Last night's Golden Globes red carpet was so glutted with talentless microphone jockies that we were tempted to virtually slash the vocal cords of the Dean Cains, Ryan Seacrests, Maria Menounoses, and Debbie Matenopouli with the mute button and substitute our own imagined mindless banter with the celebrities who clearly couldn't be bothered to engage with them. But out of the inept phalanx of "Who are you wearing?" monkeys emerged a new red carpet star in E!'s Isaac Mizrahi, who used the disarming smokescreen of his designer-grade flamboyance to ask Eva Longoria to hold forth about the disposition of her pubic hair (she demurred, though allowed that she's spray-tanned all over), to grope both Teri Hatcher and Scarlett Johansson (above; Hatcher pretended to be scandalized), and generally inject some loopy inappropriateness into the proceedings well before Harrison Ford's first drink. (Well, his first drink at the venue. Outside of the limo. And not out of a flask.) Mizrahi is, quite frankly, nothing short of a hero, and the fingers he used to caress Johansson's ample bosom should be immediately removed and bronzed for posterity.

If the Emmys are Oscar's crayon-eating little brother, then the Golden Globes are its developmentally disabled cousin from abroad, who somehow manages to coat his mouth in paste, then devour half of the innards of your favorite down pillow while you're busy child-proofing your open electrical outlets. And like that distant relative who pops in once a year (a Christmas here, a funeral there), you're obligated to sit and pretend to be entertained for a few hours as he wheezes out the occasional sticky feather. Think we're exaggerating? Stop what you're doing, go back to the TiVo, and replay the first five minutes of last night's broadcast, an introductory montage of red carpet arrivals set to a "special" version of the already dangerously insipid Pussycat Dolls song "Don't Cha." If you don't find yourself rummaging around the kitchen for a blender large enough to fit around the human head by the time they sing, "Don't cha love that Russell can throw left hooks"/Don't cha know the cowboy with his good looks?" you're far more generous souls than we are.

Over at Slate, fully cybernetic BoingBoing futuro-blogger Xeni Jardin files a report on the start of every file-sharing geek's favorite time of the year, the annual kick-off of the awards screener piracy season. A handful of awards hopefuls are already burning up the BitTorrent wires, courtesy of either Academy voters or others with the opportunity to feed the piracy pipeline:

· Take Werner Herzog, subtract an 800-lb bear, add a guy in a cheaply made bear costume...eh, we're not going to try and explain it. Just watch Grizzly Bear Man for yourself.
· "Publicists stroll down the carpet, a TV reporter in a clingy blue-gray gown plops on the curb reading a magazine. Across the street, three protestors wave signs urging Hollywood to repent, 'Heathens beware. Your guilt is real! You are going to go to HELL FIRE.'" Richard Rushfield endures the searing hellflame of the People's Choice Awards for the The Envelope's Kudos Crasher column.
· USA Today launches its O-Factor blog, which is either about the Oscars or about achieving a better understanding of the female orgasm, we're not yet sure which.
· Hey, yo, K-Fed don't carr about wurther or not ya likes him. Word.
· Getting pregnant to take advantage of the carpool lane sounds like a great idea, but doesn't hold up in court.

· Despite optimistic New Viacom CEO Tom Freston's intimation that chairman/skeletal executive presence Sumner Redstone wouldn't be as "actively involved in the day-to-day business" of his company, Redstone assures us that his bony fingers are still clamped around the throats of both Freston and CBS Corp head Les Moonves. He also says he encourages the two companies to compete—not for any business reasons, just because the bloodsport gives him pleasure. [Variety]
· Pilotmania 06 begins with the announced orders of TV series hopefuls: ABC: Six Degrees from JJ Abrams; CBS: Jericho from Jon Turteltaub and Orpheus from Ridley and Tony Scott; Fox: Faceless; NBC: Heroes from Crossing Jordan producers; UPN: Untitled drama loosely based on the life of Alicia Keys. [THR]
· DGA makes their primetime TV series awards nominations, with Grey's Anatomy and Curb Your Enthusiasm each earning two. Meanwhile, the Producer's Guild revokes their nomination of Curb Your Enthusiasm as the series did not air any original episodes within the awards deadlines. Scrubs is now the happy recipient of their nomination. This little hiccup in the awards process should be tempered by the fact that no one outside of the PGA could possibly care. [Variety, Variety ]
· Starbucks will partner with Lionsgate to market and distribute the movie Akeelah and the Bee; no word on if the partnership will expand to include baristas handing out awards screeners of Crash to anyone claiming to have a SAG membership. [THR]
· Charlize Theron is teaming up with Picturehouse and New Line to produce and star in the drama The Ice at the Bottom of the World. Perhaps disillusioned with the results of looking too hot in spandex in the bomb Aeon Flux, Theron will rough herself up again to portray a heroin addict. [Variety ]

When does a movie's award campaign cease to come off like a transparent attempt to buy some prizes, and start feeling like the grassroots beginning of a new, celebrity-courting, pseudoreligious cult? How about when the studio behind it decides to send out 130,000 screeners yes, you read correctly including one to every single mind-malleable member of SAG. Welcome to the birth of Crashology. Hide your children.

