The lights are dimmed in Dolby Theatre. The movie industry’s biggest stars are rubbing shoulders in the audience, but Sean Santhon is 80 feet below.

“Argo” is the year’s Cinderella story.

The Grammys sweep has been a permanent fixture in the award show for years. The trademark picture is notorious: the artist’s arms spread wide, barely managing to cradle those famous golden gramophones.

Shiny suits, shimmery leggings and fur vests were out in full force in Ackerman Union on Friday night. But the mass of Bruins weren’t trying to recreate John Travolta’s “Saturday Night Fever” or attending a Jazzercise convention – they were waiting for Macklemore and Ryan Lewis.

On Sunday night, more than 700 UCLA students took over the back of Pauley Pavilion, shivering in below-50-degree weather, trying to keep themselves warm with tents, blankets and impromptu hookah sessions.

Though Oscar Sunday is still three months away, movie critics and awards journalists (you can specialize in just about anything these days) are amping up their forecasts on who will take home the gold come February.

The American Music Awards have been a long-running joke in my family.

November is the month when serious award hopefuls begin making themselves known. Variety magazine, for instance, released on Saturday a list of 30 films it considered to be the top contenders for the major categories at the Academy Awards.

As I wrote this column before the election, the polls were still open, and in between constant checking of CNN my mind was still reeling from a movie I saw the night before at the American Film Institute festival ““ the French film “Rust and Bone” starring Marion Cotillard.

No stranger to the headlines, Joaquin Phoenix became the talk of Tinseltown once again last week with a controversial interview in, well, Interview magazine.