Danny Puff

LOS ANGELES (AP) Adele's "Skyfall" has won the Academy Award for best original song, a first for a James Bond theme.

While 007 themes have long been a beloved movie tradition, they've never before won an Oscar. Three previous Bond tunes were nominated: "For Your Eyes Only," ''Nobody Does It Better," and "Live and Let Die."

The Oscar extends Adele's award show dominance, leaving only an Emmy eluding her of the major American awards. She accepted the Oscar with producer Paul Epworth, with whom she wrote the lyrics and composed the music.

Adele also performed "Skyfall" for the first time at the Sunday night ceremony.

The other nominees were "Before My Time" from "Chasing Ice"; "Everybody Needs a Best Friend" from "Ted"; "Pi's Lullaby" from "Life of Pi"; and "Suddenly" from "Les Miserables."

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NEW DELHI/BANGALORE (Reuters) - As BlackBerry launches the first smartphone from its make-or-break BB10 line in India, one of its most loyal markets, the company faces new competition from a formidable rival that has long had a minimal presence in the country.

More than four years after it started selling iPhones in India, Apple Inc is now aggressively pushing the iconic device through installment payment plans that make it more affordable, a new distribution model and heavy marketing blitz.

"Now your dream phone" at 5,056 rupees ($93), read a recent full front-page ad for an iPhone 5 in the Times of India, referring to the initial payment on a phone priced at $840, or almost two months' wages for an entry-level software engineer.

The new-found interest in India suggests a subtle strategy shift for Apple, which has moved tentatively in emerging markets and has allowed rivals such as Samsung and Blackberry to dominate with more affordable smartphones. With the exception of China, all of its Apple stores are in advanced economies.

Apple expanded its India sales effort in the latter half of 2012 by adding two distributors. Previously it sold iPhones only through a few carriers and stores it calls premium resellers.

The result: iPhone shipments to India between October and December nearly tripled to 250,000 units from 90,000 in the previous quarter, according to an estimate by Jessica Kwee, a Singapore-based analyst at consultancy Canalys.

At The MobileStore, an Indian chain owned by the Essar conglomerate, which says it sells 15 percent of iPhones in the country, iPhone sales tripled between December and January, thanks to a monthly payment scheme launched last month.

"Most people in India can't afford a dollar-priced phone when the salaries in India are rupee salaries. But the desire is the same," said Himanshu Chakrawarti, its chief executive.

Apple, the distributors, retailers and banks share the advertising and interest cost of the marketing push, according to Chakrawarti. Carriers like Bharti Airtel Ltd, which also sell the iPhone 5, run separate ads.

India is the world's No. 2 cellphone market by users, but most Indians can't afford fancy handsets. Smartphones account for just a tenth of total phone sales. In India, 95 percent of cellphone users have prepaid accounts without a fixed contract. Unlike in the United States, carriers do not subsidize handsets.

Within the smartphone segment, Apple's Indian market share last quarter was just 5 percent, according to Canalys, meaning its overall penetration is tiny.

Still, industry research firm IDC expects the Indian smartphone market to grow more than five times from about 19 million units last year to 108 million in 2016, which presents a big opportunity.

Samsung Electronics dominates Indian smartphone sales with a 40 percent share, thanks to its wide portfolio of Android devices priced as low as $110. The market has also been flooded by cheaper Android phones from local brands such as Micromax and Lava.

Most smartphones sold in India are much cheaper than the iPhone, said Gartner analyst Anshul Gupta.

"Where the masses are - there, Apple still has a gap."

'I LOVE INDIA, BUT...'

Apple helped create the smartphone industry with the iPhone in 2007. But last year Apple lost its lead globally to Samsung whose smartphones, which run Google's free Android software, are especially attractive in Asia.

Many in Silicon Valley and Wall Street believe the surest way to penetrate lower-income Asian markets would be with a cheaper iPhone, as has been widely reported but never confirmed. The risk is that a cheap iPhone would cannibalize demand for the premium version and eat into Apple's peerless margins.

The new monthly payment plan in India goes a long way to expanding the potential market, said Chakrawarti.

"The Apple campaign is not meant for really the regular top-end customer, it is meant to upgrade the 10,000-12,000 handset guy to 45,000 rupees," he said.

Apple's main focus for expansion in Asia has been Greater China, including Taiwan and Hong Kong, where revenue grew 60 percent last quarter to $7.3 billion.

