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By Joey Magidson
Film Contributor

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Audiences and critics around the globe love a good comedy. Comedies make you feel good inside and provide you with some temporary happiness and respite from the troubles of the world at large. They’re some of the hardest movies to make, and they’re appreciated by almost everyone.

The lone holdouts? The voters of the Academy Awards.

Since 1977, when the Woody Allen comedy Annie Hall won Best Picture, exactly zero full-on comedies have won the Oscar. Yes, Allen’s film had dramedy elements to it, but it was far more of a comedy than last year’s winner, The Artist, which would probably be the closest thing we’ve had since then to a comedic winner. Others in that sort of hybrid realm include American Beauty, Driving Miss Daisy, Forrest Gump, Shakespeare in Love and Terms of Endearment.

This year we have an unusually strong comedy contender in the David O. Russell film Silver Linings Playbook. Generally regarded as one of the five Best Picture hopefuls that can actually win the prize, it faces an uphill battle due to its humor, much as Les Miserables does with its low Rotten Tomatoes score (as I recently discussed here) and Argo does with its comparatively early release date.

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By Rachel Bennett
Television Editor and Columnist

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This week, Netflix Instant added a series I’ve heard about for a long time but have never seen: Fox’s Undeclared.

The 2001 comedy stars Jay Baruchel (Knocked Up), Seth Rogen (Pineapple Express) and Charlie Hunnam (FX’s Sons of Anarchy) and was created by Judd Apatow (The 40-Year-Old Virgin).

The series only lasted one season, but it’s always interested me because I’ve heard it’s a sequel of sorts to NBC’s Freaks and Geeks, another one-season wonder.

There have been numerous series to only receive one season when they deserved a lot more, and their cancellations result in a TV lover’s heartbreak. This week, in honor of their untimely conclusions, I give you the Top 10 One-Season TV Wonders:

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By Josh Abraham

Experience the Heartbreak and Humor When the Academy Award® and Golden Globe® Winner Comes to Blu-ray Combo Pack and DVD March 13

From director Alexander Payne creator of the Oscar® winning Sideways comes one of the Best Pictures of the year, THE DESCENDANTS, featuring a stunning cast including Best Actor nominee George Clooney (Ides of March) and Shailene Woodley (The Secret Life of the American Teenager) in her Golden Globe nominated and Independent Spirit Award winning role. Take home this wonderfully warm and witty film and go behind the scenes of THE DESCENDANTS with all-new exclusive content on Blu-ray Disc Combo Pack and DVD March 13 from Fox Searchlight and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.

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Last night, thanks to a very kind gesture on the part of my editor, I was able to realize a lifelong dream and sit in the audience at the Academy Awards. I covered the Oscars from the backstage press room three years ago, which was a thrill in and of itself, but, as someone who has spent a huge chunk of my life researching, writing, and talking about the Oscars, you can imagine how much more excited I was to have the chance to watch the ceremony unfold with my own two eyes. And, I’m pleased to report, the experience did not disappoint.

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On Sunday night, the 84th Academy Awards ceremony answered, once and for all, all of the questions that we have been pondering on this blog since September. Here’s a category-by-category look at why things turned out the way they did.

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By Sean O’Connell

Fresh off of its Academy Award win for Best Adapted Screenplay, “The Descendants” announces its upcoming DVD release, which will take place on Tuesday, March 13.

From director Alexander Payne, creator of the Oscar-winning “Sideways,” an award-winning feature about family members coming together to shoulder some difficult times.  Payne’s stellar cast includes Best Actor nominee George Clooney (“The Ides of March”) and Shailene Woodley (“The Secret Life of the American Teenager”) in her Golden Globe nominated and Independent Spirit Award winning role.

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By Sean O’Connell

No, she didn’t win an Oscar Sunday night. Instead, Angelina Jolie won THE ENTIRE Oscar telecast.

The big story Monday morning, in wake of a slate of largely predictable winners, is Jolie’s leg. You know, the one she sexily displayed while presenting on stage? It led to Oscar winner Jim Rash’s hysterical pose as he helped Alexander Payne accept the Best Adapted Screenplay awards for “The Descendants.” And then it took on a life of it’s own.

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The 27th annual Independent Spirit Awards, presented by Film Independent, were dished out this afternoon in a tent by the beach in sunny Santa Monica. Comedian Seth Rogen hosted the ceremony, which brings together the best and brightest of the indie film community, past and present, for an Oscar-weekend celebration of the struggle that is independent filmmaking. While the event is known for being lots of fun (how many other awards shows encourage day-drinking?), it is not known for its prowess at predicting the Oscars (voting for which closes before the Spirits are dished out anyway).

Indeed, only one of the winners of the Spirit Awards’ top prize, best feature, has ever won the best picture Oscar, and that was 25 years ago (Platoon, 1986), and only 11 of the 100 performances that it has rewarded with acting prizes — 26 in each of the two lead categories and 24 in each of the two supporting categories — were subsequently recognized with Oscars in their respective categories: Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote, 2005) and Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart, 2009) for best actor; Geraldine Page (The Trip to Bountiful, 1984), Frances McDormand (Fargo, 1996), Hilary Swank (Boys Don’t Cry, 1999), Charlize Theron (Monster, 2003), and Natalie Portman (Black Swan, 2010) for best actress; Alan Arkin (Little Miss Sunshine, 2006) for best supporting actor; and Dianne Wiest (Bullets Over Broadway, 1994), Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona, 2008), and Mo’Nique (Precious, 2009) for best supporting actress.

Most pundits, however, believe that this trend will be broken at tomorrow’s 84th Academy Awards — at least as far as the best picture, best actor, and best supporting actor Oscar races are concerned.

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By Josh Abraham

Film Independent, the non-profit arts organization that produces the Spirit Awards and the Los Angeles Film Festival, handed out top honors to The Artist, The Descendants and Margin Call at this afternoon’s 27th Film Independent Spirit Awards. My Week With Marilyn, Beginners, 50/50, A Separation and The Interrupters also received awards at the ceremony, held in a tent on the beach in Santa Monica.

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By Sean O’Connell

The final weekend before the Academy Awards, which will be held on Feb. 26, was bustling with Guild recognitions as Oscar contenders jockey for position and wait for what remains the biggest “game” in the entertainment industry. We’ll have ample coverage of the Oscars as the lengthy (lengthy!) marathon finally draws to a close. But for Monday morning, let’s run through the last few awards that were handed out before the Oscars finally get here:

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