To the Point

Oscars Campaigns: Hollywood Takes the Gloves Off

Does Oscar mean excellence in film or skill at playing dirty tricks? This year, it may be both. While old Hollywood hands are not surprised by the money, the hype and the hustle leading up to Sunday's Academy Awards, they are shocked by the nastiness of the gossip, the ferocity of the campaigns and the trashing of fellow nominees. Historical accuracy, sexual orientation, anti-Semitism and race are just some of the tabloid topics being raised this year in campaigns for Academy Awards. We look at this year's unusually brutal Oscar campaigns with a Hollywood historian and film critic, industry marketing consultant, a foreign correspondent, and the founder of the controversial Hollywood insider website, Ain't-It-Cool.com. Newsmaker: Tense Resolve Following Peruvian Car Bombing Peru is in shock over Wednesday's terrorist attack that left nine dead and 30 wounded when a car bomb went off outside the US Embassy. Security is being reinforced in anticipation of President Bush's arrival tomorrow. Rossana Echeandia, political editor for El Commercio, reports that the perpetrators are likely Colombian narco-traffickers protesting Bush's call for renewed drug interdiction. Reporter's Notebook: Centuries of Fox Hunting at an End in England? In a famous snipe at Britain's upper classes, Oscar Wilde called fox hunting "the unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible." This week, after 350 years, the age-old sport still separates Britain's House of Commons from its House of Lords. Nicola Swinney, hunting editor for the British magazine Horse and Hound, says a ban on the tradition that embodies the "survival of the fittest" would result in the loss of liberty and livelihood.