2012 Academy Award Winners

Courtesy of ABC

Oh, you’re here! I mean – you’re still hoping that the Oscar is worth watching? A large faith you might seem to have is called natural optimism, and that’s actually not a bad thing.

Except, of course, when it comes to 84th Oscar Academy Awards.

If you ask me – I’m really “enthusiastic” with the Best Picture part of the night.

You know, that’s the part when one Extremely Loud War Horse comes Incredibly Close to offer The Help to the little Hugo, but he has no Money, no Descendants and no Balls to climb up The Tree of Life, so (quite logically) The Artist will go home to Paris with a golden statue.

Anyway, make sure you stay tuned to our Live Blog, and prepare that Refresh button ’cause it’s going to be one hell of a boring night!

So, we all survived Billy Crystal singing? Ok then, let’s see what Tom Hanks is doing out there.

Oh, look, he’ll tell us who won an Oscar for Best Cinematography.
Hugo? No way, shit really happens after all!

And, once again – Best Art Direction – Hugo. With that I could agree. Best Cinematography part – forgive but not forget!

Jennifer Lopez and Cameron Diaz are all dressed up because the next categories are Best Costume Design and Best Make-Up.
And here’s the first Oscar for The Artist for Best Costume Design while the Oscar for Best Make-Up goes to The Iron Lady.

Completely insane but true: looks that black & white is so trendy this year.

Sandra Bullock, charming as usual, only this time in…German. Anyway, the winner in best foreign film category is  A Separation.

Christian Bale is here to tell us who is the lucky winner in best supporting actress category. And the winner is… crying?

Octavia Spencer really needs The Help. Oscar is in her hands already!

Let’s jump to Film Editing category. Bradley Cooper and Tina Fey are saying something funny, the crowd is laughing, I mean – they’re obligated to do that! But I’m not, so I’m just going to say that I’m happy to hear that The Lady With The Dragon Tattoo won the Oscar for Best Editing, and add that Hugo will “drive” home with another statue for Sound Editing.

Unbelievable. Drive had only one nomination in this stupid category and Hugo just took it?

Oh, look, the nightmare continues, Hugo wins in Best Sound Mixing as well.

Robert Downey Jr. is doing something awkward and Gwyneth Paltrow is helping him. The only thing I can catch is that Downey Jr. looks like a dwarf next to Paltrow, but that’s not important because we have Best Documentary winner - Undefeated movie.

And since you already know who the nominees for Animated Feature Film are, Chris Rock will inform you who the lucky winner is. Rango, imagine that? We can live with that. Yeah, totally.

Emma Stone looks interesting in that red dress. Ben Stiller‘s ears are huge this year. And the Oscar for Visual Effects goes to Hugo.
So predictable.

I totally forgot that Melissa Leo will present at this year’s Oscar. Shame on me. But I’m still happy to hear that Christopher Plummer won the Osar for Best Supporting Role for Beginners.

Billy Crystal is still obsessed with George Clooney‘s lips, but who cares? We’re continuing with Owen Wilson and Penelope Cruz who will tell us who won in Original Score category. The Artist! Is this the second Oscar for this movie tonight? Looks it is. Oh, shit, we have the first paper-wish-list here! What the hell, let the guy celebrate!

And now, the funny moment, Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis give the Oscar for Best Original Song to The Muppets!

We all knew, but Angelina Jolie confirmed it to us that the guys behind The Descendants script are the winners in The Best Adapted Screenplay Category.

On the other hand, Woody Allen, who is (again) missing, wins the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Yeah, yeah, The Midnight in Paris has the best original screenplay, and now back to the commercials please!

Milla Jovovich is one great looking lady. And she’s gone.
What the hell just happened out there? Oh, wait, that’s Milla’s new trick from Resident Evil? It has to be!

But don’t worry, Bridemaids are here to inform us that The Shore by Terry George wins Best Live Action short, then we have Saving Face as Best Documentary Short and Fantastic Flying Book Of Mr Morris Lessmore wins Best Animated Short.

They all look happy, and we all look bored.

And now, probably one of the best parts of this horror. Michael Douglas has the honor to present the Oscar for Best Director.
Ok, I’m excited….
I still am…
Not anymore.
The Artist wins.
I mean, Michel Hazanavicius wins Best Director for The Artist.

They say red dress is always a nice choice for the red carpet. Natalie Portman is a living proof!
And now, the Oscar for Best Actor!
Get ready, I have a totally bad feeling, folks!
I told you so – it’s Jean Dujardin!

Colin Firth looks like he’s about to win another Oscar this year. But no, he’s here to present the award for Best Actress.
If you ask me – Glenn Close is awesome, but of course – she will not win.
Rooney Mara – no way.
Michelle Williams – nice try, but no…
Viola Davis – has a chance.
Meryl Streep – hm, unfortunately not this time.
WAIT WHAT???
MERYL STREEP WINS!
Yes!

I knew that Tom Cruise will fuck this up! The Artist wins The Best Picture. I can NOT believe it!
Somebody answer me – are we officialy over now???

Here’s the full list of winners:

BEST PICTURE

- The Artist

- Moneyball

- The Descendants

- The Tree of Life

- Midnight in Paris

- The Help

- Hugo

- Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

- War Horse

BEST DIRECTOR

- Alexander Payne – The Descendants

- Michel Hazanavicius – The Artist

- Martin Scorsese – Hugo

- Woody Allen – Midnight in Paris

- Terrence Malick – Tree of Life

BEST ACTOR

- Jean Dujardin – The Artist

- Gary Oldman – Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

- George Clooney – The Descendants

- Brad Pitt – Moneyball

- Demian Bichir – A Better Life

BEST ACTRESS

- Meryl Streep – The Iron Lady

- Viola Davis – The Help

- Michelle Williams – My Week With Marilyn

- Glenn Close – Albert Nobbs

- Rooney Mara – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

- Christopher Plummer – Beginners

- Kenneth Branagh – My Week With Marilyn

- Nick Nolte – Warrior

- Jonah Hill – Moneyball

- Max Von Sydow – Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

- Berenice Bejo – The Artist

- Jessica Chastain – The Help

- Melissa McCarthy – Bridesmaids

- Janet McTeer – Albert Nobbs

- Octavia Spencer – The Help

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

- Michel Hazanavicius – The Artist

- Kristen Wiig & Annie Mumolo – Bridesmaids

- J.C. Chandor – Margin Call

- Woody Allen – Midnight in Paris

- Asghar Farhadi – A Separation

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

- Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon & Jim Rash – The Descendants

- John Logan – Hugo

- Aaron Sorkin & Steven Zaillian – Moneyball

- George Clooney – The Ides of March

- Peter Straughan & Bridget O’Connor – Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Did your favorite movies & stars bring home the gold?

It was another huge year for movies, and Hollywood’s finest were on hand to honor the best of the best Feb. 26 during the 84th Annual Academy Awards! Check out the full list of winners below, then drop us a comment: Who were you happy for? And who do you think got totally snubbed?

And the Oscars go to…

Best Picture: The Artist

Best Actor: Jean Dujardin, The Artist

Best Actress: Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady

Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer, Beginners

Best Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer, The Help

Best Director: Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist

Short Film (Animated): The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

Short Film (Documentary): Saving Face

Short Film (Live Action): The Shore

Writing (Original Screenplay): Midnight In Paris

Writing  (Adapted Screenplay): The Descendants

Music (Original Song): “Man Or Muppet,” The Muppets

Music (Original Score): The Artist

Visual Effects: Hugo

Animated Feature: Rango

Documentary Feature: Undefeated

Sound Mixing: Hugo

Sound Editing: Hugo

Film Editing: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Makeup: The Iron Lady

Costume Design: The Artist, Mark Bridges

Art Direction: Hugo

Cinematography: Hugo

We’ll be updating the winners list as the show goes on, so keep coming back toHollywoodLife.com for the latest!

The Oscars buck awards trend by awarding Martin Scorsese'sHugo 11 nominations, while The Artist trails with 10 and The Descendants with five

Full list of nominations

• Catherine Shoard
• guardian.co.uk, 
• Article history

Oscar nominations 2012: The Help, Hugo, War Horse, The Artist and The Descendants Photograph: Allstar/AP

Following an awards season so far notable for its predictability, the Academy today upset the apple cart by awarding Martin Scorsese's 3Dfilm 11 nominations, leaving Michel Hazanavicius's much-tipped The Artist trailing with 10.

Meanwhile, Bennett Miller's Moneyball took six nominations, as did War Horse, with Alexander Payne's The Descendants - which had been tipped as The Artist's one to beat - taking just five. Tate Taylor's The Help went home with just four, including two in the supporting actress category.

The nine films that made the Academy's best picture list (which this year could come in between five and 10) are The Artist, The Descendants, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, The Help, Hugo, Midnight in Paris, Moneyball, The Tree of Life and War Horse.

There were surprises in all categories. A Better Life's Demián Bichir was included in the best actor list, possibly at the expense of Leonardo DiCaprio and Michael Fassbender (although Gary Oldman did make the cut).

Rooney Mara, considered an outsider in the best actress category, was included after all, while Nick Nolte and Max von Sydow were surprise nods in the supporting actor field. A big cheer went up at the announcement when Sydow's name was read out, and another when the film in which he features - Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - was deemed in the running for best picture. Drive's Albert Brooks was the loser by default, and Nicolas Winding Refn's film earned only one nomination, for sound editing.

Terrence Malick picked up a nomination for best director for The Tree of Life, though Steven Spielberg failed to earn one for War Horse. The Tree of Life completed a hat-trick of nominations by also picking one up for cinematography.

Another upset in the original screenplay category came from the inclusion of JC Chandor's Margin Call; a nod for the script for Asghar Farhadi's A Separation will be especially welcome news, though - the film was also confirmed on the shortlist for best foreign film.

Even the animation list was full of unexpected treats, including acclaim for A Cat in Paris, Chico & Rita alongside Kung Fu Panda 2 and Rango.

Although UK nominees were not quite as predicted, there will be big cheers for the mention of Janet McTeer for Albert Nobbs. McTeer plays (alongside fellow nominee Glenn Close) a woman who disguises herself as a man to find work in 19th century Dublin. Along with her work in forthcoming Hammer horror The Woman in Black, 2012 is shaping up to be a year of McTeer.

The final instalment in the Harry Potter franchise picked up a better-than-expected three nominations, including tips for make-up (with The Iron Lady and Albert Nobbs), art direction and visual effects. That equals the number earned by Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (adapted screenplay, lead actor, music). And also, yet more surprisingly, Transformers: Dark of the Moon (sound editing, visual effects, sound mixing).

The Ides of March and The Adventures of Tintin earned one nod apiece, though not in the categories expected (Ides for adapted screenplay, Tintin for music). Films which have already gone home empty handed include J Edgar (which had been hopeful for best actor), Shame (ditto, as well as cinematography), Young Adult (tipped for a fifth place best actress or best supporting actor or best original screenplay) and 50/50.

Cancer therapy is more potent when it hits 2 targets

Simultaneous targeting of two different molecules in cancer is an effective way to shrink tumors, block invasion, and stop metastasis, scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) have found—work that may improve the effectiveness of combination treatments that include drugs like Avastin.

The two-target approach, tested in mice with a type of cancer known as neuroendocrine pancreatic tumors, may have broad application for treating a wide variety of cancers, the UCSF team said. The drugs used in the tests belong to classes of pharmaceuticals that are either on the market or under development in clinical trials.

Clinical trials also are already underway to gauge effectiveness of the approach in humans with prostate cancer, breast cancer, and other tumor types. The UCSF study, described in the journal Cancer Discovery this week, is the first to show how the drug combination works in the laboratory. Continue reading below…

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The results are promising, said Donald McDonald, MD, PhD, a member of the UCSF Helen Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Cardiovascular Research Institute and professor of anatomy, who led the research.

In the study, treating mice with the dual-target approach turned aggressive tumors with invasive fingers penetrating surrounding tissues and many metastases into tiny balls with few or no metastases.

“It’s the combination of approaches—there’s a synergy between the two,” McDonald said. “You add two and two, and you get 10.”

HOW EACH TARGET WORKS

The two targets are both proteins that scientists have known for years are involved in cancer. Both play important roles in malignant tumors.

The first, called c-MET, is involved in two processes associated with the most deadly cancers. A clinical marker of cancer aggressiveness, c-MET drives tumor invasion into surrounding tissues. It is also involved in metastasis—the spread of cancer cells to other parts of the body where they can establish new tumors.

The second target is a protein known as vascular endothelial cell growth factor (VEGF). VEGF is a protein that promotes the growth of new blood vessels. Growing tumors hijack this process to expand their network of blood vessels to provide nutrients. Drugs blocking VEGF have been developed based on the simple assumption that tumors cannot grow if you choke off their blood supply.

Drugs that target these molecules are in development, and a few are already on the market. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first of these in 2004 to treat metastatic colon cancer. That drug, called Avastin, is manufactured by the South San Francisco-based company Genentech. Avastin was approved for metastatic breast cancer in 2008 under the FDA’s accelerated approval program.

The FDA revoked approval of Avastin for breast cancer last year after further assessing the relative risks and benefits to women taking it. Blocking VEGF seemed to slow tumor growth for awhile, but the FDA determined that it did not significantly improve or extend the lives of most women taking it.

“It was not clear why some tumors responded and others did not. It was also unclear why some tumors would respond initially and then would stop responding,” said McDonald, who has studied blood vessels in tumors and the effect of cancer drugs for years in his UCSF laboratory.

This is Donald McDonald, M.D., Ph.D.

Two years ago former UCSF professor Douglas Hanahan and colleagues found in laboratory experiments that Avastin-like drugs would shrink tumors but unexpectedly did something else as well. The drugs also morphed tumors from roundish blobs into highly irregular growths with tendrils that penetrated surrounding tissues and even spread to other organs—suggesting that the VEGF blockade could also make tumors more aggressive, invasive and metastatic.

McDonald’s group confirmed Hanahan’s findings and discovered that c-MET was involved. In their latest research, Barbara Sennino, PhD, with other investigators in his group set out to determine whether c-MET drove tumor aggressiveness during anti-VEGF therapy. What their paper shows is that blocking c-MET and VEGF together in mice is more powerful than blocking either alone because it not only slows tumor growth but also reduces invasion and metastasis.

They tested two inhibitors of VEGF—a neutralizing antibody and sunitinib—and three inhibitors of c-MET—crizotinib, PF-04217903, and cabozantinib (XL184). Unlike the other agents, cabozantinib simultaneously inhibits both c-MET and VEGF. Inhibition of c-MET and VEGF together with a drug combination or with cabozantinib had more profound effects on tumors than any of the agents that blocked only one of the targets.

These promising laboratory results still need more tests of safety and effectiveness in the clinic, McDonald said, and it may be a year or more before the drugs are routinely available to patients.

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The article, “Suppression of Tumor Invasion and Metastasis by Concurrent Inhibition of c-Met and VEGF Signaling in Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumors” by Barbara Sennino, Toshina Ishiguro-Oonuma, Ying Wei, Ryan M. Naylor, Casey W. Williamson, Vikash Bhagwandin, Sebastien P. Tabruyn, Weon-Kyoo You, Harold A. Chapman, James G. Christensen, Dana T. Aftab, and Donald M. McDonald appears in the March 1 issue of Cancer Discovery. After Feb. 24, the article will be available at http://cancerdiscovery.aacrjournals.org/