Asked last year why Apple had not been as successful in India, Chief Executive Tim Cook said its business in India was growing but the group remained more focused on other markets.

"I love India, but I believe that Apple has some higher potential in the intermediate term in some other countries," Cook said. "The multi-layer distribution there really adds to the cost of getting products to market," he said at the time.

Apple, which has partly addressed that by adding distributors, did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Ingram Micro Inc, one of its new distributors, also declined comment. Executives at Redington (India) Ltd, the other distributor, could not immediately be reached.

BlackBerry, which has seen its global market share shrivel to 3.4 percent from 20 percent over the past three years, is making what is seen as a last-ditch effort to save itself with the BB10 series.

The high-end BlackBerry Z10 to be launched in India on Monday is expected to be priced not far from the 45,500 rupees price tag for an iPhone 5 with 16 gigabytes of memory. Samsung's Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Note 2, Nokia's Lumia 920 and two HTC Corp models are the main iPhone rivals.

Until last year, Blackberry was the No. 3 smartphone brand in India with market share of more than 10 percent, thanks to a push into the consumer segment with lower-priced phones. Last quarter its share fell to about 5 percent, putting it in fifth place, according to Canalys. Apple was sixth.

(This story is corrected in para 16 to make clear that Google owns Android software)

(Additional reporting by Aradhana Aravindan in MUMBAI and Poornima Gupta in SAN FRANCISCO; Editing by Tony Munroe and Mark Bendeich)

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Seth MacFarlane accepted an assist from William Shatner to smooth his nerves during his first time as Academy Awards host.

MacFarlane, best known for behind-the-scenes Hollywood work as creator of the television series "Family Guy" and movie "Ted," seemed nervous in the traditional role telling jokes, although he did get in one quick poke at the academy for snubbing Ben Affleck as a best director nominee for the movie "Argo."

"The story is so top secret that the film's director is unknown to the academy," MacFarlane said.

One joke about "Amour" flew by so quickly that it was difficult to understand what he said.

He joked about "Lincoln" best actor nominee Daniel Day Lewis' habit of staying in character during filming days even when the cameras were turned off.

"If you bumped into Don Cheadle in the studio lot, would you try and free him?" MacFarlane asked.

A giant video screen was lowered near where MacFarlane stood, revealing Shatner in "Star Trek"-like regalia. Shatner said he was there trying to save MacFarlane from himself, showing a supposed headline from the future that declared MacFarlane the worst Oscar host ever.

It sent MacFarlane into more high concept comedy, with mixed results. MacFarlane was shown in a song and dance routine, backed by the Los Angeles Gay Men's Chorus, naming famous actresses and the films where they displayed their breasts. During a quick cutaway, Charlize Theron one of the actresses named did not appear amused.

In another skit, scenes from the movie "Flight" were performed by sock puppets. An overly long skit again designed to illustrate MacFarlane's "bad taste" showed him wearing a Flying Nun costume in an attempt to pick up Sally Field backstage.

MacFarlane made self-deprecation a theme of his Oscars hosting turn even before taking the stage, saying in interviews that he expected to get negative reviews.

He seemed to relax when the spotlight moved away and he had the quick job of introducing presenters with a handful of jokes. He had a handful of solid jokes when talking about Quvenzhane Wallis, the 9-year-old best actress nominess for "Beasts of the Southern Wild."

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NEW DELHI/BANGALORE (Reuters) - As BlackBerry launches the first smartphone from its make-or-break BB10 line in India, one of its most loyal markets, the company faces new competition from a formidable rival that has long had a minimal presence in the country.

More than four years after it started selling iPhones in India, Apple Inc is now aggressively pushing the iconic device through installment payment plans that make it more affordable, a new distribution model and heavy marketing blitz.

"Now your dream phone" at 5,056 rupees ($93), read a recent full front-page ad for an iPhone 5 in the Times of India, referring to the initial payment on a phone priced at $840, or almost two months' wages for an entry-level software engineer.

The new-found interest in India suggests a subtle strategy shift for Apple, which has moved tentatively in emerging markets and has allowed rivals such as Samsung and Blackberry to dominate with more affordable smartphones. With the exception of China, all of its Apple stores are in advanced economies.

Apple expanded its India sales effort in the latter half of 2012 by adding two distributors. Previously it sold iPhones only through a few carriers and stores it calls premium resellers.

