Nominated in the Best Actor category was “The Hurt Locker” star, Jeremy Renner. Jeff Bridges for “Crazy Heart” was the winner of this award. There’s something about Renner that many people may not know, and that is that seven years ago he was part of a BRAVO reality show ensemble called “The It Factor: Los Angeles”. At a time when reality television was still in it’s beginning stages, the show was a fresh mix of documentary cinema verite style mixed with reality.

During the series, Renner was working on independent film “Dahmer” as the lead as serial cannibal killer Jeffery Dahmer. A role that earned him an “Independent Spirit Award” for Best Actor.

Bigelow wins Best Director and answers two burning questions at press conference.

With “The Hurt Locker”, the Academy Awards hit a much awaited milestone when it awarded it’s coveted Best Achievement in Directing to it’s first lady director Kathryn Bigelow.

At a backstage press conference, Bigelow was asked what everybody was dying to know – what if felt like to win against one of her opponents whom happened to be her ex-husband, James Cameron (“Avatar”). Her response was, “I think he’s an extraordinary filmmaker.”, and that it was a “humbling experience” for her to be in the company of such great filmmakers.

In response to the second question everyone wants to know – what it’s like to be the first female to win an Oscar for Best Director, she replied: “I hope I’m the first of many,” and “I’d love to just think of myself as a filmmaker, and I long for the day when a modifier can be a moot point”. She also hoped to “inspire” young and “intrepid, tenacious male or female filmmakers and have them feel that the impossible is possible”.

The point that Bigelow couldn’t stress enough thoughout the evening was not to give up on your dream. She’s been making films for 30 years, and tonight, she achieved the highest honor in filmmaking a filmmaker can hope to have.

Bigelow’s other secret and advice as she gave it to a young USC student who is also the daughter of an Army veteran is to “work on the stories you truly, truly believe in, because then no obstacle is too great”

HOLLYWOOD JUNKET spoke to Fieri Friday in an exclusive telephone interview during his Satellite Media Tour from his restaurant in Northern California. When asked about the “Mulligan” one contestant was given on the show who was given a second chance at her game, then after failing that, a completely new challenge, it seemed at first as though he was dodging the question but, then came back to it and answered it straight-on. He cited issues with the product (paper reams) that she was given to work with in that challenge.

Fieri also spoke of potential new food challenging he and his sons are working-on at home that may be introduced on the show if NBC brings it back for another season. One such challenge he calls “The Ring-a-Ling”. Another challenge Fieri teased would be to starve contestants for 48 hours then bring them onto the stage to sit in front of their favorite food and challenge them to NOT eat it in the 60 seconds!

Fieri also stated that the food challenges on the show were completely coincidental and not intentionally included in the show for his benefit.

Watch these interesting stunts involving food and everyday household items on the the two-hour season premiere March 14th on NBC.

Although the show returns to a different studio, the set remains the same. Wilson is host to three sets of newlywed players that compete for a honeymoon trip to places like Barbados or Saint Lucia Islands – the location of where this season’s “The Bachelor” proposed to his controversial girlfriend, Vienna.

Contestants answer somewhat racy questions about their love life, and other very personal topics like, maintenance of pubic hair and sexual positions in order to earn five points per correct answer in the first two rounds, and 30 points in the last round. Some questions, I noticed, were recycled from last season’s show, just worded sightly differently.

The show production shooting schedule is now on track, and not painstakingly long like last season’s. Wilson has tightened her hosting skills a bit which has cut a lot of the shooting time down. Her personality still fails to completely shine through. She appears to be more focused on it as a “job” to get done.”

Friday’s show was slightly interrupted with a potential fire scare. A strong burning metal smell lingered onto the set. Production briefly paused to investigate. It ended-up being a false alarm.

Wilson was also pleasantly treated by our own HOLLYWOOD JUNKET host and former “American Idol” contestant, Jules Sanchez who stood-up and serenaded her with “You Are So Beautiful”. When he told her he was booted-off the FOX singing competition for being too fat, Wilson replied sharply, “Don’t even get me started on that!”

Audience consensus at Friday’s show was that many of the questions get a bit too personal, and their response was mostly, “I really didn’t need to know that”. I suspect that in an effort to keep-up with the times, this type of shock reaction is exactly what is keeping viewers of the show coming back!

HOLLYWOOD JUNKET was at this year’s Los Angeles auditions for the show and interviewed a number of talented hopefuls, along with executive producer Jason Raff. New videos will be up every week, starting this week giving you an exclusive and inside sneak-peek to what you can expect to see on this season of “America’s Got Talent”.

