We're still asleep—heck, we're still drunk—but it's our drunken duty to post the Oscar noms and go back to bed.

With the Golden Globes ceremony boring the world into a state of vegetation, viewers are placed in the unprecedented position of turning to the Oscars for entertainment. First-time host Chris Rock gives the NY Times his best "What pressure?" schtick, tossing off a reference to Janet Jackson's "titty" (we think that's the word he used), promising to swipe an award for Jamie Foxx if he doesn't win, and shrugging off The Aviator's buzz:

While other media outlets fret over What The Golden Globes Mean For Oscar, we turn to Defamer Special Correspondent Pantheon Zeus to take the temperature of the powerful West Hollywood Gays and sort out the awards show buzz for us. Zeus took some time out from his busy schedule of surfing RateMyRentBoy.com to file this report:

Tucked away in the lower right-hand corner of E!'s home page is a link to this clarification about something said on the red carpet at the Golden Globes: (Look for the image copied here at left.)

We love it when God writes the captions for us.

The Golden Globes after-parties at the Beverly Hills Hilton were overcrowded like a Tokyo subway car, but that didn't stop the crack security staff at the Miramax party from preventing an incursion by an evil impostor:

We tried to blog the Golden Globes last night. Really, we did. We plopped down on the sofa with laptop in hand, stiff drink at the ready, and drugs no more than an arm's length away, but then a strange thing happened. About three minutes in, we got bored. Not your run-of-the-mill, syndicated-Friends-rerun-on-in-the-background bored. This was a boredom that burrowed deep into the DNA, completely paralyzing the brain's pleasure centers and erasing memories of what is was ever like to be entertained. We upped the doses of the drugs and booze, trying to self-medicate our way out of this awards show anhedonia. Aren't the Globes where everyone's supposed to get lit up and say all kinds of outrageous stuff?

"You know, Paul, with all of these pointy-headed critics raving about our movie, you'd think that someone would've mentioned the overpowering homosexual subtext in a story about two guys with serious issues with women on the loose in wine country. Just a thought. Hey, why am I wearing lipstick?"

· SAG celebrates the actorly arts by recognizing the casts of The Aviator, Sideways, Million Dollar Baby, Finding Neverland, and Ray with their award nominations. [THR]
· Shades of Wooderson? Matthew McConaughey signs on for the Scott Rudin project Failure to Launch, as a thirtysomething guy whose parents fix him up to get him out of their house. [THR]
· What the hell, cast everyone! Danny DeVito, Kim Basinger, Carla Gugino, Nick Cannon, Forest Whitaker, Jay Mohr, Kelsey Grammer, and Ray Liotta sign on (or will soon) for the Mark Rydell-directed indie drama Jump Shot. [Variety, sub req'd.]
· NBC wins Monday night with Medium, despite competition from the premiere of The Bachelorette and a second night of 24 doubleheaders. [THR]
· Bill Condon, now the musical go-to-guy after adapting Chicago, will follow up Kinsey by directing a movie version of the Broadway musical Dreamgirls for DreamWorks. [Variety]

LA Observed has the breakdown of the swag bag that Golden Globes presenters will receive for their thirty seconds or so of drunken slave-labor in front of a hot teleprompter. The damage? $38,390, including a $16K trip to Australia, a $2,700 diamond pendant, and a $900 shawl. Yeah, that's a pretty nice take, even for people who make $38K in the time it takes their assistant to tie their shoes. But given the climate of selflessness that's gripped Hollywood in the wake of the tsunami disaster, we're sure every single presenter is going to donate their goodies to the relief effort. Surely there's a homeless family in Indonesia that can use $540 worth of Kiehl's to rejuvenate their weather-beaten complexions.

· Vince Neil's televised utterance of the f-bomb on the New Year's Eve Leno show may escape fines because the offending expletive was dropped during the indecent speech "safe harbor" of 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., but the FCC should still find a way to punish Neil and the Crüe for coming out of retirement. [THR]
· Comedy Central picks up State alum project Stella for a 10-episode order. Oh, we so wanna dip our balls in it! [THR]
· The freakishly beautiful Natalie Portman, red hot off of Closer, and the Wachowski brothers, ice cold from the Matrix sequels, team up for the graphic novel adaptation, V is for Vendetta. We've said it before, and we'll say it again: We'd pay to watch Portman buttering toast. Really. Please send us videos. [Variety]
· The PGA nominates a little of everything for their awards, picking The Aviator, The Incredibles, Finding Neverland, Sideways, and Million Dollar Baby for the best picture pool. [Variety]
· ABC wins Tuesday night as people flock to watch the blowout football game that bookended the latest Ashlee Simpson meltdown. [THR]

A little chart in which top-ranked Best Picture Oscar contenders are cross-referenced with most recent "stock" sale price at Intrade, cross-referenced by number of screens on which the film will play on December 31st, 2004 (as per Box Office Mojo). The number in parentheses after the movie title represents Entertainment Weekly writer Dave Karger's ranking for inclusion in the Best Picture race, because he's both pretty and stupid, just the way we like our men. His number 5 choice, Eternal Sunshine, didn't make our list because we'll eat Dave's sweaty shirt if it makes the Academy's.

We were just crunching some Academy Awards prediction numbers, but little did we know, our research is irrelevant. According to a mega fanboy, it's all about Dawn of the Dead:

· Blockbuster Video pressures rival Hollywood Video to sell, saying it's in the best interest of their shareholders. But is it in our best interest? Don't we deserve, nay, require, two video store chains to go between so as to constantly dodge our late fees? [THR]
· Restored Eisenstein classic The Battleship Potemkin to be screened at the 2005 Berlin International Film Festival. Cinema students from around the world will marvel at the "Odessa Steps" sequence, then promptly flee the theatre before being bored senseless. [THR]
· 267 films are eligible for Oscars this year, leaving Academy members with a lot to ponder. Fear not: crystal meth suppliers are at the ready! [THR]
· Jay Mohr will host Sundance Channel festival wrap up show, Festival Dailies. [Variety,
sub. req'd.]
· Despite the nation's unabated interest in elections, disasters, and Petersons, cable news ratings were down in 2004. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· Acting unions likely to end up with same deal as writers and directors, but with more flair and intrigue along the way. [Variety, sub. req'd.]

Intrade, the "stock exchange" which handles everything from weather to elections, has put up its major category Academy Awards odds. The money is heavy on Aviator and Scorsese; Million Dollar Baby is riding its extreme buzz pretty strongly though, and pulling along Eastwood right behind Scorsese. They're totally buying the Jamie Foxx hype, too, which makes us want to give Paul Giamatti a greasy, self-hating hug. And insanely, they've got Leo DiCaprio in third place for Best Actor. Whatever.

· How you can tell we're in the middle of the holiday news draught (besides items on Zellweger's falsies): Variety looks at the video game companies that won't let Hollywood make shitty movies out of Halo and Grand Theft Auto. [Variety, sub. req'.d.]
· Academy members report that many screener discs don't work, or worse, fail in mid-movie. Alexander's awards chances have increased exponentially. [Variety]
· The renegade film critics of San Diego choose abortion over wine, shaking off the Sideways peer pressure to name Vera Drake their film of the year. [THR]
· Comedy Central signs up Jimmy Kimmel sidekick Adam Carolla for his own talk show, which should somewhat dull the sting of losing the Late Late Show to Craig Ferguson. [THR]
· A judge dismisses the conflict-of-interest suit against SAG CEO Bob Pisano for being on the board of Netflix. This decision frees up SAG for the same kind of collective bargaining buggering that the studios recently gave to the DGA and WGA. [THR]

Today's Rush & Molloy column offers some preview items of behind-the-scenes Oscar wackiness from the upcoming book The Big Show: High Times and Dirty Dealings Backstage at the Academy Awards. This Whitney Houston anecdote reveals the chilling conspiracy by Oscar producers to ensure that the awards telecast remains totally devoid of entertainment:

The Golden Globe nominations have been announced, and the wine-swilling members of the Hollywood Foreign Press have lavished seven nominations on Sideways, Alexander Payne's love poem to the kind of alcoholics who romantically perforate their livers with the fruit of the vine. A fitting choice, really, since the Globes ceremony is more notable for its highly amusing, shitfaced victory speeches than for its efficacy as an Oscar predictor. The red-hott Jamie Foxx was honored with acting nominations for Ray, Collateral, Redemption, and, oddly, a retroactive nod to his overlooked, prophylactic-seeking achievements in Booty Call. Miramax, maintaining an impressive ability to rise to the occasion for awards season, grabbed 15 nominations despite firing its entire staff. Congratulations to all of the nominees, whom we've already celebrated by chugging a bottle of three-dollar merlot.

· Tara Reid, in an attempt to make nice with Page Six, sends them a fruit basket in thanks for being referred "demurely dressed and completely cogent." We suppose that backhanded compliment is still better than the Six Crew calling her vagina a "revolving man-door."
· We could spend all weekend in front of this montage of classic Maria Moments from this season's Apprentice. We won't, though, because that would be pathetic, and we'll be busy losing two days to a bottle of Vicodin we found in our friend's purse.
· Open All Night stalks Lindsay Lohan all over NY, so you don't have to bother with the frivolous stalker lawsuits yourselves.
· From GoldDerby.com's Golden Globes nominations preview: "Sideways [is] a fine film that probably owes its FANATICAL following to the fact that it glamorizes excessive boozing as being cool." It's not just any kind of boozing, though, It's the classy, wine-drinking kind of boozing, which always seems more acceptable than the kind where you drink straight from the Grey Goose bottle before dancing on P. Diddy's table.

In an industry obsessed with constant dick-measuring, we're not sure that Kinsey's attempt to make awards voters confront the truth about themselves is the best way to gain votes. If they really wanted to improve their chances, the ruler would start at nine inches.