A pair of ex-Seinfeld writers, Gregg Kavet and Andy Robin, not suprisingly edged out Andy Dick's cinematic ode to caninelingus to win the top film prize at this year's South by Southwest festival. The movie, called Live Free or Die, was shot in New Hampshire under very State and Main-type circumstances: i.e., Hollywood descends on small town, culture clash ensues. Refreshingly, the filmmakers didn't honeydip their thoughts on the locals when they recently spoke with the AP:

If you're anything like us, you were drinking and dancing till the wee hours last night, celebrating the announcement of this year's National Magazine Award finalists. Such excitement! Such drama! Such drug-addled nightmares of being stampeded by a herd of bronze elephants! In the sober light of morning, finally, there's a chance to ponder some of the great metaphysical questions raised by yesterday's announcement:

Observer political reporter Jason Horowitz — at least, we thought he was an Observer political reporter — covered last week's PR Week public-relations awards at Tavern on the Green. (The "Pubbies," or "Spinnies," he dubs them.) Most will tell you this is the best bit in his piece:

Variety thinks Jon Stewart played it "safe" and "right down the middle" by not going too political or biting the industry hand that fed him. To be fair, he didn't have anyone as appealing as Jude Law to kick around like Chris Rock did last year. [Variety]
Ang Lee, like pretty much everyone with taste, was shocked that Crash beat Brokeback: "I was backstage enjoying the buildup I was familiar with: the writers (winning), then me (winning). It was a surprise, frankly. But congratulations to the 'Crash' filmmakers." [THR]
Crash's win gives Lionsgate its first-ever Oscar. Pardon us if we're not exactly popping champagne corks on their behalf, as that Best Picture fiasco probably cost us our Oscar pool. Thanks, LG! [Variety]
Everybody works during pilot season: Blair Underwood in CBS drama Company Town, Mena Suvari in CBS drama Orpheus, Lori Loughlin joins ABC comedy In Case of Emergency, and Rebecca Gayheart joins Fox drama Vanished. [THR]
Let's all climb back in our time machine and return to two days ago, when Brokeback took home the Independent Spirit Best Picture Award, and all was still right with the world. [Variety]

"Rock-jawed, former teen hearthrob" Matt Dillon isn't going to squander his moment of Oscar-nominated glory by putting his head down, shyly considering the shine on his shoes, and mumbling some pullquote-ready nonsense soaked in false humility. No, now that his fine performance in the criminally overpraised Crash has been recognized by his peers, he's finally been afforded the opportunity to wax pretentious poetic about the glory of heavy-handed filmmaking:

King Kong star Naomi Watts will serve as honorary chair of this year's Independent Spirit Awards, where up-and-comer Peter Jackson's intimate tale of the love between a struggling actress and a gorilla with a severe glandular disorder was curiously shut out. [Variety]
Saffron Burrows, Jada Pinkett Smith and Liv Tyler are in final negotiations to star in Reign O'er Me, the Adam Sandler 9/11 movie we still can't quite wrap our minds around. [THR]
NBC has posted the pilot episode of the Dick Wolf series Conviction to iTunes Store, where potential viewers can download it for free, then spend the two weeks until the show's premiere telling friends how totally awesome it is, thus making the series a huge hit for the struggling, technology-crazy network. [Variety]
Agents are livid about some new language in actors' pilot contracts, fearing that the networks will use their clients' in-character images to whore for Pepsi on cell-phones. [THR]
The American Cinema Editors reward Crash's editor for saving Paul Haggis' movie from becoming a movie-of-the-week on the Heavy-Handed Race Parable Network. [Variety]

All eyes have turned to Jon Stewart, as we scan the Daily Show comedian for signs of weakness and nerves in the days leading up to the biggest gig of his life, hosting the Oscars. Will he manage the required mix of measured irreverence and exuberance, a la Billy Crystal or Steve Martin? Or would he falter with something closer to Chris Rock's "In your FACE, fat ego movie stars!" routine that both fell flat and suggested the biggest ego in the room was probably his own? Ultimately, we won't know how Stewart fares until the show airs March 5, but by way of preparation, here's an Oscar Host Round-up:

At the BAFTAs, Brokeback Mountain gets four awards, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Reese Witherspoon win best actor and actress, and cowboy bottom Jake Gyllenhaal shows up more extravagantly praised co-star Heath Ledger by winning the supporting actor trophy. [Variety]
Studio heads stock up on adult undergarments in anticipation of the bowel-loosening stress of the coming summer blockbuster season. [Variety]
Agents help out-of-work execs land their next gig out of the kindness of their hearts, not in hopes they'll be able to later leverage the career assistance into personal gain. [Variety]
Harrison Ford and red-hot Eight Below star Paul Walker team up for Hollywood Homicide 2: Blood on the Boulevard. OK, we made this one up. It's not our fault the trades are on vacation today. [Variety]

Know someone who works for The New York York Times Company who's done a particularly stellar job this year? Has this employee has exemplified "a commitment to [the] Company's Core Purpose, Core Values and Rules of the Road"? Did he or she did so while "contend[ing] with numerous journalistic challenges — such as, [sic] the continuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the devastation as a result of Hurricane Katrina, Lance Armstrong's seventh Tour de France victory and the controversial claims of a South Korean cloning scientist"? And, most important, was all that accomplished while "adapt[ing] to a changing media landscape with speed while maintaining a disciplined approach to costs"?

In a turn of events best filed under the heading "Showbiz's Lil' Ironies: Celebrity Ego Check Edition," last night's airing of American Idol trounced the Grammy Awards in the ratings:

Pictured is Teri Hatcher, who in a moment of sheer inspiration, realized the best way to shift the focus of Grammy Awards coverage away from its tedious obsession with "music" and "nominated artists," and over to the far more fascinating subject of herself, was to show up in an outfit sure to be talked about in cramped office kitchens across the country the next day.

Getting up before 6:00 AM to watch the Oscar nominations is a stunt that can easily cripple the sleep-deprived mind. Moments after we'd flipped on the announcement coverage, we drifted into that hazy place between sleep and wakefulness, and we could've sworn we saw forked tongues ablaze with hellflame flick from the mouths of Mira Sorvino and Academy president Sid Ganis as they announced each name from the Best Picture Hopeful List of the Damned: Must Love Dogs...Crash...Guess Who...Crash...and Stealth. Even in the fog of semi-consciousness, we found it odd that Crash could be nominated twice in the same category, but quickly wrote off the mild cognitive dissonance to the fact that if the Academy could be so wrong about the movie, they could easily have awarded it the unprecedented double-nod. After what seemed like hours, we snapped awake. The real Crash nightmare, we soon discovered, will be about five weeks long.

· Oscar noms: Var notes that this morning, the "The biggest surprise is the lack of surprises." THR calls Brokeback "king of the rodeo." We thank them for resisting the temptation to go with "chaps-wearing queen of the gay rodeo." [Variety, THR]
· Hollywood Is Out Of Ideas, Even On The Internet Edition: AOL and Yahoo race to air treasure-themed web series, even as NBC is set to air Imagine produced Treasure Hunters this summer. [Variety]
· Oscar nominee-related news! Just-recognized Good Night, and Good Luck star David Strathairn will join Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling in the Castle Rock thriller Fracture. [THR]
· Razzie nominee-related news! Paramount buys a top-secret "untitled contemporary love story pitch" for obscure actor Tom Cruise. Our best guess as to the logline: "A man and his fiancee unexpectedly find themselves entangled in a love triangle with the turkey-baster-like apparatus secretly used to inseminate her." [Variety]
· We told you the birth of The CW wouldn't be all smiles, laughter, and birthday parties with clowns and a petting zoo: The previously picked up WB drama pilot Cult will not be making the trip to the new network. [THR].
· He's your favorite, stuttering-but-still-charming rake! She's your beloved, braless love interest! Together, Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore are the musically collaborating lovers in Warner Bros.' Music and Lyrics By. [Variety]

Newsweek correctly guessed the five Oscar nominees (or beat an independent auditor from PricewaterhouseCoopers until he gave up the names) for Best Director, then assembled Ang Lee, Steven Spielberg, George Clooney, Bennett Miller, and Paul Haggis for a roundtable discussion. In the ensuing pigpile of comraderie and mutual admiration (they actually managed to answer some questions in between loving, Oh, you scamp! shoulder-punches and hair-musses), we're reminded of Haggis and Clooney's shared, shadowy past in—gasp!—80s sitcoms.

