By Lori Bredemeyer, Staff Writer

Academy Awards nominations were announced Feb. 11 for the 75th annual awards presentation, which will air on ABC March 23 with Steve Martin as host.

Chicago had the most Oscar nominations with 13, followed by Gangs of New York with 10 and The Hours with nine.

Caleb Hastings, senior electronic media major from Arlington, said he has a divided view of the awards.

“I love and hate the Oscars,” he said in an e-mail. “I love the Oscars for rewarding films that deserve to be recognized. But at the same time, I despise the academy for being swayed so easily by marketing from production companies.”

About 5,800 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences made their nominations in January, placing movies into 24 categories with up to five nominees in each.

Although freshman Abra Barker watches the awards primarily to see what the celebrities are wearing, she said in an e-mail she predicts that Lilo & Stitch will win for “Best Animated Feature Film.”

“Never have I laughed so hard and cried at the end,” said Barker, freshman integrated marketing communication major from Flower Mound.

Hastings said he watches the awards “every year, in its entirety” but feels one movie was left out of nominations for “Best Costume Design.”

“How many thousands of costumes were forged, sewn and created from hand for The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers?” he said. “Where’s the nomination for that?”

The first Academy Awards show aired May 16, 1929, at a banquet at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. There were only 250 guests in attendance and tickets were $10.

The Oscars has been held at various theaters, hotels and auditoriums, and since 1986 has moved between the Los Angeles Shrine Auditorium and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in the Music Center in Los Angeles. In 2002 the award show moved to the new Kodak Theatre at Hollywood and Highland across the street from the site of the original awards ceremony.

The award statuette, called an Oscar, is the shape of a knight holding a sword and standing on a reel of film. It is made from gold-plated britannium with a metal base.

The story behind how the statuette got its name is unknown, but some believe that an academy librarian, Margaret Herrick, said it looked like her Uncle Oscar, and the name stuck.

For more information on the Academy Awards, go to www.oscar.com.