By Marla Lewin The American Film Institute held its annual awards luncheon today in Los Angeles. The tenth annual event remained an honoree-only affair, with no press and no public in attendance. For each of the honored films and television programs, Hewlett-Packard, the event sponsor creates a scholarship to the world-renowned AFI Conservatory in Los Angeles. Because 2009 marked the 50th anniversary of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic NORTH BY NORTHWEST, AFI acknowledged this lan...

By Marla Lewin     Directors Guild of America President Taylor Hackford announced the five nominees for the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film for 2009.   The nominees are (in alphabetical order): Kathryn Bigelow The Hurt Locker (Summit Entertainment) James Cameron Avatar (Twentieth Century Fox) Lee Daniels Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire (Lionsgate) Jason Reitman Up In The Air (Pa...

by Marla Lewin The 21st Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF) will present Academy Award winners Marion Cotillard with the Desert Palm Achievement Actress Award and Quentin Tarantino with the Sonny Bono Visionary Award, named after the Festival’s founder. The Awards Gala will kick off the 2010 awards season on Tuesday, January 5 at the Palm Springs Convention Center. Hosted by “Entertainment Tonight’s” Mary Hart, the Awards Gala will also honor Jeff Bridges...

  How do you follow up an international success like JUNO?Well....writer/director Jason Reitman, who has only three feature films to his credit, is sailing into Oscar town with his latest serious satire, UP IN THE AIR. The George Clooney-starrer has already been named Best Picture of the Year by several critics groups and has now posted the biggest nomination record for this year's Golden Globe Awards (will Oscar gold be far behind????). UP IN THE AIR has scored six 2009 Golden G...

by Marla Lewin Three more names have been added to honorees list at the 21st Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival.  Academy Award-nominated director Jason Reitman will receive its Director of the Year Award for Up in the Air, Jeremy Renner will receive the Breakthrough Performance Award for The Hurt Locker and T Bone Burnett will receive the Frederick Loewe Award for Film Composing for Crazy Heart. The Awards Gala, presented by Cartier, will kick off the Festival on January 5 at...

Monday, April 14-----Jason Reitman, the 30-year-old film director who scored an Academy Award nomination for his second feature film, will be honored this evening at the Palm Beach International Film Festival with the PBIFF Visionary Award. The honor will be given following a special screening of his hit comedy JUNO, which will be released on DVD tomorrow by Fox Home Video. Following the screening, Reitman will participate in an on-stage Conversation with National Public Radio host and film crit...