How To Watch The Oscars 2024 Online

Watch The Oscars 2024: Preview

All great stories need their dramatic final act. For the 2023 movie awards season, that crescendo was the 96th Academy Awards. The red carpet has been walked, the little gold statues were handed out, and Ryan Gosling... well, he was just Ken. Want to know how to watch the whole show without spoilers? Follow our guide to watch the 2024 Oscars online – including free options and international TV channels.

Christopher Nolan's epic biopic of the 'father of the atomic bomb' saw Oppenheimer leading the pack, with an impressive 13 nominations. While the other half of last summer's 'Barbenheimer' phenomenon garnered 'only' eight, with Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie controversially missing out for Best Director and Best Actress respectively.

But that aberration shouldn't detract from the other remarkable film feats that are in contention to take home a little gold man this weekend. From Lily Gladstone's ground-breaking turn in Killers of the Flower Moon and Bradley Cooper's transformation into Leonard Bernstein for Maestro, to Cord Jefferson's razor-sharp adapted screenplay for American Fiction or the immersive sound design of The Zone of Interest.

Of course, the Oscars has always been as much about the spectacle as it has the awards. And we suspect as many people will be tuning into see the tuxes and ballgowns on the red carpet and Barbie's nominated Ryan Gosling perform I'm Just Ken, as they are the statues being handed out. And then there's funny man Jimmy Kimmel on hosting duties and his esteemed list of presenters, that included cinema royalty like Al Pacino, Rita Moreno, Nicolas Cage, Charlize Theron, Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson and Arnie.

Ready to see which names were in those famous envelopes? Read on to find out, as we explain how to watch the Oscars 2024 online from anywhere today.

How to watch The Oscars 2024 for free

The UK and Australia may be on opposite sides of the world, but they share something in common come Oscars night – both countries are streaming the 96th Academy Awards absolutely free!

Free-to-air broadcaster ITV has the whole show in the UK, which means you can stream the 2024 Oscars for free on the ITVX app or on its website.

In Australia, you can stream the Oscars for free on the 7plus streaming service. 

Abroad while the Oscars is on? Use a VPN using the instructions below to access ITVX or 7plus.

How to watch the Oscars 2024 online from outside your country

If you're a UK or Australian citizen on vacation or working overseas, you can still watch the Oscars just as you would at home. 

While ITVX and 7Plus block access from IP addresses outside of Australia, there's a handy piece of software called a VPN which can change your IP address to make it look like you're accessing streaming services from any country in the world. 

For example, Brits and Aussies abroad can subscribe to a VPN, join an Australian based server and tune into all the programmes on ITVX and 7Plus from anywhere in the world, just like you would back home, meaning you won't miss out on a free stream.

How To Use A VPN To Unblock Streaming Services:

1. Choose your ideal VPN and install - as we say, NordVPN is the total package when it comes to great streaming VPNs

2. Connect to a server - most good VPNs make it super simple to connect to a server in the UK, Australia or whatever country you require

3. Stream away! - login to your streaming service – ITVX or 7play in this instance – and stream the 2024 Oscars like you were in your home country

Watch The Oscars 2024 On TV And Online In The US

You’ll need to tune in to ABC to watch the Oscars 2024 awards ceremony on Sunday, March 10 at the earlier than normal time of 7pm ET / 4pm PT.

If you don't have an antenna and don't have ABC as part of your cable plan, there are still plenty of options to watch the Oscars through a variety of cable alternatives.

Our #1 choice on CinemaBlend is Sling TV. Offering 42 channels, you'll need its Blue package in order to access ABC live with the plan costing $45 a month. Currently, though, you can save 50% on your first month. 

We believe the cable cutter offers one of the most cable-like experiences while the Sling TV price remains more affordable than other alternatives.

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Alternatively, Fubo is a pricier but more comprehensive OTT option. ABC comes with its entry-level Pro plan for $79.99 a month, and new users can give it a try and watch the 96th Academy Awards without paying a dime thanks to Fubo's 7-day free trial and a $25 off your first month offer currently live.

Overseas? Watch ABC (or your own domestic broadcast) and this year’s Oscars just like you would at home with the help of a quality VPN – all explained above.