We asked some people what they thought of the announcement of new judge Howie Mandel who will be taking-over David Hasselhoff’s spot. Host Nick Cannon will be returning this season.

Taylor Lautner and Kristen Stewart will make their debut as presenters at this years Oscar's

The roles in the “Twilight” film series that shot them both to stardom are Bella, portrayed by Stewart and Lautner’s Jacob Black, along with the films other stars will be celebrated at the first Official TWILIGHT Fan Convention. Summit Entertainment and Creation Entertainment partnered to produce the the series of conventions over the next three years.

Fans located in Los Angeles will be able to attend locally during the weekend of March 12-14. There’s a total of twenty-one cities where the conventions will be taking place. For more information, visit: http://www.creationent.com/twilight/index.htm

Before that, fans can cheer Stewart and Lautner on at The 82nd Academy Awards March 7th in Hollywood!

According to our source, the show gives contestants the “opportunity to discover and share each others quirks, habits and baggage upfront to avoid the all-to-common surprises down the road!” Some examples of this might be that a contestant might still live with their parents, or might be a pack-rat. The types of things that qualify as “deal-breakers” for most singles, but don’t find out until after several dates.

The way the game is set-up to be played, is one contestant will choose from a pool of three others. The deciding contestant then must pick the one with the “least amount of baggage”.

Contestants won’t be going out on dates. Thus, as reported, contestants don’t really have to be single to be on the game show. The “singles” pool will be compensated for their time. But, no word yet on what the reward is that contestants will be competing for.

The show is looking for 120 “singles”. For more information on auditioning for this show, email a photo and your information to: carlpocket@gmail.com

Carnie was shocked by some of Dr. Oz’s diagnosis regarding her health. Tune into “Carnie Wilson: Unstapled” to see how she plans to “take control of her health, and lose weight” this Thursday, February 18th at 8pm (ET) on GSN.
You can also read about her “Dr. Oz” health test in this week’s issue of People magazine.

Before “Don’t Forget the Lyrics”, there was “Top of the Charts”, the show’s working title in which it was presented to network executives along with potential host, Ellen DeGeneres.

Ellen DeGeneres best known for dancing. Pictured above with Halle Berry

A couple of run-through fake contestants were called-into the hotel conference room along with a small group of audience participants for atmosphere. It was during the second contestant, the now famed Katie/Kate or Stephanie that was outed as a professional game show contestant when she was linked with George Clooney back in 2009 was being extremely bubbly like any pro-game show contestant would be when DeGeneres was called-into the room.

DeGeneres sat down and stayed for approximately fifteen minutes before getting up and walking-out. The room cleared another fifteen minutes later. Needless to say, it didn’t go well.

The show did go on with funny man Wayne Brady, who currently hosts “Let’s Make a Deal”, and Katie or Stephanie parlayed her run-through into an actual game on “Don’t Forget the Lyrics” managing to croon her way to $350,000! Her other game show conquests include “Hollywood Squares”, “The Price is Right”, and “Trivial Pursuit”.

Now four years later, I still can’t make the connection of DeGeneres with singing? Dancing, yes. But, singing. We’ll have to see how long she’ll stick around for “American Idol”.

New cooking show produced by Chef Gordon Ramsay is now casting!

The show is looking for “amateur chefs” who will have the opportunity to put their skills to the test. The show is NOT looking for professional chefs, rather people who can be mentored and judged by a panel of top chefs in the country.

“Master Chef” is an American version based on a very popular Australian one. Fox is expected to air 12-15 one hour-long episodes. For Ramsay, this new cooking show will be in place of “Kitchen Nightmares”, a previous show of his that also aired on Fox.

The casting call for Los Angeles is tomorrow, Sunday, January 31 at the Farmer’s Market at The Grove in “Sur la Table” from 10am to 4pm.

More information can be found at: www.fox.com/casting

After filming almost a full season in sin-city Las Vegas, Nevada, the re-make of classic game show by the same name, “Let’s Make a Deal” will be switching locations to Los Angeles in March, where it originated. The pilot was shot at CBS Television City in Hollywood with host Wayne Brady who currently hosts the show.

The main reason “Let’s Make a Deal” is filmed in Las Vegas at The Tropicana may be due to the fact that Brady also performs a live comedy show called, “”Making %@it Up” at the same hotel. This show goes on hiatus in March.

Check back here with “Let’s Make a Deal” show updates!