Among the stations of the cross in America's long slog to Oscar night, the announcement of the Spirit Awards nominations is supposed to be a moment that redefines the race, until it is redefined again by the Globes nominations. With an absence of major attention-getting performances, the race long ago transformed itself from the Indy 500 into a hemmed-in wolfpack of a handful of jalopies slogging in formation through rush hour traffic down the New Jersey Turnpike.

For the past few months the pundits' assessment has been locked in that Precious, Hurt Locker and Up In the Air pretty much own the Best Picture category, despite the fact that no one is jumping for joy about any of their prospects. Each of the big three has its major drawbacks in the industry buzz; Up In the Air is said to be uneven and perhaps non-transcendent, Precious, heavy-handed and while The Hurt Locker is much respected, even beloved by many critics, industry watchers can't help but get a major case of shpilkes about what it would mean for Oscar's chances of ever reaching a broad audience again if they give the big trophy to a film that has only grossed $12 million domestic.

And as pundits lock down the list into the next tier, the reservations only grow. Invictus looks venerable but a bit pedantic. Nine and Lovely Bones are both attracting very mixed buzz in early screenings. An Education, A Serious Man and Julie and Julia; too small and limited. Nothing one has seen yet of Avatar suggests that the non-3D blue people getting blown up parts will be anything other than laughable. And Up is still in Academy minds, just a cartoon.

Which is why the world of Oscar punditry depends on game-changing events, like the Spirits to come along and knock over the chessboard and give them something fresh to say beyond, " Precious, Up In the Air and Hurt Locker are still looking strong."

The aforementioned, heavy-handed Precious was the big winner on the nominations list and becomes the instant favorite to win the awards. There had been some hope that A Serious Man might show huge on the Spirits list, fueling a late surge for the small but very well regarded Coen Brothers film, but the film failed to get a Best Feature nomination, landing only secondary nods. The other major contender, The Hurt Locker, was somehow nominated for last year's Spirits, so ineligible this time around.

None of the Spirit's other best pic nominees — 500 Days of Summer, Sin Nombre, Amreeka or The Last Station are seen as having any major Oscar prospects.

The announcement left Hollywood's awards punditry sputtering to grab straws of significance for the race at large. Anne Thompson proclaimed a boost to Helen Mirren's Best Actress campaign from The Last Station's nod.

The Envelope's Tom O'Neil bah-humbugged the Spirits and the Gotham awards (which gave Hurt Locker their top prize) both, writing "This year's clash between the two awards - bestowed by rival factions of an organization that split in 2006 - marks the height of absurdity in awards land. Each side is embracing one of the two top indies - The Hurt Locker or Precious - to the exclusion of the other. In the end, both awards look foolish and everybody loses."

David Poland, for his part, was left to daydream about what might have been if A Serious Man had broken Precious' stride.

And so, again, our contenders get back in formation, with a mere three months to go until Oscar night.

Although at first glance it seems to be divided down national lines with the American critics coming out with the pitchforks and battle axes while critics in the UK, where the film debuted last night, seem to mostly like it.

In the US the trade critics are first out of the gate with their notices, and they are not one bit pleased with what Mr Jackson has been up to all these years, tinkering away with the little tale of a slain girl looking down from heaven and remembering her rape and murder.

Variety's Todd McCarthy writes, "Unfortunately, the massive success Jackson has enjoyed in the intervening years with his CGI-heavy "The Lord of the Rings" saga (the source of which receives fleeting homage in a bookstore scene here) and "King Kong" has infected the way he approaches this far more intimate tale...the director has indulged his whims to create constantly shifting backdrops depicting an afterlife evocative of The Sound of Music or The Wizard of Oz one moment, The Little Prince or Teletubbies the next."

And at the Hollywood Reporter, Kurt Honeycutt bemoans that Jackson has turned Alice Sebold's magical otherworldly tale into a simple Law and Order-like thriller, while conceding it works okay on that level.

Over in the UK however, The Times' critic calls the film a return to Jackson's pre-blockbuster form that she showed in cult classic Heavenly Creatures. While Total Film gives Bones four stars, calling it, "A sister film to Heavenly Creatures, brimming with not just tears but imagination, thrills and verve. It's heart-on-sleeve, sure, but it also has a whiff of awards potential."

But while the Bones lingered, America's awards pundits had, sight unseen, all but written off the film's Oscar chances, locking in Precious, The Hurt Locker and Up In the Air as the race's lone heavyweights. On The Envelope's pundits poll (in which Defamer casts a vote) Lovely Bones came in a distant ninth place for best picture favorites. On Movie City News' Gurus of Gold poll, Bones takes the number eight slot.

The pundits have been pining for a shake-up in a race that seemed depressingly settled half a year before the Oscar show. Could Bones be coming in with enough support from some people at least that it will stampede the race? The question will soon be the subject of many a column, blog item and tip sheet in awards land.

Via Awardsdaily.

Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin have been picked to jointly host the Academy Awards telecast.

A Jackman sequel had been much hoped for by the Oscar community. After two decades of firing every weapon imaginable at TV audiences in hopes of stemming the ratings slide, Jackman was the first thing that worked, giving last year's show a minor uptick — which is far better than a major downtick. After many attempts to young the show up (Chris Rock, Jon Stewart) to get wacky (Whoopi, Ellen) or to play down the middle comic shtick (Billy Crystal, Steve Martin) it turned out that what audiences wanted was a big-toothed song and dance man to bring in some champagne-like class.

