Here's the new poster for Jane Campion's Bright Star, which will follow its strong Cannes debut with likely September fest appearances in Telluride and Toronto. Bob Berney's soon-to-be-named new combine with River Road's Bill Pohlad will launch with this high-brow literary romance. The poster seems designed to showcase the film's gorgeous young lovers (Abbie Cornish and Ben Whishaw play Fannie Brawne and John Keats) in a contemporary way, without the usual ivy trellised period look. What do you think?

This critic-friendly film is a soft lob down the middle for Academy voters, methinks--as long as Berney & Co. tread carefully, deliver a modest hit, and don't make any mistakes. That's a tall order for such an austere, tragic, intelligent, gorgeously crafted British period piece. But if anyone can do it...

Those of us who saw Lone Scherfig and Nick Hornby's An Education at Sundance witnessed a remarkable debut: Carey Mulligan was an instant star. With Audrey Hepburn-style class, charisma and smarts, she's well-cast as a brainy and sexy high school kid in 60s Britain aching to break out into the bigger world. Peter Sarsgaard (with a plummy British accent) is the older sophisticate who takes away her innocence and shows her what she's missing. With Sony Pictures Classics at the helm, this movie should go all the way to some major awards:

A film historian of the 60s and 70s sent me his best guesses at what ten best Oscar lists would have been between 1967 and 1979. What's fascinating, assuming he's making reasonably inside-ballpark calls here, is that adding five sometimes improves the choices, and often does not. But while my write-in academic knows a lot about the period he's writing about, we can't help but see these movies now as their standing has changed over time. As examples, Cool Hand Luke, The Battle of Algiers, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Close Encounters of the Third Kind all boast more stature now than they did when they came out. Bottom line though, the Academy had more quality films to choose from then than they do now. We will find out soon enough whether this change is for the best.

1967 original nominees In the Heat of the Night [winner] Bonnie and Clyde Doctor Dolittle The Graduate Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? plus Camelot Cool Hand Luke In Cold Blood The Dirty Dozen Two for the Road Notes: I think Warners would have worked and lobbied hard for its costly roadshow CAMELOT (which did receive five nominations, ultimately winning three Oscars). After all, CAMELOT was a personal Jack L. Warner production, and while Seven Arts had purchased the studio, J.L. still had his office on the lot; also, the film needed all the post-season help it could get. COOL HAND LUKE and IN COLD BLOOD were likely finalists in the Best Picture race, as they were among the top studio films of the year. THE DIRTY DOZEN was Metro's top non-roadshow grosser of the '60s, and was grudgingly respected as something new; besides, DOZEN producer Ken Hyman had just taken the production reins at Warners. Donen's TWO FOR THE ROAD was a well-respected picture, for which Fox would have pushed hard for year-end honors, particularly with ten possible spots. I would point out that Universal (able to muster relatively few Best Picture nominees for much of the '50s and almost all of the '60s), might theoretically have managed to push its relatively successful roadshow THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE (which got seven nominations, winning one Oscar) over WB's mostly stillborn CAMELOT. But Warners was far better at this kind of game than U.

The Academy has invited 134 new members, many of them long overdue, from actor Hugh Jackman--who wasn't a member when he hosted the Oscars on February 22--and producer Paula Wagner to directors Danny Boyle and Henry Selick, execs Daniel Battsek and Joe Drake, and writers John August and Howard A. Rodman.

The full release is on the jump.

The changing Oscar rules are still a hot topic these days. At an Academy screening of Cheri last weekend (more on that anon), some members wanted to be consulted, while others feel that the Board of Governors did its job. One member who sees everything and votes with the foreign branch doesn't care at all. Just who are the folks who vote for these crucial decisions? The Academy's official governors list is on the jump.

Variety editor-in-chief Tim Gray weighs in. So does the LAT's Patrick Goldstein, twice, the NYT's David Carr, Time's Richard Corliss, and In Contention's Kris Tapley. UPDATE: Here's The Envelope's Tom O'Neil.

A friend sent me this list of ten films from 1999:

All About My Mother

Being John Malkovich

Boys Don't Cry

Election

Eyes Wide Shut

Fight Club

Magnolia

The Matrix

The Talented Mr. Ripley

Topsy Turvy

Here are the five best picture candidates that year:

American Beauty

The Cider House Rules

The Green Mile

The Insider

The Sixth Sense

That year, the Academy voted for mainstream soft lobs down the middle over higher brow fare. Some of the movies on the long 1999 list (Fight Club, Eyes Wide Shut) were tainted by failure at the time (and look better in hindsight), while others came from directors who hadn't yet earned admission into the Academy insiders club. Boys Don't Cry earned a deserved Best Actress win for Hilary Swank. Others landed nominations in other categories.

What makes so many people uncomfortable is the unknown. How will it work? Were these monumental changes made for the right reasons (commerce, or art)? And will the changes achieve the desired goals? I totally approve of moving the honorary Oscars to a separate awards show, where everyone will get more time. And I will have to deal, I admit, with no longer being an Oscar expert. Ten movies vying for best picture levels the Oscar prognosticator playing field: now everybody knows nothing.

The reviews Kathryn Bigelow has nabbed for The Hurt Locker (91 on Metacritic) are noteworthy. That doesn't mean that the movie will score at the boxoffice for Summit, but it's off to the second-strongest start for an indie this year. The movie has a shot at one of ten slots in the wide open Oscar best picture race. Even the NYT's tough-minded Manohla Dargis, who has long shared with me a sense of dismay at the thin ranks of gifted women directors, was moved to step out of the reviewer's box to praise Bigelow here.

Aside from critics' raves, The Hurt Locker boasts other advantages in the Oscar race. Bigelow is respected in the industry for making movies that are irrelevant to her gender; this movie is as intellectually rigorous and stylishly crafted as any Michael Mann film. (If anything, it's more engaging and viscerally exciting than, say, Public Enemies.) Also, the film industry, well aware of the failure of every Iraq War film to date, has been waiting for the exception that would break through and reach audiences. With America on the verge of withdrawing from Iraq, the timing may be right for this one. Finally, Bigelow gets points not only for figuring out a way to approach the subject that works, but for a high degree of difficulty.

It's shaping up to be an unusually good year for women directors. New Zealand writer-director Jane Campion, the only woman to ever win the Cannes Palme d'Or, is one of three women to be nominated for the best director Oscar, along with Sofia Coppola and Lena Wertmuller. (She won best screenplay for The Piano.) Bright Star, her tragic period romance about John Keats and Fanny Brawne, played well at Cannes but didn't take home a prize. New indie distributor Bob Berney plans to promote Bright Star on the fall fest circuit before a September opening. The impeccably mounted costume drama is quite Academy friendly.

The third Oscar possibility is Mira Nair, whose hits The Namesake, Monsoon Wedding and Mississippi Masala have earned her an Oscar shot with her latest film, Amelia, a biopic about flier Amelia Earhart starring Oscar-winner Hilary Swank in the title role. It doesn't hurt that Fox Searchlight (Slumdog Millionaire, Juno) is shepherding this period adventure, which will also open in October after hitting the fest circuit.

Here's the Amelia trailer:

Here's my Toronto chat with Bigelow:

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences president Sid Ganis has another surprise up his sleeve: I hear he's going to promise that the Oscar show to be broadcast on ABC will not be longer this year, even with ten best picture nominations instead of five. This could mean that tech categories will get short shrift.

Hollywood was rocked Wednesday by the surprise news that the Academy, which rewards excellence in moviemaking, is adding five slots to the best picture Oscar category. Gob-smacked Sidney Kimmel Entertainment exec Bingham Ray spoke for many fellow Academy members when he said, "A move this big, I would have liked to have been consulted, or at least given a heads up. They should have put this to a vote."

For the Academy to cite this move as harkening back to 1939, when ten films were nominated, is absurd. That was the best year ever during the Golden Age of Hollywood, when the studios routinely churned out a hundred quality films a year aimed at grown-ups, movies that no self-respecting teen-driven studio head would dream of making today. "It will open it up to a wider spectrum, more genres," Ganis told NPR, like action films, comedies, documentaries, and foreign films. He went on to admit that the decision by the Academy board of governors was largely a business move.

