LOS ANGELES — The Oscars will be in Dolby.

The CIM Group, which owns the Hollywood & Highland Center, announced a 20-year deal Tuesday with the audio technology company Dolby Laboratories Inc. to name the Academy Awards venue the Dolby Theatre. In a separate deal, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences revealed a new agreement to keep the annual Oscars extravaganza at the theater for 20 more years.

“The Academy’s Board of Governors believes that the home for our awards is in Hollywood,” Tom Sherak, president of the motion picture academy, said in a statement. “It is where the Academy and the motion picture industry are rooted. We are pleased to have a new agreement with CIM that will continue our longstanding partnership.”

The four-level, 3,400-seat theater, formerly known as the Kodak Theatre, has been home to the Academy Awards since 2002. CIM Group dropped the Kodak name from the theater earlier this year after Eastman Kodak Co. filed for bankruptcy protection.

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Jean Dujardin is hugged by Berenice Bejo, his co-star from 'The Artist', after Dujardin won the Best Actor Oscar. (AP)

By SUSAN KING and RENE LYNCH

“The Artist,” the black-and-white silent film about Hollywood’s rocky transition to the “talkies,” took the biggest honors at the 84th Academy Awards on Sunday night, including best picture, director and lead actor.

It was a night filled with firsts — and an especially good night for the French.

“The Artist” was the first silent film to nab best picture honors since the first Academy Awards were held in 1929, when “Wings” took the top prize. And for the first time in Academy Awards history, a French actor (Jean Dujardin) and a French filmmaker (Michel Hazanavicius) took the academy’s top acting and directing awards.

Full list of winners | Photos from the 84th Academy Awards | Live blog: The Oscars, they’re live, we’re blogging | Baron Cohen spills ‘ashes’ on Seacrest at Oscars

“I love your country!” said Dujardin as he accepted the award for playing a famous silent film star whose career tanks when talkies take over.
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There were many new fashion faces on the red carpet at the 84th annual Academy Awards on Sunday night, but they brought with them a lot of old Hollywood glamour.

Rooney Mara in white Givenchy, Emma Stone in red Giambattista Valli and Jessica Chastain in Alexander McQueen were among those making bolder-than-normal choices at the Hollywood & Highland Center in Los Angeles.

“I picked it because I loved it,” said Mara of the Riccardo Tisci custom-made gown made of mixed laces and multilayered chiffon.

Some seasoned style stars stepped up their game, too, including Michelle Williams in burnt-orange Louis Vuitton, Jennifer Lopez in a crystal-covered Zuhair Murad, Cameron Diaz in Gucci and Penelope Cruz in a smoky-blue Armani Prive.

Angelina Jolie did her simple, sexy thing in black strapless gown with a high slit.

Gwyneth Paltrow went sleek and chic in Tom Ford, and Stacy Keibler was statuesque in gold lame Marchesa. Viola Davis’ emerald-green, corset-style gown by Vera Wang had a little beading on the bustline and a chiffon pleated skirt. She matched her earrings to the jewel tone of the gown, which seemed a popular trend. Melissa McCarthy also did it, pairing her rose Marina Rinaldi with crystal neckline and waistband with 10-carat diamond earrings decorated with pink diamonds by Chopard and a pink tourmaline cocktail ring. Read the full story

7 p.m. It’s Red Carpet time!

Look! Tim Gunn and Nina Garcia! Is he gonna tell the celebrities that he has concerns and they didn’t make it work?

Octavia Spencer is turning it out! She started the season not looking so fab, but her new style team have done wonders. But no one looks as good as Robin Roberts. Can I be her when I grow up?

Jonah Hill looks adorable and brought his mom, because moms “gave birth to you” and qualifies her as the best date.

Maya Rudolph says the secret to the red carpet is snacks and “so much shapewear.” And darling? That’s some good advice. I am 85 percent Spanx. You are not allowed to ask which part.

Full list of winners | ‘The Artist’ earns best-picture, lead-actor Oscars

7:12 p.m.

Rooney Mara has no sense of humor whatsoever.

Jessica Chastain, however, does. And she’s adorable. That dress is butter. On butter. Buttered butter. And she loves her grandma. She looked prettier with the extra weight from “The Help” on her, but she’s still gorgeous.

Tim is talking about the best gowns and what makes them so. I would say “free.” Free makes the best gown. But wearing a glitter spider outfit with no irony like Cher is even better.