The Academy's announcement of a couple weeks back that they would be replace Bill Condon, the show's not-available this year director, with Adam Shankman, another musical veteran, signaled an intent to stay the course. But without Jackman, the hunt will be on for another for of that rare, dying breed of Hollywood good-looking, above-the-fray, theater-y leading men.

The spotlight now turns to Neil Patrick Harris who has won hosannas as host of the Emmys and Tony awards and is the only obvious choice to fill Jackman's particular shoes. But will the king of all awards shows really be willing to take Emmy's hand-me-downs? They've done it before with Ellen, but twice starts to get embarrassing. Particularly when your leading competition, The Globes, has just booked the most buzzworthy host of any show in years — Ricky Gervais.

Throughout the years, Hollywood has whispered about the Oscar curse which seems to strike down many a winner's career after they take home the trophy. But shouldn't we wonder whether the curse applies to Oscar itself?

And right now there is a bit of panic afoot in showbiz, that with a mere 138 days until showtime, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences still hasn't decided on a helmer for the trophy trot. Nikki Finke reported last week, that last year's host and producer, Hugh Jackman and Bill Condon, are planning not to return to the Kodak stage. The pair's up-market, olde-timey glamour version of the show, gave Oscar its first ratings uptick in seemingly forever; a dramatic break in its long slide into irrelevance. ("What an honor for the Aussie actor" grandma Nikki writes of the of the Academy's desire to bring Jackman back to the show.)

UPDATE: Since the writing of this item, the producers have been named...and they are...Hairspray director Adam Shankman and former Fox CEO Bill Mechanic.)

Every year, Hollywood debates the question of how to update an event that is inherently the stodgiest thing thing on Earth. For starters, the thing that Oscar was conceived to honor — big glitzy prestige films — don't exist anymore, so the show will from now until forever be torn between giving their statues to little independent films that no one saw (and hence, that no one wants to see an awards show celebrating) or trying to find ways to squeeze nods to Dark Knight into a show that will never actually honor such popular films.

And for that matter, what with the media attention span being half a second long these days, if you are talking about movies that came out last year, you might as well be giving a lesson in like, the Cold War or Vietnam or something.

Not to mention — three hours of people in tuxedoes getting trophies and making speeches?!? In the epoch of cat videos!? Is this some kinda of Twilight Zone episode? Is America being punk'd by Oscar?

So what the heck do you do with a still huge but dwindling monstrosity like Oscar? Basically you can embrace the future or deny it, and either route has its merits. Here's our suggestions for the roads Oscar could take:

EMBRACE THE KIWANIS WITHIN
Oscar is never, ever going to win over these kids today, so go with your strength. Lead with the stodgy; you'll play well to your base and once every decade and a half, catch a retro wave. These days the Hollywood establishment is the aging Baby Boom generation, who are bound to actually become cool one of these days.
Host: Billy Crystal
Producer: Jeffrey Katzenberg
Ideal Best Picture Winner: Braveheart
Opening Number: A Rockettes lead a musical tribute to the films of screenwriter Ron Bass, high-stepping to the greatest moments from Rain Man, Snow Falling on Cedars and Dangerous Minds.
Clips Reel: A complete recap of The Today Show reporting the weekend grosses every Monday morning of the past year.
Log Line: This IS your grandfather's Oscars.

DRINK THE GLOBES UNDER THE TABLE
The reason why the Golden Globes have held their own against the declining Oscars is liquor. The dinner setting of the Globes show has traditionally meant well-lubricated winners making some of the more free-wheeling, demented speeches of awards season. Well, two can play at that game. Mandatory tequilla shots and forced picks from the mystery wheel of amphetamines for all attendees.
Host: Jack Nicholson
Producer: Ben Silverman
Ideal Best Picture Winner: Couples Retreat
Opening Number: Stars careen to their seats on a giant Slip 'n Slide placed down the aisle.
Clips Reel: The best moments of buddy comedies, guys who love to laugh with each other.
Log Line: Come and Get It!

POST-MODERN OSCAR
Pander completely to Hoodie Nation with an all self-referential celebration of quirk.
Host: Michael Cera
Producer: Spike Jonze
Ideal Best Picture Winner: (500) Days of Summer
Opening Number: Michael Cera sits on the floor of the Kodak stage listening to the mix tape he has made for an impossibly cool girl featuring acoustic remixes of John Hughes soundtrack songs. As we watch, the audience travels inside a giant movie screen and from the perspective of the Oscar nominated films, we watch Cera go to the movies with the impossibly cool girl, but never get to first base.
Clips Reel: Great Moments in Mentioning Bands During Movies.
Log Line: Oscars? What?

LOGANS RUN
The tweens have taken over entertainment; how long does Oscar think it can hold out anyway? Show Oscar's commitment to staying relevant by terminating the careers of any actor over 35 on live TV.
Host: Vanessa Hudgins
Producer: The Kardashians
Ideal Best Picture Winner: New Moon
Opening Number: 50's style sockhop dance number as George Clooney, Angelina Jolie and all the old people in the audience are loaded onto the original Sputnik rocket and blasted into outer space.
Clips Reel: The progression of Taylor Lautner's abs, from flaccid to six pack.
Log Line: This is on, bitch.

GANGSTA OSCAH
When you get down to it, the Academy is the original original gangsta.
Host: 50 Cent
Producer: P Diddy
Ideal Best Picture Winner: Final Destination 3D
Opening Number: The Kodak Theater is transformed with gold plated chandeliers and stripper pole while a car chase screeches through the lobby, ending in a cataclysmic explosion on stage.
Clips Reel: The history of on-screen bling.
Log Line: Don't Forget Who Brung You.

THE REALITY ACADEMY
Turn the show into a real time competition with bug eating contests, relay races and back stage confessionals.
Host: Ryan Seacrest
Producer: Nigel Lythgoe
Ideal Best Picture Winner: Step Up 2: The Streets
Opening Number: Nominees forced to perform a Polish mazurka, with one catch; one mis-step and the plummet into a tub of a million centipedes — and lose their shot at taking home Oscar.
Clips Reel: Night vision cameras placed in the hotel rooms of the stars while on set reveal secret celebrity hook ups — and a few drunken nights with a key grip or two.
Log Line: Oscar Wild!

THE TMZ OSCARS
Why fight it anymore? Throw down the barricades; let the paparazzi hordes loot and sack the kingdom, enjoy the rush of attention that the train wreck will bring. And whomever is still alive after showbiz has been reduced to smoldering ruins — let them figure out what to do next.
Host: Perez Hilton
Producer: Harvey Levin
Ideal Best Picture Winner: One Night in Paris
Opening Number: Celebrities are vivisected before the audience's eyes, the last remnants of their souls are ripped out and and then eaten, buffet style by the nation as a whole.
Clips Reel: A million Tweets are simultaneously projected directly into viewers' frontal lobes.
Log Line: We're Here.

As opposed to accepting the award. That reaction should be: Thanks but no thanks. Obama has accomplished quite literally nothing in terms of reducing the number or intensity of wars on this planet. The Nobel Committee's own statement attributes the award to his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." As for his extraordinary accomplishments in those arenas, well—"A" for Effort!

The award to Obama is part of a long-term devaluation of the Peace Prize—Al Gore? Global warming is bad, but it's not violent. We can have global sustainable environmental policies and still have war. Yasir Arafat? That worked out well.

If he rejects it, he still gets to say that he was awarded it, and at the same time appear humble and self-aware. Let's see how he does over the next four (or eight) years before we start handing out the gold stars.

[White House photo of haloed Obama via Flickr.]

In his intro to the list, Guru-master David Poland cautions, "about half of the contenders haven't been seen. Darts are flying in the dark. Some are hitting expected titles and others are real surprises."

How then does the punditry deliver such judgments on films which may still be getting worked over in the cutting room? A combination of factors go into a Oscar savants' calculations - first, as noted above, hitting certain tried and true notes (historic epic, biopic, Clint Eastwood directed) move a film straight onto the field, no questions asked. And then the pundits note the buzz from friends at the studios and in the marketing departments; what they are hearing about the film. One will note that Lovely Bones, which just on the basis of its provenance seemed to have the Best Picture crown locked up two years ago before it was ever shot, now falls surprisingly low on the Guru scale. Could there be some bad buzz flying about from those few on the inside who have seen the film?

One should also note that the September buzz, now 184 days before the March 7, 2010 Oscar telecast, is almost always wrong in some very huge ways. Last year's chart just after Toronto , Frost/Nixon, Milk and Benjamin Button were the early favorites, far outshining eventual winner Slumdog Millionaire, and The Soloist, which ended up being so dreary it ended up dropping out of the Oscar race,its release was pushed back to the following year, was in a respectable seventh place on the pundits round-up.

In 2007, the ultimately dreadful Atonement was far and away the pundits' best bet. In 2006, the early charts were led by Dreamgirls, Flags of Our Fathers and Babel, all of which fizzled far short of trophy night.

Perhaps the greatest fun of the Oscar race is watching these pre-season flame-outs. Every year brings a film or two massively bloated and portentious in its very silhouette; it can be seen standing on a mountain-top overlooking Hollywood, waiting to come down and claim its destiny, which then sputters and tumbles all the way down the hill, hitting Sunset Blvd. with a thud. The aforementioned Soloist comes to mind. Phantom of the Opera, Cold Mountain, Memoirs of a Giesha - wonderful car wrecks all.

Of course, a good percent of the time these bloated monstrosities actually win the race (Gladiator, The English Patient, Titanic and Braveheart, to name a few).

And no Oscar race is officially underway without the first harumph of the season from the LA Times' Patrick Goldstein. To the horror of the Times' ad sales department, Goldstein has been waging war on the Oscar race for several years now, every season making the shocking case that the Oscar derby is not about art, why it's just a contest! And a silly one at that! (Imagine, calling the Oscars silly! The cajones!)

Goldstein's brave stand against contests kicked off this week with his plea to the world to ignore the Oscars, at least until he tells you its time to pay attention. This year, he seems to be bringing some muscle into the mix, promising to review the early predictions next February and hold erring pundits accountable.

At Moviecitynews, the Gurus O' Gold pundits panel have offered their picks on this year's Oscar favorites, in a Best Picture race thrown into pandemonium by the announcement that there will be ten nominees this year, rather than the standard five. The Academy's hope seems to have been that by broadening the field, they would make room for some crowd pleasers, some movies that people have actually seen, to get what used to be called "the general public" perhaps interested in what has largely become a battle of obscure indie dramas.

If that was their intent, however, the Gurus offer little hope in the top slot.

Out of the gate, The Gurus have selected as the one film they clearly have all seen at the slight favorite: Kathryn Bigelow's Iraq bomb defusing drama The Hurt Locker, which after two and a half months of release has raked in all of eleven million dollars.

After Hurt Locker, the field is cluttered with various usual suspecty types of trophy bait, whose log lines and proper nouns read like mash-ups of contenders of yore; A Clint Eastwood directed bio of Nelson Mandela (Invictus), a Weinstein produced musical (Nine), a Jason Juno Reitman/George Clooney film about a corporate downsizer (Up In the Air), the story of an overweight, illiterate teen in Harlem (Precious) Peter Jackson's rendition of a beloved favorite of contemporary quasi-snooty fiction (The Lovely Bones) and Hillary Swank in an Amelia Earhart biopic (Amelia).

That's right people, it is on. Oscars 2010 is here to stay, for the next six months.

It happened because the Emmys aren't really about "rewarding excellence" or whatever. Well, they sort of are, but not really. The Emmy people are also concerned with ratings, like the NASA guys on the space episode of The Simpsons ("These machines just measure ratings.."). So they widened all the categories, bringing in shows and actors that regular potato chip-strewn boob tubing idiots like. People like Jim Parsons from some hunk of horror called The Big Bang Theory. Other people like the Mean Guy Who Woos Andy Sachs from The Mentalist. And shows like Family Guy.

The reasoning being, what, exactly? That teenage boys who are obsessed with crude, sloppy, shamelessly Simpsons-derivative non sequitur humor will stop masturbating for two hours on a Sunday night to watch the freaking Emmys? Actually, no. No they will not. Nor will the people who were actually stupid enough to think the awards still had some sliver of meaning (Hi! I'm an idiot), because now they're just a dumb joke. We're thrilled that people like Kristen Wiig, Tracy Morgan, Aaron Paul, and Drew Barrymore got recognized for their tremendously good work this year, but really it doesn't mean much of anything, does it?

Oh God, the 10-nominee Best Picture Oscar category is going to be a doozy isn't it?

Full nominations list.

The Emmy voters should watch this, also:

Here are the nominees, via Variety:

COMEDY SERIES

"Entourage"
"Family Guy
"Flight of the Conchords"
"How I Met Your Mother"
"The Office"
"30 Rock"
"Weeds"

DRAMA SERIES

"Big Love"
"Breaking Bad"
"Damages"
"Dexter"
"House"
"Lost"
"Mad Men"

MINISERIES

"Generation Kill" (HBO)
"Little Dorrit" (PBS)

ACTOR IN A COMEDY

Alec Baldwin - "30 Rock" (NBC)
Steve Carell - "The Office" (NBC)
Jemaine Clement - "Flight Of The Conchords" (HBO)
Jim Parsons - "The Big Bang Theory" (CBS)
Tony Shalhoub - "Monk" (USA)
Charlie Sheen - "Two And A Half Men" (CBS)

ACTOR IN A DRAMA

Simon Baker - "The Mentalist" (CBS)
Gabriel Byrne - "In Treatment" (HBO)
Bryan Cranston - "Breaking Bad" (AMC)
Michael C. Hall - "Dexter" (Showtime)
Jon Hamm - "Mad Men" (AMC)
Hugh Laurie - "House" (Fox)

ACTRESS IN A COMEDY

Christina Applegate - "Samantha Who?" (ABC)
Toni Collette - "United States Of Tara" (Showtime)
Tina Fey - "30 Rock" (NBC)
Julia Louis-Dreyfus - "The New Adventures Of Old Christine" (CBS)
Sarah Silverman - "The Sarah Silverman Program" (Comedy Central)
Mary-Louise Parker - "Weeds" (Showtime)

ACTRESS IN A DRAMA

Glenn Close as Patty Hewes - "Damages" (FX Networks)
Sally Field - "Brothers & Sisters" (ABC)
Holly Hunter - "Saving Grace" (TNT)
Mariska Hargitay - "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" (NBC)
Kyra Sedgwick - "The Closer" (TNT)
Elisabeth Moss - "Mad Men" (AMC)

MADE FOR TELEVISION MOVIE

"Coco Chanel" (Lifetime)
"Grey Gardens" (HBO)
"Into The Storm" (HBO)
"Prayers For Bobby" (Lifetime)
"Taking Chance" (HBO)

REALITY HOST

Tom Bergeron - "Dancing With The Stars" (ABC)
Phil Keoghan - "The Amazing Race" (CBS)
Heidi Klum - "Project Runway" (Bravo)
Padma Lakshmi, Tom Colicchio - "Top Chef" (Bravo)
Jeff Probst - "Survivor" (CBS)
Ryan Seacrest - "American Idol" (Fox)

ACTOR IN A MINISERIES OR MOVIE

Kevin Klien - "Cyrano de Bergerac" ("Great Performances") (PBS)
Brendan Gleeson - "Into The Storm"(HBO)
Sir Ian McKellen - "King Lear" ("Great Performances") (PBS)
Kevin Bacon - "Taking Chance" (HBO)
Kiefer Sutherland - "24: Redemption" (Fox)
Kenneth Branagh - "Wallander: One Step Behind" (PBS

ACTRESS IN A MINISERIES OR MOVIE

Drew Barrymore - "Grey Gardens" (HBO)
Jessica Lange - "Grey Gardens" (HBO)
Shirley MacLaine - "Coco Chanel" (Lifetime)
Sigourney Weaver - "Prayers For Bobby" (Lifetime)
Chandra Wilson - "Accidental Friendship" (Hallmark Channel)

SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A COMEDY

Jon Cryer - "Two And A Half Men" (CBS)
Kevin Dillon - "Entourage" (HBO)
Neil Patrick Harris - "How I Met Your Mother" (CBS)
Jack McBrayer - "30 Rock" (NBC)
Tracy Morgan - "30 Rock" (NBC)
Rainn Wilson - "The Office" (NBC)

SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A DRAMA

Christian Clemenson - "Boston Legal" (ABC)
Michael Emerson - "Lost" (ABC)
William Hurt - "Damages" (FX Networks)
Aaron Paul - "Breaking Bad" (AMC)
William Shatner - "Boston Legal" (ABC)
John Slattery - "Mad Men" (AMC)

SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A MINISERIES OR MOVIE

Len Cariou - "Into The Storm" (HBO)
Tom Courtenay - "Little Dorrit" (PBS)
Ken Howard - "Grey Gardens" (HBO)
Bob Newhart - "The Librarian: Curse of the Judas Chalice" (TNT)
Andy Serkis - "Little Dorrit" (PBS)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A COMEDY

Kristin Chenoweth - "Pushing Daisies" (ABC)
Jane Krakowski - "30 Rock" (NBC)
Elizabeth Perkins - "Weeds" (Showtime)
Amy Poehler - "Saturday Night Live" (NBC)
Kristen Wiig - "Saturday Night Live" (NBC)
Vanessa Williams - "Ugly Betty" (ABC)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A DRAMA

Rose Byrne - "Damages" (FX Networks)
Hope Davis - "In Treatment" (HBO)
Cherry Jones - "24" (Fox)
Sandra Oh - "Grey's Anatomy" (ABC)
Chandra Wilson - "Grey's Anatomy" (ABC)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A MINISERIES OR MOVIE

Shohreh Aghdashloo - "House Of Saddam" (HBO)
Marcia Gay Harden - "The Courageous Heart Of Irena Sendler" (Hallmark

Hall Of Fame Presentation) (CBS)
Janet McTeer - "Into The Storm" (HBO)
Jeanne Tripplehorn - "Grey Gardens" (HBO)
Cicely Tyson - "Relative Stranger" (Hallmark Channel)

[How about trying out this post with our brand spanking new gallery format? You'll be glad you did.]

Last night the Village Voice held their 54th annual Obies awards at Webster Hall, doin' that Off-Broadway awards thang. Vivian and Anastasia wandered in off the streets, humble girls from broken homes.

And now, a quick check of the agenda ... oh yes, dating advice. When you see an attractive person in a discotheque, approach them calmly, tap them on the shoulder, and, at the top of your lungs, scream, "Date me or I will fire you!!!"

Hoop is an artist and party promoter. He was pals with Baird Jones and still sends out party e-mails under his name, even though Baird is (cough cough) dead.

Espying this lovely Jewel of the Nile and the Hudson, I approached her, tapped her on the shoulder, and got as far as "Date me or I will fi..." before she connected with the larynx gouge.

Kevin T. Carroll won an Obie for "sustained excellence of performance." I would have nominated him for best suit too, but that was not in my power. What is in my power is to open up the floor to questions. Yes, you ma'am, with the pantyhose over your face.

WOMAN WITH PANTY-HOSE OVER HER FACE: Mmm ff arr blaaa French cinema grism fuffle burfle?

SK: Let's try that again without the pantyhose over your face.

WOMAN: Sorry about that. I was just wondering what your thoughts were on French cinema.

SK: Excellent question. The young French cinema must become a little less egotistically and more and more academically urban in spirit. Three-quarters of the subjects having contemporary relevance which it deals with would be better and more at home in a milieu other than Paris.

[Sound of audience staring blankly at speaker.]

If, like me, you fantasize incessantly about running away and eloping with a pair of ravishing drag queens, you might want to check these ladies out. Violet Temper and Linda Simpson. Linda, on the left, is the promotions director for, let me just consult her business card here ... The Cock.

Sxip Shirey entertained the crowd with his peculiarly excellent synthed-out harmonica. His companion on stage violated the terms of her contract and was promptly suspended.

I think these were for sale. The paintings, not the succulent young men.

Now, I'll open up the floor for questions. You sir, in the tuxedo.

MAN: Oh thankth. Tho, it appearth ath though your responth to the earlier question about Frenchth thinema ith a word-for-word snatch from an ethay by Jean Luc Godard.

SK: Wow, that's odd. Nice lisp, by the way.

MAN — Thankth.

SK: Probably what happened — and I want to extend my sincere apologies to Jean-Luc — is that I was having a conversation with my neighbor across the alley, through two plastic cups strung together with some dental floss — I think it was mint — and, you see, he had attended several raves at the Sorbonne in the mid-90's, so, that probably explains it. Now, if you will quietly just crawl into a corner and go fuck yourself, I would appreciate it, especially as you probably did not even attend Yale.

You can find more of Stephen's work here.