Tensions had been growing between the Academy and broadcast network ABC, which has suffered ratings losses in recent years when Academy voters have selected high-end fare, from best picture winners Crash and No Country for Old Men to small-scale nominees Milk and Frost/Nixon. The Academy is placating ABC with the promise that ten slots will bring more popular films like The Dark Knight and Wall-E into the Oscar field.

What will this change mean to the studios, distributors, Oscar campaigners and filmmakers? Here are the winners and losers in this new scenario.

Oddly, the studios are not jumping up and down over this, because the floodgates are now open for filmmakers harboring Oscar hopes. (Christopher Nolan was NOT pleased when The Dark Knight failed to score a best picture slot last year.) And that means more movies to promote for a longer period of time. The studios are trying to cut their ad budgets, not expand them. They were planning to cut back on print ads after seeing how little they moved the needle on such films as Revolutionary Road, Frost/Nixon and Milk. So the NYT, LAT and trades are relieved about this news. For them, the more contenders the better. Oscar bloggers will likely see a boost in Oscar ads too. "Each studio can't mount a campaign for three, four or five movies," insist one marketing studio exec. "They're not doing trade ads for just anybody. They'll have to choose which films they'll get behind."

Thus Disney will certainly promote Pixar's well-reviewed Up, which opened Cannes, for best-picture consideration, which now has a real shot. And Paramount will be likely to throw ad dollars at J.J. Abrams' Star Trek. Studios will tend to favor in-house power players and movie stars over smaller titles.

The change will also make it easier--if expensive--for distribs to bring back movies released earlier in the year for Oscar consideration, from Michael Mann's elegant period epic Public Enemies to Kathryn Bigelow's Iraq movie The Hurt Locker. The studios will now recalibrate theatrical and DVD release strategies with Oscar in mind in order to efficiently target marketing dollars to boost films in theaters or in advance of a DVD launch.

Some feel that the Hollywood economy needs this boost, that spending on ten Oscar nominees will drive up boxoffice and DVD value. But should that be the Academy's job? "They're whoring out the Oscars," says one indie producer. "The Golden Globes have more integrity than the Oscars. It's dilutes the pure value attached to best picture."

"This will bring an exciting new dynamic to the show and give the entire awards season new energy," says Oscar campaigner Ronni Chasen. "It will be good for business and provide an opportunity for five more movies to gain added visibility and exposure that would be good for box office. This should be a win-win for everyone." The LAT's Patrick Goldstein, who has been lobbying the Academy in his column for Oscar reform, agrees.

Coming out ahead are specialty distribs such as Sony Pictures Classics, which could have used extra Oscar juice for smaller quality films such as last year's Rachel Getting Married, or Frozen River. But SPC's Tom Bernard worries about Oscar voters being able to see all the films, even with eight extra days in the schedule this year. The nominations will be announced February 2 and ABC will broadcast the Oscars on March 7. Bernard hopes the Academy will make some moves to increase the number of member screenings. Distribs will send out more DVDs, but what's going to make a given voter watch them all? "It's more inclusive and that's a good thing," says Bernard. "But it's hard getting the membership to watch all the films NOW. It's difficult to get them to see five foreign language films."

The worst thing about all this is the dilution of the exclusive, special nature of the top five. What if the ten selections aren't top notch? To put it bluntly, there isn't an overabundance of quality films anymore. What if they aren't all well-reviewed? The movies at the bottom of the best picture ten may reflect mere hundreds of votes. "Everyone is a contender now," says one studio publicist. "It's not the rarified five anymore. It makes it less elite."

Said one miserable Oscar campaigner: "People who thought they had no shot? Today they think they do."

Angelina Jolie tops Forbes 100 Celebrities list, replacing Oprah Winfrey as number one. I suspect they just got tired of the richer and more all-powerful, if less glam/sexy and tabloid-friendly Winfrey. Besides, Jolie is Hollywood's one and only femme action star.

The Celebrity 100, which includes film and television actors, models, chefs, athletes, authors and musicians, is a measure of entertainment-related earnings and media visibility (exposure in print, television, radio and online). The earnings estimates consist of pre-tax income between June 2008 and June 2009. Management, agent and attorney fees are not deducted. Rounding out the top five on the list are pop icon Madonna ($110 million), singer Beyoncé Knowles ($87 million) and golfer Tiger Woods ($110 million).

After a few months of adapting the seasonal Carpetbagger awards blog into an impersonal Hollywood news aggregator, the NYT is succumbing to the inevitable: Carpetbagger creator and media columnist David Carr is a gifted journalist/blogger; not everyone else on staff is. News people often find it hard to adopt a more opinionated, snarkier blog persona. So the Times is folding Carpetbagger into the Media Decoder blog until ad-heavy Oscar season, when they'll break it out again. I wasn't sure they'd be able to lure Carr back to the Oscar blog grind.

The Hollywood Reporter is letting ten more people go, including Associate Publisher Rose Einstein and international editor Chad Williams. No more cuts in the film department for now. Here's The Wrap.

Like many journalists in this unforgiving climate, ex-Variety New York bureau chief Dade Hayes is going to the other side, joining Howard Rubenstein Communications in New York as a senior v-p. "After 16 years I was ready to turn the page," he writes in an email, admitting that working side by side with people handling politics, sports, finance and non-profit ventures is appealing. Check out Ken Auletta's 2007 New Yorker Rubenstein profile.

You can look at tracking all you want, and listen to studio marketers downplaying expectations. But truth is, if a movie plays as well as Star Trek does, the word gets out. The movie opened to an estimated $31 million on Friday (including Thursday night numbers), and we know that the WOM will be strong. So it's going to do a lot better than those $50-65 million estimates. UPDATE: It grossed an estimated $76.5 million for the weekend but scored only 35% under 25. Of course the core demo skewed older. Paramount has been spending the big bucks on luring the younger demo--which will likely expand on upbeat WOM.

When I sat down with the writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci at their DreamWorks bungalow on opening day, they were grinning because the reviews are the best of the year so far, an 84 on Metacritic and 91 among the top critics on Rotten Tomatoes. Here's my take. There's even Oscar talk. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Here's my Flip Cam interview about how they reinvented the five key Star Trek characters, the bromance between Kirk and Spock, how they couldn't even start writing the script for producer/director J.J. Abrams without some kind of go ahead from Leonard Nimoy, why they left out William Shatner, how they approached writing Transformers 1 and 2 and Cowboys and Aliens, and how they came to exec produce the Sandra Bullock rom-com The Proposal. The Star Trek sequel is already starting to keep them up at night.

What is the role of film critic? To advise the studios on how to make movies? The NYT's Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott have written some memos to Hollywood about what they would like to see. If moviemakers followed their well-intentioned wish-list, they'd go out of business in short order.

While I have my issues with the MPAA ratings board, people tend to forget what the country would be like without it: we'd have lots of little local censors.

While many Hollywood romantic comedies are bland, silly and forgettable, more of them than usual are smart and funny (usually when they're from the schools of Judd Apatow or John Hamburg). While I applaud these critics' quest for authenticity and admiration of mumblecore, if Hollywood tried to ape that movement, it would be a disaster.

Interesting that the memo about killing the Oscars is left toward the end. It isn't the Academy's fault that so many filmmakers produce so many noble failures aimed right at them. The Oscars are designed to reward the best of the best and that they do. (What's right or wrong with the Oscar show itself is another question.) So many movies wouldn't get made if the Oscars didn't exist to help market them. That doesn't mean they all turn out well, or succeed, or even make it into awards contention. But the majority of the year's best films wouldn't get made, much less seen, without the Oscars.

It's rare for a European actress to carve out a career in Hollywood. But honing her English with rounds of Berlitz and winning both the best actress Oscar and Cesar awards for La Vie en Rose have spun Marion Cotillard into a whirlwind of film roles. First, she went to Chicago to shoot Michael Mann's Public Enemies, playing moll Billie Frechette to Johnny Depp's gangster John Dillinger (July 1).

