The Trump administration Tuesday launched a new effort under the direction of presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner to overcome years of problems with electronic medical records and make them easier for patients to use.

 

Medicare will play a key role, eventually enabling nearly 60 million beneficiaries to securely access claims data and share that information with their doctors.

 

Electronic medical records were ushered in with great fanfare but it’s generally acknowledged they’ve fallen short. Different systems don’t communicate. Patient portals can be clunky to navigate. Some hospitals still provide records on compact discs that newer computers can’t read.

 

The government has already spent about $30 billion to subsidize the adoption of digital records by hospitals and doctors. It’s unclear how much difference the Trump effort will make. No timetables were announced Tuesday.

 

The government-wide MyHealthEData initiative will be overseen by the White House Office of American Innovation, which is headed by Kushner. His stewardship of a broad portfolio of domestic and foreign policy duties has recently been called into question due to his inability to obtain a permanent security clearance.

 

Medicare administrator Seema Verma said her agency is working on a program called Blue Button 2.0, with the goal of providing beneficiaries with secure access to their claims data, shareable with their doctors. Software developers are already working on apps, using mock patient data.

 

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is also reviewing its requirements for insurers, so that government policy will encourage the companies to provide patients with access to their records.

 

“It’s our data, it’s our personal health information, and we should control it,” Verma said, making her announcement at a health care tech conference in Las Vegas.

 

The longstanding bipartisan goal of paying for health care value — not sheer volume of services — will not be achieved until patients are able to use their data to make informed decisions about their treatment, Verma added.

Independent experts said the administration has identified a key problem in the health care system.

 

“This is a good first step, but several key challenges need to be addressed,” said Ben Moscovitch, a health care technology expert with the Pew Charitable Trusts.

 

For example, the claims data that Medicare wants to put in the hands of patients sometimes lacks key clinical details, said Moscovitch. If the patient had a hip replacement, claims data may not indicate what model of artificial hip the surgeon used.

 

“Claims data alone are insufficient,” said Moscovitch. “They are incomplete, and they lack key data.”

The administration could address that by adding needed information to the claims data, he explained.
…

From: MeNeedIt

British inventor Trevor Baylis, the creator of the wind-up radio, died Monday at the age of 80.

Acquaintances say Baylis died of natural causes after a lengthy illness.

Baylis developed the BayGen radio in the early 1990s after seeing a television program about the spread of AIDS in Africa and the need to get lifesaving information to people who did not have electricity and could not afford batteries.

Inspired by old-fashioned gramophones, the wind-up radio functioned with an internal generator, doing away with the need for batteries or access to electricity. The invention won Baylis international acclaim.

The earliest version ran for 14 minutes at a time, and production facilities were located in South Africa.
…

From: MeNeedIt

Kenyan coffee has an international reputation for good quality. But Kenya’s coffee industry is struggling as production levels have dropped and a younger generation shows little interest in farming. VOA’s Daniel Schearf reports from Kirinyaga County, Kenya.
…

From: MeNeedIt

U.S. President Donald Trump reaffirmed his pledge to impose stiff tariffs on imported steel and aluminum Monday. The plan sparked outcry and criticism from the international community, including from members of Trump’s party. VOA’s Jesusemen Oni has more.
…

From: MeNeedIt

There are cameras everywhere at the Academy Awards, but some of the most intimate celebrity moments at the show still manage to escape the lens.

 

Here’s a look at some of the backstage interactions that never made it to TV screens:

 

LADY-BIRD BONDING: Greta Gerwig and Laura Dern shared some poignant moments backstage before presenting the documentary award.

 

The two women spent at least 10 minutes backstage together chatting and preparing for their moment onstage, during which Dern gave Gerwig a bit of a pep-talk.

“It’s amazing. And it’s historic,” Dern told Gerwig of her best director nomination – the fifth woman in academy history to be so recognized. “Are you breathing?” the elder actress asked.

 

“Your dress is perfect. Your makeup is perfect,” Dern said. {“Let’s check the booty.”

 

With that, Dern and Gerwig turned around to reveal the back of their dresses to each other, which they deemed camera-ready.

 

Dern also advised her co-presenter not to slouch or lean into the microphone.

 

“Shoulders back,” Gerwig said, convincing herself.