Not seconds after the Oscar nominees' names escaped Mira Sorvino's quivering lips at dawn (we dutifully woke ourselves up at 5:15 to catch the live announcement, then promptly fell back asleep at 5:28 on the couch and missed the entire thing), Hollywood was feeling the shockwaves: George Lucas stared bitterly at the People's Choice Award on his nightstand, pondering how the culmination of a thirty year career managed to bring in a single nod for Best Makeup; Beyonce Knowles immediately shut her eyes, pressed a finger to one ear, and started practicing the vocal hook to Best Song nominee "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp"; and Matt Dillon, presciently booked to appear on the Today Show this morning, approached Katie Couric at the danish table during a commercial break, and playfully asked if the anchor had ever "done it with an Oscar nominee?" followed by, "No, seriously. Wanna?"

Welcome to the most important morning of the year, when Oscar emerges from his gilded awards-hole, announces who's naughty and nice, leaves some nominations under a nearby tree, and, finally sated from a milk-and-cookies breakfast and scared by his phallic shadow, retreats back into darkness, signalling that we're going to have five more weeks of overheated, hyperobsessive speculation about who will eventually take home some little statues. (It may appear we're a little mixed up, but a day this hallowed requires conflated mythologies.) Without further ado:

· The trades break down last night's SAGgies, where Reese Witherspoon celebrated the warm-up to her seemingly inevitable Oscar win. [Variety, THR]
· Even without the protection of the Desperate Housewives bully, ABC's Sunday night Nielsen toady Grey's Anatomy dishes out some ratings intimidation. [THR]
· Quinceanara and God Grew Tired of Us pull the first-ever double-double victories at Sundance, winning both audience and jury prices in the dramatic and doc competitions, respectively. Sadly, Destricted's brave depiction of the forbidden love between man and bulldozer goes unrewarded. [Variety]
· McG plans to reclaim his long-abandoned place in the fauxteur pantheon, finally ending a three year behind-the-camera hiatus to direct Matthew McConaughey in a college football tragedy-and-redemption pic. [THR]
· And please, we beg of you, don't go to Variety's homepage and gaze upon the truly horrifying picture of Martin Lawrence, in full Big Momma drag, bounding towards you in a yellow one-piece. You've been warned. [Variety]

It would hardly seem fair if this year's Oscars promotional campaign (see above billboard captured by a Defamer reader in the Valley) were playing favorites; yet one look at the art, featuring two meaty, rugged hands firmly grasping their suggestively placed 13.5 inch (mercy!) "trophy" all but screams that the fellas of Brokeback Mountain have got this baby wrapped up. Upon further reflection, however, what may seem like a blatant Brokeback bias is in actuality a representation of the far more inclusive theme of the celebration of that greatest masturbatory display of Hollywood's self-love, the Academy Awards ceremony.

We tried to watch the SAGgies last night, but our increasingly sentient-seeming TiVo talked us out of it by politely suggesting that we might better enjoy a recorded rerun of Project Runway instead. (Oh, that wacky Santino! What will he design next?) Luckily, Would You Blog Me was tuned in, and caught this brief on-stage expression of idol worship following Crash's big win:

Tom Cruise's unforgettable 2005, a seemingly endless procession of choreographed public displays of affection, down-with-psychiatry diatribes, and unconvincing fiancée-inseminations (OK, that happened only once, but it felt like Holmes was getting knocked up anew each week), was recognized by the Razzies, the annual celebration of everything that went wrong in Hollywood: