These five cookies just arrived at the office. Upon further inspection, it appears that they represent Ask.Com's tasty Oscar predictions, based on questions users have posed to the search engine. The accompanying press release also predicts that Michelle Williams will be the best dressed nominee on the carpet; Rooney Mara will be worst dressed. They make the shocking proclamation that Woody Allen will not show up for the ceremony. What?!? He shows up for every awards show.

Although Oscar telecast honchos Brian Grazer and Don Mischer have been relatively tight-lipped about what viewers can expect to see on Sunday, the Academy just released production notes that provide a few more details.

Among the tantalizing tidbits:

--Production designer John Myhre promises that the staging of the production will maximize the showmanship that has gone into the theater’s design. “Sometimes, when Billy Crystal is introducing, he won’t even be standing on the stage. He’s going to sitting in the audience, in a box. He’s going to be enjoying the performance with us.”

--As Grazer and Mischer said at this year's Oscar Nominees Luncheon, the telecast is designed to celebrate movies and the theatrical experience. “We wanted to recapture the feeling of seeing movies in a theater with hundreds of other people. Because that crowd often serves as a magnifier of how you feel. It’s the original social media,” Grazer says.

--Though it's been fairly obvious as the presenters' names have been trickling out, Grazer and Mischer say in the notes that keeping the telecast light is definitely a priority. “This year, we’re really stressing comedy. We have that with a number of our presenters. And we have that with Billy Crystal returning,” Mischer emphasizes.

--In keeping with the movie palace theme, the evening’s guests will be greeted by ushers and usherettes wearing uniforms designed by Paula Elins. “We’re incorporating all the many years of what it was like to go to the movies,” Elins explains. “Of when it was more formal, when you would go and be ushered to your seat.”

In a new Funny or Die-produced promo for Sunday's Oscar telecast, Kevin Kline gets schooled in the proper maintenance of an Oscar by Sir Cecil Worthington, played by Mike Myers.

The cool collectible boutique division of Alamo Drafthouse, Mondo, unveiled two out of the four posters it has planned in its Academy Award series. Mondo plans on releasing limited-edition prints their favorite nominated films from 2011, starting with "Hugo," from artist Kevin Tong, and "Rango," from Tom Whalen. The next two films will be announced next week. The quartet of posters will go on sale Oscar Sunday, Feb. 26. Mondo's Twitter handle is @MondoNews; visit mondoarchive.com for a year-by-year look at every poster they've produced.

Oscar nominee Gary Oldman has given multiple interviews discussing the lengths to which he went to find the perfect glasses to wear in portraying George Smiley in "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy." And now the same vintage specs that helped him find his character have been donated for a charity auction through the Variety Foundation and its “CharityBuzz” page. The auction is ongoing here, and closes Feb. 27.

In conceiving his role, Oldman conferred with director Tomas Alfredson and costume designer Jacqueline Durran about the  right pair of glasses for Smiley to wear throughout the film. He found the desired pair in the U.S. and brought them to England for filming there. The glasses up for auction are the ones that Smiley acquires and begins wearing in the film, after the prologue and flashbacks, for the duration of the 1970s-era story as he tracks a double agent compromising Britain’s highest espionage ranks. "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" is nominated for three Academy Awards.

The Oscars' theme this year is "Celebrate the Movies," and it's pulling out all the stops to generate excitement around how films represent treasured moments in time for fans. Eighteen of the 20 acting nominees discuss their favorite movie moments at oscar.com, and the Academy is inviting fans to upload their own favorite moments on its You Tube channel.

With ratings for the Academy Awards telecast hitting a 10-year low last year, it's no wonder that marketing and promotion for the show has kicked into high gear. But while most of the publicity push has been focused on getting viewers to tune in, a strategic partnership with In Demand, announced Wednesday, digs a little deeper, marrying a moviewatching message with nostalgia for ceremonies past.

The deal will see In Demand promoting its Movies On Demand service as the best place to see many award-winning and award-nominated films through contests and gaming, a strategy that the company estimates will  garner 50 million-plus impressions. For the Academy's part, viewers will get to see memorable highlights of past Academy Award telecasts, something that AMPAS doesn't release lightly. The awards season blitz will reach potential audiences in new and innovative ways, such as in movie theaters, on the way to work, while relaxing in cafes, through online movie trivia and via a user-generated content contest. 

The partnership addresses two issues for the Academy. First and foremost, it gives the Academy nontraditional ways to promote the telecast and boost ratings. And second, it shows that viewers can see many of the nominated films right now on their cable boxes, mitigating the criticism that no one has seen the nommed films and that's why ratings continue to decline.

  “It is imperative for Movies On Demand to be part of the conversation, since many of the nominated and winning films can be viewed right now on cable’s MOD platform. We want to bring this message to movie-lovers wherever they might be, in or out-of-home,” said In Demand's Stacie Gray.

It's a pretty clever strategy for both organizations, considering the reach of In Demand. The campaign will include "Great Oscar Moments," available on Movies on Demand; TVGuide.com will have a custom awards section; elevators and movie theaters will feature In Demand's creative; and Sporcle.com will feature movie-themed games.

A recent week of Variety hardcovers shows just how serious things are getting in the Oscar race. Even Puss in Boots looks a little moody. As one editor put it, "If you're not cryin', you're not tryin'"...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is now accepting entries for the 2012 Don and Gee Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting competition. As many as five $35,000 fellowships will be awarded through the program in November.

Jason A. Micallef, whose Nicholl-winning screenplay "Butter" stars Jennifer Garner and is set for a March release, said that being awarded the fellowship from AMPAS created an instant network for him as a writer.

"Every year (the Academy has)  the Nicholl Week, and we have this great dinner. You get to check up on other writers and what they’re doing," Micallef said. "When you’re a writer,  you’re alone and it can be a little bit of a political minefield. It’s nice to hear everybody’s different ways of handling all of those situations."

The Nicholl Fellowships competition is open to any individual who has not earned more than $5,000 from the sale or option of a screenplay or teleplay, or received a fellowship or prize of more than $5,000 that includes a "first look" clause, an option or any other quid pro quo involving the writer's work. To enter, writers must submit a completed application online, upload one PDF copy of their original screenplay in English and pay the entry fee before 11:59 p.m. PT on May 1. The regular entry fee is $52; an early-bird entry fee of $35 is available for those who enter by 11:59 p.m. PT on March 15, 2012.

Online applications, rules and other details are available online.

Fellowships are awarded with the understanding that the recipients will each complete a new feature-length screenplay during the fellowship year. The Academy acquires no rights to the works of Nicholl fellows and does not involve itself commercially in any way with their completed scripts.

Last year's competition drew a record 6,730 entries. Since the program's inception in 1985, 123 fellowships have been awarded.

Among the other recent achievements by Nicholl fellows: Destin Daniel Cretton wrote and directed “I Am Not a Hipster,” which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival; and Andrew Marlowe created and executive produces and Terri Miller serves as a writer-producer on the ABC series “Castle.”

With three weeks left until the 84th annual Academy Awards telecast, ad inventory for the show is sold out, Disney topper Bob Iger said in a first-quarter earnings conference call Tuesday afternoon.

Every year, around this time in February, ABC makes the same announcement, but it's still reassuring to know that the telecast remains attractive to major brands. General Motors dropped out as a sponsor in 2009, when the economy was tough and the ad market was soft. But Hyundai came on that same year and remains a big spender as the only automotive sponsor. Last year, Amazon.com, Anheuser-Busch, AT&T, Best Buy, Coke, Nokia, Procter & Gamble, Sprint, Hyundai, McDonald's also bought ad time, and they're likely to be a part of the 2012 production. (Incidentally, the Academy signs off on all advertising and sponsors that are a part of the telecast.

The show is usually the second most expensive network TV buy, right after the Super Bowl, but the inventory available is about 40% less than a typical hour of primetime. The Academy limits the commercial time to 8-10 minutes per hour, including ABC show promos. An hour of primetime usually contains about 16 minutes of commercials and promos.

For ad buyers, the ceremony is attractive because it's live, which means most viewers aren't skipping through the commercials, and it's consistently the highest-rated entertainment special of the year. It also tends to attract an educated, upscale audience.

ABC, which will celebrate its 37th year of broadcasting the show live, also plays a big role in making sure that the Academy's buzz machine is in full gear well in advance of the ceremony, including developing an Oscar app for the iPhone and iPad and designing and maintaining oscars.com.