How to watch The Oscars 2024 online in Canada

CTV will be providing live Oscars coverage for Canadian movie fans on Sunday, March 10 at 7pm ET / 4pm PT.

But if you’re not around to watch it live, don’t worry. You can catch-up through CTV's on-demand service – although bear in mind you’ll need to enter your cable login details to access the ceremony.

Canadians out of the country on their regional service will be prevented from watching the 2024 Oscars due to geo-blocking restrictions – but a solution is readily available. Just download a VPN and you’ll be free to watch your favorite live TV channels and shows from wherever.

How to watch The Oscars 2023 online in the UK

If you can stay awake long enough, then UK viewers can watch this year's Oscars late on Sunday, March 10 at 11pm GMT, with the prestigious film awards ceremony running until around 2am.

As explained above, this year's ceremony is being shown on the free-to-air on ITV. That means you can also stream it 100% for free via ITVX, ITV's on-demand streaming platform.

You can stream on your web browser or via the ITVX app. Sign up is free for an ITVX account – all you need is an email address, UK postcode (e.g. W12 7RU) and you should also have a TV licence.

Abroad while the Oscars is on? Use a VPN using the instructions above to access ITVX.

How to watch The Oscars 2024 in Australia

Down Under movie fans can tune into Channel 7 to watch this year’s Oscars 100% for free. The ceremony is set to start at 10am AEDT on Monday, March 11 and will be broadcast live on Channel 7 and via on-demand service 7plus.

7plus – the Seven Network’s catch-up service – is completely free to use. Just register to the service by providing details like email address, DOB, and a valid Australian postcode (eg. 2000).

Anyone currently abroad in Australia can simply follow the VPN advice as detailed above and watch the Oscars 2024 online from anywhere.

The Oscar 2024 Nominations

Best Picture

• American Fiction
• Anatomy of a Fall
• Barbie
• The Holdovers
• Killers of the Flower Moon
• Maestro
• Oppenheimer
• Past Lives
• Poor Things
• The Zone of Interest

Best Director

• Justine Triet – Anatomy of a Fall
• Martin Scorsese – Killers of the Flower Moon
• Christopher Nolan – Oppenheimer
• Yorgos Lanthimos – Poor Things
• Jonathan Glazer – The Zone of Interest

Best Actress in a Leading Role

• Annette Bening – Nyad
• Lily Gladstone – Killers of the Flower Moon
• Sandra Hüller – Anatomy of a Fall
• Carey Mulligan – Maestro
• Emma Stone – Poor Things

Best Actor in a Leading Role

• Bradley Cooper – Maestro
• Colman Domingo – Rustin
• Paul Giamatti – The Holdovers
• Cillian Murphy – Oppenheimer
• Jeffrey Wright – American Fiction

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

• Emily Blunt – Oppenheimer
• Danielle Brooks – The Color Purple
• America Ferrera – Barbie
• Jodie Foster – Nyad
• Da'Vine Joy Randolph – The Holdovers

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

• Sterling K. Brown – American Fiction
• Robert De Niro – Killers of the Flower Moon
• Robert Downey Jr. – Oppenheimer
• Ryan Gosling – Barbie
• Mark Ruffalo – Poor Things

Head here for the full list of nominations

It’s no secret that the COVID-19 pandemic shook up the theatrical model in a big way back in 2020 when theaters across the globe were forced to shut their doors. Amidst the situation, studios’ focus on streaming content significantly increased, and with that, the potential for at-home releases to become Best Picture winners was created... well no more. The Oscars just changed its Best Picture-qualifying rules, and it’s going to affect streaming movies. 

After hints that the Academy was looking to change its rules back in March, the Academy’s Board of Governors have just approved new requirements for movies to be considered Best Picture-worthy. Per Variety, if a movie wants to have the opportunity to be named the highest award of Hollywood, it must not only have a one-week run in theaters in one of six U.S. markets, it also will have to have an expanded theatrical run of at least seven days as well, “in 10 of the top 50 U.S. markets, no later than 45 days after the initial release in 2024.” 

