oscars

The 404 767: Where lady, you're scaring us (podcast)

Today's show title comes from the Sloppy Joe scene in "Billy Madison" and continues our weeklong tribute to Adam Sandler's comedic repertoire. We know how you kids like 'em shloppy!

Jeff uses the first bit of the episode to bemoan the Washington, D.C., legal system for its use of traffic-ticketing speed detectors in deserted 40 mph stretches of road.

Take a look at the video and let us know if you think Jeff's ticket is warranted, taking into consideration his admission of guilt on a live, recorded podcast that is definitely admissible in a court of law. Cool story bro!

Now onto the first of today's stories: game company THQ is organizing an anti-North Korean rally in San Francisco to protest the country's dictatorship and abhorrent human rights violations.

The walk from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Yerba Buena Gardens will feature speeches by economic experts, musicians, and the launching of 10,000 balloons.

But the other side of the story is that THQ is also throwing the rally to promote its upcoming shooter game called Homefront that puts the player in control of an American soldier challenging North Korean forces in a dystopian occupied United States. Keeping with last week's discussion of the violent realism in Call of Juarez, could this be another case of too real, too soon?… Read more

Digital City 117: It's Apple on the brain

While Dan is at the Game Developers Conference, and Joe is enjoying the lovely weather in Orlando with his son, Scott and Julie drag digital photography team member Matthew Fitzgerald to join us in a discussion on all things Apple.

As the new Sandy Bridge-based MacBook Pros finally emerge out of the woodwork into CNET labs and out for review, we talk about the new Thunderbolt technology. Matt sheds some light on what this means for him as a photographer, as well as how much (or little) this new tech will be embraced by the masses. It seemed like only yesterday (the much ignored) USB 3.0 was introduced. And as always, we continue to speculate on features for the iPad 2 and iPhone 5.

Meanwhile, Scott appears to be the only one in the room to have seen the Oscars. Matt and Julie had other things going on that night, respectively. That's just how we roll.

Former tech exec wins best documentary Oscar

More than three years ago, even before Charles Ferguson was nominated for an Oscar for his Iraq war documentary, "No End in Sight," the former tech exec told CNET he would continue to make films "if the world lets me."

Well, the world is not just letting him--it's giving him some of the highest accolades. Last night Ferguson, who founded one of the first Internet software companies in the early dot-com days, accepted the Academy Award for Documentary Feature for his latest film, "Inside Job," which is about the recent fiscal crisis.

And … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 1416: Think before you Like (podcast)

Facebook now shares the stories you "like" on third-party sites with your News Feed. It's actually kind of cool, but please: use this feature responsibly, won't you? Also, Gmail goes down and we're all rushing to back up, I call "Unicorn" on rumors of a white iPad 2, and the Tolkien estate takes the Culture of Ownership to a whole other level. --Molly

The 404 766: Where no milk will ever be our milk (podcast)

Today's show title comes from this scene in Billy Madison, but unfortunately Adam Sandler got no recognition at last night's Academy Awards.

We thought James Franco and Anne Hathaway made a cute couple of hosts, and we appreciated James's #oscarsrealtime updates but we also agree with Roger Ebert and the LA Times, who gave critical reviews of the remarkably tame ceremony.

As usual, the Oscar food puns for each nominee were borderline more entertaining than the show itself.

Last week we talked about a Facebook app called Breakup Notifier that would send you a message when your crush changed his or her relationship status to "single."

Well, an "accidental" change in the Facebook developer's code permanently disabled access to such notifications, so creator Dan Loewenherz clever shifted his focus to a new project called the Crush Notifier.

The Facebook Crush Notifier lets you purchase Facebook credits that allow you to select crushes in your friend list. Those individuals are notified in an anonymous e-mail, and have the option to rate you back.

If you're selected as well, you'll receive a similar message- unfortunately… Read more

Twitterverse: 'King's Speech' will win Best Picture

We all know that any single tweet has a much better than average chance of containing total nonsense, and that any individual Twitter user's Oscar predictions aren't worth their weight in ones and zeroes.

But if you aggregate tens of thousands of users' guesses, you end up with what could be called The Wisdom of the Twitterverse, and in this case, the crowd has spoken: "The King's Speech" will win Best Picture in a runaway.

Since the announcement of the Academy Award nominations last month, a service called Tweetbeat has been collecting each and every … Read more

Get backstage at Oscars with your iPad/iPhone

I need to ask you a personal question: when was the last time you had a two-screen experience?

I know you'll be able to fill the comments section with your interesting experiments--and hopefully there will be things like watching one movie at the movies, while watching another on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch.

Thankfully, ABC is thinking of you, the multiple screeners, when it comes to Sunday's Oscars.

For you will be able to buy, for a mere 99 cents, the Oscar Backstage Pass app that will screen live backstage footage simultaneously while you're attempting to … Read more

The 404 743: Where it's complicated with Caroline McCarthy (podcast)

Caroline McCarthy from CNET's The Social blog joins us on today's podcast to discuss this morning's Oscar nominations and eight nods for "The Social Network" including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director, Best Screenplay Adaptation, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Original Score.

The film undoubtedly deserves the recognition, but it seems they left off Andrew Garfield for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Eduardo Saverin, Facebook's co-founder and a 5 percent shareholder of the $2.5 billion company.

Despite this oversight, Garfield will likely have another chance with his upcoming role as the famous Webslinger in the upcoming reboot of the Spider-Man franchise. The rest of the cast includes Rhys Ifans as the Lizard, Martin Sheen as Uncle Ben, Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy, and Chris Zylka as Flash Thompson.

But there's no chance the movie will be quite as awful as "Turn off the Dark," Broadway's version of the Spider-Man genesis wrought with disaster even in the face of its new finale.

Wilson checked out an early preview of the show and has an equally negative review to share that makes this Onion headline sound right on the mark: "Nuclear Bomb Detonates During Rehearsal For 'Spider-Man' Musical." We blame Bono.

As usual, the Razzie nominations were announced today in conjunction with the Oscars, and it's no surprise that the "Twilight Saga: Eclipse" swept the Golden Raspberries for Worst Picture, Worst Actor (Robert Pattinson), Worst Screenplay, and...actually, the movie appears in all the categories except for Worst Supporting Actress and Worst Eye-Gouging Misuse of 3D, where they were ineligible to be nominated.

Episode 743 Subscribe in iTunes audio | Suscribe to iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

'The Social Network' nominated for eight Oscars

The claim by Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin that he was unduly ousted from the social network's early executive team formed the basis for "The Social Network," the controversial yet acclaimed film about the birth of the company. Perhaps with a touch of unintended irony, when nominations for the 83rd Academy Awards were announced this morning, the actor who played Saverin was snubbed.

"The Social Network" netted eight nominations for the 83rd Academy Awards. Among them was the coveted Best Picture category--but actor Andrew Garfield, expected to be a shoo-in nomination and even a favorite to … Read more

Documentary celebrates 35 years of ILM magic

If you asked the average moviegoer to name George Lucas' biggest influence on the film industry, they'd probably say "Star Wars." But while there's no arguing with the massive cultural and artistic impact of that film and its five sequels, a better answer might well be Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic.

To be sure, "Star Wars" and ILM are not unrelated--Lucas started ILM to create the visual effects for his groundbreaking movie. But the visual effects house has gone on to do a great deal more, and today is probably responsible for the look … Read more