We've already given you our predictions for the Supporting Actress nominations—now, which four actors will have the honor of ultimately losing the Best Supporting Actor Oscar to Heath Ledger? Let's find out!

The Oscar nominations are just days away...time to break out the ol' Defamer Predictions! In our first installment, we take a look at Supporting Actress, a category filled with tears, defiance, and nipple jewelry.

• Ben Silverman and NBC have come to terms on a new contract. [B&C]
• Jeff Bewkes is taking over as Time Warner's chairman. [Bloomberg]
• As expected, Newsweek is trimming both staff and circulation. [WSJ]
• Do his 8 Golden Globe nods mean Harvey Weinstein is on the rebound? [THR]
• CBS Interactive is restructuring and making major cuts. [PaidContent]
• Hugh Jackman will be hosting the Oscars next February. [THR]

The Los Angeles Film Critics Association just named Wall-E the best motion picture of the year. The film, which is about a whimsical little trash robot and the horrible fat people who enslave him, depicts a universe in which Earth has become uninhabitable, skyscraper-high towers of garbage strewn about a brown-earthed, brown-skied wasteland. It's bleak! But it's also animated and cute and hopeful in its own wise way and it will win Best Picture at the Oscarcademy Awards this year.

As the Oscar derby reaches its Winslet-duelling, Australia-gutting heights, there are only a handful of films that can survive. We've had a look at the current conventional wisdom, and here are three rising Oscar contenders that could stand to have a few holes poked in them. (Some spoilers for the synopsis-averse may ensue.)

This year's Oscars Best Picture race is still fluid enough to account for the presence of two films that would normally seem like longshots: the Pixar masterpiece Wall-E and the box office blockbuster The Dark Knight. One is the tale of a lonely hero who talks in a funny voice, and the other is Wall-E, but both films have one thing in common: they're huge, mainstream blockbusters, which Oscar voters don't typically reward. However, the New York Times reports that the studio behind each film is readying a big Academy Awards push, and they've got their eyes set on Best Picture. Which has the better shot, and should we expect either film to wrangle a nomination for Oscar's biggest prize?First, let's take Wall-E. The indomitable Pixar robot has collected some of the most glowing reviews of the year and many of those critics then called it the best American film of 2008 — in fact, Wall Street Journal scribe Joe Morgenstern was already talking Wall-E up for Best Picture in July. Still, the film has several things working against it: it opened early enough in the year to have been forgotten, it made a ton of money but not as much as much as, say, Cars (thereby falling into an Oscar trap where the movie is too successful, but not so successful that it can't be ignored), and it's animated. "Younger-skewing" films like Beauty and the Beast and Babe have been nominated before, but almost offhandedly, and not in a while. Then, there's the Bat. The Dark Knight has one big thing going for it: Heath Ledger's performance is a mortal lock for a Supporting Actor slot, which may help grease the wheels for the film to grab a Best Pic nom. Also, its box office total, second only to Oscar favorite Titanic, is so massive that The Dark Knight has remained the biggest story in the industry all year. Yes, it's still just a comic book movie (and one that had a minor Bat-lash), but what isn't in Hollywood these days? Thus, in the race for Best Picture, we're going to give the edge to The Dark Knight. With previous contenders like Frost/Nixon and Changeling losing steam among the chattering class, The Dark Knight's chances are certainly improved, and it has the best precedent: The Fugitive, a well-reviewed action blockbuster that rode a buzzworthy supporting performance to Oscar glory. We're going to hold out hope in our hearts for Wall-E, but we fear it'll take something stronger than a laser blast from EVE to bust this robot out of the Best Animated Film ghetto.

Are you still trying to scrub the memory of those heinous Emmy awards from your brain? Perhaps this rumor will do the trick. We can all agree that one of the only bright spots of the awards were when Ricky Gervais did that “give me my Emmy” bit with Steve Carell. Well, according to E-Dubs (that’s Entertainment Weekly for you laymen), after that performance, “his reps were besieged with inquiries about his availability and were urged to book a meeting with Academy Awards organizers, stat.” So does that mean Ricky’s gonna host the Oscars? He’d probably do an incredible job, and frankly, he’s the only host who actually feels exciting these days. We’ve already been down the Jon Stewart and Ellen DeGeneres roads, Billy Crystal has been M.I.A. for years, and if they go with Whoopi again, America will pluck out its collective eyeballs in protest. So why not give a Brit a chance?He’ll certainly be in good company, now that Dreamgirls director Bill Condon has been tapped to executive produce the upcoming Oscar telecast. This is the same dude who wrote the screenplay for Chicago, so he definitely knows how to razzle-dazzle ‘em. But he also directed Kinsey and Gods and Monsters, so which Bill Condon will show up? Will it be his glitzy, gaudy musical side or his frank-exploration-of-human-sexuality side? Either way, it should make for an interesting evening, and as long as five reality hosts aren’t involved, we’ll be watching. [Photo Credits: Getty Images]

Win a Seat at the Oscars! Or at least in the bleachers outside the Kodak Theater, where the Academy will randomly select a "few hundred" fans to heckle Diablo Cody celebrate the arrivals of the Oscar attendees next Feb. 22. Sign-ups begin Monday and end Sept. 28. If it's anything like this year's prospectively well-hung Emmy arrivals, it can't hurt to apply. [AMPAS]