These new rules will not affect the 2023 movie release schedule and 2024 Academy Awards, but starting next year, the new changes could weed out what can be chosen for Best Picture. Academy CEO Bill Kramer and Academy President Janet Yang said the following about the new rules: 

In the past few years, streaming services have been experimenting with putting their movies in theaters, most notably with Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery being Netflix's widest released film yet. Rian Johnson’s whodunnit ran on big screens for a week in order to qualify and could have made “lots” of money if it had stayed there for longer. Per the new rules, Glass Onion would have had to stay put for an additional week. 

In recent years, more streaming movies than ever have qualified for Best Picture and been huge parts of the Oscars conversation. The first movie distributed by a streaming service to be nominated for the award was 2018’s Roma, which caused a stir among theater chains regarding its theatrical-window policies. The first streaming movie to win in the top Academy category was Apple’s CODA in 2022. All this being said, if a movie does not adhere to these rules, it could still be included in other categories aside from Best Picture. 

Along with the Academy’s new rule for theatrical runs, back in 2020, diversity and inclusion standards for Best Picture were passed, which is set to go into effect during the coming 2024 Oscars. We’ll keep you updated here on CinemaBlend regarding how these changes affect Hollywood’s biggest night going forward. 

It's hard to escape the fact that the Academy Awards have become somewhat of a flashpoint when it comes to public opinion and controversy. The 2019 ceremony is certainly no stranger to the trouble the Oscar show has found itself at the center of in recent memory. And, the twin debacles of Kevin Hart's resignation, as well as a rather scandalous attempt to introduce a "popular" film category, have cast a pall on the ceremony that's scheduled to be broadcast on February 24th.

With the recent announcement that the ceremony will move forward without a central host, but rather a revolving cast of luminaries presenting, the Academy Awards telecast seems to be at a low point in a rough patch that's spanned as long as recent memory can recall. The ratings continue to be less than hot, and there's the ever constant public outcry that the ceremony is out of touch. Maybe it's time for the Academy to stop televising the Oscars.

Now, there are several reasons why the Oscars shouldn't be on TV every year. The largest is the fact that, as seen in recent years, it's been hard to land a host and even harder to get a former host to return. This used to be the gig of gigs, with Bob Hope and Billy Crystal being the patron saints of taking it on. But now, you're lucky if you can find someone who even wants the job; and even if they do, they'll probably only do it once.

Even Academy Award winner / universally renowned human being Sandra Bullock can see why. According to her remarks, it's a high pressure job with a lot of moving pieces. It all boils down to three components that don't always mix on live TV: it needs to be funny, it needs to be on time, and it needs to keep the show moving. Unless you're used to that sort of pressure, you're not going to want to sign up for something of that ilk, so why keep offering a job that people aren't going to take? No Oscars telecast, no Oscars host.

But, even if you can find someone who'll sign up willingly, like Kevin Hart, or even Eddie Murphy, there's always the chance for a controversy to derail such an enterprise. While Murphy's bid to host the 2012 ceremony was ended after controversy surrounding his producing partner for that show, Brett Ratner, Hart's more recent adieu was thanks to some digging into the comedian's Twitter feed.

While the Academy is certainly no stranger to controversy, they surely don't want to court it openly with hires that turn out to be less than ideal. Not to mention, the Academy Awards on the whole have become subject to somewhat of a critical reevaluation by the vox populi. The gulf between the tastes of moviegoers and Academy members just seems to widen each year, and it's started to show... big time. Which leads to perhaps the biggest sticking point as to why the Oscars don't belong on TV in a regular capacity: the Oscars telecast just isn't as popular as it used to be.

Every year, it seems to be the same story: ratings are down, people are on Twitter clapping back at the winners, and the Academy will try to do something about it next time. What was once a social event on the calendar of every movie fan has continued to become an affair that's reduced to fans just reading the list of the winners the next day. Put struggling to find a host everyone will approve of, trying to minimize the controversy of that year's ceremony, and a public increasingly turned off by the ceremony at large, and you've got a perfect recipe for why the Oscars telecast isn't as vital as it used to be.

Ultimately, the Oscars telecast has become such a PR nightmare that the board feels like it's struggling to please the public while doing its job. However, without the pressures of a telecast in their minds, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences would be able to focus squarely on the task at hand: evaluating the best films of the year.

Surely, the ceremony and all the parties afterwards would still take place. This isn't a call to abolish the Oscars completely. Rather, the case being made is that the Oscars need to be special again. Maybe a couple of years off, save for some milestone anniversaries, would help the viewing public miss the Oscars enough to want to watch them again.

