producers of oscars promise fast and fierce oscars

Organizers of this year's Oscar telecast promised on Friday the competition will be fierce and the show fast-paced in a bid to boost viewership as box office hits like "Avatar" vie for best film.

Sunday's Academy Awards -- criticized in the past as bland, unfunny and even unappealing for a young audience -- is being outfitted with more humour and a youthful mentality, organizers told a news conference on the red carpet outside Oscar's home, the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood.

"We designed part of the show, not to lose the traditional audience but to reinvite the younger audience," co-producer Bill Mechanic said before boldly predicting "anybody under the age of 25 will enjoy the show unlike any other."

Organizers hope the biggest change in the awards -- the expansion to 10 best picture nominees instead of five -- will yield a larger TV audience after more mainstream movies got the nod.

In past years, lower-budget and little-seen critical successes have dominated the world's top movie awards, such as the dark drama "No Country For Old Men" that won best film in a 2008 telecast watched by a small U.S. audience of 32 million.

When "Titanic" sailed home with 11 Oscars including best film at the 1998 ceremony, a high of 55.2 million people watched.

Widening the field to 10 nominees helped the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences include hits like "The Blind Side" and "Avatar," which surpassed "Titanic" to become the No. 1 all-time draw at global box offices with $2.5 billion.

"The competition is a bit more fierce this year," Academy President Tom Sherak said. "That is good for the show."

Asked if the producers were under pressure to live up to the expectations of a bigger audience, Sherak said the nominations for films that have proved popular such as "Avatar" were "going to help."

"When people are invested in those movies they have seen, then they can cheer for them or root for them and they can possibly win," he said.

"Hairspray" director and show co-producer Adam Shankman put it this way: "Snobbery departed the Oscars this year."

Among new presenters announced on Friday were Tom Hanks, Robin Williams, Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Lopez, Spanish director Pedro Almodovar and best actor nominee Colin Firth.

Hosting is the unlikely pairing of Alec Baldwin, 51, who specializes in sardonic quips not unlike the character he plays on the TV comedy "30 Rock," and Steve Martin, 64, who specializes in absurdist and physical comedy.

Baldwin will bring out the "wild-and-crazy guy in Steve Martin you haven't seen for a while," said Shankman. Mechanic said the pair would make the show "more interesting and faster-paced."

precious' sweeps indipendent film oscars awards

"Precious," the harrowing tale of an incest survivor's struggle for self-acceptance, swept the Spirit Awards on Friday, taking home five prizes at the independent film world's version of the Oscars.

The film's haul included best feature, director amd first screenplay. Its actors, newcomer Gabourey Sidibe and comedienne Mo'Nique, took home the honors for female lead and supporting female, respectively.

For Mo'Nique, who played an abusive mother, it represented yet another statuette for her groaning shelf this awards season. The only event left is the Academy Awards on Sunday.

But the 42-year-old actress told reporters backstage that she was not preparing an Oscar acceptance speech, because "I think the universe would say, 'You have a lot of nerve.'"

Sidibe, 26, plucked from obscurity to play an illiterate schoolgirl impregnated by her stepfather, recalled that her mother would give her $2 a day for going to school. She saved her funds and saw her first 1995 independent movie, "Welcome to the Dollhouse."

"Perhaps that was when my independent spirit was born," said Sidibe, who described herself as "kind of a dork."

The film, whose full name is "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire," also won the screenplay award for Geoffrey Fletcher. Lee Daniels, accepting his award for best director, indicated it might be his last time at the podium during awards season.

"Kathryn Bigelow's not here tonight. I am," a tearful Daniels said, referring to the "Hurt Locker" director, who is the favorite to win the Oscar.

Backstage he said, "We've won already," when asked about his Oscar chances. The film, a testament to the struggle that filmmakers undergo every day, received six Oscar nominations.

Daniels made the movie with $10 million in funding from a Denver couple, Sarah Siegel-Magness and Gary Magness, and launched an extensive casting search to find the title character. He settled on Sidibe after realizing that she was the diametrical opposite of her on-screen character.

He unveiled the film at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2009 with the modest goal of securing a straight-to-DVD deal. But it inspired a bidding war and it ended up at independent distributor Lionsgate. The studio released it last November to critical and commercial acclaim.

Another Oscar favorite, Jeff Bridges, won the male lead award for playing a washed-up country singer in "Crazy Heart." The 60-year-old Hollywood veteran, who has never won an Oscar, told reporters that he was "not counting any chickens."

"Crazy Heart" also won for best first feature.

Each year, a handful of Spirit winners usually go on to earn Oscars thanks in part to the success of low-budget films.

But this year's top Oscar race appears to be a showdown between the mega-budget sci-fi extravaganza "Avatar" and the indie war drama "The Hurt Locker," which was not eligible for the Spirits this year because it was nominated last year.

Along with the Tolstoy drama "The Last Station," "Precious" led the field with five nominations each. "The Last Station" went home empty-handed.

Other winners included Woody Harrelson for his supporting turn in "The Messenger." The 48-year-old actor played a US Army captain who must notify soldiers' next-of-kin when they are killed in service.

The British period drama "An Education" was named best foreign film. Documentary honors went to "Anvil! The Story of Anvil." The indefatigable heavy-metal band at the center of the action performed at the ceremony.

The Spirit Awards, now in their 25th year, honor low-budget American films based on such criteria as original, provocative subject matter and the degree of independent financing