What could be better on a lazy Sunday than an Oscar nominated drama dealing with corruption in the Catholic church? It's almost as good as actually going to mass.

There are few people in this world brave enough to rebuff an insistent, role-seeking Oprah Winfrey, but Doubt director John Patrick Shanley is one of them. He had his certainty!

Miramax may be starving for an Oscar repeat for 2008, but apparently not enough to mix their meats at the Oscar-season blurb buffet.

With at least one major exception, it's been a relatively modest cycle for manufacturers of Oscar-season buzz. But one day into 2009, the new "hybrid quote" looks to revolutionize the Fine Art of Hype.

There's a fine line between refreshing candor in movie reviews, and the kind of oversharing that tickles the "look, I just wanted a thumbs up, not emotional scarring" area at the back of your brain.

The Screen Actors Guild took its finger off the nuke button long enough to select 2008 awards nominations, while the Academy narrowed its Best Song candidates to a modest 49.

Meryl Streep and Amy Adams crashed The View today to court a bit of opening-day goodwill for their new film Doubt. Oscar support would be lovely, too, but, you know, only if you want to.

Welcome back to Defamer Attractions, your regular guide to everything new, noteworthy and/or Keanu-rrific at the movies. This week: Earth is doomed, Clint is done, and Che is looooonnng.

Now that Meryl Streep's career renaissance has been buffeted by a pair of blockbuster chick flicks, the actress has begun feeling her oats, readying Hollywood for a new reign of Meryl (all agents are required to learn at least two foreign accents) and punishing the dissenters. In a new LAT profile, the actress mocks both Universal ("The smart guys banked on Hellboy to carry them throughout the year. The Mamma Mia! wagon is pulling all those movies that didn't have any problem getting made") and Fox head Tom Rothman, whose nasal voice Streep nails. Still, the empowered star's boldest move is perhaps her most terrifying, as Female First reveals:

Here's a couple lessons for all you rookie reporters assigned to cover the Hollywood beat: 1. Make sure your "SHOWBIZ PRESS" pass is always facing outward in the band of your fedora. 2. Place a decoy in that neaby row of telephone booths—that way you can call your scoop into the paper the second it happens. 3. Never, under any circumstance, ask Philip Seymour Hoffman for insights regarding the true nature of the possible child-molesting priest character he plays in Doubt.

Though Natalie Portman earned an Oscar nomination for refusing to part with her pasties as a stripper in the film Closer, she's been on a genuinely NSFW tear as of late. First, she stunt doubled for a lithe greyhound and went nude for the Wes Anderson short Hotel Chevalier (pictured), then she dated the frequently penis-nosed troubadour Devendra Banhart, whose liner notes revealed a radical new theory that clothes simply get in the way of a man's natural, patchouli-infused musk. Now, Doubt director John Patrick Shanley reveals that Portman wanted the role in his film that eventually went to Amy Adams, but there was one sexless impediment:

Doubt to Open AFI Fest: The Oscar-bait shuffle that is AFI Fest's opening night settled down late Thursday when organizers announced Doubt as its Oct. 30 replacement for The Soloist. It will be the Meryl Streep/Philip Seymour Hoffman drama's world premiere following a quiet test screening this summer and a private screening last night for its original Broadway cast and select press. Among them evidently was Tom O'Neil, to whom Scott Rudin expressed nervousness about sharing Doubt on the AFI stage still relatively early in Oscar season (the film opens small Dec. 12). And really, with one horse already down and only one other left in the race after this, can you blame him? OK, fine — so can we. Zip it, Rudin. [Gold Derby]