Not to mention, the Academy itself seems to be at a crossroads in terms of trying to be a more diversified voting body, so as to reflect our modern times. Without sinking time, attention, and money into an Oscars telecast, the Academy would be able to focus more on cleaning house and reforming itself into a more perfect awards voting board.

We've had almost 100 years worth of Oscar ceremonies, and to be running into these sorts of problems now shows the longevity of their cultural importance. It doesn't feel like the masses have cancelled the Oscars in their eyes, but rather it feels like the public really wants them to change for the better - or risk being cancelled at a later date. As the presumptive front runner of this year's Oscar race, A Star Is Born, says in one of its many powerful songs, maybe it's time to let the old ways die.

Maybe, the Oscars need to sit a couple of years out, and learn what makes it special all over again. It certainly couldn't hurt. Innovations could be made, like finally going to streaming, so the pressures of running time and network TV airspace can go by the wayside. But, with the constant yearly hustle and bustle of planning the lavish telecast, it's probably hard to make the sort of substantial changes they (and the public) want to see made.

In closing, this is not a condemnation of the Oscar ceremony, or its telecast. Rather, it's an invitation to let them take a breather to improve themselves, in the name of fairness and public outreach. It's not to late to become the Oscars of tomorrow, so long as you take the time today to make it happen.

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In the realm of modern entertainment, there is no movie-centric affair more well-known or loved than The Academy Awards. It's the Super Bowl for film lovers. With that in mind, the 2017 Oscar ceremony is already shaping up to be an intense affair, as many different and eclectic films will vie for those coveted statues this year. We're on pins and needles waiting for this year's nomination announcements, and it seems that The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is making some significant changes to the nominations process by switching to a digital-based live Webcast for the upcoming event.

A recent report from Deadline indicates that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is about to seriously overhaul the way in which it announces the annual Oscar nominations. In previous years, The Academy herded members of the media into the Goldwyn Theater in Los Angeles early in the morning for a traditional broadcast with a live audience. However, it now seems that The Academy has decided to go digital and utilize an online live stream (which will be available at Oscars.com and Oscars.org) as well as a satellite broadcast that will be picked up by major TV outlets such as Good Morning America.

By doing this, The Academy is essentially cutting out the middleman and bringing the announcements directly to audiences. This decision should also make it considerably easier for media outlets to provide reactions and insight into the nominations. A specific rationale for the change has not been provided by the Academy, but considering the increasing prevalence of live streams among most major media outlets (specifically, the rise in the use of Facebook Live), that may just be the way the winds are currently blowing.

One thing that is not changing this year is the star-studded nature of the event. Previous Oscar winners and nominees such as Brie Larson, Jennifer Hudson, and Ken Watanabe will all take part in the ceremony to help announce the 24 different categories for the 2017 Academy Award ceremony. In addition, Deadline reports that these actors will be providing insight from their own Oscar journeys, so tuning in to the live stream sounds like it will be worth our time.

The 2017 Oscars are definitely going to be a hotly contested event. If the results of the Golden Globes serve as an indication, there's no way to tell what movies will win this year. La La Land has pretty much cleaned up in every category that it has been nominated for at other ceremonies, but it will have to face off against Moonlight during the Academy Awards, as they competed in separate Golden Globe categories. 2016 was a year defined by eclectic, high-quality movies, so there's no way guarantee as to which movies will go all the way this year. We will just have to wait and see how the nomination announcements pan out.

We will bring you any and all relevant details related to the Academy Awards as more information is made available to us. The Oscar nominations will be announced one week from today on January 24 at 5:18 a.m. PST. The Academy Awards will air on February 26, 2017, at 5:30 p.m. PST.

The Academy Awards are feeling some serious heat following the announcement of the nominations for this year’s awards. For the second consecutive year every acting nominee is white, while highly regarded movies made by and starring black actors, like Straight Outta Compton and Beasts of No Nation were nearly ignored. The Academy has already made statements saying they want to take steps in order to improve diversity among both award nominees and Academy membership. Now we’re starting to see what some of those steps might actually be.

