LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - History is alive and kicking at this year's Oscars in an unusually rich year for movies that plumb the distant and recent American past and have resonated with both audiences and voters. Four of the nine Best Picture nominees at Sunday's Academy Awards ceremony - Iran hostage drama "Argo," Osama bin Laden thriller "Zero Dark Thirty," slavery revenge fantasy "Django Unchained" and U.S. presidential drama "Lincoln" - are the most discussed films of the awards season, with their very different takes on historical events. ...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Austrian director Michael Haneke will arrive at the Academy Awards ceremony with his stark drama "Amour" vying for a surprising five Oscars including Best Picture, despite its distinctly non-Hollywood ending. The French-language film that tackles death and aging is up against Best Picture favorites "Lincoln" and "Argo" on February 24, as well as competing for Best Director, Best Foreign Language Film and Best Original Screenplay and Best Actress. No foreign language film has won the top prize in the 85-year history of the Academy Awards. ...

NEW YORK (AP) — How accurate is "Zero Dark Thirty"? Is "Lincoln" an epic of historical recreation or a high school history lesson? What did you think of "Django Unchained"? Can we get Anne Hathaway something to eat, already?

SYDNEY (AP) — An Australian film about a woman in need benefiting from the kindness of others won top honors at the world's biggest short-film festival.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - U.S. film and television writers gave their top two movie awards on Sunday to "Zero Dark Thirty" and "Argo" in the final Hollywood guild awards show before next week's Oscars. Writer Mark Boal won the Writers Guild of America award for Best Original Screenplay for "Zero Dark Thirty," which chronicles the intense U.S. manhunt and daring raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. ...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The CIA thrillers "Argo" and "Zero Dark Thirty" have won top screenplay honors from the Writers Guild of America.

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) - Nerd god Chris Hardwick, 1990s rap icon Vanilla Ice and a gallant troupe of YouTube stars have the same mission this weekend - to turn the unknown Streamy Awards into the Golden Globes of online video. That's why Tubefilter, which conceived the show to honor the best in online video and helped produce its first two iterations, has partnered with Dick Clark Productions, the company that produces the Globes, as well as the American Music Awards and the Academy of Country Music Awards. ...

LOS ANGELES(TheWrap.com) - "Argo" racked up yet another guild victory on Saturday night, taking home the American Cinema Editors' ACE Eddie Award for Best Edited Feature (Dramatic). "Silver Linings Playbook" won the award for Best Edited Feature (Comedy or Musical). The award is an unusually reliable predictor of the film-editing Oscar, and adds to a substantial guild-awards haul for "Argo" that also includes honors from the Producers Guild, Directors Guild and Screen Actors Guild. The Writers Guild announces its winners on Sunday. ...

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - "Les Miserables" has been named the best work of 2012 by the Cinema Audio Society, a non-profit organization that honors the art of sound mixing in film and television. The film, for which director Tom Hooper recorded his actors singing live on the set, was considered the favorite for the CAS Award and for the sound-mixing Oscar. In addition to working with vocal tracks recorded in difficult circumstances, its mixers had to contend with prominent orchestral music throughout the film's near three-hour running time. ...

A beaming Katy Perry was spotted sporting a new ring on her left ring finger after a Valentine's Day dinner with on-again beau John Mayer, sparking rumors that the pair may be engaged.

(Reuters) - Famed jeweler Bulgari said on Sunday it would put eight pieces of the late actress Elizabeth Taylor's jewels on display at its Beverly Hills boutique, more than a year after the Hollywood star's world-class collection fetched record prices at auction. The exhibition of pieces from that sale will include jewels Taylor obtained and wore during well-documented times in her storied life, including the filming of "Cleopatra," which launched her romance with Richard Burton, Bulgari said. ...

(Reuters) - The fifth movie in the Bruce Willis "Die Hard" franchise scored the biggest box-office action over the U.S. holiday weekend, beating out love story "Safe Haven," which came in third for the Friday-through-Sunday period. "A Good Day to Die Hard," with Willis returning as the tenacious, wisecracking hero John McClane, pulled in $25 million at U.S. and Canadian theaters over the three days, according to studio estimates. ...

The Twitter war between Justin Bieber and Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney rages on.

LONDON (Reuters) - The Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton should re-wear her outfits to help the environment, British fashion designer Vivienne Westwood said on Sunday. The designer advised Middleton, the wife of Britain's Prince William and the country's future Queen, that she should recycle her outfits if she puts a lot of effort into her appearance. ...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Bruce Willis remains a die-hard at the box office.

(Reuters) - Following are the top 10 movies at North American box offices for the weekend starting February 15, with "A Good Day to Die Hard" at No. 1, according to studio estimates compiled by Reuters. 1 (*) A Good Day to Die Hard....................$25.0 million 2 (1) Identity Thief............................$23.4 million 3 (*) Safe Haven................................$21.4 million 4 (*) Escape From Planet Earth..................$16.1 million 5 (2) Warm Bodies...............................$ 9.0 million 6 (*) Beautiful Creatures.......................$ 7.5 million 7 (3) Side ...

Maya Rudolph is about to be "Up All Night" with a baby for the fourth time!

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian developer Regions Group said it planned to invest around $3 billion in the construction of three theme parks under a licensing agreement with Dreamworks Animation SKG Inc. The California-based animation studio behind "Shrek" may thus become the first Hollywood studio to have theme parks in Russia, which the company said was one of the most important markets for it in the world. ...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Hollywood stars wanting to look their best for Tinseltown's biggest night of the year are being offered beauty treatments ranging from the lavish to plain loony such as $250,000 black diamond nail varnish and bird excrement facials. The Academy Awards on February 24 are almost as much about fashion as they are about films, with the televised red carpet arrivals and ceremony drawing an estimated audience of one billion people worldwide. ...

BERLIN (Reuters) - Romania claimed another major scalp on the European film festival circuit this weekend when "Child's Pose" won the Golden Bear in Berlin, underlining the country's emergence as a powerhouse of hard-hitting cinema in the post-Communist era. The film, directed by Calin Peter Netzer, tells the story of Cornelia, an obsessive mother who uses every trick in the book to prevent her son from going to jail after he kills a boy in a car accident. ...