The result: iPhone shipments to India between October and December nearly tripled to 250,000 units from 90,000 in the previous quarter, according to an estimate by Jessica Kwee, a Singapore-based analyst at consultancy Canalys.

At The MobileStore, an Indian chain owned by the Essar conglomerate, which says it sells 15 percent of iPhones in the country, iPhone sales tripled between December and January, thanks to a monthly payment scheme launched last month.

"Most people in India can't afford a dollar-priced phone when the salaries in India are rupee salaries. But the desire is the same," said Himanshu Chakrawarti, its chief executive.

Apple, the distributors, retailers and banks share the advertising and interest cost of the marketing push, according to Chakrawarti. Carriers like Bharti Airtel Ltd, which also sell the iPhone 5, run separate ads.

India is the world's No. 2 cellphone market by users, but most Indians can't afford fancy handsets. Smartphones account for just a tenth of total phone sales. In India, 95 percent of cellphone users have prepaid accounts without a fixed contract. Unlike in the United States, carriers do not subsidize handsets.

Within the smartphone segment, Apple's Indian market share last quarter was just 5 percent, according to Canalys, meaning its overall penetration is tiny.

Still, industry research firm IDC expects the Indian smartphone market to grow more than five times from about 19 million units last year to 108 million in 2016, which presents a big opportunity.

Samsung Electronics dominates Indian smartphone sales with a 40 percent share, thanks to its wide portfolio of Android devices priced as low as $110. The market has also been flooded by cheaper Android phones from local brands such as Micromax and Lava.

Most smartphones sold in India are much cheaper than the iPhone, said Gartner analyst Anshul Gupta.

"Where the masses are - there, Apple still has a gap."

'I LOVE INDIA, BUT...'

Apple helped create the smartphone industry with the iPhone in 2007, but last year lost its lead globally to Samsung whose free Android software is especially attractive in Asia.

Many in Silicon Valley and Wall Street believe the surest way to penetrate lower-income Asian markets would be with a cheaper iPhone, as has been widely reported but never confirmed. The risk is that a cheap iPhone would cannibalize demand for the premium version and eat into Apple's peerless margins.

The new monthly payment plan in India goes a long way to expanding the potential market, said Chakrawarti.

"The Apple campaign is not meant for really the regular top-end customer, it is meant to upgrade the 10,000-12,000 handset guy to 45,000 rupees," he said.

Apple's main focus for expansion in Asia has been Greater China, including Taiwan and Hong Kong, where revenue grew 60 percent last quarter to $7.3 billion.

Asked last year why Apple had not been as successful in India, Chief Executive Tim Cook said its business in India was growing but the group remained more focused on other markets.

"I love India, but I believe that Apple has some higher potential in the intermediate term in some other countries," Cook said. "The multi-layer distribution there really adds to the cost of getting products to market," he said at the time.

Apple, which has partly addressed that by adding distributors, did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Ingram Micro Inc, one of its new distributors, also declined comment. Executives at Redington (India) Ltd, the other distributor, could not immediately be reached.

BlackBerry, which has seen its global market share shrivel to 3.4 percent from 20 percent over the past three years, is making what is seen as a last-ditch effort to save itself with the BB10 series.

The high-end BlackBerry Z10 to be launched in India on Monday is expected to be priced not far from the 45,500 rupees price tag for an iPhone 5 with 16 gigabytes of memory. Samsung's Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Note 2, Nokia's Lumia 920 and two HTC Corp models are the main iPhone rivals.

Until last year, Blackberry was the No. 3 smartphone brand in India with market share of more than 10 percent, thanks to a push into the consumer segment with lower-priced phones. Last quarter its share fell to about 5 percent, putting it in fifth place, according to Canalys. Apple was sixth.

($1 = 54.2000 Indian rupees)

(Additional reporting by Aradhana Aravindan in MUMBAI and Poornima Gupta in SAN FRANCISCO; Editing by Tony Munroe and Mark Bendeich)

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NEW YORK (AP) Fox's Chris Wallace has landed the first postelection interview with defeated Republican nominee Mitt Romney and his wife, Ann.

Wallace said on "Fox News Sunday" that the interview will air on his show next week. Additional portions will be on Fox News Channel the next day. Wallace says he'll ask Romney how he has dealt with the defeat, what he plans to do and his thoughts about President Barack Obama's second-term agenda.