The first, and most likely step, according to The New York Times, is a return to a list of 10 nominees for Best Picture. As the voting rules currently stand, a movie not only has to be one of the top vote getters, but it also must meet a minimum threshold of support among voters as a whole, which means that while up to 10 movies can be nominated, it doesn’t always happen. This year only eight films met the requirements to be nominated. There is a feeling that if two more movies could have been nominated that Straight Outta Compton and/or Creed may have been there.

There’s also some discussion of potentially increasing the number of nominees for the acting categories to eight or 10. This is seen as a less likely option, as the five nominee list has been the standard since the 1930’s and traditionalists would likely fight it.

The other potential options for changing the situation involve changes to the voting process itself. One possibility is a loss of voting privileges for members who don't vote regularly. Some have even urged the Academy to bar members from voting if they have not been actively involved in the industry for a period of time, possibly a decade or more. This last option is probably the least likely thing to take place, as it would be expected to be strongly opposed. Still, it would likely make the Academy as a whole more diverse. Demographics from 2012 show that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences is 94% white, and 86% are over 50 years of age.

The Academy will be holding a meeting on Tuesday and will likely do something to address the diversity problem as they will want to be able to make public statements that things are improving prior to the February 28 awards show. Notable African-American actors Will Smith and his wife Jada Pinkett Smith have already stated they will not be attending the show, as has Spike Lee, who received an honorary Oscar in November. Even Spotlight’s Mark Ruffalo, who is nominated this year, has expressed concerns about whether or not to attend. The Academy needs to do something if they want to stop the bleeding.

Is increasing the size of the field the solution, or should the Academy make changes to their membership in order to effect the change they’re looking for?

Good things come in twos: Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Schumer, Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen, Boy Scouts and zombies, etc. It seems like the producers behind the Oscars are finally getting hip to this concept. After Fey and Poehler proved that two Golden Globes hosts are better than one, the Academy Awards are looking to have their own dynamic duo for the 2016 Oscars ceremony.

David Hill, a former executive of Fox, will produce the awards show with Reginald Hudlin, and he told Entertainment Weekly of this new development. And, according to the magazine, they already have a pair in mind! Though, they are not ready at the moment to reveal who. Hill said:

How I Met Your Mother star and all-around beloved human being Neil Patrick Harris hosted the 2015 Oscars, which was reviewed as one of the more weaker shows in recent memory. Previous hosts also include Ellen DeGeneres, who killed it with her pizza delivery man and Oscar selfie; Family Guy and American Dad creator Seth MacFarlane, who was royally bashed for his "We Saw Your Boobs" bits; and Billy Crystal, whose stints were largely praised but also once included a black-face sketch. So yeah, no one's perfect. Selecting two hosts instead of one isn’t a first for the Oscars, but it’s a matter of choosing the right pair. We don’t want to have another James Franco-Anne Hathaway situation on our hands.

Of course, many of us would like to see Tina Fey and Amy Poehler host every awards ceremony, but in case they are all pooped out, we have some other exceptions. As EW points out, Key and Peele (aka Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele) are obvious choices. The duo made names for themselves with their hit Comedy Central series, which recently went viral yet again for their hilarious sketch around Gremlins 2 and how that insane film came to be so insane.

Then there’s the previously mentioned Amy Schumer. She and J-Law have been making headlines thanks to Instagram pics of their jet skiing and human pyramid-building skills, as well as dancing on a piano on stage at a Billy Joel concert. Lawrence could easily be nominated for Best Actress during the ceremony, as she has yet another David O. Russell film premiering later this year, so she might not be the best person to host. But Schumer could definitely handle the responsibility. Ride Along comedian Kevin Hart also said he wants to host the 2016 Oscars, but with the producers looking for a double act, there’s no one who instantly comes to mind as being a perfect match for his brand of humor.

The 2016 Oscars will air on February 28, so there’s still some time for the producers to make their decision. Any suggestions?

For movie fans, pretty much the only thing to look forward to in the bleak month of February is the Oscars. All the big movies have come out in December, the theaters are still crammed with the January crap that the studios didn't dare release in a more competitive month, and in February you get stuck with drippy romances or obnoxious comedies or the dying gasp of a once-beloved franchise. The only way to stay sane is to feverishly predict what might win Best Picture, or catch up on the nominees you missed their first time in theaters, or for the really dedicated, watch all the nominated shorts online.

The Oscars didn't always happen in February-- they were held in late March or early April until 2004-- but we've gotten used to them. Only to now have them cruelly pushed back. The Academy has announced that next year's ceremony will take place on March 2, just a few days out of February but enough to make that short month feel far too long. The shift has happened thanks to the Winter Olympics, airing on ABC's rival network NBC but likely to suck up pretty much all of the media attention between February 7 and February 23 next year. To compensate for the late date of the ceremony the nominations will be announced later as well, on January 16, as opposed to January 10 this year. That still leaves a solid six weeks between nominations and the ceremony, a period that seemed to drag on forever this year for those of us who obsess over these awards-- but offering more time to catch up with the nominees for the more normal people as well.

Don't ever accuse the Academy of not planning ahead, either-- they've also announced the date for the 2015 ceremony, so mark off February 22 on your 2015 calendar that you've somehow purchased in advance. The early announcement seems to be a way for the Academy to combat rumors that they might move the ceremony up even earlier, to late January or so, but for me, it just leaves me that much more time to plan some nominee-appropriate snacks. Hard-knock-life cakes for Annie? Roast Mockingjay for the Hunger Games sequel? Get planning!

It was a little hard during last night's Oscars to see this as the same Academy that changed their rules for The Dark Knight. Just two years after the Academy expanded the Best Picture category to 10, then swooned over genre movies like District 9 or pop cultural mashups like Inglourious Basterds, they handed us the 2011 nominees, with only one Best Picture nominated film set in the present day, and most of them touting old movies, or at least old culture, as superior to what we have now. It all culminated with the Best Picture win for The Artist, a charming French film about the era of silent Hollywood filmmaking, complete with tricks from a dog and a tap dancing routine at the end. How much more old school can you get?

It's true that The Artist is not cut from the same cloth as fellow recent Best Picture winners The Hurt Locker and No Country for Old Men. But it is an independent film, it's worth noting, secured through European financing and premiering at the Cannes Film Festival last May-- to rapturous audience response, of course-- without a distributor in place. And it is a silent, black and white movie largely led by unknown French actors, the kind of thing many moviegoers might roll their eyes at and choose to see Ghost Rider 2 instead. It is an out-there anomaly for Best Picture when you put it next to movies like TItanic or Forrest Gump-- just an anomaly glossed up in a Hollywood sheen that lets it pass as an insider.

There were a handful of bolder choices to be made for Best Picture last night, like Terrence Malick's wondrous visual poem The Tree of Life-- though still made by an industry veteran, it's worth adding-- or the maverick baseball story Moneyball. But the rest of the Best Picture nominees were more solidly old Hollywood than The Artist by far. This just wasn't an Oscar year for game-changing bold moves. There wasn't an Inception out there, much less a Dark Knight, and the gritty independent films as good as or better than The Hurt Locker-- Meek's Cutoff, We Need To Talk About Kevin, even Steven Soderbergh's studio movie Contagion-- didn't have the alchemy of factors to lift them into competition. Early on in this year's Oscar race it became The Artist's prize to lose, but unlike last year, where the comfort-food The King's Speech trounced the daring The Social Network, there were no clear signs of the past getting ready to run roughshod over the future. The Artist's independent roots and tricky black and white gambit make it both a dare and a comforting blast from the past, which might be why it had such an easy road to Best Picture.

It will take a long to make sense of this current era of Best Picture, as the Academy seemed to reel back from Crash's controversial win to reward the excellent dark stuff like The Departed, No Country for Old Men and especially The Hurt Locker, which triumphed over the bright blockbuster Avatar. They still have a weak spot for the sentimental stories that have always moved them, but these days they're done up in more interesting clothing-- the multi-cultural appeal of Slumdog Millionaire, the modern aesthetic beauty of The King's Speech, and now The Artist, a silent movie for a new era. Next year, if new films from Paul Thomas Anderson and the Coens and Christopher Nolan and two new ones from Terrence Malick are up to snuff, we may have another avant garde year full of bold, exciting work-- nothing about The Artist's win seems to prevent that.