Mila Jovavich is stunning, and that dress is “Dynasty”-licious. I am looking for a dress like that for an ’80s gala I am going to. But..you know…free.
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The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is not pleased with plans to auction off 15 Oscar statuettes from such films as “Citizen Kane,” ”Wuthering Heights” and “Little Women.”

But the academy says its hands are tied in blocking the Tuesday sale by Nate D. Sanders Auctions because the statuettes were awarded prior to 1950, when a “winners agreement” was instituted banning the sale of Oscars.

“Oscars should be won, not purchased,” the academy said in a statement, adding that it had no “legal means of stopping the commoditization of these particular statuettes.”

The Sanders Co. expects its total Oscar inventory, which includes Herman Mankiewicz’s 1941 screenplay award for “Citizen Kane,” to command more than $1 million.

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Christopher Plummer has winter property in Manalapan, while Rooney Mara has plenty of family in Palm Beach.

CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER: You figure he lives in London or his native Canada or New York or maybe those musical hills in Austria. Try Manalapan. The veteran stage and screen actor has a winter property here, which means we’re about to have an Oscar winner here, since Plummer is considered a shoo-in for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Beginners.

ROONEY MARA: Mara, who is nominated for Best Actress for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, doesn’t stand a chance of winning, but she’ll have a lot of Palm Beachers cheering for her. She is the granddaughter of both Tim and June Rooney of Palm Beach and Palm Beach’s Ann Mara, whose family owns the Super Bowl-winning New York Giants. (The Rooney family owns the Pittsburgh Steelers.) Oscar trivia: She is also the niece of Bridget Rooney Koch, of Palm Beach, who has a son from a previous relationship with Oscar-winning actor Kevin Costner.

Academy Awards nominees and presenters are getting even more exposure at this year’s show.

Thanks to an expanded collection of hidden backstage cameras, which capture unscripted action near the green room, the lobby, the winners’ walk and the Governors Ball, fans can click around on Oscar.com to see various perspectives that aren’t part of the main telecast.

“We want to encourage them to be part of the experience,” said Christina Kounelias, chief marketing officer for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

“We’re giving fans the control to follow their favorites,” added Karin Gilford of ABC’s digital media division.

The Oscar.com site — a partnership between AMPAS and the Oscars’ longtime broadcaster, ABC — will have more than a dozen cameras filming the proceedings on the red carpet, backstage and inside the theater, where a camera will be trained on front-row celebrity minglers during commercials. Visitors to the site can choose which camera they want to look through and change it any time. A running ticker will advise what’s happening in front of the other cameras so star-watchers don’t miss their favorites.

The celebrity surveillance, which is free, will begin with the start of red-carpet arrivals and continue with live feeds until the Governors Ball gets under way.

Oscar attendees needn’t worry about too much exposure, though. There are no hidden cameras in the theater’s restrooms.

Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo in 'The Artist.'

Unless California unaccountably slides into the ocean before Sunday night, The Artist will win the Best Picture Academy Award despite a preponderance of disdain from low-end critics, i.e. websites.

Between the continual expression of resentment, outright ranting and ginned-up controversy, members of the online community seem to be in particularly close contact with their lizard brain. Their collective argument seems to be that The Artist is a pleasant but slight bauble, unworthy of the honor.

Unworthy?

The least look at the roster of Best Picture winners is conclusive proof that, eight times out of 10, the Best Picture award means you were the right movie in the right place at the right time. Is Slumdog Millionaire a masterpiece of cinematic art? Out of Africa? The Departed? Crash? (Let’s define cinematic art as a movie that will repay viewings in 10 years or 50 or 100.)
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When Oscar stars want to escape the camera’s glare, they steal away into the lens-free green room.

Created by interior designer Waldo Fernandez, the Architectural Digest Greenroom is actually decked out in shades of gray.

“It’s soft light, so they will feel comfortable and they will look beautiful,” Fernandez said Thursday. “We wanted to create as calm a palette as possible.”

Just off stage right, the greenroom is decked out in comfy sofas and antique furniture from the 1930s.

“This looks spectacular,” said Academy Awards producer Brian Grazer, who stepped in just before taking a lunch break Thursday. “It’s really comfortable and has a great flow to it. I actually sat in every chair.”

Champagne will be served in the room on Sunday — an Oscar first. Guests can also log in on numerous laptops left throughout the green room or hide away on a smoking patio for a private puff during the show.

The 84th Academy Awards will be presented Sunday at the Hollywood & Highland Center and broadcast live on ABC.