· Scarlett Johansson will star (with Penelope Cruz) in her third Woody Allen movie, finally cracking the top tier of the pervy director's obsessive lust-objects. [Variety]
· In announcing his attachment to new comedy project Part-Time Pirates for Fox, Click director Frank Coraci officially puts an end to an increasingly annoying era of buccaneer-positive culture: "Pirates are the original punk rockers. Politically and socially with everything going on in the world there's never been a better time than now to revive that spirit. Arrrrrrgh!" [THR]
· Tom Cruise's United Artists greenlights its second film (what, you thought Cruise wasn't serious about this pretending to run a studio thing?), getting into The Usual Suspects business by nabbing an ensemble thriller reuniting Team Soze's Bryan Singer and Chris McQuarrie. [Variety]
· Nielsen terrorist organization American Idol detonates a nuclear weapon that wipes out all television-watching life other than its nearly 30 million Tuesday night viewers. They'll truly stop at nothing to dominate their timeslot. [THR]
· CBS gets the most daytime Emmy nominations, with The Ellen DeGeneres Show squeezing out 12 nods to The View's mere 10. We blame Hasselbeck for the shortfall. [Variety]

As we mentioned earlier, the glamorous and insane Sharon Stone and her failed comeback vehicle, Basic Instinct 2, won more awards than any other at the Razzies—the Golden Raspberry Award Foundation's flatulent response to Hollywood's biggest night. Stone picked up Worst Actress, and the film won Worst Picture, Worst Screenplay, and Worst Prequel or Sequel. The Wayans brothers' dwarf-in-a-diaper comedy, Little Man, won two awards: a shared Worst Actor award for the siblings, in addition to Worst Screen Couple (beating out Stone's "lopsided breasts"), and Worst Remake/Rip-Off. M. Night Shyamalan won Worst Director for Lady in the Water, and a Worst Supporting Actor Razzie, for casting himself in the "pivotal role of a writer whose book will one day bring salvation to humanity." The results are somewhat bittersweet, as we were hoping until the very end that there would be a Wicker Man upset, and that the bad movie genius that is Nicolas Cage in a bear suit clocking a coven of honey-hoarding schoolmarmish types would get its proper due. Alas, it was not meant to be.

· People plays the fun game Fucking or Not Fucking? with Penelope Cruz and Orlando Bloom. Before drawing hasty conclusions, you may want to consider that Bloom was "freaking out and singing along to every [Maroon 5] lyric" at the Global Green concert where they were spotted together, possibly making lead singer Adam Levine the secret object of his lusty affections. [People]
· If you're still undecided in the major categories, you can always just crib the Carpetbagger's final predictions, and then blame him when your Oscar pool money ends up in the lap of that one chubby, mouth-breathing dude at your party no one seems to know, who keeps repeating, "I just went with my gut!" between uncontrollable giggles. [Awards Season]

You've tirelessly monitored the Buzzmeters, scrutinized the massive predictions charts, and internalized the insights of prognosticators in ill-fitting, store-bought superhero costumes, but what you have not yet had the opportunity to do is click a little circle next to the name of one of the many prohibitive favorites to bring home an Oscar on Sunday while visiting this website. That's right: It's time for the Defamer Last Minute Oscar Poll. While you have no chance to influence mentally weak Academy voters with your choices at this late juncture, what you do have is the ability to demonstrate your complete mastery of the conventional wisdom that will surely dominate on Oscar night. Or, should you feel the need to celebrate the hopeless and punish the unworthy (if Little Miss Sunshine polls well, Fox Searchlight will send each of you a delicious yellow-frosted cupcake), an expression of your impotent frustration is just a mouse click away.

We'd never dream of spoiling any part of the utterly surprising, constantly unfolding majesty that is the Academy Awards telecast; robbing you of the joy of discovering for yourself the wonders that the event's producers have planned for a stated worldwide audience of fifty-six billion people would be tantamount to us scorching off your genitals before sending you to one of the many complimentary brothels the Academy has established in various private residences in the Hills to celebrate Oscar week. Others, however, have no such qualms: The LA Weekly's Nikki Finke delights in trying to ruin your Sunday evening by revealing some unexpected program elements designed to make viewers soil themselves in delight, such as [SPOILER ALERT!] the pairing of Paramount castoffs Tom Cruise and Sherry Lansing for the ten-minute musical number "Sumner Redstone Can Go Fuck Himself." Also: [PLEASE POKE OUT EYES, ANOTHER SPOILER ALERT] The ceremony's going to be very, very long. Not again, Oscar ! And one more [FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DON'T READ THIS ONE—SPOILER AHEAD]:

