Non-nominee Sissy Spacek, accompanying nominated husband Jack Fisk (for best art direction, There Will Be Blood), and Ellen Page. Producer Barry Mendel (of The Sixth Sense and Munich) is right behind them.
At the 2008 Oscar luncheon at the Beverly Hilton hotel on Monday, Academy president Sid Ganis remarked that "regardless of those circumstances, which are beyond our control, we will be presenting the awards as scheduled."
Needless to say, "those circumstances" are the Writers Guild strike, which actually may be coming to a close.
Ganis added, "it would be such a terrible shame if, through no fault of yours and no fault of ours, the current conditions prevented us from shining that brightest possible light" on the Academy's film achievers of 2007.
According to Michael Cieply's New York Times article on the Oscar luncheon, "within the striking guilds a ferocious debate has divided writers into two groups: those who would grant the Oscars a truce in order to use the ceremony as a bully pulpit, and those who would inflict damage on the studios, and ABC, by chasing celebrities away from the show."
As an aside: Cieply also states that Ganis' speech clocked in at 9 minutes.
If all goes Ganis' way, stars and writers will be present at the 2008 Academy Awards ceremony at the Kodak Theatre on February 24.
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Photos: Todd Wawrychuk / ©A.M.P.A.S.
Michael Moore, probably telling a George Bush joke, Viggo Mortensen
Viggo Mortensen, Julian Schnabel
Sarah Polley, Tamara Jenkins, Julie Christie
Casey Affleck
Casey Affleck, George Clooney, Javier Bardem