You know this year's award ceremony was far more subdued than last year's chocolate fondue-spewing extravaganza which doubtless degenerated into sex orgies in the Conde Nast offices shortly after. But I did notice that there were far fewer ugly people in attendance this year! The key to not getting laid off in the magazine business: for men, a nice suit and one of those fake ass short beards favored in Esquire pictorials; for women, Michelle Obama arms. Maybe actual starvation has replaced eating disorders? Either way, you guys look great!

There were not as many media reporters patrolling the pre-party, because they've been laid off. Sad.

It was all about grim smiles and grim determination! As people filed into the auditorium, the big screen flashing the year's magazine covers kept showing mags that had already died. Every Conde Nastie that got an award felt it necessary to give heartfelt, shiny-eyed thanks to Si Newhouse for his commitment to writing paychecks. They really meant it!

Many of the winners of the actual awards who actually worked in the magazine industry were sitting towards the back, but you know who was sitting right up front? Julia Allison. No shit. That is why the magazine industry is dying.

When the time came for the tribute to Annie Liebovitz, Jann Wenner, Tina Brown, Anna Wintour, and Graydon Carter all took the stage to say how much they loved Annie. Something is clearly off with Anna Wintour, who was stooped over like—dare I say—an old lady? Her voice was wavering and kind of meek, and I couldn't tell whether she was sick, or emotional, or just stricken with stage fright. Could be any of the above!

There were plenty of insanely random semi-celebrities lured in to present awards (Steve Earle!) but the only really funny one was Will Arnett. That guy certainly does possess comic timing! The least funny thing: the fact that People editor Larry Hackett got to present the award for "Reporting." WTF. And Columbia J-School dean Nick Lemann is a great writer but he seems to be growing into more and more of a Saturday Night Live character, the longer he spends in academia. Soon he will break out the monocle.

But the most surprising thing of all was that—I must admit—the ceremony was touching. All these people know that their industry is dying, but they soldier on. The delusions are gone. All that is left is the grimness. And the magazine industry will keep hefting its Ellies until they're forced to sell them for scrap.

Magazines!

[Pictured: The glamorous pre-party. Can you count all the glamorous people? Try!]

Get excited, because tonight are the National Magazine Awards, the most glorious event in all of magazinedom! Thanks to the recession, "no chocolate fondue will bubble." What a ripoff. You can read a preview here if you care about the winners, or, if you're a media reporter from an outlet that will never win one of these awards, just hang out in the back row and talk shit, per usual.


The Newspaper Association of America is laying off half of its staff and ending print publication of its magazine Presstime. Plenty of remarks about irony could follow that statement, if one were so inclined, but the way things stand today, that would make one a callous jerk.

Ballplayer turned magazine publisher turned failed magazine publisher Lenny Dykstra has now been canned as a columnist for TheStreet.com. But he reportedly made "close to $1 million a year" selling his stock picks for them, so don't cry for Lenny. If you do, he'll slide into you spikes-first and spit a big stream of tobacco juice on your nuts.


Yusuf Bey, the owner of Oakland's Your Black Muslim Bakery, has been indicted on charges he ordered the killing of journalist Chauncey Bailey, because he feared what Bailey would report about his shady bakery's finances.

Advertising execs are encouraging cable news stations to keep the news crawl at the bottom of the screen going even during the ads, as a way to keep people from changing channels. Instead, how about put an "ad crawl" at the bottom of the screen at all times?

Which is to say, they're a valuable and worthwhile reflection of the hard work of dedicated public servants, and also behind the times and self-important. [BIG PICTURE ANALYSIS, NUT GRAF]. There's certainly no arguing against the merits of a "richly detailed story of a neglected little girl, found in a roach-infested room," or "the exposure of the high death rate among construction workers on the Las Vegas Strip amid lax enforcement of regulations." That's good and important stuff!

But let's see what kind of reporting wasn't much honored by the Pulitzers for the year of 2008. For one, reporting on the economy. Not one damn prize. That was a pretty big story, last year! For two, the presidential campaign and election. That got the national reporting prize — but for a web site the St. Peterburg Times made that before today we had never heard of. There was also a bit of a commentary prize, and the feature photography prize. But, again, you know a pretty big story in the actual "news"!

We're pretty excited that two sex scandals made the list: the New York Times' report of Eliot Spitzer's hooker habit and the sexting that brought down Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. It's a start.

And that doesn't mean that the Pulitzers should just rehash the year's ten biggest (or sexiest) stories. But it does point to the fact that they fully embrace a very niche form of journalism—done by the cream of the crop of reporter-mandarins, and read and absorbed mostly by policymakers. Stories that actually effect some sort of political or social change are Pulitzer favorites. Which is nice! But that type of reporting is 1. disappearing due to economic concerns, and 2. often the least likely to be read and appreciated by the vast majority of a paper's audience.

This negative feedback loop was at work long before the Internet started destroying the economic business model of newspapers (which, by the way, had more to do with selling classified ads and monopolizing department store advertising than it ever did in reader eagerness to read investigative reports). And while lucky newsrooms are quaffing champagne and patting themselves on the back, it's worth remembering that the idea of journalism celebrated at the Pulitzers has little to do with the sort of journalism that people actually read.

The NYT landed five Pulitzers, a good year for them. Bill Keller told the newsroom, "'At a time when so many' can't afford ambitious journalism, 'this paper has decided it can't afford not to.'" Stirring, but false! As the balance sheet stands today, the NYT actually can't afford to carry on the same brand of Pulitzer-bait journalism it's always practiced—long, lengthy, expensive stories aimed at a small, elite slice of readers. We mean they really can't afford to. They don't have the money to do it, long-term. And if they do get the money, it will come from some form of journalism that, you can be sure, is far, far removed from what the Pulitzer judges would ever consider worthwhile.

And what about those groundbreaking awards for online journalism? One went to the NYT's breaking coverage of the Spitzer scandal. Another went to the St. Petersburg Times "for 'PolitiFact,' its fact-checking initiative during the 2008 presidential campaign that used probing reporters and the power of the World Wide Web to examine more than 750 political claims." The NYT story has essentially nothing to do with the power of the internet, except that it broke online. The St. Pete thing, we're sure, is a great effort, but was it anywhere as consequential as, say, Nate Silver's website during the election? Or lots of others, that weren't assembled in an incredibly labor-intensive way by newspaper reporters? One day the Pulitzers will learn to love the internet. Just not yet.

Still, congratulations to all the winners! "The first line of your obit is written," as it is mandatory for all the hacks to say.

JOURNALISM:

Public Service - Las Vegas Sun: "Awarded to the Las Vegas Sun, and notably the courageous reporting by Alexandra Berzon, for the exposure of the high death rate among construction workers on the Las Vegas Strip amid lax enforcement of regulations, leading to changes in policy and improved safety conditions."

Breaking News Reporting - The New York Times Staff: "Awarded to The New York Times Staff for its swift and sweeping coverage of a sex scandal that resulted in the resignation of Gov. Eliot Spitzer, breaking the story on its Web site and then developing it with authoritative, rapid-fire reports."

Investigative Reporting - David Barstow of The New York Times: "Awarded to David Barstow of The New York Times for his tenacious reporting that revealed how some retired generals, working as radio and television analysts, had been co-opted by the Pentagon to make its case for the war in Iraq, and how many of them also had undisclosed ties to companies that benefited from policies they defended."

Explanatory Reporting - Bettina Boxall and Julie Cart of the Los Angeles Times: "Awarded to Bettina Boxall and Julie Cart of the Los Angeles Times for their fresh and painstaking exploration into the cost and effectiveness of attempts to combat the growing menace of wildfires across the western United States."

Local Reporting -Detroit Free Press Staff and Ryan Gabrielson and Paul Giblin of the East Valley Tribune, Mesa, AZ: "Awarded to Detroit Free Press Staff, and notably Jim Schaefer and M.L. Elrick, for their uncovering of a pattern of lies by Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick that included denial of a sexual relationship with his female chief of staff, prompting an investigation of perjury that eventually led to jail terms for the two officials." And, "Awarded to Ryan Gabrielson and Paul Giblin of the East Valley Tribune, Mesa, Ariz., for their adroit use of limited resources to reveal, in print and online, how a popular sheriff's focus on immigration enforcement endangered investigation of violent crime and other aspects of public safety."

National Reporting - St. Petersburg Times Staff: "Awarded to the St. Petersburg Times Staff for "PolitiFact," its fact-checking initiative during the 2008 presidential campaign that used probing reporters and the power of the World Wide Web to examine more than 750 political claims, separating rhetoric from truth to enlighten voters. (Moved by the Board to the National Reporting category.)"

International Reporting - The New York Times Staff: "Awarded to The New York Times Staff for its masterful, groundbreaking coverage of America's deepening military and political challenges in Afghanistan and Pakistan, reporting frequently done under perilous conditions."

Feature Writing - Lane DeGregory of the St. Petersburg Times: "Awarded to Lane DeGregory of the St. Petersburg Times for her moving, richly detailed story of a neglected little girl, found in a roach-infested room, unable to talk or feed herself, who was adopted by a new family committed to her nurturing. (Moved into contention by the Board from within the Feature Writing category.)"

Commentary - Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post: "Awarded to Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post for his eloquent columns on the 2008 presidential campaign that focus on the election of the first African-American president, showcasing graceful writing and grasp of the larger historic picture."

Criticism - Holland Cotter of The New York Times: "Awarded to Holland Cotter of The New York Times for his wide ranging reviews of art, from Manhattan to China, marked by acute observation, luminous writing and dramatic storytelling."

Editorial Writing - Mark Mahoney of The Post-Star, Glens Falls, NY: "Awarded to Mark Mahoney of The Post-Star, Glens Falls, N.Y., for his relentless, down-to-earth editorials on the perils of local government secrecy, effectively admonishing citizens to uphold their right to know."

Editorial Cartooning - Steve Breen of The San Diego Union-Tribune: "Awarded to Steve Breen of The San Diego Union-Tribune for his agile use of a classic style to produce wide ranging cartoons that engage readers with power, clarity and humor."

Breaking News Photography - Patrick Farrell of The Miami Herald: "Awarded to Patrick Farrell of The Miami Herald for his provocative, impeccably composed images of despair after Hurricane Ike and other lethal storms caused a humanitarian disaster in Haiti."

Feature Photography - Damon Winter of The New York Times: "Awarded to Damon Winter of The New York Times for his memorable array of pictures deftly capturing multiple facets of Barack Obama's presidential campaign."