Fox News spokeswoman Ashley Nerz says the interview will be taped this week in southern California, where Romney has spent much of his time since the election.

Romney has also said he will speak March 15 to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, an annual event that draws leading Republican voices.

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SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) The oddball romance "Silver Linings Playbook" was named best picture Saturday at the Spirit Awards honoring independent film, Hollywood's last pre-game show before the Academy Awards.

"Silver Linings Playbook" led with four wins, including best actress for Jennifer Lawrence and director and screenplay for David O. Russell.

Lawrence is the best-actress favorite at Sunday's Oscars for her role as a young widow in a shaky new relationship with a man fresh from a mental hospital.

"The Sessions" earned two acting prizes, for John Hawkes as a man in an iron lung hoping to lose his virginity and Helen Hunt as the sexual surrogate helping him through it.

The award for best supporting actor went to Matthew McConaughey as a flamboyant stripper in "Magic Mike."

In barely three years, Lawrence has risen from a relative unknown to superstar hero of "The Hunger Games" franchise and potential Oscar winner at just 22. Her quick ascent began with another Spirit Awards nominee, "Winter's Bone," which won the top honor at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and earned Lawrence her first Oscar nomination.

Lawrence said she loves independent film for the thrill of freezing with the crew in the middle of the night because they all believe in a story.

"That's why I do what I do. I love that feeling. I mean, I'd rather be warm," Lawrence said.

McConaughey, also a best-actor nominee at the Spirit Awards for "Killer Joe," is a Hollywood A-lister but a relative newcomer to key film awards.

"I had to take my pants off to win a trophy," McConaughey said, adding that five of his last six films were independent productions and the "most creative fun of my acting career, hands down."

Hunt, also nominated for supporting actress at the Oscars, was coy backstage about what she'll be doing before Hollywood's big night.

"I will be eating breakfast and getting dressed," Hunt said of her day at the Oscars, where she previously won as best actress for "As Good as It Gets." ''I don't have any plans, but I'm going to put a dress on."

"Silver Linings Playbook" filmmaker Russell noted that his initial trip to the Spirit Awards was 19 years ago, when he won the prize for best first film for "Spanking the Monkey."

His son Matthew, an inspiration for "Silver Linings" because of his battle with bipolar disorder, was a year old at the time, and was in the crowd to watch his father claim his awards.

"He gave me this movie, so I want to thank him, Matthew, for this movie," Russell said.

"Silver Linings Playbook" centers on the relationship between a man (Bradley Cooper) just out of a mental hospital and a young widow (Lawrence). The film is up for best picture at the Oscars, where Russell is nominated for adapted screenplay and director and Cooper and Lawrence are in the running for the lead-acting honors.

The film's producers said they had expected fellow Oscar best-picture nominee "Beasts of the Southern Wild" to win the top Spirit Award and that they have no expectations of winning the big prize at the Oscars, where Ben Affleck's CIA thriller "Argo" is the best-picture favorite.

But they gushed praise for filmmaker Russell.

"Your brilliance as a filmmaker is without peer. Your spirit of collaboration knows no bounds," said producer Jonathan Gordon.

Russell said backstage that he was thrilled to go the Oscars, or as he called it, the "World Series," but he also has no illusions about winning there.

"Thank God, Monday, I'm going back to work," Russell said. "That's how you avoid the postpartum depression."

Hawkes won the supporting-actor Spirit Award two years ago as Lawrence's co-star in "Winter's Bone," a role that also earned him an Oscar nomination. He missed out on an Oscar slot this time but said that independent film is a "big part of my life, and I'm really happy for that. ... 'The Sessions' is a truly independent film made for very little money and shot very quickly."

Austrian writer-director Michael Haneke's old-age love story "Amour" won for best international film, a possible prelude to the Oscars, where his film is the favorite to win the foreign-language prize and is nominated for best picture.

"I have the impression I am the oldest man in the room," the 70-year-old Haneke joked in a room filled with young filmmakers.

The ceremony was hosted by Adam Samberg at the awards' usual venue, a tent along the beach in Santa Monica just west of Los Angeles. It is presented by Film Independent, a group of filmmakers, industry professionals and cinema buffs. The show was aired later Saturday on IFC.

