Kodak Building - current home to the Academy Awards (Photo/wiki)

The Academy Awards is not called the Oscars.  Even the media throws that one name or word at us,so no wonder it is confusing.  Only after visiting Los Angeles during the week of the Oscars, oops, the Academy Awards, did I realize how strongly the L.A. residents felt.

Such emotions were touched within an hour of my visit.  I was in an airport shuttle heading to my hotel when I boldly asked “So, it’s the Oscars this week, who do you think will win?”  It was easy to see who was a local resident by all the careened necks that turned quickly to the back of the shuttle at me!  Why I even noticed the peering eyes of the driver.  "How dare you say Oscars."  His eyes seemed to say.

One young lady was polite enough to set me straight. 

We say Academy Awards, and it is an Oscar that the actors win.” 

Embarrassingly I nodded my understanding and silently promised I would never say that again.  Heaven help me if someone just happened to ask my occupation, an actress, as I would have had to come up with another, any other profession would have explained my ignorance.  Evolution of acting is how all this began.   An actor's niche can sometimes be seen in the parts he or she portrays.

Of course the real issue is always who wins!  Who should have won?  Why did he or she win?  Or better yet, one might hear “Why did she wear that dress with those shoes?,” and “His suit is so ‘90's.”  No matter what side of the red carpet one is on, when it comes to the Academy Awards, if it wasn’t for the art of acting, there would be no such event.

Even though it’s been a few weeks now, other then Best Performance of a leading actor and actress, can anyone really remember who won what?  If you do not follow the Academy Awards on television, then you can still keep up with them quite accidentally, as it is hard to stand in line at a grocery store without seeing someone on the cover of a movie magazine holding an Oscar - yes, I’m allowed to say that word now. United, actors stand~ they have to be.

The history and glamour of the Academy Awards is what most are interested in. The dedication that it takes for each talent - actor, producer, director, writer...to earn the right to place his or her foot upon that same red carpet that so many talents and films, such as Slumdog Millionaire.   And then there are the Award winning actors in The Reader.

Feel free to check it out, and see how some of the acting industry's performers and Sir Oscar finally meet at the Academy Awards.

(AP Photo/Matt Sayles)

Robin Wright Penn & Sean Penn at the Academy Awards