 

Still, Dern worried about having worn her eyeglasses.

 

“No, they look so cute!” Gerwig said. “There’s nothing hotter than a hot lady with glasses.”

 

They discussed whether they should walk out arm in arm or holding hands. Gerwig took an impromptu vote with backstage workers, who said holding hands would be their best bet.

 

“Good,” Gerwig said. “We crowd-sourced it.”

 

The two women emerged onstage holding hands.

 

___

 

FOOT FETISH: Comedic actresses Maya Rudolph and Tiffany Haddish had planned to wear comfortable footwear onto the Oscar stage even before it became part of their lines Sunday night.

 

Haddish insisted on wearing her slippers onstage.

 

“Girl, I got bunions and corns,” Haddish told Rudolph. “The foot-fetish people will be all about it. Did you see that bunion? Did you see them corns?”

 

The comedienne joked to Rudolph that she’s been using “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” spray on her feet.

 

___

 

DIVA IN THE HOUSE: Oscar-winner Faye Dunaway likes to make her own rules. She refused to stay in her position backstage before announcing the best picture winner.

 

The 77-year-old Dunaway repeatedly walked away from her prescribed spot backstage before she and Warren Beatty were to announce the final award of the night.

 

She demanded to know where her lines were and whether Allison Janney won for supporting actress (she did).

 

When a backstage photographer snapped a candid photo of Dunaway, she was livid. She told the man to “go away” and made the kind of shooing motion one might use for a pet dog.

 

She and Warren Beatty successfully announced the best picture winner this year: “The Shape of Water.”

 

Later, while posing for photos with the night’s winners, Dunaway continued directing the photographers who captured her image.

 

___

 
…

From: MeNeedIt

Native Americans took to social media to express gratitude to Hostiles star Wes Studi, Cherokee, who, during the 90th Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles last night, spoke Tsalagi, the language of the Cherokee people.

The Cherokee Nation itself took to Twitter to express gratitude.

“As a veteran, I am always appreciative when filmmakers bring to the screen stories of those who have served,” Studi said, introducing a filmed tribute to Hollywood’s portrayal of the military.  “Over 90 years of the Academy Awards, a number of movies with military themes have been honored at the Oscars. Let’s take a moment to pay tribute to these powerful films that shine a great spotlight on those who have fought for freedom around the world.”

Studi has enjoyed a long career in movies, appearing in such classic movies as Dances With Wolves and The Last of the Mohicans, and most recently, he played Chief Yellow Hawk, co-starring with Christian Bale in Scott Cooper’s new western Hostiles.

Studi is affiliated with the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, based in Tahlequah, the largest of three federally-recognized Cherokee tribes. The other two are the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, also headquartered in Tahlequah, and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in Cherokee, North Carolina.

Between 1836 and 1839, the U.S. military removed the Cherokee Nation from their lands in Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Texas and forced them west into Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) in the Western U.S.

Native Americans have served in every branch of the U.S. military and in every war and conflict since the Revolutionary War.

Studi is a veteran himself.  Born in Nofire Hollow in rural Oklahoma, he joined the National Guard during his senior year at the now-defunct Chilocco Indian School, a boarding school in north-central Oklahoma.  He later volunteered for the U.S. Army and served 18 months in Vietnam.

“Amongst themselves, Native Americans are treated with a lot more honor for having served the people,” he told the Military Times in January.  “Our culture values the fact that our young men are willing and ready and able to put their lives on the line to protect others.”
…

From: MeNeedIt

There’s a dirty little secret about artificial intelligence: It’s powered by an army of real people.

From makeup artists in Venezuela to women in conservative parts of India, people around the world are doing the digital equivalent of needlework -drawing boxes around cars in street photos, tagging images, and transcribing snatches of speech that computers can’t quite make out.

Such data feeds directly into “machine learning” algorithms that help self-driving cars wind through traffic and let Alexa figure out that you want the lights on. Many such technologies wouldn’t work without massive quantities of this human-labeled data.

These repetitive tasks pay pennies apiece. But in bulk, this work can offer a decent wage in many parts of the world – even in the U.S. And it underpins a technology that could change humanity forever: AI that will drive us around, execute verbal commands without flaw, and – possibly – one day think on its own.

For more than a decade, Google has used people to rate the accuracy of its search results. More recently, investors have poured tens of millions of dollars into startups like Mighty AI and CrowdFlower, which are developing software that makes it easier to label photos and other data, even on smartphones.

Venture capitalist S. “Soma” Somasegar says he sees “billions of dollars of opportunity” in servicing the needs of machine learning algorithms. His firm, Madrona Venture Group, invested in Mighty AI. Humans will be in the loop “for a long, long, long time to come,” he says.

Accurate labeling could make the difference between a self-driving car distinguishing between the sky and the side of a truck – a distinction Tesla’s Model S failed in the first known fatality involving self-driving systems in 2016.

“We’re not building a system to play a game, we’re building a system to save lives,” says Mighty AI CEO Daryn Nakhuda.

Marjorie Aguilar, a 31-year-old freelance makeup artist in Maracaibo, Venezuela, spends four to six hours a day drawing boxes around traffic objects to help train self-driving systems for Mighty AI.

She earns about 50 cents an hour, but in a crisis-wracked country with runaway inflation, just a few hours’ work can pay a month’s rent in bolivars.

“It doesn’t sound like a lot of money, but for me it’s pretty decent,” she says. “You can imagine how important it is for me getting paid in U.S. dollars.”

Aria Khrisna, a 36-year-old father of three in Tegal, Indonesia, says that adding word tags to clothing pictures on websites such as eBay and Amazon pays him about $100 a month, roughly half his income.

And for 25-year-old Shamima Khatoon, her job annotating cars, lane markers and traffic lights at an all-female outpost of data-labeling company iMerit in Metiabruz, India, represents the only chance she has to work outside the home in her conservative Muslim community.

“It’s a good platform to increase your skills and support your family,” she says.

The benefits of greater accuracy can be immediate. At InterContinental Hotels Group, every call that its digital assistant Amelia can take from a human saves $5 to $10, says information technology director Scot Whigham.

When Amelia fails, the program listens while a call is rerouted to one of about 60 service desk workers. It learns from their response and tries the technique out on the next call, freeing up human employees to do other things.

When a computer can’t make out a customer call to the Hyatt Hotels chain, an audio snippet is sent to AI-powered call center Interactions in an old brick building in Franklin, Massachusetts. There, while the customer waits on the phone, one of a roomful of headphone-wearing “intent analysts” transcribes everything from misheard numbers to profanity and quickly directs the computer how to respond.

That information feeds back into the system. “Next time through, we’ve got a better chance of being successful,” says Robert Nagle, Interactions’ chief technology officer.

Researchers have tried to find workarounds to human-labeled data, often without success.

In a project that used Google Street View images of parked cars to estimate the demographic makeup of neighborhoods, then-Stanford researcher Timnit Gebru tried to train her AI by scraping Craigslist photos of cars for sale that were labeled by their owners.

But the product shots didn’t look anything like the car images in Street View, and the program couldn’t recognize them. In the end, she says, she spent $35,000 to hire auto dealer experts to label her data.

Trevor Darrell, a machine learning expert at the University of California Berkeley, says he expects it will be five to 10 years before computer algorithms can learn to perform without the need for human labeling. His group alone spends hundreds of thousands of dollars a year paying people to annotate images.
…

From: MeNeedIt

Held one year ago, the 90th Academy Awards would have very likely been a rose-colored nostalgia fest.

But this year, with a culture-wide reckoning over decades of sexual misconduct, a film business in decline, a volatile political climate and the fact that last year the esteemed show couldn’t even manage to present its biggest award correctly, the film academy and host Jimmy Kimmel on Sunday staged a complex and sometimes incongruous dance of attempting to both honor and atone for the past.

In many ways, the show inside the Dolby Theatre went exactly as planned – scripted, tight, full of past-looking montages, forward-thinking speeches and produced to appeal to all. Presenters Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty got a best picture redo, (“What happened last year is Waterhouse under the bridge,” Kimmel quipped) and 86-year-old Rita Moreno got to wear her dress from the 1962 ceremony again.

The Walt Disney Co. sneaked a fair amount of promos (“A Wrinkle in Time,” and “Mary Poppins Returns”) and self-congratulations (for “Black Panther”) into its ABC broadcast and the production did its best to appeal to the “regular moviegoer” by trotting out Gal Gadot and other stars to literally give candy to a theater full of people. 

