Melissa Leo's Oscar acceptance speech

Oh my, oh my God. Oh wow really, really, really, really, really, truly wow. I know there's a lot of people that said a lotta real real nice things to me for several months now, but I'm just shaking in my boots here. Ok, alright. Thank you David O. Russell. I want to thank the actors, Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, he might run out for a second, Amy, my sweet sister Adams, Jack, our lovely daughters. OK. Yeah, I am kind of speechless. Golly sakes, there's people up there too. When I watched Kate two years ago, it looked so [EXPLETIVE DELETED] easy. Alice Ward, your beautiful family that opened your hearts. I saw Mick here earlier. Dick, a shout out for Nana? Alright Dick's not in the room. Thank you so much, opening your hearts to all of us to make this film. I thanked David, I'll thank him again. My family, my beautiful son who is traveling right now in South America and can't join me. It's ok, I'm ok Jack. My Mom and my Dad and my brother and my friends and my family. I want to thank the very most of all, the Academy of Motion Picture Sciences, the Board of Governors, and all their members, whom many of you are here today. This has been a extraordinary journey in getting to know what the Academy is about and first and foremost, thank you Academy, because it's about selling motion pictures and respecting the work! Thank you so much.

Oscar tweethathon at 8 p.m. Sunday

Join us on Sunday at 8 p.m. for a smorgasbord of Oscar-related tweets featuring live insights from interviewer of the stars and author Martha Frankel (who also is participating at "A Night at the Awards" at the Emerson Resort); New Yorker cartoonist Liza Donnelly; Timmian Massie, Chief Public Affairs Officer and Adjunct Professor of Communication and Religious Studies at Marist College; social media expert Allison Gray Teetsel; our friends at the Watershed Post; Rhinebeck writer Kitty Sheehan; TechCity's Paul Rakov; and yours truly.

If you want your insights to appear, just post a comment below or tweet using the hashtag #dfoscars.

UPDATE! I've added Monique Paturel, and New Haven Register entertainment editor Jordan Fenster and television editor and columnist Joe Amarante.

I'm also adding #nhoscars. We're going to make this a multi-state event!

UPDATE 2: Playwright David J. Loehr will join from Kentucky and our entertainment friends at the New Haven Register in Connecticut. I'm also adding a Tweetizen feed for ease of access.

Did Melissa Leo change her story on the Oscar ads?

The Huffington Post is reporting in a story titled "Melissa Leo Changes Her Story On Oscar Ads" that the Stone Ridge actress and Academy-nominee "went along with Paramount's agenda."

This stems from the now controversial ads that she took and paid to have in the Hollywood trade press, promoting herself.

The Huffington Post bases its conclusion on a story reported by The Daily Beast, "Melissa Leo Breaks Oscar Silence," by Jacob Bernstein, in which Leo says:

“I’ve been busting my ass, trying to get the movie sold and seen, and now I show up where they ask, get put into hair and makeup that they pay for, so I can promote this thing [and campaign]. So I’m a little confused. I thought this is what we’re doing. This is what all the girls are doing.”

The Huffington Post uses the aforementioned quote, but fails to notice THE VERY NEXT SENTENCE:

Leo adds that she conceived the ads before she was nominated—and if she had known she would wind up in contention for Best Supporting Actress, she might have done things differently. “It didn’t seem so nomination oriented,” she said. “It was fun.”

Emphasis mine. FAIL by Huffington Post.

However, note that the both the Huffington Post and the Daily Beast write that Leo was a frontrunner, and that things are not so clear anymore. Bottom line is, we'll find out on Sunday.

Yet, one comment on the Huffington Post sums up all this pretty neatly:

“I thought the Academy Awards were supposed to be about talent, not good or ill-concei­ved ad campaigns? Why is the focus on her ads and not on the quality of her acting in her role?”

Why, indeed.

Melissa Leo criticized for promoting Melissa Leo

Deadline Hollywood reported on Friday that Stone Ridge actress and Oscar favorite Melissa Leo personally paid for ads in the Hollywood trade press.

“I took matters into my own hands. I knew what I was doing and told my representation how earnest I was about this idea. I had never heard of any actor taking out an ad as themselves and I wanted to give it a shot."

“I am quite certain I have not overstepped any boundaries of the Academy," Leo told Deadline's Pete Hammond.

The snarky guys at Gawker are not happy, though: "she seems like a secretly vain person who now finally has a reason to go public with it," wrote Richard Lawson.

Ouch.

Leo also has a website now.

UPDATE: The New York Times chimes in: "as the front-runner in her category, why did she risk overreaching?"
Her response to the gray lady?

"This entire awards process to some degree is about pimping yourself out."

Farmiga "cuddling" when she found out about Oscar nod

From USA Today:

Up in the Air's supporting actress nominee Vera Farmiga heard her Oscar nomination news in the best way possible, surrounded by her husband and son at their New York home. "We got the news in bed, the three of us cuddling," says the actress.