Oscar telecast nixing montages, elaborate tributes

By Gregg Kilday

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - As preparations for next Sunday's Academy Awards move into high gear, the show's producers have booted a number of familiar elements.

Gone will be the movie montages -- like last year's salute to horror movies -- that often contribute to the broadcast's unwieldy running time. While there will be film clips from the ten best picture nominees and brief filmed introductions to different segments of the show, "Within the body of the show, we are not doing any film montage sequences," said Bruce Cohen, who will produce with Don Mischer.

Gone too will be the relatively new tradition, established just two years ago, of using five presenters to offer tribute testimonials about each of the best actor and actress nominees. "We're not going to do that this year," Cohen told the Hollywood Reporter. "What we did love about it was that it was a moment where each of the nominees really gets their due. (But) we found a version of that, without using the five people on stage, from the 1970 Oscars, and we stole it."

The producers also have enlisted the nominees' mothers to participate in promotion and pre-show activities, and some of them will be in the audience for the telecast.

via ca.news.yahoo.com