Except for (maybe) George Clooney, the nominees for Best Actor at this year's Oscars aren't known for playing it safe on the red carpet. From Daniel Day-Lewis's preference for tiny suits to Viggo Mortensen's disdain for anything bland, we're not accustomed to seeing plain penguin tuxes from this group. But judging from their track records, they all have ways of showing their true colors without actually wearing them all at once. So we reviewed their greatest hits and greatest misses to figure out which way they should swing on Sunday.

The perfectly coiffed folks over at Men's Vogue decided to put together a very thorough list of the top 50 films that had the "most impact on men's style" when they came out. And their choices (The Graduate and Easy Rider among them) are certainly worthy of mention, but all that superior dressage got us wondering: which style trends should we be most thankful for NOT catching on? From Dante's distressed flannel in Clerks to those infamous white codpieces in A Clockwork Orange, we present a list of our Top 7 least favorite male fashion trends to ever disgrace the silver screen:

Take this with a grain of salt, but AICN is reporting that Imaginarium Of Dr. Parnassus director Terry Gilliam has cast Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law to film the remaining scenes that Heath Ledger was to have played. If word from Harry Knowles' camp ends up being true, it'll be quite a score for both the project and the notorious bad-luck magnet Gilliam. While it remains to be seen how Heath Ledger's scenes will be integrated into the final product, we can all agree that this casting news is a definite improvement over Christopher Plummer's vision of using "stills and something I think they call CGI" to save the flick. [AICN]

Autograph magazine, which actually exists, has just released their annual ranking of the best and worst in celebrity acquiesence to demands to scribble on a napkin outside of a Starbucks bathroom. Topping the list is Johnny Depp, whom, should he ever win the Best Actor Oscar, will have both the most and least prestigious accolades this industry has to offer under his belt:

· Breakout Superbad actor Christopher "McLovin" Mintz-Plasse takes the next step in his inevitable march towards Hollywood superstardom, signing on alongside Jack Black and Michael Cera (re-team!) for biblical comedy Year One. Judd Apatow is producing, but you've probably already guessed that part on your own. [THR]
· Butching up a resume recently marked by turns as flouncey pirates and singing barbers, Johnny Depp is coming aboard hardboiled™ director Michael Mann's Public Enemies for Universal, in which Depp will play notoriously ruthless, extravagantly well-hung gangster John Dillinger. [Variety]

·The strike indefinitely delays two more star-studded productions, with Johnny Depp's Shantaram and Nine, Chicago director Rob Marshall's next musical (with Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz), having their planned early-2008 start dates postponed. [Variety]
· The WGA agrees not to picket Paramount on December 1st, answering Elizabeth Taylor's appeal not to interfere with her benefit performance of "Love Letters" with all their loud chanting and potentially legend-upstaging strike-dancing. [Variety]
· Meanwhile, CBS News employees have overwhelmingly authorized a strike of their own, allowing the WGA to fight a two-front war if it so chooses. [Variety]

It's hard out there for a studio exec. One day, you're innocently blowing your nose into the pages of unmade scripts stained with the hopes and dreams of anonymous writers, and screaming at your assistant to just please get someone to make you a fat-free Big Mac; the next, you're rudely confronted with the fact that the movie you greenlit about a murderous barber making mincemeat of his clients actually focuses on a murderous barber making mincemeat of his clients:

· Johnny Depp continues in his quest to wash the bitter, piratey taste of commerce out of his mouth, signing on for an adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's novel The Rum Diary. [Variety]
· Brett Ratner, Billion Dollar Director Day also sees the announcement of a new two-year deal with 20th Century Fox TV, for whom he produces Prison Break and the upcoming Women's Murder Club, establishing that there is no visual medium safe from his boundless ambition. [THR]
· The Simpsons Movie takes in $96 million at the foreign box office, setting a number of single-day and opening weekend records and crushing competition like Transformers and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. [Variety]
· Perhaps because nearly every Simpsons fan in America was watching the World's Favorite Dysfunctional Family at the multiplex, a repeat of the TV show finished behind CBS's Big Brother in the Sunday night ratings race. [THR]
· All hail your new global leader: Variety editor-at-large Elizbaeth Guider jumps to THR as editor, where she'll be "the global leader responsible for the editorial vision and strategic direction of The Hollywood Reporter's daily and weekly editions, digital content offerings and industry-leading executive conferences while overseeing its staff of editors and reporters worldwide." [THR]

· Johnny Depp may get to fulfill his childhood fantasy of becoming the "vampire patriarch" of the 60s bloodsucker soap opera Dark Shadows, as he's developing a feature based on the series for Warner Bros. [Variety]
· Hollywood tries to make the filthy little whores of YouTube jealous by openly flirting with DailyMotion, the French video sharing site that's now setting up shop here and starting to cut deals with content producers. [THR]
· Fred Claus star Vince Vaughn continues to work the holiday-themed direction of his recent career, signing on alongside Reese Witherspoon for New Line's comedy Four Christmases, the story of a couple who tries to visit all four of their divorced parents on Christmas day. Yuletide hilarity to ensue. [Variety]
· Rob Estes joins the cast of the upcoming ABC drama Women's Murder Club, giving the show the shot of Melrose Place credibility it so desperately needed. [THR]
· And in this round-up's last bit of casting news, Susan Sarandon has joined Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones adaptation, which promises to be the most visually arresting story of a raped and murdered teenager ever made. [Variety]

If nothing else, this Age of YouTube has given us a deeper understanding of the bizarre international promotional obligations to which our cherished, movie-pimping stars are subjected upon each new worldwide release. Hollywood's latest press tour victim is Johnny Depp, who recently appeared on Japanese TV (clip above, and more here) on behalf of his recently released Pirates of the Caribbean sequel; to his credit, Depp does his best to be a good sport, humbly accepting gifts in the John Lennon-inspired persona he's working on for an upcoming project. Ultimately, however, the actor had no choice but to offend his hosts by politely refusing their ceremonial offering of the country's four most talented children, perhaps not realizing that the cultural affront will doom his film's local box office prospects and result in the disgraced tykes being sold off to the cast of Fantastic Four 2 when they pass through on their upcoming junket.

· Columbia Pictures and Michael Mann rush to get their own project about fatally poisoned ex-KGB agent Alexander "Sasha" Litvinenko (this one based on the as-yet-unpublished Death of a Dissident book co-authored by Litvinenko's widow) into the development pipeline after losing a precious few days of lead time to rival Warner Bros. and Johnny Depp, who announced their own poisoned-spy project based on the as-yet-unpublished Sasha's Story on Friday. [Variety]
· NBC takes one step closer to its bold plan of having the Today Show stretch from the wee hours of the morning directly into its primetime offerings, adding a fourth hour to the gabfest. [THR]
· Working Title heads Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner happily hand over another seven years of their lives to Universal. [Variety]
· PBS locks up superstar Ken Burns with an exclusive contract running until 2022, preventing their prized documentary nerd from being tempted by the siren call of Discovery or the History Channel. [THR]
· Without an overseas Stomp the Yard release to capture foreign moviegoers' hearts, Night at the Museum dominates the international box office for a third straight weekend, earning $19.1 million. [Variety]

Disney's $3.26 billion box office take is due in no small part to the talents of chameleonlike Actor of his Generation Johnny Depp—more specifically, his Captain Jack Sparrow, whom he claims is a riff on Keith Richards, but whose effete posturing, let's face it, heeds somewhat closer to Elton John after five too many Cointreautinis. Fitting, then, that the actor should now be in talks to play another gay British rock icon, Queen's handlebar-mustachioed lead singer, Freddie Mercury:

For those of you currently looking to buy in what is becoming on overwhelmingly crowded real estate market, allow us to guide you to a new listing that may interest fans of Johnny Depp's early oeuvre and dream-stalking serial killers alike: 1428 N. Genesee Ave., otherwise known as the house from A Nightmare On Elm Street:

Warner Bros. and DreamWorks team up for a film version of the musical Sweeney Todd, in which Tim Burton will once again direct longtime muse Johnny Depp, this time with Depp playing the titular singing, murderous barber. [Variety]
The networks are planning a variety of Hurricane Katrina one-year anniversary specials, which should sufficiently break down the public's emotional resistance to the five-year anniversary specials about 9/11 that will follow soon after. [THR]
Hollywood Out of Ideas, Recycling Your Own Work for Fun and Profit Edition: Wes Craven will produce a remake of his first film, Last House on the Left, for Rogue Pictures. [Variety]
· Local nightclub despot Sam Nazarian has finally collected on Lindsay Lohan's bar tab, directing the funds into the purchase of the comedy script College, upon which you should feel free to project your own keg party-related plot. [THR]
· Sid Ganis is re-elected to his post as President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, a title he will hold until someone rises up from within AMPAS's ranks and beheads him. [Variety]

While Superman Returns' Bryan Singer and Brandon Routh have taken every opportunity to dispel whispers that the Man of Steel might be ready to fly out of the super-closet, the maverick star of what might be the summer's biggest blockbuster openly invties the Gay Pirate Question in this month's Rolling Stone:

E! Online's Megaplex column ventured over to Hollywood Boulevard to interview two of the Captain Jack Sparrow impersonators who work the sidewalk in front of the Kodak and Chinese theaters, who should be seeing a serious spike in income once the new Pirates of the Caribbean sequel opens. We've excerpted a little from Sparrow Number Two, the more openly hostile and territorial Johnny Depp clone:

The autograph has endured for centuries as the classic celebrity-fan interaction, a masterpiece of social synthesis in which all that is required of the participants is a writing instrument, a writing surface, and a brief traversal of the vast chasm of status that separates a famous person from his or her plebe admirer. Autograph Collector, the magazine devoted to such pursuits, has released a list of best and worst celebrity signers. Sitting atop is the approachable Johnny Depp, reportedly always at the ready with a smile and a Sharpie with which to personalize your Pirates of the Caribbean lunchbox:

Fiercely protective papa bear Johnny Depp recently went on record to let the paparazzi know exactly what cannibalistic fate awaits them should they attempt to photograph his children:

· "Schuth has said he fantasized about being married to 'Alias' star Jennifer Garner. At his sentencing, he said: 'I apologize to Jennifer Garner and her pool boy Ben Affleck for involving them in my fantasies.'" Amazingly, this is the least troubling part of the story.
· Michael Eisner showed his impeccable instincts by hating Johnny Depp's soused, Keith Richards-flavored performance in Pirates of the Caribbean . As it turns out, Eisner's fears were unfounded, and Depp did not ruin the film.
· Wanna see a turntable covered in blow? Of course you do.
· Pamela Anderson is shocked—shocked!—that the producers of Stacked, a sitcom with a title that puns on her prodigious, man-made rack, would dress her in clothes that showcase said factory-installed mams. Shocked!
· Jessica Simpson is photographed sans wedding ring, sans Lachey-unit, but with some other guy at a movie. These are all signs of a completely healthy, not at all maintained-solely-for-appearances union.

· The Cityrag blog finds itself obsessed with Owen "The Butterscotch Stallion" Wilson's trademark crooked nose and its representation in the media. It's nice to see someone concentrating on something other than his sex life, isn't it?
· Whether you want to listen to Howard Stern spank strippers on satellite radio or watch him do it on cable, you're going to have to pony up a subscription fee.
· "Hey, Gammaw, tell us again about the time you made out with Johnny Depp!"
· Gawker finally gets some answers about the enigma-wrapped-in-a-riddle that is Laguna Beach.
· We're pretty sure that they're called "spec scripts," um, not the thing that this writer calls them. But then again, we're not familiar with his work.