the revival of Les Liaisons Dangereuses, was nommed in the category of Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role for her work in "The Savages"; her competitors in that category include Cate Blanchett ("Elizabeth: The Golden Age"), Julie Christie ("Away from Her"), Marion Cotillard ("La Vie en Rose") and Ellen Page ("Juno"). Stage veteran Ruby Dee was nominated for a supporting Oscar for her performance in "American Gangster"; she will compete for the prize in a field that includes Cate Blanchett("I'm Not There"), Saoirse Ronan ("Atonement"), Amy Ryan ("Gone Baby Gone") and Tilda Swinton ("Michael Clayton"). The Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role category also includes two actors who have spent much time on the stage, Philip Seymour Hoffman ("Charlie Wilson's War") and Hal Holbrook ("Into the Wild"); their competitors include Casey Affleck ("The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford"), Javier Bardem "No Country for Old Men") and Tom Wilkinson (“Michael Clayton").

Joel Cohen and Ethan Cohen — whose trio of plays, Almost an Evening, recently played the Atlantic Theater Company and will move to a commercial Off-Broadway run — were nominated for Academy Awards in three categories for their film "No Country for Old Men": Best Motion Picture of the Year, Achievement in Directing and Best Adapted Screenplay. The latter category also includes nominees Christopher Hampton ("Atonement") and Ronald Harwood ("The Diving Bell and the Butterfly") as well as Sarah Polley ("Away From Her") and Paul Thomas Anderson ("There Will Be Blood").

Nominees for the annual Academy Awards follow: (Winners name are in bold preceded by an asterisk.)

Nominees for the annual Academy Awards follow: (Winners name are in bold preceded by an asterisk.)

Best Picture
"Atonement"
"Juno"
"Michael Clayton"
*"No Country for Old Men"
"There Will Be Blood"

Best Director
Julian Schnabel, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
Jason Reitman, "Juno"
Tony Gilroy, "Michael Clayton"
*Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, "No Country for Old Men"
Paul Thomas Anderson, "There Will Be Blood"

Best Actor
George Clooney, "Michael Clayton"
*Daniel Day-Lewis, "There Will Be Blood"
Johnny Depp, "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street"
Tommy Lee Jones, "In the Valley of Elah"
Viggo Mortensen, "Eastern Promises"

Best Actress
Cate Blanchett, "Elizabeth: The Golden Age"
Julie Christie, "Away From Her"
*Marion Cotillard, "La Vie en Rose"
Laura Linney, "The Savages"
Ellen Page, "Juno"

Best Supporting Actor
Casey Affleck, "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford"
*Javier Bardem, "No Country for Old Men"
Phililp Seymour Hoffman, "Charlie Wilson's War"
Hal Holbrook, "Into the Wild"
Tom Wilkinson, "Michael Clayton"

Best Supporting Actress
Cate Blanchett, "I'm Not There"
Ruby Dee, "American Gangster"
Saiorse Ronan, "Atonement"
Amy Ryan, "Gone Baby Gone"
*Tilda Swinton, "Michael Clayton"

Best Foreign Film
"Beaufort" (Israel)"
*"Counterfeiters" (Austria)
"Katyn" (Poland)
"Mongol" (Kazakhstan)
"12" (Russia)

Best Original Screenplay
*Diablo Cody, "Juno"
Nancy Oliver, "Lars and the Real Girl"
Tony Gilroy, "Michael Clayton"
Brad Bird, "Ratatouille"
Tamara Jenkins, "The Savages"

Best Adapted Screenplay
Christopher Hampton, "Atonement"
Sarah Polley, "Away From Her"
Ronald Harwood, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"
*Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, "No Country for Old Men"
Paul Thomas Anderson, "There Will Be Blood"

Best Animated Feature Film
"Persepolis"
*"Ratatouille"
"Surf's Up"

Best Art Direction
"American Gangster"
"Atonement"
"The Golden Compass"
*"Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street"
"There Will Be Blood"

Achievement in Cinematography
"The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" Roger Deakins
"Atonement" Seamus McGarvey
"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" Janusz Kaminski
"No Country for Old Men" Roger Deakins
*"There Will Be Blood" Robert Elswit

Achievement in Costume Design
"Across the Universe" Albert Wolsky
"Atonement" Jacqueline Durran
*"Elizabeth: The Golden Age" Alexandra Byrne
"La Vie en Rose" Marit Allen
"Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" Colleen Atwood

Best Documentary Feature
"No End in Sight" (Magnolia Pictures)
"Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience" (The Documentary Group)
"Sicko" (Lionsgate and The Weinstein Company)
*"Taxi to the Dark Side" (THINKFilm)
"War/Dance" (THINKFilm)

Best Documentary Short Subject
*"Freeheld"
"La Corona (The Crown)"
"Salim Baba"
"Sari's Mother" (Cinema Guild)

Achievement in Film Editing
*"The Bourne Ultimatum" Christopher Rouse
"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" Juliette Welfling
"Into the Wild" Jay Cassidy
"No Country for Old Men" Roderick Jaynes
"There Will Be Blood" Dylan Tichenor

Achievement in Makeup
*"La Vie en Rose" Didier Lavergne and Jan Archibald
"Norbit" Rick Baker and Kazuhiro Tsuji
"Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" Ve Neill and Martin Samuel

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)
*"Atonement" Dario Marianelli
"The Kite Runner" Alberto Iglesias
"Michael Clayton" James Newton Howard
"Ratatouille" Michael Giacchino
"3:10 to Yuma" Marco Beltrami

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)
*"Falling Slowly" from "Once"
Music and Lyric by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova

"Happy Working Song" from "Enchanted"
Music by Alan Menken
Lyric by Stephen Schwartz

"Raise It Up" from "August Rush"
Music and Lyric by Jamal Joseph, Charles Mack and Tevin Thomas

"So Close" from "Enchanted"
Music by Alan Menken
Lyric by Stephen Schwartz

"That's How You Know" from "Enchanted"
Music by Alan Menken
Lyric by Stephen Schwartz

Best animated short film
"I Met the Walrus"
"Madame Tutli-Putli"
"Même Les Pigeons Vont au Paradis (Even Pigeons Go to Heaven)"
"My Love (Moya Lyubov)"
*"Peter & the Wolf"

Best live action short film
"At Night"
"Il Supplente (The Substitute)"
*"Le Mozart des Pickpockets (The Mozart of Pickpockets)"
"Tanghi Argentini"
"The Tonto Woman"

Achievement in sound editing
*"The Bourne Ultimatum" Karen Baker Landers and Per Hallberg
"No Country for Old Men" Skip Lievsay
"Ratatouille" Randy Thom and Michael Silvers
"There Will Be Blood" Matthew Wood
"Transformers" Ethan Van der Ryn and Mike Hopkins

Achievement in sound mixing
*"The Bourne Ultimatum" Scott Millan, David Parker and Kirk Francis
"No Country for Old Men" Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff and Peter Kurland
"Ratatouille" Randy Thom, Michael Semanick and Doc Kane
"3:10 to Yuma" Paul Massey, David Giammarco and Jim Stuebe
"Transformers" Kevin O’Connell, Greg P. Russell and Peter J. Devlin

Achievement in visual effects
*"The Golden Compass" Michael Fink, Bill Westenhofer, Ben Morris and Trevor Wood
"Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" John Knoll, Hal Hickel, Charles Gibson and John Frazier
"Transformers" Scott Farrar, Scott Benza, Russell Earl and John Frazier

For more information visit www.oscars.org.