【明報專訊】Dressed up as nominees for the best actor in a leading role award in this year's Oscars (奧斯卡金像獎), Dr Panda, Bill and Eason are walking the red carpet! Who do you think will win?

The Academy Awards or "the Oscars" is an annual awards ceremony held in the US that recognises excellence in the film industry. It is arguably the most important ceremony of its kind in the world. The first Oscars was held in 1929, and the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood (荷李活杜比劇院) is to see the 88th on 28 February 2016.

The iconic trophy of the Oscars is a statuette of a knight holding a crusader's sword and standing on a reel of film with five spokes that signify the five original branches of the Academy: actors, writers, directors, producers and technicians.

The list of nominees came out on 22 January 2016. The Revenant (《復仇勇者》) has received twelve nominations including Best Picture (最佳電影). The next most nominated film is Mad Max: Fury Road (《末日先鋒：戰甲飛車》), which has got ten nominations. Though the host for the coming Oscar ceremony is Chris Rock (基斯洛克), an African-American celebrity, some resent the lack of ethnic diversity among this year's Oscar nominees.

˙Leonardo DiCaprio

The Revenant

˙Matt Damon

The Martian(《火星任務》)

˙Eddie Redmayne

The Danish Girl(《丹麥女孩》)

˙Other nominees for Best Actor

Michael Fassbender

Steve Jobs

(《時代教主：喬布斯》)

Bryan Cranston

Trumbo

■Mission 1

Pat is interviewing Steven Spielberg (史提芬史匹堡)! Can you solve the puzzle to reveal a famous quote of the great director?

■Mission 2

Learn more about how the Oscars began. Fill in the following blanks with the correct forms of the words provided.

adopt / mystery / know

The Academy Award of Merit is better 1. ___________ by the Oscar, its nickname. While the origin of the moniker remains 2. ___________, it is widely believed that, when Margaret Herrick (who was then librarian of the Academy) first saw the trophy, she said it looked like her uncle, whose name was Oscar. The Academy officially 3. ___________ the nickname in 1939.

■Mission 3

Inside Out (《玩轉腦朋友》) is competing for Best Animated Feature (最佳動畫). Can you spot five differences between the two pictures?

(answers on next text)

■English highway: - sentences

when and while

They are conjunctions used to introduce subordinate clauses. When is used to introduce an action that occurs at the same time with or in the span of another, and while is used for parallel actions.

e.g. He was walking back home when he heard a dog bark.

e.g. When she pressed the button, the lift stopped.

e.g. James likes to listen to music while he is studying.

■Key words

nominee 獲提名者

best actor in a leading role 最佳男主角

red carpet 紅地氈

■Glossary

recognise (v) 表揚

trophy (n) 獎座/獎盃

statuette (n) 小雕像

crusader (n) 十字軍戰士

host (n) 主持

ethnic (adj) 種族的

diversity (n) 多樣性

moniker (n) 綽號