The awards also effectively skirted the awkwardness of having an accused man in the spotlight by shifting around long-held presenter traditions and having Jodie Foster and Jennifer Lawrence present the best actress award instead of Casey Affleck. Emma Stone got her Natalie Portman moment, presenting the directing award to “four men and Greta Gerwig.”

Activists like #MeToo creator Tarana Burke were included in a song segment. And three Harvey Weinstein accusers, Ashley Judd, Salma Hayek and Annabella Sciorra, were given a moment to themselves on stage for nothing more than the fact that they were brave enough to speak up before a hopeful video played highlighting a changing industry, post #MeToo and more diverse. 

The video highlighted Greta Gerwig, the fifth woman to ever be nominated for best director, Yance Ford, the first transgender nominee for “Strong Island,” Dee Rees, whose “Mudbound” scored a historic cinematographer nomination and the Pakistan-born Kumail Nanjiani, nominated for “The Big Sick.”

The nominees signaled a renaissance. The winners told a slightly different story.

With a more diverse, more international and younger infusion of voting members into the film academy, the movie in love with movies still won the top awards. Guillermo del Toro’s fantasy romance “The Shape of Water,” won best picture, director, score and production design. 

“Growing up in Mexico, I thought this could never happen,” del Toro said. “It happens.”

The acting awards, which have been locked for three months, went to the expected winners – all esteemed veterans and three of whom had never been nominated before: Frances McDormand won best actress for “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” and her co-star Sam Rockwell won for his supporting performance. Gary Oldman picked up the best actor prize for transforming into Winston Churchill in “Darkest Hour” and Allison Janney for becoming Tonya Harding’s mother in “I, Tonya.”

At 89, James Ivory became the oldest Oscar-winner for his adapted screenplay for “Call Me By Your Name.” And Christopher Nolan’s ambitious World War II nail-biter “Dunkirk” picked up three technical awards.

But Gerwig’s “Lady Bird” left empty handed, Rachel Morrison did not become the first female cinematography winner (the long-snubbed Roger Deakins got that honor finally for “Blade Runner 2049” after 14 nominations) and Ford was not the first transgender Oscar-winner.

There were glimpses of progress, in Chile’s “A Fantastic Woman,” which starred the transgender actress Daniela Vega, won best foreign film. Disney and Pixar’s celebration of Mexican culture, “Coco,” took best animated feature, as well as best song for “Remember Me.”

“The biggest thank you of all to the people of Mexico,” said director Lee Unkrich to loud applause. “Marginalized people deserve to feel like they belong. Representation matters.”

And Jordan Peele became the first African-American to win best original screenplay for his horror sensation “Get Out.”

Peele said he stopped writing it “20 times,” skeptical that it would ever get made.

“But I kept coming back to it because I knew if someone would let me make this movie, that people would hear it and people would see it,” said Peele. “So I want to dedicate this to all the people who raised my voice and let me make this movie.”

Even McDormand used her moment on stage to make a statement on behalf of women.

“If I may be so honored to have all the female nominees stand with me,” McDormand said.

“We all have stories to tell and projects we need financed,” she added, before uttering the phrase “inclusion rider,” referring to actors signing contracts that mandate a film’s gender and racial inclusivity.

Everyone seemed to take this moment of an industry in flux to heart.

“We can’t let bad behavior slide anymore,” said Kimmel at the show’s start. “The world is watching us.”

And indeed as the last show in this very long season, made even longer thanks to the Olympics, and with an unprecedented pressure to address all the ills of society and 90 years of movies it was perhaps always going to be too big a feat for one group of entertainers to tackle in a single nearly four-hour production.

There’s only so much they can do, after all, and there is no one like Kimmel to remind everyone that it is still the movie industry.

In an aside about the pay disparity between Mark Walhberg and Michelle Williams for “All the Money in the World” reshoots, Kimmel said upon discovering that both actors were represented by the same talent agency that, “This one shook me.”

“If we can’t trust agents, who can we trust?”
…

From: MeNeedIt

Looks in neutrals, reds and purples brought the drama Sunday on the Oscars carpet at Hollywood’s biggest fashion show.

Salma Hayek looked like exotic royalty in a custom Gucci gown in lilac. It was heavily jeweled and had a busy, ruffled tiered skirt. Rita Moreno, meanwhile, honored Academy Awards history by donning the same gown (with a bold patterned full skirt) she wore in 1962, when she won an Oscar for “West Side Story.”

“It’s been hanging in my closet this whole time,” Moreno told The Associated Press.

Among the walkers in Los Angeles were a few recently returned Olympians, including skier Lindsey Vonn in a fringed black gown and diamond choker with statement red stones. Figure skaters Adam Rippon and Mirai Nagasu walked together. He wore belt-leather straps that crossed his chest and she chose a sheer, long-sleeve gown in soft blue.

Allison Williams of “Get Out” went for neutral. So did Gina Rodriguez in a nude sheath with silver embellishment, a plunging neckline and full princess skirt, courtesy of Zuhair Murad.

Among those in red was Allison Janney of “I, Tonya,” in long sleeves that fell to the ground. Sofia Carson wore a red cape gown with 26.10 carats of diamonds in her Chopard choker. Meryl Streep also wore red, a deep plunge at the neck. Last year’s best actress Emma Stone chose skinny trousers and a pink-belted, red tuxedo jacket.

The purple peeps also included presenter Ashley Judd, who went strapless in a dark shade by Badgley Mischka, accompanied by diamond strands.

There was an abundance of white, including fitted looks worn by Margot Robbie, Jane Fonda, Laura Dern (in Calvin Klein) and Mary J. Blige. One actress, Taraji P. Henson, was all leg in ethereal black with a high slit.

Among the standout guys: “Get Out” writer-director Jordan Peele, in a creamy white tuxedo jacket, and Chadwick Boseman, who honored his kingly T’Challa character in “Black Panther” with a long embellished coat.

Boseman’s co-star, Lupita Nyong’o, repped Wakanda in royal, one-sleeved gold with a studded sash element that had black detailing.

One of the evening’s brightest pops of color came on Viola Davis in electric pink from the Michael Kors Collection, hoops in her ears and a clutch to match. “Lady Bird” star Saoirse Ronan wore soft pink from Calvin Klein, while Greta Gerwig, who wrote and directed the coming of age film, offered another bright pop – hers in marigold yellow.

In beauty, a side-part trend took hold, both in updos and loose.
…

From: MeNeedIt

MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING

WINNER

DARKEST HOUR

Kazuhiro Tsuji, David Malinowski and Lucy Sibbick​

 

OTHER NOMINEES

VICTORIA & ABDUL

Daniel Phillips and Lou Sheppard

WONDER

Arjen Tuiten

 

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

WINNER

SAM ROCKWELL

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

OTHER NOMINEES

WILLEM DAFOE

The Florida Project

WOODY HARRELSON

Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri

RICHARD JENKINS

The Shape of Water

CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER

All the Money in the World

 

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE

NOMINEES

TIMOTHÉE CHALAMET

Call Me by Your Name

DANIEL DAY-LEWIS

Phantom Thread

DANIEL KALUUYA

Get Out

GARY OLDMAN

Darkest Hour

DENZEL WASHINGTON

Roman J. Israel, Esq.

 

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

NOMINEES

SALLY HAWKINS

The Shape of Water

FRANCES MCDORMAND

Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri

MARGOT ROBBIE

I, Tonya

SAOIRSE RONAN

Lady Bird

MERYL STREEP

The Post

 

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

NOMINEES

MARY J. BLIGE

Mudbound

ALLISON JANNEY

I, Tonya

LESLEY MANVILLE

Phantom Thread

LAURIE METCALF

Lady Bird

OCTAVIA SPENCER

The Shape of Water

 

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

NOMINEES

THE BOSS BABY

Tom McGrath and Ramsey Naito

THE BREADWINNER

Nora Twomey and Anthony Leo

COCO

Lee Unkrich and Darla K. Anderson

FERDINAND

Carlos Saldanha and Lori Forte

LOVING VINCENT

Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman and Ivan Mactaggart

 

CINEMATOGRAPHY

NOMINEES

BLADE RUNNER 2049

Roger A. Deakins

DARKEST HOUR

Bruno Delbonnel

DUNKIRK

Hoyte van Hoytema

MUDBOUND

Rachel Morrison

THE SHAPE OF WATER

Dan Laustsen

 