We had no idea that next February's analog-to-digital TV conversion was shaping up as the Y2K of contemporary broadcasting, but a careful reconsideration of the facts offers alarming new perspective on a crisis in the making. To wit: Your grandparents may miss the Academy Awards. Or so reports Variety, which points to the Feb. 17 changeover, the Feb. 22 Oscarcast and a constituency of none-the-wiser viewers as the makings of a perfect storm threatening to wash away the Oscars as we know them:

Hollywood's power list got a little more diffuse Monday when Diablo Cody, Marion Cotillard, Judd Apatow and Sacha Baron Cohen were among 105 new invitees to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The number is the lowest since 2004, when the Academy instituted its "Riff-Raff Rule" limiting the annual invitee total to 137; that said, we're not sure what kind of internal politics and/or pledge drives would necessitate inviting Michael Haneke and Jet Li to assume even 1/6000th of the Oscar vote. Follow the jump for more of this year's celebrated AMPAS Cub Club!

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hopes you enjoyed the Enchanted three-fer nominated for last year's Best Song Oscar, because that was the last time a single film will receive more than two song nods in any given season — even if they're virtually guaranteed to lose against upstart Irish indies and/or pimp anthems. A rule change implemented Tuesday night says "there is no limit to the number of songs that may be submitted from a given film," but only two will get the dog-and-pony-show treatment on the Oscar telecast, thus saving the likes Amy Adams the indignity of going "stage commando" during their production numbers.

ThinkFilm today announced its acquisition of theatrical and DVD rights to the documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, which made as many headlines recently for its acclaimed Sundance run as for being dumped in New York and Pasadena for a week by its Oscar-craving original buyers at HBO. The cable network retains the broadcast rights, planning a June 9 premiere ahead of ThinkFilm's July 11 theatrical release. We know what you're thinking — a TV premiere before theatrical? But it's not that unusual, and it can only help in the awards push sure to come.

Out of consideration for another boring-ass, unkillable civic ritual, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will push back its 2008 Oscar nomination announcement to Jan. 22, 2009 — two days after the presidential inauguration in Washington, D.C. The quadrennial event apparently has a century-and-a-half of media seniority over the Oscars, thus giving the Academy little choice but to bump its usual Tuesday press conference to Thursday. But wait — it gets worse.

Knowing what we know about Spike Lee's constructively critical awards-podium jeremiads, we think the filmmaker doth protest too much this week about his lack of faith in the Academy Awards. Nevertheless, the sadist in us also appreciates his analysis of the vagaries of Oscar justice that we presume will embrace Lee one of these days:

We were so busy typing our little fingers to the nub that we barely had a chance to really assess what we thought of last night's Oscars telecast. One thing is certain, however, and that was that host Jon Stewart had a far more successful go at hosting, virtually eradicating any memories of Night of a Thousand Sweatpants, and other clunkers from his 2006 effort. A round-up of what critics are saying:
· "So it was good to see Jon Stewart being Jon Stewart. He is shaping up to be a dependable Oscar host for the post-Billy Crystal years. He's not musical, but he's versatile enough to swing smoothly between jokes about politics, Hollywood, new media, and, most importantly, hair." [Boston Globe]

We were so preoccupied looking for Charles Nelson Reilly in the In Memoriam segment (who never materialized, by the by), that we completely missed the fact that Brad Renfro was absent from the montage. Usmagazine.com asked the Academy what happened, and a rep offered, "It was really an editing decision because we can't fit everyone in. There was no specific reason." Ignoring for a moment the fact that they really blew it on this one, this statement suddenly had us wondering what the whole whittling process entails. Is it just a morbid casting session, where they get a stack of headshots and go through them by committee? ("Sure, Roscoe Lee Browne has the look, but his last project bombed! OK, fine, we'll put him in the Maybe pile.") [Usmagazine.com]

We made it! After months of tooth-gnashing and tuxedo-vest-rending, Hollywood's Greatest Night has arrived, and we're here to capture every significant moment for you, in easy-to-digest, timestamped morsels. We've done everything in our power to make sure that things run smoothly, but as always, mishaps do happen. (We're reminded of the tragic 63rd, when Lorraine Bracco's seat-filler inexplicably caught fire.) On the E! pre-show alone, Jennifer Garner's conversation with Ryan Seacrest was interrupted by a shocking neck-smooch attack perpetrated by a possibly candy-flipping Gary Busey. What cameras didn't capture was the fact that the actor was naked from the waist down. No matter. Garner is quarantined, under observation, and seems OK. And you're in the comfort and safety of your own home, where no slobbery Buseys can ever reach you.

Welcome to Defamer's Fourth Annual Hollywood Christmas Party — aka, our Oscar Liveblog! This year, we'll be splitting our barbed coverage into two robust and equally exciting halves. Seth will be handling the coverage of the (potentially ratings challenged) ceremony itself (separate post to follow at approximately 5:30pm PST), while your Uncle Grambo will be taking the reins for the pre-show. Stick with us, it's gonna be a rip-roarin' old time!
UPDATE (5:30pm): Looking for the Oscar liveblog? Look no further!

Sure, you already brewed up a vat of 9-layer dip for your Independent Sprit Awards party this Saturday, but don't go nuts and eat the whole thing. You're gonna want to have some leftovers laying around, because apparently there's another award show going on this weekend. It's called the Oscars, and while there's no big prime time star like Rainn Wilson at the helm, they did manage to convince a comedian from basic cable to perform the hostly duties. The New York Times scored an interview with said host, and word on the street is that is Jon Stewart is going to attempt to be humorous!