The Academy is getting younger, and they are no longer the same group that gave Best Picture to Braveheart, but larger change takes time. It's easy to see The Artist's win as the Academy regressing to that simplistic love of Hollywood they tout in every single montage during the awards show, but give them time. The next The Dark Knight phenomenon is out there-- and when it comes, I'm confident they'll give it it's due.

As an adult who spends a fair amount of my time following the movie industry, I know enough not to lionize the Oscars as "above" anything, much less publicity and selfish movie stars. If anything, the Oscars are all about publicity and movie stars, providing a box office boost to the movies that are nominated, an ego boost to the people who made them, and a profile boost to the celebrities who show up. It's a dog and pony show-- a particularly fancy and occasionally smart one, but a dog and pony show all the same. Knowing that is the first step toward loving the Oscars for what they are, and realizing it's silly has never taken away from the enjoyment.

At the same time, I can't help but cringe when reading about what Sacha Baron Cohen has up his sleeve-- namely, a trumped up "scandal" when he announced his plans to attend the awards in costume as General Aladeen, his character from the upcoming The Dictator Erroneous reports claimed his tickets were revoked, and Cohen only encouraged them by appearing on The Today Show in character. Now the news has finally emerged at THR that Cohen will indeed be walking the red carpet in costume as General Aladeen, presumably under the logic that he can wear what he wants as an invited guest, and the Academy can't stop him from using their big event to promote a movie that isn't even out yet.

Cohen's best moments of comedy usually involve challenging the status quo-- like Bruno interviewing Ron Paul, or Borat leading a singalong at a rodeo-- and it's hard to argue that the Academy isn't an aging institution to deserves to be taken down a peg. But it's also an event that, at some level, respects the movies that are nominated, and Cohen is attending because he's in one of them, Martin Scorsese's Hugo. Cohen isn't expected to promote Hugo forever, but it seems a little gross for him to step on the toes of one movie-- on what ought to be its biggest night-- for the sake of promoting another one. The Oscars will be in some small way about Cohen, since he's in Hugo, but it's certainly not about The Dictator-- and given how many headlines Cohen has already gathered, that's certainly what it's turning into.

After weeks and weeks of campaigning and millions of dollars spent on ads, the Oscars arrive on Sunday as kind of a reprieve, a chance for all those campaigners to put on nice clothes and smile at each other and be relieved knowing it's all over. But Cohen, with his stunt and his galling impulse to steal any spotlight, will just be using the night to launch another campaign, on behalf of a movie that will surely get plenty of its own attention upon its release. The Oscars aren't precious or infallible, but surely they deserve better than this.

Many will have their opinions about how James Franco and Anne Hathaway did in hosting the Academy Awards earlier this year. However, if you ask Franco’s friend and Pineapple Express (and Freaks and Geeks) co-star, Seth Rogen, he’d like to blame the Academy.

In anticipation of the U.K. release of the excellent Jonathan Levine directed 50/50, Rogen spoke to Shortlist.com about the film. One of the subjects that came up was whether he’d ever host the Oscars the way James Franco did. Rogen’s response was to laugh and say, “Not now.” Joking aside, he went on to talk about the Oscars hanging Franco out to dry with the material they gave him.

Rogen’s comments make sense. It seemed like the Oscars were aiming to appeal to a younger audience when bringing Hathaway and Franco in to host, but then went with more of the humor people have come to expect from the days when Billy Crystal hosted. As Crystal is returning next year, I suppose that won't be an issue.

Unrelated to the Oscars, Rogen was also asked about Katherine Heigl’s critical comments on Knocked Up. It’s an old subject, but still interesting. Back in 2007, Heigl spoke about the comedy in which she starred and was quoted as saying, “It paints the women as shrews, as humorless and uptight, and it paints the men as lovable, goofy, fun-loving guys. It exaggerated the characters, and I had a hard time with it, on some days. I’m playing such a bitch; why is she being such a killjoy? Why is this how you’re portraying women? Ninety-eight percent of the time it was an amazing experience, but it was hard for me to love the movie.”

For the most part, it sounds like Rogen is over it:

Judd Apatow is doing a Knocked Up spin-off film that focuses on Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann’s characters. Rogen won’t be in This is Forty, however he did say he went to a table read and visited the set and that, “It’s really funny.”

You can read the full interview with Shortlist.com here.