· Oscar parties aren't just self-indulgent opportunities for winners to kick off their heels and skip La Dolce Vita-style through fudge-spewing fountains; they can also raise big bucks for charities, such as Elton John's AIDS Foundation, and the Motion Picture & Television Fund, which will raise $7.5 million with its fifth annual Night Before party Saturday at the Beverly Hills Hotel. [Variety]
· Uncontroversial Oscars host Ellen DeGeneres says she is "praying for...a one-armed pushup. I want somebody to streak." Failing that, she'd settle for Eddie Murphy sending Sasheen Littlefeather to the podium to decline his Oscar should he take Best Supporting Actor. [USA Today]
· Canadian Oscar nominees such as Ryan Gosling, Paul Haggis (Cancon Fun Fact: Both hail from London, Ontario!), and Deepa Mehta lunched with their consul general today in L.A. The patriotic pridefest became temporarily uncomfortable when Haggis cornered Gosling to tell him that while he thoroughly enjoyed his performance in Half Nelson, he thought the movie could have benefitted by having his inner-city history teacher character accidentally run over his crack dealer, only to discover that the two had more in common than they ever imagined. [Canada.com]

Now that the Oscar ballot deadline has passed, the DreamWorks publicity team can safely shift its focus from designing Dreamgirls ads aimed at reminding Academy voters of frequently latex-hampered thespian Eddie Murphy's mastery of the awards-baiting man-cry to ones like this full-pager that appeared in today's Variety, publicly apologizing for the confusing dramatic license the film may have taken with the Motown story. There's some background on the reasons for the mea culpa here, including a quote from Berry Gordy's public statement applauding the studio for reminding everyone about the difference between movie semi-magic and reality, demonstrating no bitterness that Jamie Foxx's performance as the character based on him wasn't good enough to get an Oscar nomination.

· We aren't getting an advanced look at a model of the Oscars set like we did last year, but Swarovski, the ubiquitous crystal purveyors who have never seen a mundane cellular communications device they couldn't jazz up, have previewed the "superbly sparkling Swarovski Crystal Curtain" that will hang on the Kodak Theater stage, valued at "$1 million." A mil? Please. Charlize'll have that much hanging around her neck, and we'll probably be too preoccupied with whatever is jutting out of her shoulder to notice. [PR Newswire]
· Need a leg-up on your Oscar pool prognosticating? EW.com canvases five resident experts, then plots out their opinions on highly confusing Connect Four boards. [EW.com]
· J-Lo Talks to Action News About Oscars! [6abc.com]
· Here's a list of black actors "robbed of their Academy Awards." Why, oh why, must Marlon Wayans' empty mantel suffer at the cruel hands of The Man? [VIBE]
· Approached for advice for 10-year-old Abigail Breslin, Oscar-winning former child star Mickey Rooney responded by saying, "I understand there's talk of a sequel. Can I interest you in a tweaker great-grandfather?" [Reuters]

· If Little Miss Sunshine takes Best Picture, the two beaming faces you won't see collecting their little molded golden men are Ron Yerxa and Albert Berger (pictured), who were the unlucky two lopped off the list to satisfy the academy's "three producers" rule, also known as the Feud-O-Matic. [The Envelope]
· The French Union of Film Critics awarded Private Fears in Public Places (aka Coeurs) Best Gallic Film, and Volver Best Foreign Film, aka the The Best Anyone Could Do Considering They Weren't French Award. [Variety]
· In further cinéma awards news, the Jutras* (*Quebec's Genies†!) (†Canada's Oscars!) gave its top prize to Congorama. [THR]
· Some thoughts on the differences between making your Oscar pool picks and sports pool pics. Gentlemen, start your "You're probably gay" jokes...now. [SI.com]
· Reuters still wants to get to the bottom of whether or not Dreamgirls was the victim of Academy racism, and will keep asking experts until they get a theory-validating "Maybe!" [Reuters]

With the Oscars less than a week away, there is precious little time remaining for actresses to undergo the kind of physical fine-tuning that will allow them to bypass having the marrow sucked from their bones by red carpet vultures like Joan Rivers and Isaac Mizrahi; at this point, those still requiring cosmetic intervention probably have no choice but to head for a combination donkey show/dermatology clinic in Tijuana and hope that hastily performed procedures will spare them the humiliation of being spotted in the unforgivable act of having a flaw on Hollywood's Biggest Night. The Sunday NY Times surveyed a number of celebrity dermatologists, trying to precisely pinpoint what body parts better-prepared attendees have already had paralyzed in preparation for the ceremony:

· Oscars web traffic is expected to be higher than ever this year—possibly even higher than the TV ratings themselves. Why? We're suspecting it has everything to do with convenient, private access to Helen Mirren's rack. [NYT]
· Babel and The Departed tied for this year's Eddie—the American Cinema Editors award. The Eddies anticipated Crash's Oscar win last year, so when Babel and The Departed tie for Best Picture this year, don't say they didn't tell you so! [Gold Derby]
· Emmanuel Lubezki won the top feature honors for his work on Children of Men at the 21st Annual American Society of Cinematographers' Outstanding Achievement Awards. The ceremony itself took Longest Name at the Guild Award Awards. [Variety]
· With still no clear favorite in the Best Picture race, campaigning has reached a "fever pitch," with every movie adopting their own tagline, including Little Miss Sunshine's catchy, "No movie featuring a heroin-OD'd grandpa in a trunk moved you more." [LAT]
· The Cinema Audio Mixing Society, comprised of "550 sound mixers and associates in the film and TV industries," awarded Dreamgirls its top award for excellence in bringing Jennifer Hudson's heffer-lunged belting down to the same levels as her co-stars. [THR]

· It's a record-setting Oscar year, and not a single award has been handed out yet: Dreamgirls has the most nominations in history without receiving a Best Picture nod; not since the very first Oscars have none of the nominated Best Actor performances come from the nominated Best Pictures*; and only once before have none of the Best Picture nominees received a single cinematography nomination. Another Oscar milestone: No former men's underwear models have been nominated in any acting category since the 1937 ceremony, when popular longjohns pin-up of the day Leonard "Chug" Diamond lost Best Supporting to Walter Brennan. [Variety]
· Finally, Toho Co. chairman Isao Matsuoka will get his due, receiving the ShoWest International Lifetime Achievement Award for excellence in bringing film programming to Japan, including a guarantee to every ticket buyer that they won't be crushed by a runaway SUV while watching Hello, Dream Kittens!, the dubbed Japanese version of Dreamgirls. [THR]
· Not to be outdone by the LAT's The Envelope, the NY Times launches their own awards section, Awards Season. Lead story: How the Oscar-nominated foreign films are the category to look to this year for the Big, Message Pictures the Academy usually loves. [NY Times]
· Commercial time is sold out for the Oscars telecast, with advertisers shelling out an estimated $1.7 million per ad, courting a somewhat more sophisticated audience than the Super Bowl. In other words, expect the two accidentally gay guys making out over a shared Snickers bar to be corporate lawyers, not mechanics. [The Carpetbagger]

· Here are the current odds for this year's Razzies (awarded next Saturday): Basic Instinct 2 and Sharon Stone are still way out ahead, but we're still holding out for a Wicker Man/Nicolas Cage upset. [Gold Derby]
· 40 theaters across the country will be screening compilations of live-action and animated Oscar-nominated shorts, allowing office pool entrants a little more to go on in those categories than, "West Bank Story. That sounds like a fun Israeli twist on something I know and like! I'll vote for that one." [Variety]
· Leslie Unger ascends to Chief Flack status at the Academy, effective April 1st, replacing John Pavlik, who's retiring to follow pursuits which hopefully won't involve calls from People fact checkers verifying exactly how many Oscar ice sculptures will be featured at the Governor's Ball this year. [Variety]
· ShoWest names Don Cheadle their male star of the year, a tasty little ace-in-the-hole his agent can drop at the very last moment during salary negotiations for Oceans Fourteen. [THR]
· While the formula for winning a Best Actress Oscar is to make yourself ugly, Best Actor requires far fewer complicated prosthetics and fatsuits: You just need to play a jerk and/or complete screw-up. May the best prick win! [Reuters]

As long as we're on the subject of unconventional marketing campaigns for awards contenders, we pass along an operative's report of how her Sunday brunch was interrupted by Fox Searchlight's frosted Oscar-pandering on behalf of its hopeful Little Best Picture:

· Every Guild Gets Awards! Dept: Remember how authentic those Buckingham Palace gates and that flower shrine looked in The Queen? No? That means the art director was doing his job. The Art Directors Guild makes sure to fête the greatest achievements in contemporary, fantasy, and period movie categories Saturday at the Beverly Hilton. [Variety]
· Bon Cop, Bad Cop took the top prize at Canada's Genie Awards, but we realize you'd like to download an official press release listing all of this year's winners, so here you go. [GenieAwards.ca]
· Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck picked up four awards from Germany's association of film critics for The Lives of Others, but the top award goes to Hans-Christian Schmid's exorcism drama, Requiem, soon to be reimagined as a Sarah Michelle Gellar mid-budget horror vehicle. [THR]
· BoxOfficeProphets.com give their Calvin Award for worst picture to BloodRayne. We'd recommend they start practicing their right uppercut. [BoxOfficeProphets]
· More from Saturday's AMPAS Scientific and Technical Awards: The juggler killed, and Maggie Gyllenhaal successfully induced hundreds of science-geek boners by properly pronouncing the word "densitometer." [Reuters]

· It never quite feels like an Emmys unless there's some royal fuck-up: Daytime Emmys nomination ballots went online minus the talk show category, but was quickly fixed, resulting in only nine ballots being cast incorrectly. [Variety]
· The AMPAS Scientific and Technology Awards recognized breakthrough achievements in processes for archiving and preserving digitally mastered movies, something you may have thought unnecessary, but remember when CDs first came out and were called indestructable? [THR]
· Dame Judi Dench won't make it to the Oscars, thanks to some knee surgery, halving the number of silver foxes on hand as Best Actress nominees. [inthenews.co.uk]
· Will Paul Greengrass pull a best director upset at the Oscars? [AP]
· How adorable! Oscar dressed up with a little pirate hat, eye-patch, and scimitar! By the way, we in no way endorse the highly illegal BitTorrent downloading of all this year's nominees, as facilitated by this handy site. [oscartorrent.com]

While virtually our only memory of last night's Grammys telecast involves Justin Timberlake face-fucking a handheld video camera in an attempt to translate his performance into a more YouTube-ready format, an operative who was in attendance jogs our memory about a blink-and-you-missed-it Paris Hilton appearance we'd forgotten about, offering a look at how her two seconds of screen time was made possible:

· The WGA awards Michael Arnd's Little Miss Sunshine screenplay their top award, as much for its quirky tragicomic dialogue as for the deftness with which it handled such highly plausible scenarios as Steve Carell, in a scene that gives added meaning to the term "convenience store," running into his former grad student at a Kwik-E-Mart in the middle of nowhere. The Departed took best adapted screenplay. [Variety]
· Helen Mirren snagged the BAFTA for best actress, Forest Whitaker best actor, and The Queen the year's best picture. Alan Arkin, sans fat-suit roles to siphon some of the acclaim, walks away with best supporting, as does Jennifer Hudson, who now officially shits bigger than Simon Cowell. [The Envelope]
· Clint Eastwood thinks Martin Scorsese has a good chance of winning the Oscar because "there is a lot of sympathy for him," but that he "always feel sorry for the others, because...they've worked very hard on their projects, too. I don't think any two people should be singled out." Five, on the other hand, are fine for singling out. [Reuters]
· The Visual Effects Society Awards (the Effexies?) gave Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest six prizes, including the two biggest. The ILM website has a ridiculously cool interactive demonstration of how they did it. [Variety, BoingBoing]
· Cars, Pixar's dark vision of an autopian future in which human beings are bred in subterranean farms and mulched for fuel, grabbed the top Annie award, but DreamWorks' Flushed Away, about the delighful rats who crawl out of toilets while you're going about your business, wins most Annies overall. [AnnieAwards.com]

· Want to read more about the Dixie Chicks' big night at the Grammys? Of course you do. [Variety, THR]
·Reese Witherspoon unexpectedly ditches Endeavor (her home for just a year) for CAA after being promised that if she signed with the evil agenting monolith, the committed mother's young children would never be featured as lunch specials at their new headquarters. Rumors that the agency's pitch also included an ominous pledge to "take care" of ex-husband Ryan Phillippe should he ever "become a problem" are unconfirmed. [Variety]
· The Grammys recover nicely from last year's humiliating buggering at the hands of American Idol, as seeking refuge on an Idol-free Sunday night leads to an 18 percent boost over 2006's all-time low ratings. [THR]
· MTV Networks announces a "sweeping round" of layoffs in a variety of divisions, with the death toll expected to reach 250 staff positions. Happy Monday! [Variety]
· In today's WTF? casting news (but really, doesn't each new Cage gig announcement elicit that kind of reaction?), Nicholas Cage is attached to star in Disney's live-action adaptation of The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Luckily, he'll play the sorcerer, not an off-puttingly intense dancing broom. [THR]

If you're legitimately interested in last night's Grammys, we'd usher you over to our record-store clerk cousins at Idolator, who liveblogged every Justin-Timberlake-making-love-to-a-lipstick-cam moment. Meanwhile, we'll apportion our typical amount of interest in the proceedings, while breathing a sigh of relief in the knowledge that if the Oscars were to excellence in movies what the Grammys are to music, Ron Howard would be looking at an inevitable Da Vinci Code win. The night belonged to the Dixie Chicks, who won record and song of the year for "Not Ready to Make Nice," their country-lite flip-off to former fans who called for various CD- and witch-burnings in recent years, and Carrie Underwood, whose wins offered further evidence of Simon Cowell's unequalled nose for sniffing out a great rack-voice combo: