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Oscar-nominated short films in iTunes Store
There are two Oscar award categories with films that almost no one ever sees, and those are the live action and animated short films. Unfortunately, these films usually never make it past film festival circuits and don't receive wide distribution, and typically they are welcomed with a big "huh?" when they pop up during the Academy Awards ceremony. Anyway, this year's short film nominees are available for purchase in the iTunes Store, along with previous winners and nominees. Priced at $1.99 each, the videos are not much of a big investment and might be worth the price of admission, just to get a feel for what a Oscar-nominated short film looks like. The curious can scope them out here (warning: iTunes link).
HDTV Listings for February 25, 2007
What we're watching: The Oscars are tonight (and in high definition, even though ABC.com is incorrectly saying they aren't...again), and we'll take a look, despite the lack of E!'s usual red carpet broadcast on INHD this year.Our traditional high-def listings continue below.
iPhone ad to appear during today's Oscars ceremony?
Macworld UK has apparently heard it through the grape vine (or apple tree?) that Apple has secured some ad time for the iPhone during tonight's 79th annual Academy Awards ceremony. The proceedings kick off at 8 pm EST on ABC, and the ad was apparently "made for the Oscars," though no more details are available just yet.I honestly wasn't planning on watching the Oscars, but now I'm hoping that Macworld hasn't gone the way of pageview-baiting because I just fired up the microwave for a jumbo popcorn session. Oh the things we do in the name of TUAW.Update: The commercial has aired, see here for the recap and here for the video.
Academy: no cameraphones at Oscars. Moto: that sucks
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences -- better known to most as the Oscar people -- are apparently promising to come down hard on the use of cameraphones at this year's event with a complete ban. That, in itself, is not surprising; the last thing our friends in Hollywood want is a flood of grainy, bootleg footage getting MMSed across the lands in real time. What is surprising, however, is that Motorola's been called out as a bit of a freeloader here. As you might recall, Moto had been trumpeting that some super-duper version of the MOTORIZR Z3 would be handed out to the "top 25" nominees at the event -- problem is, it turns out that the company isn't even sponsoring the show in any capacity, leaving them with zero leverage to override the Academy's ruling. We suppose they could mail out the phones before or afterwards, but how lame is that? Don't fret though, Moto, your efforts aren't for naught -- send those Z3s on over to us and we'll make sure they find loving homes.
Motorola RIZR being given way at the Oscars
Maybe our good friend Boy Genius has a crystal ball to see into the future or maybe he just has all the right connections, but either way he's on point again. Motorola announced that they will be giving a customized MOTORIZR Z3 to the top 25 nominees from this years Oscar awards. As it turns out, the winners of the soon-to-be released (stateside) slider will come in a custom made box with the nominees name on it along with H800 and S9 Bluetooth headsets. Now, if the nominees were getting that svelte Z6 slider we've been talking about, we might just have to make a move for one of them.
Academy Awards: HD or SD?
So our usual sources are indicating that the 78th Annual Academy Awards are not in HDTV, but several of you are indicating that they are. What gives? We typically check TitanTV and even double-check on the network's own website; at this point, we don't see the show in high-def, but we're hoping that they are. ABC's own program schedule (shown above) does not show the telecast in HD, but we'll double-check at 8:00 on the nose. While we're checking, would you do us a favor and do the same? Check back in here and tell us if your local provider is showing the Oscars in HD and be sure to let us know roughly where you are as well. We didn't believe that ABC would muck this up with an SD broadcast, but we can only go by what we see. Thanks to everyone who wrote in on this. If you've got time, be sure to check out the live-blog coverage over at Cinematical; they're covering the whole show regardless of the res!
2005 Oscar Quicktime trailers
If you're anything like me, you didn't get a chance to see every movie that was nominated for an Academy Award. Luckily, Apple has posted trailers for all the nominated movies (there might be one or two that is missing, but it seems darn comprehensive to me). Not only are there links to trailers (Quicktime 7 is required) but there are also links to the movies' soundtracks in the iTunes Music Store.You know what that is, dear readers? Well, we here at TUAW call that 'integrating vertical synergies,' and it makes us smile.
Disney to release Oscar shorts via iTunes
According to the great cartoon and animation blog, Cartoon Brew, Disney, following in the footsteps of Pixar, has plans to release all of its Oscar-winning and Oscar-nominated shorts on the iTunes Music Store for portable playability on iPods everywhere this summer. Evidently, this information was "leaked" while Amid and Jerry of Cartoon Brew were hanging out with Roy Disney, Don Hahn, David Stainton, and Leonard Maltin at a preview screening of The Little Match Girl, another Disney short. Jerry notes, "Starting this summer, Disney will be making all its Oscar-winning (and Oscar-nominated) shorts available on itunes - for Internet downloading to iPods and the like. Yes, Der Fuehrer's Face will be available to carry around in your hand - along with The Three Little Pigs and Destino. "When it comes to media on the iPod, I'm of the opinion that the more animation, the better.