Robert Altman will join an illustrious list of movie history's greatest also-rans, when he is bestowed at this year's Academy Awards ceremony that greatest of consolation prizes for a lifetime's worth of unrecognized achievement, the honorary Oscar:

Not satisfied merely to report who won what irrelevant critics award and what they were wearing when they collected the prize, Reuters is quickly becoming the go to newswire for half-baked Oscar prognostications. Consider their analysis of last night's Broadcast Film Critics' Choice Awards:

· DGA members, fearing the wrath of Guild deity Steven Spielberg, nominate him for their best director award, causing the Maestro to drop his preemptive plans to throw together a highly personal film about his tragic snubbing by his contemporaries. Others getting the nod include George Clooney for the black-and-white one, Ang Lee for the gay cowboy one, Bennett Miller for the one nobody saw, and, sigh, Paul Haggis for Crash. [Variety]
· And you knew this already, but Jon Stewart will host the Oscars. The over/under on the number of times Stewart attempts to extricate himself from a failed joke by adjusting his tie and speaking in a strangled, schticky voice is 15. [THR, Variety]
· Vincent Young's dynasty-ending last-second Rose Bowl scramble leads ABC to a major Nielsen ass-kicking. [Variety]
· Trade news that actually makes us happy: Fox and Paramount are bringing Comedy Central's Reno 911! to the big screen with Reno 911!: Miami, in which the cops hit the beach for a law enforcement convention during Spring Break. [THR]
· Further proof that people will buy nearly anything if high enough while wandering a Blockbuster: Direct-to-video sequel American Pie Presents: Band Camp wins the week in DVD sales. [THR]

Today's SAG award nominations offer yet another suggestive nudge to any waffling Academy members who still aren't sure if they should check off the "gay cowboy movie in all categories" box at the top of their Oscar ballots. Brokeback Mountain, a heartbreaking story of doomed cowboy love, or, alternately, a hilarious comedy about the lengths women will go to to delude themselves into thinking they aren't married to a gay guy, took four nominations, including best actor for Heath Ledger and best cast.

The Envelope's Oscar Beat blog is reporting that Jon Stewart is the Academy's Chosen One, and that an announcement heralding The Daily Show host's appointment as emcee of Hollywood's Most Self-Important Night will likely follow tomorrow. Stewart's selection was reportedly arrived at following a marathon sit-down between high-level Gay and Jewish Mafias officials in a secure basement conference room at David Geffen's Malibu compound; the fabulous faction stubbornly threw its support behind movie star/respected song-and-dance man Hugh Jackman for the gig, but after a personal audition by Jackman featuring a musical Brokeback Mountain parody fell flat, the Velvets finally acquiesced and gave their approval to the safer choice of the universally loved Stewart.

Since the upsetting announcement earlier today that Crash was recognized in the Writers Guild nominations for best original screenplay, we've been driving around the city with our car windows rolled up, weeping openly and looking to induce an accident just so we could finally connect with another Angeleno. (Preferably with a motorist of a different race to test our unfair preconceptions of minority groups.) Amazingly, we were unable to form a fender-bending union with a fellow searcher, but now the good news: A reader with WGA membership offers a possible, comforting explanation for Crash's recognition by fellow scribes:

· The Producers Guild goes indie/specialty with its best film awards nominations, rounding up Brokeback, Capote, Crash, Good Night, and Good Luck, and Walk the Line. Did any of them actually see Crash? [Variety]
· And here come the Writers Guild nominations for best original screenplay: Cinderella Man, Crash, Good Night, and Good Luck, The Squid and the Whale, and The 40-Year-Old Virgin. We think our feelings about one of these nominees are clear by now, so we'll avoid beating that dead hor...oh, fuck it. Crash? Really now? [THR]
· Ted Koppel signs a Seacrestian (yeah, we went there) multi-year deal to produce documentaries and "town meetings" for The Discovery Channel, leaving jilted lover HBO to wistfully smell the helmet-shaped indentation on the pillow from their last romantic rendezvous. [Variety]
· ABC wins the Tuesday night ratings war with its coverage of the Orange Bowl, or as Variety likes to call it, the Fiesta Bowl. [THR, Variety]
· Warner Bros. and Fox celebrate winning 2005's box office, while DreamWorks and Sony cross their fingers for a less disastrous '06. [Variety]

Apologies to anyone who may have already been obsessively tracking the auction of this absolutely breathtaking "Double Oscar" statue commemorating the fine gay cowboy performances of Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, but we felt an obligation to take a moment to bask in its golden glory. Like the traditional Oscar, the Brokeback Mountain version has no conspicuously jutting male genitalia, but in a vast evolutionary leap over the Academy's iconic award, this one actually plays the soundtrack from the movie. (Warning: so does the auction page. Loudly. Or at least something that sort of sounds like the soundtrack.) And should Ledger's more celebrated, mumbly turn win him some hardware, this much improved prototype would remind the actor that he couldn't have made it to the podium without the love and support of his co-star.

The critics have gone on a fishing trip with cowboy-on-cowboy three-bandanna weeper Brokeback Mountain, but we reckon there ain't much fishing going on. Its accolades have been so unanimous, the buzz around Hollywood (where Hollywood = Reuters and The Envelope) is that Brokeback has now become far and away the one to beat for Best Picture at this year's Oscars:

It's been a big week for anyone curious about the shadowy inner workings of Hollywood's most celebrated cabalistic institutions. First, the LAT gets inside the bizarro world of Scientology's desert Cruise-courting compound, and today comes a NY Times report on the suicide of Irish-born showbiz reporter and one-time Hollywood Foreign Press Association member Nick Douglas. The Golden Globe-mounting international starfucking consortium put Douglas on a 17-month probation for various petty violations, including walking out of an MGM party with some unopened beers (have we mentioned he's Irish-born?) and selling a Tom Selleck photo to a tabloid, forcing him to return to his native Dublin, where, denied of his life-affirming junkets and movie star photo-ops, some maintain he became so despondent he hanged himself to death. The report takes a look at some other regrettable past incidents involving members of the Foreign Press, including one involving HFPA president himself, Philip Berk:

· King Kong takes in a "respectable" $63.4 million at the international box office over the weekend, while the fourth Harry Potter seemingly mocks the ape by becoming the 20th film to cross the $700 million mark. [Variety]
· West Wing writers face a daunting task after John Spencer's sudden death, not helped by the fact that his character was featured in a flash-forward sequence taking place three years in the future earlier this season. (Correction: According to people who actually watch the show, Spencer's character didn't appear in the flash-forward, which apparently would've cause all manner of spoiler problems. We regret passing along faulty information.) [THR]
· Amazing! Even in limited release, Brokeback Mountain just might be succeeding with some non-gays! [Variety]
· Doomed third circle of development hell project Watchmen is picked up by Warner Bros, who likely will torture fans of the comic book with the prospect of production before ultimately stuffing it head-first into a hole with some disgraced popes. [THR]
· The Academy snubs Sin City in its visual FX nominations, which we believe was payback for Jessica Alba playing a stripper but showing nary a nipple. [Variety]

Our Golden Globes round-up omitted all TV nominees, because, let's face it, those Match Game rejects are lucky to even be allowed in the room. It is worth noting, however, that the category of Best Supporting Actress made for another potential chapter in the always entertaining Desperate Housewives inter-cast hate-in.

It seems no awards season news can begin without a discussion of gay cowboy fireside tale Brokeback Mountain. Early this morning, Brokeback piled up seven Golden Globe nominations, with best drama, best director, and best actor nods among them. But the Hollywood Foreign Press quite callously split up the movie's heartsick cowpokes, celebrating sensitive monosyllabic mumbler Heath Ledger while snubbing dreamy-eyed, bull-riding (SPOILER ALERT!) bottom Jake Gyllenhaal. It seems that even the Globes are conspiring to keep these star-crossed lovers apart.

Our nation's film critics are commendably proficient at arriving at year-end localized consensus, not so much when it comes to scattering the news. As their God-like pronouncements of 2005's most deserving motion picture achievements continue to tumble forth, we bring you part two of our awards round-up:
· The Boston Society of Film Critics hop on the tastefully decorated bandwagon and give Brokeback Mountain the film that artfully reminded us of the tender cowboy love currently missing from our bleak lives the year's top honor, with Ang Lee's contribution acknowledged as best director. A shut-out Steven Spielberg spends the day shaking his head and repeating to himself, "Assassins don't win Oscars. Sad cowboys win Oscars." Reese Witherspoon picks up a best actress nod for her work in Walk the Line, but Joaquin Phoenix is again snubbed, losing to what is quickly looking to be this year's Best Actor frontrunner, Philip Seymour Hoffman.