Three days later she was on the set of Rob Marshall's Fellini-inspired movie musical Nine, using her own singing voice as Luisa Contini opposite best actor Oscar-winner Daniel Day Lewis (November 25). The script for Nine was the last one completed by the late Anthony Minghella.

After just two days in Paris, Cotillard flew to the Morroco desert to shoot the French-language Le Dernier Vol (The Last Flight), co-starring her boyfriend, Guillaume Canet. Let's hope she catches a well-deserved break before starting her next, Inception, opposite Leonardo DiCaprio and Ellen Page.

Here's the Public Enemies trailer:

The Oscars aren't truly over until you've scanned all the frocks and party coverage and caught the winners on Oprah and looked at who did best on the Oscar predicts (I got five wrong) and checked the wrap-ups and yes, early forecasts of what will be going for Oscar gold next year: here's Kris Tapley and Jeff Wells. From the footage I've seen, Peter Jackson's Lovely Bones will be a major contender.

Vanity Fair has the Bennett Miller short that was supposed to open the show. (The Oscar producers ran out of time. How humiliating for Miller, who followed the template of Errol Morris, but didn't quite deliver on that level.)

Here's the great Judd Apatow comedy short with James Franco and Seth Rogen:

Here's the Oscar site's Road to the Oscars:

I got a big kick out of Humpday at Sundance. Its director, Lynn Shelton, is someone we will be seeing a lot more of going forward. She's that good. And at Saturday's Indie Spirits, Shelton won the Someone to Watch Award (with a $25,000 grant from Acura) for her last film, My Effortless Brilliance. The prize goes to "a talented filmmaker of singular vision who has not yet received appropriate attention." I grabbed the Seattle-based Shelton at the IFC Shutters party with the Flipcam:

One of the most unlikely people walking the red carpet to the Oscar show Sunday was Kimberly Rivers Roberts, the 9th Ward New Orleans ex-drug dealing heroine of the Oscar-nominated doc Trouble the Water. There she was, resplendent in a silver gown, accompanied by her husband Scott Roberts and executive producer Danny Glover, who agreed to back Tia Lessen and Carl Deal's New Orleans doc featuring Roberts' homevideo footage of her struggle to help her neighbors survive Hurricane Katrina. The pic was a sleeper hit at Sundance 2008, where Roberts gave birth to her first child.

Since Hurricane Katrina, Roberts and her husband have turned their lives around; Kimberly's first hip-hop CD will come out in April at the same time the movie debuts on HBO. Before flying into L.A., she participated in the New Orleans Mardi Gras in the Muse Parade as the muse of tragedy, Melpomene. A celebratory week indeed.

Here's some red carpet Flipcam footage of Glover and Roberts (with some Dominic Cooper wedged in):
Find more videos like this on AnneCam

The best picture Oscar usually goes to a movie that nails the zeitgeist and hits Academy voters in just the right way. In this crazy upside-down year, when the entire world seems in free fall, that movie was Slumdog Millionaire. "We had passion and belief," said producer Christian Colson as he accepted the best picture trophy. "When you have these things anything is possible."

Picking up two Oscar wins for score and song, A.R. Rahman performed two songs as well. He cited "the power of hope in our lives," adding, "all my life I had a choice between hate and love and I chose love and I am here."

As the sprawling Slumdog Millionaire group of all ages, with their beaming, joyful director, Danny Boyle, made their way down the Academy Awards red carpet Sunday afternoon, the buzz surrounding the movie was infectious. Boyle thanked Fox Searchlight for going to such lengths to bring as many of the cast and crew to L.A. as possible. Mumbai enriched the Slumdog movie and changed the lives of the people who made it. Slumdog Millionaire is yet another example of an east-west hybrid film that expands cinematic boundaries. Beaufoy and Boyle embraced the music and melodrama of Bollywood, and translated some of the script into Hindi so that Boyle could use the untrained young actors he really wanted. Partly inspired by such movies as Black Friday, Boyle also used new light camera gyros to whiz through the Mumbai slums.

Several critics examine the Slumdog phenomenon: the Toronto Film Festival's Cameron Bailey, David Bordwell and David Chute.

Congrats to In Contention's Kris Tapley for correctly predicting Japan's Departures for best foreign film and another Japanese film, La Maison en Petits Cubes for animated short (I called that one too). Foreign nominees Waltz with Bashir and The Class were considered the front-runners. It helps to remember that the always hard-to-call foreign category is only voted on by the 500 or so members who see all five films.

Otherwise there were no surprises. The awards took the expected route, from Slumdog's eight wins to Curious Case of Benjamin Button's three technical prizes (makeup, art direction and visual effects). Milk took home awards for Sean Penn and writer Dustin Lance Black; both, in the evening's most political moments, pleaded for equal rights for all Americans. Best supporting actress winner Penelope Cruz, who made some of her remarks in Spanish, was another reminder of the global nature of the Oscars. "Art is our universal language," she said. "We should do anything we can to protect it." Brit Kate Winslet hugged all the actresses on stage as she accepted her Oscar for The Reader, and asked her father to whistle so she could see him in the house. The mood in the Kodak turned somber when Heath Ledger won for The Dark Knight: his father, mother and sister accepted in the name of his young daughter. Six actors have been nominated for an Oscar after they died. Peter Finch is the other one to win a posthumous Academy Award, for Network.

Finally, Hugh Jackman made an engaging and gifted host; I enjoyed his musical numbers, although the epic musical medley with Beyonce, multiple lines of dancers and two other couples was too complex to quite translate on the home screen. (It was choreographed by Baz Luhrmann, who was typically over-the-top.) The most monumental change on this year's show--a keeper--was the brilliant idea of having past winners, five in each acting category, personally address the nominees in a very intimate way. It was moving and wonderful to see the nominees talked to directly by people they clearly admired. And you could see the impact of these icons--from Sophia Loren to Robert DeNiro-- on the folks in the house. They ate it up. "Even if you didn't win, you had a great star telling you what was great about your performance," observed red carpet announcer Robert Osborne after the show.

It made sense to organize the Kudocast around the different stages of film production, saving time on presenters walking on and off. And the round-up of the year's clips, many of them non-nominated movies, worked well. The section on romance featured not only hetero love but Milk's gay lovers Penn and Franco kissing. Albert Maysle's straight-on interviews with doc filmmakers was disarmingly effective. Doc winner James Marsh smartly brought Man on Wire star Philippe Petit up to balance an Oscar on his chin. I laughed at the Judd Apatow comedy short with James Franco, Janusz Kaminski, and Seth Rogen. Queen Latifah singing "I'll Be Seeing You" during the In Memoriam section also played well. And I liked seeing the trailers for upcoming movies over the credits.

At the Governor's Ball, Oscar-winner Sean Penn told ABC local news, "I was very surprised, because there was across the board such a strong category." He thought Mickey Rourke would win, basically.

With the big show over, the movie industry headed into a night of partying, from the Governors Ball to The Vanity Fair party at Sunset Tower, the Elton John party, and Searchlight's Slumdog Millionaire celebration. That's where I'm heading.

Here's Boyle on the red carpet:

Meryl Streep stops and signs autographs for some of the Slumdog Millionaire kids. Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt don't stop with Osborne. The show is about to start! Sophia Loren, Marisa Tomei, Penelope Cruz, Harvey Weinstein and Kate Winslet are late arrivals. Time to leave.

The London Daily Mail's Baz Bamigboye interviews Dev Patel:

Judd Apatow made a comedy short that will appear in the middle of the show, he tells Osborne.

Robert Downey, Jr. admitted to being non-plussed by the proceedings. "I just know that she's wearing red and I'm wearing black and she's real cute," he tells Osborne, who tells him to prepare for an Oscar win in his future. "It seems like there's 16 years between nominations," Downey adds.

Mickey Rourke is here. "It's really cool I've never been to one of these before. This is real rock 'n roll. It's nice to be invited to the show," he says.

Queen Latifah says, "Hey people!" She was nominated for Chicago. "It's a lot of fun. I'm going to sing a special song to all those we lost last year, 'I'll Be Seeing You.'"

Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge) helped Hugh Jackman out on one number. "The whole show is unlike any Oscar you've ever seen. You don't know what's going to happen." He's opening Australia in Japan next. Jackman "brings his warmth and humanity to the show. He can sing, he can dance, he's a warm affable human being."

Meryl Streep has been nominated 15 times. "I hope they don't retire me, I like it too much," she says. "It's so overwhelming, there are so many awards leading up to the Oscars, you'd think it would be diminished but it doesn't. This is the Super Bowl."

Milk consultant Cleve Jones, who was played by Emile Hirsch in the movie, says the actor "did a wonderful job. I knew the people Sean Penn and the other portrayed and it's amazing to see it up on screen." Gus Van Sant says, "I've never seen this before." He came before in 1998 with Good Will Hunting.

Dominic Cooper agrees that playing in The History Boys on stage triggered the career that made Mamma Mia! possible. (He's also very good in the Sundance hit An Education.)

The Slumdog Millionaire gang collects to do an on-camera interview. They do a rousing cheer. "Thank you!" cries one of the little kids to the crowd. Viola Davis and Melissa Leo also submit to interviews right below us.

"I remember when this street was nothing but sand," said Mickey Rooney. "Tom Mix and Charlie Chaplin ate at Sardi's right up the street." The Oscars "are part of our family. We have to so something for the motion picture home out in the valley that's having a hard time."

Viola Davis says "I wanted you to know her and feel for her," about her two scenes in Doubt.

Reuters entertainment editor Bob Tourtellotte is covering his 10th Oscar show. He's talking to his office on the phone, filing things on his laptop, and taking notes in his notepad. He'll write up the main bar backstage. Another writer will collect quotes from the winners interviewed backstage for a sidebar. Tourtelotte will listen to the show on his headphones and stick winners' quotes into the story he has already written. He'll file four updates, one at the start, two in the middle, two at the end on a real time deadline. All told, 40 people cover this event for Reuters, the global news and information wire service. Ten people are working back at the L.A. office, and eight photographers are covering the event. At least ten stories are prepped and ready to be posted depending on how events shake out, covering each of the possible main winners.

Virginia Madsen tells Osborne that nothing will ever equal her first Oscar show, when she was nominated for supporting actress for 2005's Sideways. Milk star Emile Hirsch is marveling at all the little gold statues everywhere. "I can't believe this is Hollywood Boulevard. The security is insane," he says.

Miley Cyrus presented last year, she tells Osborne. "And now Bolt is nominated and hopefully we'll take home an Oscar for Bolt." Last year's 3-D movie was a concert film; this one's a feature, Hannah Montana: The movie, which comes out April 10. "Let's hope we're here next year picking up something for that," she adds, optimistically.

Osborne says that the Soweto Gospel Choir will perform with Peter Gabriel--correction--they'll perform the Wall-E song by Gabriel, who refused to sing the song in short medley form. (He knows how to get attention for NOT doing something.) They sing their way down the red carpet.

"We need movies more than ever; entertainment gets people out of the plight they feel," says MPAA tub-thumper Dan Glickman.

Osborne makes another gaffe: he thinks Kevin Kline is with Salma Hayek--it's his wife, Phoebe Cates.

Lo and behold I have wireless access here from the press bleachers overlooking the Red Carpet. I ran into E.T.'s Mary Hart as I walked into the red carpet.

Last year I worked the front row with The London Daily Mail's Baz Bamigboye. This year we have assigned seats, which means reporters scramble down to the front when there's someone they want to grab. Chef Wolfgang Puck is always the first to walk the press gauntlet. It's his 15th time, he tells announcer Robert Osborne. He's cooking for 1600 guests at the Governor's Ball, an Asian-inspired menu of lobster salad, cocoanut soup with Thai basil, vegetable risotto and a 3-tiered white chocolate dessert with passion fruit cake, several flavors of sorbet, and chocolate truffles. Puck decided what to cook one month ago, cooked and finished everything today, just like a restaurant, with 250 chefs in kitchen and 600 waiters in the dining room.

Osborne interviews the Price Waterhouse guys--another ritual. If someone announces the wrong name, "We would correct it onstage and correct on the spot," they say. One stands stage right, one stage left.

At the Women in Film party at Peter Guber's Bel Air manse Friday night, I grabbed this Flipcam interview with Viola Davis, nominated for supporting actress for Doubt, who is a longshot to beat Penelope Cruz. She confessed her pre-Oscar jitters:

The Indie Spirits award show on the Santa Monica beach, the day before the Big Show, is my favorite awards event. It's relaxed, convivial. Everyone hangs out outside for an hour or so before the lunchtime ceremony gets under way.

Slumdog Millionaire wasn't up for any awards (eligible for foreign, it wasn't nominated), so it was possible for The Wrestler to walk away with top honors for best film, best cinematography (Maryse Albert) and best male lead Mickey Rourke. Darren Aronofsky thanked his actors, including Rourke, who when accepting his prize took the opportunity to exhort the audience to give Eric Roberts, "The best actor I ever worked with," a second chance. Roberts looked stunned in the crowd. Rourke cried over his dog Loki who died six days ago, saying, "This is for you baby." The crowd under the white tent gave Rourke a rousing standing ovation.

As expected, Milk star James Franco won best supporting male, while Milk scribe Dustin Lance Black won best first screenplay. Charlie Kaufman had to suffer various presenters, from Aaron Eckhart to Cameron Diaz, mauling the pronunciation of Synecdoche, New York. "I guess it really is a bad title," he quipped as he accepted the first of two awards for the night, for best first feature and the Robert Altman award for best ensemble acting. Accepting the supporting actress award, Oscar nominee Penelope Cruz said, "Woody Allen is the symbol of independence in our industry. He does whatever he wants." Allen won best screenplay for Vicky Cristina Barcelona, but did not attend the event.

Sony Pictures Classics enjoyed wins for best actress, foreign film and two for Kaufman. Accepting his award for best foreign film The Class, Laurent Cantet thanked his producers for giving him "the freedom to make films the way I want to make them."

My favorite Indie Spirits host will forever be John Waters, who presented the best director award Saturday afternoon with Zooey Deschanel to The Visitor's Tom McCarthy. Host Steve Coogan did OK--introduced at the show's start via clip by Tropic Thunder co-star Ben Stiller. Indie films are "all about shared experience," Coogan said. "We have all shared the experience of not having seen most of the films." He told Man on Wire star Philippe Petit that "it would have made the film a little better for me if you'd fallen." Man on Wire eventually picked up the win for best documentary.

Coogan's best schtick was showing up onstage as Christian Bale as a foul-mouthed Batman berating an actor dressed up as Joaquin Phoenix in fake wig, beard and shades who whined, "I'm giving up acting." "You've given up shaving," Batman replied, "There's a difference." Last year's host, Rainn Wilson, impersonated Mickey Rourke as The Wrestler, which prompted Rourke as he accepted his award say: "That little blonde dude that did that thing, I'm going to beat your ass."

Of the song homages, Teri Hatcher's renditon of "Bitch is Gone" clearly did not go over with the folks at the Wendy and Lucy table, including a perplexed Michelle Williams.

Best female lead Melissa Leo thanked a theater in Albany, New York for holding Frozen River for "eight fucking weeks." Alec Baldwin, presenting best feature, said, "I want to get back into the movie business so bad. I got to get a dog, get in shape and drop F- bombs on live TV."

After the ceremony, the Indie Spirits gang repaired to Shutters down the beach for a very loud party hosted by IFC, which aired the awards show.

As the Academy tries to beef up a show that is light on popular movies or drama, they continue to leak names of people who might draw younger audiences. Jennifer Aniston will present at the Oscars, announces Marc Malkin. Patrick Goldstein talks to Oscar producers Laurence Mark and Bill Condon, who clearly intended the Hugh Jackman rehearsal clip to be leaked to the Internet.

Not one to miss a multiple click opportunity, Arianna Huffington hands out political Oscars.

While Kris Tapley sees a foreign film upset, I'm positive Waltz with Bashir will win--it's politically correct, Israeli, gorgeously animated, well-lauded, anti-war...Besides, it has a graphic novel to go with it.

And here's a clip of Hugh Jackman practicing, practicing for the big show. Did I not say he would do musical numbers? We know he can sing and dance. But I've seen this guy, who loves theater, work a room. He'll win 'em over on Oscar night.

Chicago critics Michael Phillips and Sergio Mims talk Oscar on local Chicago TV: Why couldn't Disney/ABC have picked these guys for At the Movies?

UPDATE: The filmmakers behind The Reader mount a defense against criticism of the film. On the jump.

Friday I will pick up my credentials at the Hollywood and Highland Academy Awards complex. Wednesday night, I walked on the plastic-covered red carpet on my way to Gold Derby blogger Tom O'Neil's annual Oscar party at the Max Factor Hollywood museum. When you see the red carpet/bleachers construction with no people around, you realize how long the L-shaped thing really is. I'll be posted somewhere near the Red Carpet on Sunday afternoon in my black Oscar suit, prepared to report back to you as soon as I get in front of a computer. (There's no wifi and I'm resisting tweeting.) I'm not going backstage this year.

Then I'll go home and catch the start of the show on TiVo, write up the Red Carpet (I'm tempted to Flipcam but it actually requires uploading etc; better it should be live streaming like the Nokia Qik phone) and then when I'm done posting, go to the Fox Searchlight after party.

Friday night there's a pre-Oscar Women in Film party hosted by Peter Guber; Saturday I always enjoy the Indie Spirits on the beach in Santa Monica, followed by IFC's jammed party at Shutters and a Miramax party as well. I will report in full on all my gleanings.

Kim Masters wraps up the Oscars. UPDATE: So does Time's Richard Corliss, although I still prefer the option of reading a real article, rather than having to click through all these page views online. In the magazine, they photograph Corliss's annotated Oscar ballot. V. cool. Marc Graser reports on new gizmos zooming in on Red Carpet activity.

Oscar fetes are downsizing this year, from Vanity Fair at the Sunset Tower to likely big Oscar-night winner Fox Searchlight at One Sunset. Paramount and Warner Bros. aren't having any parties at all. Bill Higgins lays out the Oscar weekend options.

The Oscar ballots are in. One producer pal of mine forgot to send his in yesterday. What a waste! But he told me his votes over the phone, and judging from his picks and my gleaning of the Oscar tea leaves, I'll be fairly close this year. I still feel good about Viola Davis. But I'm starting to feel Mickey Rourke creeping up on Sean Penn.

You can test your Oscar mettle against professional oddsmaker Nate Silver, but the Oscars are too idiosyncratic to be statistically predicted in this way. I would ignore him and go with the Gurus 'O Gold or Gold Derby's Tom O'Neill, who are much closer to the mark than the LAT's Buzzmeter.

Or, if you dare: enter Defamer's In Memoriam Oscar pool. And if you're feeling really creative, write Waltz with Bashir director Ari Folman's acceptance speech, with help from Atom.com's acceptance speech generator.

Let's play a game of true or false.

Summit says NO, Madonna will not appear in Twilight sequel New Moon, despite what you may read.

Director Marc Forster has worked with screenwriter David Benioff, twice, on Stay and Kite Runner, but until the Quantum of Solace director sees a finished screenplay, he's just interested in Benioff's Kurt Cobain biopic.

In a sign that studios are in no mood to take any chances these days, Ridley Scott's Nottingham will now be called Robin Hood. Don't mess with a brand name. And Russell Crowe will not only be trim and fit, he will play just the one role, not two, Scott tells MTV News. Production starts in two months.

TRUE, DreamWorks' money woes have jeopardized Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, which was to be his next picture after the currently filming TinTin, reports Kim Masters on Slate. EW has more.

TRUE, Zac Efron and Rob Pattinson will present on the Oscar show, but not together. The show will stress young Oscar attendees on the Red Carpet, hiding many others for a big reveal on the show itself. (TRUE, the Academy is trying to pull younger viewers.) TRUE, Dreamgirl Beyonce will sing, but new mother MIA will NOT sing on the Oscars. UPDATE: She might attend, though.

TRUE, Watchmen screens for junket press Tuesday night in L.A. Unfortunately, I have to do something else. Here's an early Time "non-review" and the latest clip:

Obviously, enough Academy members liked The Reader, David Hare and Stephen Daldry's adaptation of Bernhard Schlink's 1995 international bestseller about post-World War II German "truth and reconciliation," to nominate it for five Oscars, including Best Picture.

But articulate naysayers, such as writer-director Rod Lurie, have serious issues with the movie's sympathetic portrayal of former Nazi guard Hanna Schmitz, played by Kate Winslet. Lurie even suggests that the movie aids Holocaust deniers.

Slate's Ron Rosenbaum begs Academy voters not to award The Reader an Oscar. And back in circulation is Cynthia Ozick's 1999 Commentary essay on Schlink, who targeted The Reader, which Schlink wrote for the German "Second Generation" trying to come to terms with how their elders behaved during World War II.

"It's not a Holocaust movie," insisted screenwriter David Hare during an industry Q and A session. "It's about how do people live in the shadow of the great crime?" Hare defended Lena Olin's portrayal of a concentration camp survivor as a sleekly successful woman: "I wanted for once on film to show someone who has come through strong, and made a completely different life."

Academy voters tend to favor Holocaust movies, from Life is Beautiful to Schindler's List. But these highly-charged arguments could sway them to change their minds on The Reader---assuming they read them before they voted (ballots are due February 17). And could these aspersions on the film cause Academy voters to rethink voting for Winslet, the film's most likely Oscar winner? Her acting ability is not in doubt. Nor does the movie redeem her character. I suspect that her Oscar votes are as much for a career that includes six Oscar noms and no wins as this role--not to mention Revolutionary Road.

There isn't much suspense building for this year's Oscar show on February 22--final ballots are due Tuesday, February 17--as the various guilds dole out their prizes. Anthony Dod Mantel nabbed the Society of Cinematographers prize for Slumdog Millionaire, while animated feature Wall-E, live-action feature Slumdog Millionaire and documentary Man on Wire won editing awards at the ACE Eddies. Slumdog is favored to win the cinematography and editing Oscars, and Man on Wire should score for best doc.

I always enjoy the Art Directors Guild awards, a black-tie affair at the Beverly Hilton, partly because I get a kick out of the anachronistic Johnny Crawford orchestra; the bandleader sings and swings just like Fred Astaire, top hat and all. He even had to play off the stage loquacious life achievement award winner Paul Sylbert (Heaven Can Wait), who looked like he could have talked all night.

Mainly I enjoy the clip reels from the past, such as this year's The Magnificent 100, a short celebrating 100 Years of production design from 1898 to 2000, highlighting films from Man in the Moon, Intolerance and Metropolis to The Wizard of Oz, Lawrence of Arabia, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The ADG will release the 9-minute short in theaters.

Ron Howard paid tribute to Outstanding Contribution to Cinematic Imagery Award-winner George Lucas, whose Star Wars inspired the evening's glowing light saber decor--which was recycled for the later Eddies show. "Don't take the centerpieces," pleaded host Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad). Here are the ADG winners, led by contemporary winner Slumdog Millionaire, fantasy The Dark Knight and period The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Anyone wanting to learn more about the creation of this year's Oscar-nominated films should check out a cool panel on Saturday February 21 at 2:30 pm at Hollywood Boulevard's Egyptian Theatre, with production designers and set decorators from Changeling, Benjamin Button, The Dark Knight, The Duchess, and Revolutionary Road.

The Oscar producers are starting to leak things--on purpose, natch--to whet our appetites for Oscar night. It's called marketing. Between Academy president Sid Ganis and producer Laurence Mark, these guys know what they're doing. So what better way to draw some fans to the kudocast than to invite some Twilight stars to participate? And even if Peter Gabriel is out, the very pregnant MIA may be in. UPDATE: MIA gave birth to a healthy baby boy Wednesday. Which gives her time to get ready for the Oscars...

EW Oscar-watcher Dave Karger doesn't go out on a limb with his Oscar predictions. This is the safe line, all the way; he's going with the obvious front-runners. But brave forecasters with a shot at winning their office Oscar pools will make a few deviations from the norm. There's always a surprise or two.

Here's Karger's list, with notes in caps from me:

This year's global collection of Oscar-nominated live-action and animated shorts is impressive indeed. Shorts International started releasing them (on two separate 92-minute programs) in theatres in L.A. on February 6 and will continue to roll out other cities. They're well worth seeing.

Here are reviews from the NYT's A.O. Scott, Kris Tapley, and cinemascopian, which posts five of the six animated shorts on one handy page.

Of the animated shorts, I adored the breathlessly comedic octopus chase Oktapodi, which was made by UCLA student Emud Mokhberi on a low budget with a team of French co-directors. It goes up against the costlier Presto, a delightful rascally rabbit vs. uppity magician comedy crammed with Pixar magic, which is pretty hard to top. But the one that grabbed my emotions was the Japanese La Maison en Petits Cubes, which will move the older members of the Academy with its brilliant concept: an old man keeps adding more bricks to his house, trying to keep his living space above the rising water. When he dives down through the floors of the tower he has constructed over decades, each flooded space calls up memories of his lost wife and family. Sob.

All of the live-action shorts made me cry. (I'm easy.) Each one tugs at the heart strings. On the Line is about a lunky German security guard in love with a co-worker; he likes spying on her from the safety of his security cameras. He is more comfortable watching other people than engaging with anyone--with tragic results. I was also taken by the moodily French Manon of the Asphalt, about a young woman who watches over her friends' reactions to her bicycle accident.

My favorite of the lot, The New Boy, was adapted by writer-director Steph Green from a story by Roddy Doyle about a nine-year-old emigre from Africa who endures a rite-of-passage at his new Brit school. It's sharp, succinct, funny, gorgeous.

My pick to win, though, is the World War II period drama, Spielzeugland (Toyland). Why? It'll hit the Academy Holocaust sweet spot.

The Academy is using some old marketing tricks to lure viewers to the Oscarcast on February 22: mystery guests who aren't announced in advance and don't walk the red carpet; a possible in memoriam song by Queen Latifah. And host Hugh Jackman, interviewed by ontheredcarpet.com, promises a "twist." I'm there (literally on the red carpet Oscar night). But will these gambits work, as many of the films in contention flounder at the boxoffice--in desperate need of Oscar gold? Many Oscar-watchers think Slumdog Millionaire can't be stopped as it threatens to sweep. At least Mickey vs. Sean and Penelope vs. Viola are building some suspense--which is in short supply indeed.

In Contention rounds up the latest Oscar scuttlebutt.

At least the NYT's Lynn Hirschberg tries a new tack, providing a narration track for the online version of the NYT's annual Oscar photo spread, including Winslet as one of eight performers of the year. If Mickey Rourke doesn't win Oscar night, it won't be for lack of trying. He's done way more press than Sean Penn.

For the March Vanity Fair, photographer Annie Leibovitz not only shot cover subject Barack Obama (no Hollywood cover this year) but a series of movie partnerships that yielded not only Oscar contenders (Danny Boyle and Dev Patel, Sean Penn and Gus Van Sant, Woody Allen and Penelope Cruz, Mickey Rourke and Darren Aronofsky, Meryl Streep and John Patrick Shanley, Chris Nolan and Heath Ledger) but some also-rans as well (Sam Mendes and Kate Winslet, Baz Luhrmann and Nicole Kidman) who nonetheless yielded great photos. And there's behind-the-scenes video, too:

Los Angeles Magazine features cover girl Kate Winslet, while the much-improved glossy LAT Mag boasts Anne Hathaway on the cover (after the Calendar ran an "it girl" feature on her back in November) and the likes of Ron Howard, Steve Martin and David Steinberg on the inside.

[Photo of Kate Winslet courtesy The New York Times]

The London broadcast of the BAFTA Awards on Sunday does not cue what will happen on Oscar night. Suddenly, everyone says, as they did after the Golden Globes, Mickey Rourke will win. The folks voting for the BAFTAs are from the UK film industry, they aren't the same as the 5800 Academy voters. Of course the ceremony does take place smack in the middle of Oscar voting. (Still, many Academy members have already filled out their ballots, due February 17.) But they aren't widely viewed. More people see reports of the winners than the actual show. So rather than being predictive, the BAFTAs may have some slight influence on momentum. Winners look like winners, and so on.

"Will there be a Slumdog backlash?" asked my pal Dan as Slumdog took home seven wins. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie sat patiently, as did producers Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy and director David Fincher, as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button picked up technical awards only (three)--as it likely will on Oscar night.

Slumdog will also be a big winner on February 22. But maybe not as big. My hunch is that more films will win more awards through the categories, including Benjamin Button and Dark Knight and Wall-E. The actor race is still tight between bad boys Sean Penn and Rourke (who will have to watch his potty mouth on live TV); Cruz has won more than Viola Davis has, at this point, and Winslet and Ledger seem good to go. Milk still plays into the soft spot of the politically-correct Academy; it's very American, it's about our history. If Milk doesn't win picture, Penn could get actor, and Dustin Lance Black may beat Wall-E for screenplay.

Winners list is on the jump.

Milk scripter Dustin Lance Black, 34, tearfully accepted the Writers Guild Award for best original screenplay for Milk Saturday night by calling up the ghost of slain San Francisco politician Harvey Milk, the man who inspired Black when he moved to the Bay Area from San Antonio, Texas as a closeted gay 13-year-old. "I want to thank God for making my dreams come true," said Black, who was raised a Mormon, "and for giving us Harvey Milk."

Here are all the WGA winners, including non-attendee Simon Beaufoy, who won for Slumdog Millionaire's adapted screenplay, and Ari Folman, for the animated documentary Waltz with Bashir, which is on track to win the best foreign film Oscar.

Black had earlier accepted the WGA's Paul Selvin Civil Rights award. "This is a spec script," he told the writers. "It wasn't the easiest subject matter to pursue; it's pretty gay. Why would I spend five years with this Harvey Milk guy? It's the longest relationship I've ever had. His message of hope allowed me to dream, and to heal."

Black exhorted the gay community to learn from Milk's message: "Be proud, represent yourself, reach out," he said. He criticized the anti-prop 8 organizers for not pursuing outreach and education, of not following Milk's model of grassroots activism. When he told Cleve Jones, the character played by Emile Hirsch in Gus Van Sant's Milk, that he was getting the Selvin award, Jones told him, "Civil rights? We don't have them, and we want them." Black quoted Milk, who said, "If they demand the real thing, I find, they can get it."

Now is the time to think big, said Black, who asked the federal government to follow the model of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and ensure equal rights to GLBT people. "It's bigger than 8," he said. "Harvey Milk and the movies inspire people to dream big. That's how change really happens."

As far as the Academy Award voting goes, while Beaufoy will likely repeat his win, Black is competing with a rival, Wall-E writer-director Andrew Stanton (animated films are not eligible for WGA awards). Ballots are due on February 17; the Oscarcast is on February 22.

Sean Penn is on the Oscar campaign trail: here he talks to wily interviewer Tavis Smiley about his limitations:

The Gurus 'o Gold have picked the top two in each Oscar category, including shorts. For the most part the races are pretty clear, with the notable exception of supporting actress, which is a dead heat between Penelope Cruz and Viola Davis.

If these sage Oscar watchers are right, aside from Slumdog Millionaire's pic, writer, director, score and song wins, and actor races that should go to Penn, Winslet, and Ledger (although Downey, Jr. got the most noise at the Academy luncheon), voters will divvy up Oscars for Wall-E, Dark Knight and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button through the technical categories. When in doubt, many Academy voters go with the movie they like best, often a best pic nominee---but that isn't always true in the best costume category, which has seen wins from the likes of Elizabeth II and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (I fondly remember Lizzy Gardiner's dress on Oscar night, made out of expired gold American Express cards). Thus I'm going out on a limb and picking The Duchess in that category.

How could Hugh Jackman host the Oscars and not be part of a musical number? And if Slumdog Millionaire's A.R. Rahman is nominated for two songs, we'll certainly get an exuberant Bollywood dance, even if Bruce Springsteen was shut out. The NYT ferrets out as much info as possible about the February 22 Oscarcast, which faces the challenge of fanboy boycotts over Dark Knight and low-boxoffice performances from its top nominees.

While Slumdog is humming along to a decent $67 million gross, and at $116.5 million The Curious Case of Benjamin Button looks like a winner (even if it may not win any Oscars or make its money back), the last of the Oscar pack to widen, Gus Van Sant's Milk and Stephen Daldry's The Reader, did not achieve pre-Oscar b.o. liftoff. The Reader broadened to 1,000 screens and has mustered about $12.6 million to date. Milk, on 882 screens, scored about 1.4.4 million for a total of $23.4 million. And Frost/Nixon actually declined 54% and has earned a mere $14.5 million so far.

Don't worry, this year's Oscar show producers Laurence Mark and Bill Condon aren't about to forgo the glamorous ritual of red carpet arrivals. But some stars avoid going to these affairs, not wanting to run the gauntlet--many of them hurry in late so that they can wave at the stands and pass all the press by, ostensibly to run to their seats. Well, this way, the logic goes, they don't have to do all the things they don't like--they just have to show up on the Oscarcast, as surprise bait for the fans who will presumably tune in worldwide.

UPDATE: On the other hand, everybody likes going to the annual celebratory Oscar lunch, where a hundred or so nominees mingle, take a group photo, and get a lecture from Academy president Sid Ganis on making a short acceptance speech. Peter Bart was there.

One of my fave pre-Oscar events comes up next weekend: The BAFTAs, or British Academy Awards. The Brits usually come up with a witty host with a plummy British accent, like Stephen Fry; they tend to get on with it with humor and well-wrought acceptance speeches. Sunday the 8th, 5 PM, BBC America, PST. Order in some cucumber sandwiches.

Fun reads: At Film.com, Tim Appelo begs Brad and Angelina to save the Oscars, while Mark Harris explains at The Observer that the Academy is not, contrary to popular belief, a monolith. Film Experience examines the fates of the 2004 Vanity Fair Hollywood cover girls.

When my family and I saw the trailer for Paul Blart Mall Cop over the holidays, we all knew it would be a hit. But this big? New York Mag defines a new genre: the Blart. And Stephen Schaefer commends both new comedy star Kevin James and employable Oscar contender Mickey Rourke for recent smart career moves.

Some friends of mine are so afraid of Google they refuse to use it. Slate defines yet another Google triumph: Google Gear.

Steal this: Online retail giant Amazon is selling DVDs of 900 new indie and foreign films, priced from $5.99.

I took this photograph of Danny Boyle at the start of the whole long process: The Telluride Film Festival over Labor Day Weekend. The movie was the hit of the fest. Everyone knew it was a winner. Slumdog went on to score at the Golden Globes, the Producers Guild, Screen Actors Guild, best director at the LA Film Critics, and Saturday night, the Directors Guild. Multiple Oscars are in Slumdog's sights.

Who would have thought that this movie developed by the originators of Who Wants to be A Millionaire, Celador, and funded by Film Four, would end up getting this far? By the way, Warners isn't crying in its beer about losing bragging rights to this Oscar contender. First, the studio did acquire Slumdog through Warner Independent, but shuttered the label before Slumdog's scheduled Telluride launch. Warners tried to figure out a way for outgoing Picturehouse exec Bob Berney to distribute it, but it was financially impossible to hang onto his staff for the release. And WIP's Polly Cohen persuaded her bosses to do what was best for the filmmaker, and let him take the film to his frequent home, Fox Searchlight.

"I should start by curiously thanking Warner Bros. for actually having the grace to do the right thing, when I think it would have been a lot easier to do the wrong thing, and pass the film on to Fox Searchlight, who are an extraordinary bunch of people," said Boyle, according to the A.P.

It's still a close race for picture with Slumdog vying with Milk and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. But most of the time the DGA winner is the Oscar winner. So best director is Boyle's to lose.

In a surprise turn at the International Animated Film Society Awards (Annies), DreamWorks Animation's Kung Fu Panda won the top prizes. This comes as a shock to those of us who just assume that Pixar's Wall-E is the frontrunner for the animation Oscar. What does this mean? Has Pixar ruled the roost too long? Even though the Annies tend to be a good indicator of where the Oscars are going, I suspect Wall-E will still get the love from the entire Academy. I was actually predicting that Andrew Stanton could win the Oscar for original screenplay.

Full list of winners on the jump.

The New Yorker critic David Denby and the New York Times' A.O. "Tony" Scott don't necessarily know how to call the Oscar race--leave that to professional Oscar watchers, please---but they do know how to talk about movies. I always love to hear them gab with Charlie Rose.

Denby also has other things on his mind, like the deterioration of the quality of our cultural discourse as "civilized" newspaper and magazine journalists go the way of the dinosaur. He talks about his new book Snark with the LAT. Of course he's right to be concerned about the loss of long-form journalism and many of these issues but the notion that print carries more "authority" than online isn't going to hold much longer.

First, the younger generation doesn't grant print more authority, because they don't read newspapers or magazines--not one person in my new film criticism class at USC reads Entertainment Weekly, for example. Online, the NYT and Washington Post and Variety may carry more authority than less trusted brands. And with Perez Hilton, what you see is what you get. In the online world order, each individual searches for as much "authority" as they wish for. 

While reports of the inevitable Slumdog Millionaire backlash may be overstated--the hugely popular movie is still charging forward to some major Oscar wins on February 22--here's a new Oscar slant: Slumdog and its main rival, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, split the vote and Milk takes the best picture win.

Possible? Milk was ahead in the Oscar race back in November before Slumdog took off. The biopic about assassinated San Francisco gay activist Harvey Milk boasts the earmarks of a powerful Academy contender: the politically correct, timely, emotional true story grabbed great reviews, New York Film Critics wins for picture and Sean Penn, LA Film Critics win for Penn, SAG win for Penn over Globe-winner Mickey Rourke, and eight Oscar nominations on January 22.

Lately, Milk is recovering momentum. And this Friday, a new ad campaign kicks in as the movie finally--after seven weeks inching along in no more than 300 locations to a $22 million gross--goes wide on 882 screens.

"The hope from the beginning," says producer Bruce Cohen, who with producing partner Dan Jinks produced the surprise 1999 best picture Oscar winner American Beauty, "was to start with the core demo and from there build out, eventually getting people who have never heard of Harvey Milk, and might not think that a gay subject was their cup of tea."

Having learned some lessons on the 2005 release of Oscar contender Brokeback Mountain, which was considered the front runner for the Best Picture Oscar but lost to Crash, Focus Features has taken the slow-and-steady-wins-the-race approach for Milk, a movie looking for Oscar love.

The distrib waited to break Milk wide until after the Oscar nominations. Because they were bumped by the presidential inauguration from Tuesday to Thursday this year, that left no time to plaster ads with Oscar noms. So Focus delayed the movie one week to lay that info on the consumer. Now Milk goes out backed by a substantial ad campaign--during the prime of Oscar season. Final ballots were mailed to 5800 Academy voters on Wednesday, and are due back February 17.

"It takes time," adds Jinks, "to reach less sophisticated audiences. Eight Oscar nominations helps enormously. Milk resonates in an emotional way that tops the other films out there."

Defamer's Stu Van Airsdale argues that given the current odds and despite its awesome Oscar nominations lead (13) and Paramount ad support, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button could whiff on Oscar night. The January 31 DGA awards will tell the tale: if Danny Boyle wins, David Fincher will likely lose the directing Oscar. My sense is that the DGA and Oscar voters could go either way. The Academy respects Fincher: it could be a career prize.

The inexorable Slumdog Millionaire march to the Oscars continues with a best ensemble prize at Sunday night's SAG awards.

Lessons learned: Sean Penn reclaims momentum from Mickey Rourke's Golden Globe award. Winslet couldn't score twice again, so she settled for supporting actress for The Reader--and kept herself under more control this time. Respected older actress Meryl Streep grabbed a statuette instead, but I suspect it will be Winslet who will take the stage on Oscar night Feb.22 not only for The Reader, but for Revolutionary Road. (She has never won.) Heath Ledger will probably win the supporting actor Oscar. And with no Winslet to compete with, the supporting actress race is close between Penelope Cruz and Viola Davis."Somebody give her a movie!" cried Streep.

UPDATE: There was a hum of tension in the room when SAG leader Alan Rosenberg took the stage; subtle references were made during the ceremony: Sally Field cited the role of actors during tough times, while Tiny Fey joked that her daughter would later watch 30 Rock on the Internet and say,"What do you mean, you don't get residuals for this?" Here's the LAT on the ongoing internal struggles at SAG, whose members continue to work under the terms of an expired contract with the studios. Cynthia Littleton reports from the red carpet and backstage at Sunday's SAG event.

I knew we'd have a lively screenwriters panel at the Santa Barbara Film Festival this year because we had two actor-writers--Tom McCarthy (who also directed The Visitor) and Robert Knott (Appaloosa) as well as writer-director Andrew Stanton (Wall-E, nominated for 6 Oscars, including original screenplay), who is one of the most entertaining guys around, and young Dustin Lance Black (nommed for Milk).

Cal Arts grad Stanton has spent 18 years at Pixar, where he has written some of the best-reviewed movies of all time, including Wall-E, the Oscar-winning Finding Nemo (which he also directed) and Toy Story 1 and II, which he rewrote from scratch in three months, which he was only able to do because he knew the characters so well. Years ago when Stanton started writing Wall-E, he probably didn't have the chops to pull it off, he says now. The film carried the title Trash Planet for years, and even Steve Jobs wanted to keep it, but Stanton held his ground, because he knew "not a single girl would go," he said. ("What does Steve Jobs know about marketing?" quipped McCarthy.) Stanton originally wrote the doughy fat humans in Wall-E as gelatinous green creatures but soon realized the yuck factor was too great, so he made them into humans whose bones had gone soft (per real NASA research). When Hello, Dolly went into the movie, they had to use those images, so the Fred Willard video was live action too.

Why does Pixar have such a track record of excellence? Stanton chalks it up to the process they have of presenting everyone's work every so often and tearing it to shreds. Stanton thinks animation is starting to pull out of the ghetto and will make it to a best picture Oscar one day; progress is being made. Meanwhile he's writing his first adaptation, of Edgar Rice Burrough's John Carter of Mars, a favorite novel since childhood, and his first live-action movie, for Disney, not Pixar. Casting begins soon.

McCarthy spent a few months at Pixar working on Up, and testified that the experience was "brutal." The actor played the ambitious young newspaper reporter in The Wire, among many other roles (including a 30-second cameo date with Tina Fey in Baby Mama) and wrote and directed the BAFTA and Indie Spirit-award-winning The Station Agent. The Visitor is up for a Spirit for writing as well. And McCarthy is over the moon that Robert Jenkins nabbed an Oscar nom. He wrote the script for him, as a young Gene Hackman wasn't available. And he didn't worry that the character was passive and low-key. He thinks no one else could have played him so well, with such "emotional authenticity." Here's my April interview with McCarthy. These days he is acting up a storm while working on another script.

Oklahoma-born Robert Knott has acted in a ton of TV series and westerns (including The Hi-Lo Country), and worked with his old theater pal Ed Harris on Pollock as well as Appaloosa. It's a detailed, delicious character study about two gunslingers for hire (Harris and Viggo Mortensen) and a woman (Rene Zellweger) who comes into town and changes their buddy chemistry. Knott says when he's writing he gets on a boat and doesn't know where it's going to go, he just follows the characters. He started writing because the scripts he read were so bad. If he didn't get the part he'd throw the script in the trash. And if he did--well he knew he could do better. Knott hopes to make, with Harris, movies of two more Robert Parker novels.

Dustin Lance Black earned an Oscar nom for Milk, which scored 8 noms. Raised a Mormon in San Antonio, Texas, Black is also a writer-producer on HBO's Big Love, which is starting its third season. He came to UCLA, and was heavily influenced by the late San Francisco gay activist Harvey Milk, who was profiled in the Rob Epstein doc The Life and Times of Harvey Milk. Black did a lot of research, getting to know the real people close to Milk. And he used politics as the story's spine, which initally worried Van Sant. Black felt he needed a narrower focus, or the whole biopic would get unwieldy. He says there are still many gay kids like he used to be, as well as the real-life suicidal teen portrayed in the movie, who feel alienated, not accepted and lost in their lives. The filmmakers did want to bring the movie out before the Prop 8 vote but simply couldn't get it finished in time. Black is writing another film for Gus Van Sant, an adaptation of Tom Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, for which he's been doing a lot of research (!).

Here's coverage from Variety, AICN's Quint, In Contention,and Jeff Wells, who shot some video:

[Photo of writers from left-- Tom McCarthy, Andrew Stanton, Robert Knott, Dustin Lance Black-- by me; panel photo of McCarthy, left, and Stanton, foreground, by Norman Christophersen.]

Slumdog Millionaire racked up another big win Saturday night as it nabbed the Producers Guild's best producer award. It's going to be hard to stop its momentum for a best picture Oscar.

Here are the current rankings on Gurus 'O Gold. And a fascinating LAT story on how Slumdog was received in Mumbai.

The Oscar nominations are in and The Dark Knight did not make it to best picture. The Reader landed the slot instead, also scoring noms for Stephen Daldry for best director (over The Dark Knight's Chris Nolan), David Hare for adapted screenplay and Kate Winslet (instead of Revolutionary Road). The Dark Knight was in the running though, with eight noms, including a posthumous nom for Heath Ledger, who is the frontrunner for best supporting actor.

Harvey Weinstein is a happy man.

A late-entry in the Oscar race, The Reader was barely finished in time. But Weinstein knew he had a winner and several Oscar-watchers were telling me Golden Globes weekend that their Academy pals weren't saying they voted for The Dark Knight. They were hearing they liked The Reader, which finally landed five noms. (Penelope Cruz also landed a nom for supporting actress for TWC's Vicky Cristina Barcelona, but Woody Allen was shut out for original screenplay.)

Media prognosticators who reach a consensus on these things aren't always right--check out The Gurus 'O Gold. Everybody said The Dark Knight--including me--because it was hard to figure anything else for that slot. The Reader was one of several possibilities, including two other films produced by Scott Rudin, Doubt (five noms) and Revolutionary Road (three). Rudin took his name off The Reader when he kept wrangling with Weinstein.

The other news was actors' actors Melissa Leo and Richard Jenkins landing nods. Many Academy voters loved Sony Pictures Classics' Sundance pick-up Frozen River, which also landed an unexpected nom for Courtney Hunt for original screenplay. The nom for Jenkins' quiet performance in The Visitor meant that Clint Eastwood did not get a slot for Gran Torino, nor did Leonardo DiCaprio for Revolutionary Road, which landed three noms, for costume design, art direction and supporting actor Michael Shannon. Eastwood had to console himself with Changeling's three noms (Jolie, cinematography and art direction). Gran Torino was shut out.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are also happy today, as both won noms. Jolie won an Oscar in 2000 for Girl Interrupted, while Pitt hadn't been nominated since his supporting role in Twelve Monkeys in 1996.

The best actress category was open for some surprises. Button's Cate Blanchett did not make it, nor did critics' faves Sally Hawkins and Kristin Scott Thomas, who were overlooked mainly because not enough people saw art-house entries Happy-Go-Lucky and I've Loved You So Long. Oscar perennial Mike Leigh did land his sixth Oscar nom, for his Happy-Go-Lucky original screenplay. He has never won.

Animated film Wall-E, from Pixar, didn't make it to best picture but it did earn six noms, including original screenplay, tying with Beauty and the Beast (which had four music noms). Pixar's Ratatouille earned five last year and won best animated feature, as Wall-E is likely to do.

Here's the list of noms, led by David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, with 13. Someone asked me to make my Oscar pics before this morning, and I backed out. You have to get a feel for the whole list. Heading toward the Academy Awards night on February 22, Benjamin Button will be slugging it out with Slumdog Millionaire. But Milk also did very well, which is why I'm still picking Sean Penn to beat Mickey Rourke, partly because The Wrestler landed only two acting noms. Milk is going to have to win something.

UPDATE: Tom O'Neil explains why Bruce Springsteen didn't make the cut.

The noms list is on the jump: