Honor builds Oscar momentum for director Steve McQueen's look at slavery in 1840s America
“12 Years a Slave,” has won the audience award at the Toronto International Film Festival, building Oscar momentum for Steve McQueen’s unblinking portrait of slavery in 1840s America.
McQueen’s film beat out first runner-up “Philomena,” directed by fellow Brit Stephen Frears, and second runner-up “Prisoners,” directed by Quebec’s Denis Villeneuve.
Following the announcement Sunday, festival head Piers Handling suggested this was the beginning of many prestigious accolades for the sweeping drama.
“The King’s Speech,” ”Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire” and “Slumdog Millionaire” all went on to multiple Academy Award nominations and wins after being crowned most popular in Toronto.
Every best picture winner since 2007 has played at the 11-day Toronto International Film Festival, which wrapped up Sunday.
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More