Among other winners:

Best first film: "The Perks of Being a Wallflower," from director Stephen Chbosky, who adapted the picture from his novel.

First screenplay: "Safety Not Guaranteed," Derek Connolly.

Cinematography: "Beasts of the Southern Wild," Ben Richardson.

Documentary: "The Invisible War," directed by Kirby Dick.

John Cassavetes Award for best film made for less than $500,000: "Middle of Nowhere," directed by Ava DuVernay.

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AP Movie Writer Christy Lemire contributed to this report.

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - George the Giant, towering over onlookers gathered to see performers swallow steel, hammers a 6-1/2 inch (16.5 cm) nail up his nostril, rips a phone book in half with his bare hands and dangles a full bottle of Coke from his eyelids with fish hooks.

The world's tallest sword swallower, at 7 feet 3 inches (2.2 metres), he was under strict doctor's orders not to participate in the main event at the 6th Annual "World Sword Swallower's Day" due to an unrelated injury, but remained intent on pleasing the crowd.

He was among performers on Hollywood Boulevard outside of Ripley's Believe it or Not! on Saturday for a death-defying show that would ultimately see 234 inches (6 meters) of metal swallowed simultaneously by some of America's best sword swallowers.

"Every time you swallow a sword you're cheating death," George said of the art he's practiced for the past two decades. The longest sword he's swallowed was 33 inches (84 cm) long and one and a half inches (3.8 cm) wide. "It's a rush to watch people as they watch you do these things that others can't do."

As these professionals threw their heads back and "dropped sword," the adrenaline pumped from the performers out into the Hollywood crowd as they excitedly cheered.

With preparations for Sunday's Academy Awards show under way across the street, about 100 passers-by gathered with anticipation as the performers swallowed steel.

Amy Amnesia, a 32-year-old performer, told Reuters this was her first public appearance. Explaining that the minimum requirements were for swords 14 inches (35.5 cm) long and a half-inch (1.3 cm) wide, she said her particular sword of choice is 19 inches (48 cm).

"You have to get your body used to this new paradigm of having a large solid object down your throat," she said, explaining that she had only recently learned the art.

Ripley's, which sponsored the event along with the Sword Swallowers Association International, has supported the sword- swallowing community for 80 years, and such events have made contributions to medicine and science by raising money for esophageal cancer research.

According to Ripley's General Manager and new sword swallowing trainee Andrea Silverman, the best way to learn is to first start training with a wire coat hanger.

"The average person takes six months to get comfortable and a year before their first performance," she said.

Brett Loudermilk, 24, first learned to swallow swords when he was 15 years old, saying he "started out with a cake spatula and then moved to a wire coat hanger."

Why does Loudermilk perform? "It's great providing people with a sense of wonder."

(Editing by Cynthia Johnston, Daniel Trotta and Eric Walsh)

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LOS ANGELES (AP) The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is encouraging celebrities to tweet during the Oscars.

The film organization has expanded its digital outreach for the 85th Academy Awards with a new feature that lets stars to snap photos of themselves backstage during Sunday's ceremony and instantly post them online.

What Twitter calls a "Magic Mirror" will take photo-booth-style pictures of participating stars in the green room and send them out on the academy's official Twitter account. Organizers expect multiple celebrity mash-ups.

The backstage green room is a private place for stars to hang out before taking the stage and is typically closed to press and photographers.

The Magic Mirror is "giving access to fans at home a part of the show they never got to experience before," Twitter spokeswoman Elaine Filadelfo said Friday.

A new video-on-demand/instant replay feature also being introduced Sunday will allow Oscar fans to view show highlights online moments after they happen and share them with friends on Twitter and Facebook. Dozens of clips from the red carpet and the awards telecast will be available on the official Oscar website beyond Sunday's ceremony.

Oscar.com also offers other behind-the-scenes interactive features, including various backstage camera perspectives and a new live blog that aggregates the show's presence across social media. It will track the traffic on whatever makes a splash, like Angelina Jolie's right leg did last year.

The academy wants to make its second-screen experience just as rich as its primary one.

"Social media is now mainstream," said Christina Kounelias, chief marketing officer for the academy.

"We're not doing social media to reach out to young kids," said the academy's digital media director, Josh Spector. "We're doing it to connect with all Oscar fans."

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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen on Twitter: www.twitter.com/APSandy.

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Online:

www.oscar.com

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LOS ANGELES (AP) The "Twilight" team finally has earned some love or loathing from Team Razzies.

"The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2" was picked as last year's worst picture Saturday by the Razzies, an Academy Awards spoof that hands out prizes for Hollywood's lousiest movies on the eve of the Oscars.

The finale to the blockbuster supernatural romance dominated the Razzies with seven awards, including worst actress for Kristen Stewart, supporting actor for Taylor Lautner, director for Bill Condon and worst screen couple for Lautner and child co-star Mackenzie Foy.

Adam Sandler was named worst actor for the raunchy comedy "That's My Boy," his second-straight win after 2011's "Jack and Jill," which swept all 10 Razzie categories a year ago. Pop singer Rihanna won worst supporting actress for the action dud "Battleship."

"Twilight" movies had been well represented in Razzie nominations over the years but had not won any key awards there. Razzie voters joke that as with "The Lord of the Rings" finale winning best picture at the Academy Awards, they were waiting for the last "Twilight" flick on which to heap their scorn.

"I have a pet theory, which is that the box office on 'Twilight' films is very impressive, but my theory is that instead of 40 million individual girls going to see it, it's 8 million girls going to see it five times each. People who love those movies just adore them," said Razzies founder John Wilson. "I believe the attitude of people who really love 'Twilight' movies toward this subject is very similar to the pomposity with which the Academy Awards addresses the whole rest of the world. Our whole existence is all about making fun of pompous, so 'Twilight' really is right up our alley."

The "Twilight" finale also won for worst screen ensemble and worst remake, rip-off or sequel. For worst picture, it beat out "Battleship," ''That's My Boy," the family flick "The Oogieloves in the Big Balloon Adventure" and Eddie Murphy's comedy flop "A Thousand Words."

Stewart's worst-actress prize came for both "Twilight" and her fairy-tale update "Snow White and the Huntsman."

In the five "Twilight" movies, Stewart stars as sullen teen Bella Swan, who falls for ageless vampire hunk Edward Cullen (worst-actor nominee Robert Pattinson) and finds herself at the center of a love triangle with him and her childhood pal, werewolf stud Jacob Black (Lautner).

Stewart set a consistent standard of emotional stoniness throughout the "Twilight" movies, Wilson said.

"Acting should involve having an expression on your face, and she is blank, other than the morose kind of half-Goth thing her character does," Wilson said. "I didn't realize Snow White and Bella were soul sisters, because of the very limited range of what she can do. I think it was Dorothy Parker who said about Katharine Hepburn that she runs the 'gamut of emotions from A to B.' Kristen Stewart is so expressionless she might as well be a brick wall."

Sandler's "That's My Boy," which also won the worst-screenplay Razzie, flopped at the box office and continues a gradual decline in receipts for the comic actor's movies.

"He's an enormous star who is on what I call the 'down-alator' of his career," Wilson said. "He's about to step off the same cliff Eddie Murphy stepped off about 10 years ago. Eddie Murphy has never come back, and Murphy is more talented."

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LOS ANGELES (AP) Giant coffee table books, iPod Shuffles, signed letters from directors, even "Lincoln" turkey roasting pans. That's just some of the largesse doled out by the studios to voters for awards presented earlier this season each with the potential to influence the outcome of Hollywood's most important awards, Sunday night's Oscars.

Such gifts are strictly forbidden by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. But for studios, the stakes are high, and they've been creative in working around the rules to give their movies the best spotlight possible. A best picture win can boost a film's commercial appeal and solidify relations with big-name actors and directors.

This year, top Oscar contenders "Argo" from Warner Bros. and "Lincoln" from Disney pitted two deep-pocketed rivals against each other in what some say was an unprecedented level of Oscar campaigning. There was even some targeted sniping about the films' bending of historical facts.

Part of what's behind the seemingly unrestrained lobbying is that this year, an unusually large number of best picture nominees are also doing well at the box office, giving the studios dry powder for their campaigns.

Six of the nine contenders for the top Oscar have reaped $100 million or more in ticket sales domestically, and collectively they've earned $309 million since the nominations Jan. 10, according to Hollywood.com. This record-setting "Oscar bump" dwarfs the $111 million the nine best picture nominees made between the nominations and the awards ceremony last year. It also trumps the season that 2009's megahit "Avatar" was in the running, when 10 nominees brought in $204 million in bump.

That means there's plenty of reason for studios to keep spending even to the extent of papering the walls of the popular Beverly Hills restaurant Kate Mantilini with campaign posters, which conveniently tower over diners just a block from the motion picture academy itself.

"I have never seen such an assault in terms of stuff being sent to us," said Pete Hammond, a member of the Broadcast Film Critics Association, which hosts the Critics Choice Awards, and a columnist for the Hollywood blog Deadline.com.

Hammond is one of several voters for the earlier awards where wins translate into momentum for Oscar hopefuls. They say their mailboxes were swamped with swag this year all of it an attempt to reach the 5,800 academy members who vote on the Oscars, albeit through indirect means.

From the campaign of Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln," members of the broadcast critics group say they received no less than four coffee table books, an intricately framed DVD for review purposes and even a hand-signed letter from Spielberg himself, thanking them for recognizing the film with so many nominations. Some awards voters also received "Lincoln" turkey roasting pans, according to an industry insider who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.

The broadcast critics also received an iPod Shuffle, which retails for $49, containing the soundtrack to Universal Pictures' "Les Miserables," which is up for music and sound mixing awards.

Several voters said this level of giveaway was unusual, but then again, in recent times, well-funded major studios haven't been that involved.

In the last two years, the movie industry's top honor went to The Weinstein Co.'s "The Artist" and "The King's Speech." Previous to that, 2009's winner was "The Hurt Locker," whose backer Summit Entertainment was just starting to get its "Twilight" mojo and was yet to be flush with cash.

Before that it was Fox Searchlight's "Slumdog Millionaire" and before that "No Country for Old Men" by Paramount Vantage both smaller arms of major studios that have smaller marketing budgets than their larger siblings.

This year, the majors are back in the game in a big way. In addition to Warner's "Argo" and Disney's "Lincoln," Sony Pictures is behind "Zero Dark Thirty," 20th Century Fox is backing "Life of Pi" and Universal is the force behind "Les Miserables."

While The Weinstein Co.'s "Silver Linings Playbook" is earning boffo business above $100 million in ticket sales following co-chairman Harvey Weinstein's familiar script of making the most of awards season, it appears that this year, the majors have studied up.

"Nobody ever did it besides Harvey, and now everybody's done it this year," said David Poland of MovieCityNews.com, which means more intense campaigning because there's more money to spend.

One look at the release pattern of "Zero Dark Thirty" and it's clear that Sony didn't want to repeat what happened to "The Hurt Locker," another Kathryn Bigelow-directed war film that despite its best picture win, made just $19 million in theaters worldwide. Part of the problem with "Hurt" was that it came out in June and was all but gone from theaters by the time the Oscar nominations rolled around.

Instead, "ZDT" showed in just a handful of theaters in December to qualify for the 2012 Oscars, but burst onto 3,000 theaters the day after the nominations in January, capturing the top spot at the box office that weekend.

"We designed our release campaign to take advantage of key dates in the awards season," said Sony Pictures spokesman Steve Elzer. "With approximately $90 million in box office to date, the film has been a huge critical and commercial success and no matter how we do at the Oscar ceremony on Sunday, we couldn't be more pleased with the film's performance."

Starting small and then going wide after the nominations is the "Playbook" that The Weinstein Co. has followed for years, although company co-chairman Harvey Weinstein denies the pattern.

"There is no playbook, there is no campaigning," Weinstein said. "I have always said the most important thing is to get people to see the films and everything else is mostly fluff."

Even films at the tail end of their box-office run are pumping up the volume. "Argo," which came out in October, was heavily advertised by Warner Bros. ahead of the DVD release this Tuesday. The studio began selling digital downloads two weeks ahead of that. Fox followed a similar strategy for "Life of Pi."

"Because these films are so strong, all the companies are buying (ads)," said Michael Parker, co-president of Sony Pictures Classics, whose film "Amour" is also up for best picture.

Critic Anne Thompson of Indiewire said this year's extravagance is due to the fact that big studios have high hopes for their films. Amid her swag pile are "Wreck-It Ralph" plastic fists, a toy bow and arrow from "Brave," and a printed page of the John Williams score from "Lincoln."

"The factors here are a) the studios involved and b) big hit movies that had extra money," she said. "And the fact you have a close race between two big studio movies. They have reason to believe they have a chance to win."

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