COSTUME DESIGN

NOMINEES

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

Jacqueline Durran

DARKEST HOUR

Jacqueline Durran

PHANTOM THREAD

Mark Bridges

THE SHAPE OF WATER

Luis Sequeira

VICTORIA & ABDUL

Consolata Boyle

 

DIRECTING

NOMINEES

DUNKIRK

Christopher Nolan

GET OUT

Jordan Peele

LADY BIRD

Greta Gerwig

PHANTOM THREAD

Paul Thomas Anderson

THE SHAPE OF WATER

Guillermo del Toro

 

DOCUMENTARY (FEATURE)

NOMINEES

ABACUS: SMALL ENOUGH TO JAIL

Steve James, Mark Mitten and Julie Goldman

FACES PLACES

Agnès Varda, JR and Rosalie Varda

ICARUS

Bryan Fogel and Dan Cogan

LAST MEN IN ALEPPO

Feras Fayyad, Kareem Abeed and Søren Steen Jespersen

STRONG ISLAND

Yance Ford and Joslyn Barnes

 

DOCUMENTARY (SHORT SUBJECT)

NOMINEES

EDITH+EDDIE

Laura Checkoway and Thomas Lee Wright

HEAVEN IS A TRAFFIC JAM ON THE 405

Frank Stiefel

HEROIN(E)

Elaine McMillion Sheldon and Kerrin Sheldon

KNIFE SKILLS

Thomas Lennon

TRAFFIC STOP

Kate Davis and David Heilbroner

 

FILM EDITING

NOMINEES

BABY DRIVER

Paul Machliss and Jonathan Amos

DUNKIRK

Lee Smith

I, TONYA

Tatiana S. Riegel

THE SHAPE OF WATER

Sidney Wolinsky

THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI

Jon Gregory

 

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

NOMINEES

A FANTASTIC WOMAN

Chile

THE INSULT

Lebanon

LOVELESS

Russia

ON BODY AND SOUL

Hungary

THE SQUARE

Sweden

MUSIC (ORIGINAL SCORE)

NOMINEES

DUNKIRK

Hans Zimmer

PHANTOM THREAD

Jonny Greenwood

THE SHAPE OF WATER

Alexandre Desplat

STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI

John Williams

THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI

Carter Burwell

 

MUSIC (ORIGINAL SONG)

NOMINEES

MIGHTY RIVER

from Mudbound; Music and Lyric by Mary J. Blige, Raphael Saadiq and Taura Stinson

MYSTERY OF LOVE

from Call Me by Your Name; Music and Lyric by Sufjan Stevens

REMEMBER ME

from Coco; Music and Lyric by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez

STAND UP FOR SOMETHING

from Marshall; Music by Diane Warren; Lyric by Lonnie R. Lynn and Diane Warren

THIS IS ME

from The Greatest Showman; Music and Lyric by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul

 

BEST PICTURE

NOMINEES

CALL ME BY YOUR NAME

Peter Spears, Luca Guadagnino, Emilie Georges and Marco Morabito, Producers

DARKEST HOUR

Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Lisa Bruce, Anthony McCarten and Douglas Urbanski, Producers

DUNKIRK

Emma Thomas and Christopher Nolan, Producers

GET OUT

Sean McKittrick, Jason Blum, Edward H. Hamm Jr. and Jordan Peele, Producers

LADY BIRD

Scott Rudin, Eli Bush and Evelyn O’Neill, Producers

PHANTOM THREAD

JoAnne Sellar, Paul Thomas Anderson, Megan Ellison and Daniel Lupi, Producers

THE POST

Amy Pascal, Steven Spielberg and Kristie Macosko Krieger, Producers

THE SHAPE OF WATER

Guillermo del Toro and J. Miles Dale, Producers

THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI

Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin and Martin McDonagh, Producers

 

PRODUCTION DESIGN

NOMINEES

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

Production Design: Sarah Greenwood; Set Decoration: Katie Spencer

BLADE RUNNER 2049

Production Design: Dennis Gassner; Set Decoration: Alessandra Querzola

DARKEST HOUR

Production Design: Sarah Greenwood; Set Decoration: Katie Spencer

DUNKIRK

Production Design: Nathan Crowley; Set Decoration: Gary Fettis

THE SHAPE OF WATER

Production Design: Paul Denham Austerberry; Set Decoration: Shane Vieau and Jeffrey A. Melvin

 

SHORT FILM (ANIMATED)

NOMINEES

DEAR BASKETBALL

Glen Keane and Kobe Bryant

GARDEN PARTY

Victor Caire and Gabriel Grapperon

LOU

Dave Mullins and Dana Murray

NEGATIVE SPACE

Max Porter and Ru Kuwahata

REVOLTING RHYMES

Jakob Schuh and Jan Lachauer

 

SHORT FILM (LIVE ACTION)

NOMINEES

DEKALB ELEMENTARY

Reed Van Dyk

THE ELEVEN O’CLOCK

Derin Seale and Josh Lawson

MY NEPHEW EMMETT

Kevin Wilson, Jr.

THE SILENT CHILD

Chris Overton and Rachel Shenton

WATU WOTE/ALL OF US

Katja Benrath and Tobias Rosen

 

SOUND EDITING

NOMINEES

BABY DRIVER

Julian Slater

BLADE RUNNER 2049

Mark Mangini and Theo Green

DUNKIRK

Richard King and Alex Gibson

THE SHAPE OF WATER

Nathan Robitaille and Nelson Ferreira

STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI

Matthew Wood and Ren Klyce

 

SOUND MIXING

NOMINEES

BABY DRIVER

Julian Slater, Tim Cavagin and Mary H. Ellis

BLADE RUNNER 2049

Ron Bartlett, Doug Hemphill and Mac Ruth

DUNKIRK

Gregg Landaker, Gary A. Rizzo and Mark Weingarten

THE SHAPE OF WATER

Christian Cooke, Brad Zoern and Glen Gauthier

STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI

David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce and Stuart Wilson

 

VISUAL EFFECTS

NOMINEES

BLADE RUNNER 2049

John Nelson, Gerd Nefzer, Paul Lambert and Richard R. Hoover

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2

Christopher Townsend, Guy Williams, Jonathan Fawkner and Dan Sudick

KONG: SKULL ISLAND

Stephen Rosenbaum, Jeff White, Scott Benza and Mike Meinardus

STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI

Ben Morris, Mike Mulholland, Neal Scanlan and Chris Corbould

WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES

Joe Letteri, Daniel Barrett, Dan Lemmon and Joel Whist

 

WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY)

NOMINEES

CALL ME BY YOUR NAME

Screenplay by James Ivory

THE DISASTER ARTIST

Screenplay by Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber

LOGAN

Screenplay by Scott Frank & James Mangold and Michael Green; Story by James Mangold

MOLLY’S GAME

Written for the screen by Aaron Sorkin

MUDBOUND

Screenplay by Virgil Williams and Dee Rees

 

WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY)

NOMINEES

THE BIG SICK

Written by Emily V. Gordon & Kumail Nanjiani

GET OUT

Written by Jordan Peele

LADY BIRD

Written by Greta Gerwig

THE SHAPE OF WATER

Screenplay by Guillermo del Toro & Vanessa Taylor; Story by Guillermo del Toro

THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI

Written by Martin McDonagh

 
…

From: MeNeedIt

American actor David Ogden Stiers, known as the arrogant but brilliant surgeon Charles Emerson Winchester on the television series MASH,  has died of bladder cancer at 75.

MASH was the story of an army hospital near the front lines during the Korean War.

The series was a well-established hit when Stiers, a classically-trained stage and film veteran, joined the cast in 1977 to play Winchester, a character created to replace the clownish Major Frank Burns.

While Burns was a mediocre doctor and the butt of jokes, Stiers’ Winchester was a superb surgeon and made sure everyone from his patients to the nurses and his fellow doctors know it.

Winchester was smug, vain, and ultra-conservative but often showed a generous and deeply caring side. He sometimes proved to be as much a practical joker as his fun-loving colleagues.

Stiers was twice nominated for outstanding supporting actor Emmys for MASH and continued to act in films and on television when the series closed in 1983 – most notably with director Woody Allen and in a series of Perry Mason  TV films.
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From: MeNeedIt

The Oscars will hope to live down their most infamous blunder at the 90th Academy Awards, which begin at 8 p.m. EST and will be broadcast live by ABC from the Dolby Theatre. But more than redemption is on the line Sunday for last year’s embarrassing best-picture flub — the fiasco known as Envelopegate.

The ceremony, to be hosted again by Jimmy Kimmel, will be the crescendo of one of Hollywood’s most tumultuous awards seasons ever — one that saw cascading allegations of sexual harassment topple movie moguls, upended Oscar campaigns and new movements launched to improve gender equality throughout the industry.

No Golden Globes-style fashion protest is planned by organizers of Time’s Up, the initiative begun by several hundred prominent women in entertainment to combat sexual harassment. Their goals go beyond red carpets, organizers said in the lead-up to the Oscars.

But the #MeToo movement is sure to have a prominent place in the ceremony. Greta Gerwig (“Lady Bird”) is just the fifth woman nominated for best director. Rachel Morrison “Mudbound” is the first woman nominated for best cinematography. Ashley Judd, the first big-name actress to go on the record with allegations of sexual misconduct against Harvey Weinstein, is among the scheduled presenters.

Before he was tossed out of the film academy after a storm of sexual harassment and sexual abuse allegations, Weinstein was for the last two decades the grand poobah of the Oscars. By one study’s findings, Weinstein was thanked more often than God in acceptance speeches.

As if his presence Sunday wasn’t already felt, a golden, life-sized statue of Weinstein seated on a couch with Oscar in hand was erected ahead of Sunday’s show just down Hollywood Boulevard.

Just as Seth Meyers did at the Globes, Kimmel will have a particularly steep challenge balancing a night of celebration for a Hollywood still reeling with shame and regret over “open secret” behavior that for years went unpunished in a largely male-dominated industry. In December, the film academy unveiled its first code of conduct.

It’s been an unusually lengthy — and often unpredictable — awards season, already an increasingly protracted horse race begun as most of the contenders bowed at film festivals last September. The Academy Awards, which will also be available for streaming on abc.com, are coming a week later this year because of the Olympics.

While the night’s acting categories are widely expected to go to Frances McDormand (“Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”), Gary Oldman (“Darkest Hour”), Allison Janney (“I, Tonya”) and Sam Rockwell (“Three Billboards”), the lengthy season hasn’t produced a clear best-picture favorite.

Guillermo del Toro’s monster fable “The Shape of Water” comes in with leading 13 nominations, but many peg Martin McDonagh’s darkly comic revenge drama “Three Billboards” as the front-runner despite the film’s divisiveness among critics. And still, many aren’t counting out Jordan Peele’s horror sensation “Get Out” or Christopher Nolan’s World War II epic “Dunkirk,” which is expected to dominate the technical categories.

The field is made up largely of modest independent film successes except for the box-office phenomenon “Get Out” ($255 million worldwide after opening on Oscar weekend 2017) and “Dunkirk” ($255 million).

Twenty years ago, a “Titanic” sweep won record ratings for the Oscar broadcast. But ratings have recently been declining. Last year’s show drew 32.9 million viewers for ABC, a four percent drop from the prior year. Even more worrisome was a slide in the key demographic of adults aged 18-49, whose viewership was down 14 percent from 2016.

Movie attendance also hit a 24-year low in 2017 despite the firepower of “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” ″Beauty and the Beast” and “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2.” An especially dismal summer movie season was 92 million admissions shy of summer 2016, according to the National Alliance of Theater Owners.

But this year is already off to a strong start, thanks largely to Ryan Coogler’s “Black Panther,” which many analysts believe will play a prominent role at next year’s Oscars. In three weeks, it has already grossed about $500 million domestically. The film’s star, Chadwick Boseman, will be a presenter Sunday.

This year, the academy has prohibited the PwC accountants who handle the envelopes from using cellphones or social media during the show. Neither of the PwC representatives involved in the mishap last year, Brian Cullinan or Martha Ruiz, will return to the show.

However, multiple reports say that Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway will be returning to again present best picture, a year after they announced “La La Land” as the winner instead of “Moonlight,” because Cullinan handed them the wrong envelope. The “Bonnie and Clyde” duo will, 12 months later, get “take two.”

 
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From: MeNeedIt