LETTERS, DRAMA and MUSIC:

Fiction - Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (Random House)

Drama - Ruined by Lynn Nottage

History - The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed (W.W. Norton & Company)

Biography - American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham (Random House)

Poetry - The Shadow of Sirius by W.S. Merwin (Copper Canyon Press)

General Nonfiction - Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon (Doubleday)

Music - Double Sextet by Steve Reich, premiered March 26, 2008 in Richmond, VA (Boosey & Hawkes)

The New Yorker, as is its wont, got the most nominations (10). This is because The New Yorker is America's best magazine. Next were GQ (8 nominations), New York (6), and Esquire and National Geographic with five each.

Bon Appetit, the NYT mag, and Wired each got four nominations, okay? You can fill in the list of likely suspects who got three or two or even one. In what must be an attempt to help Bon Appetit and Gourmet not fold, ASME bizarrely notes in its press release:

• Food-related magazines, stories and websites captured 12 nominations across nine categories, including General Excellence, Single-topic Issue and Photography

Okay! No huge surprises. You can read the long, long list of nominees here. The award ceremony is on April 20. Last year we went and still ran into Julia Allison, so we may skip 'em this year, unless you, our loyal readers, want us to go, then we will, because we don't need your stupid awards to be happy, ASME, we don't even care that we weren't nominated while Salon.com was. That's fine.

Chatter has surfaced in recent years — specifically, since festival pickup Crash overtook Brokeback Mountain for Best Picture in 2005 — that the studios no longer wield the alacrity to bump off leaner, smaller awards hopefuls among an evolving Academy membership. It's not quite that simple, of course; Warner Bros. nabbed two wins in three years with Million Dollar Baby and The Departed, and was on the bubble this year with The Dark Knight and Gran Torino. Paramount led the nomination count and box-office tally with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Universal pushed Frost/Nixon into the Best Picture running at the expense of mini-major entries including Doubt and Revolutionary Road.

But it's not an honor just to be nominated (or simply considered) for those studios' respective bosses Alan Horn, Brad Grey and Ron Meyer. And while Fox's Tom Rothman surely appreciated Searchlight's Slumdog sweep and maybe Space Chimps' appearance in the animation montage, some consideration for his $120 million epic Australia would have been nice. However, being in the Oscar business requires a fresher approach than greenlighting today for awards season two years away. The short view is the new long view, meaning that for a handful of 2009 films, the future might be now:

· The Informant and The Human Factor: Warner's close calls last year did little to conceal the embarrassment of closing its boutique Warner Independent Pictures and selling off Slumdog Millionaire to Fox Searchlight. But at least Horn and Jeff Robinov were honest: They don't have a clue how to handle small films, and this year — with Steven Soderbergh's whistleblower intrigue The Informant and Clint Eastwood's working-titled Nelson Mandela biopic — they won't have to. The latter film in particular, reuniting Eastwood with Morgan Freeman, is prime-cut Oscar bait. Worst-case scenario, they overblow the hype (see: Changeling) and foot-soldier Soderbergh moves in. Either way, at least one studio is covered for — and invested in — the '09 derby.

· Public Enemies: Focus Features has done well by its parent Universal, finding awards love for Milk and In Bruges while exceeding box-office expectations this month with Coraline. But the studio had higher hopes for Changeling and all but conceded Picture, Actor and Director categories to Frost/Nixon's front-running competitors. They could go either way with this year's awards crop, perhaps led by Michael Mann and Johnny Depp's '30s-era crime drama Public Enemies. Test screenings are mostly positive, and the principals are perennial Oscar darlings. But the midsummer release date will either defuse its chances or, in a fairly fresh studio strategy, get out way ahead of the late-year glut — kind of like Dark Knight without the billion-dollar fluke factor.

· The Green Zone: Another Uni hopeful, reteaming Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass for a story about life inside Baghdad's occupation stronghold. Everybody knows audiences are allergic to Iraq films, but the Bourne overlap is enticing, and it doesn't need to make a fortune for the Academy to buy in. It may be an even surer thing than Public Enemies. In any case, it's cheaper — not mini-major cheaper, but definitely leaner, with more approachable talent, and perhaps that much more competitive.

· Up: Disney/Pixar will always face resistance from Academy purists, happy with the animated ghetto that contained WALL-E while bitterly maligned films like The Reader snuck into the Best Picture running. It can't last forever, though, and even if Up — another summer release with a potentially long shadow — can't amass its predecessor's plaudits, it'll bend the resistance a few degrees closer to breaking. Expect Pixar to follow its own WALL-E lead, launching this year's first "For Your Consideration" salvo by mid-fall.

· Avatar: December will welcome James Cameron's first film in 12 years, during which time the filmmaker designed Avatar's 3-D motion-capture technique essentially from scratch. It's got at least a visual effects Oscar in the trophy case, but why stop there? If The Dark Knight can cut an awards-season trail, what's a $40 million campaign on top of the couple hundred million onscreen? That is, unless it's abrogated its awards legend to Searchlight, getting out of the Australia business in favor of the Marley and Me trade. It wouldn't be the worst strategy. And if we haven't gotten over it already, we will.

Mostly it was the canny-meets-annoying way that ABC kept teasing new changes and surprises to the flagging awards ceremony. What would they beeee, people wondered! Robots? Actual corpses trotted out for the 'In Memoriam' reel?? Turned out it was just a bunch of actors and actresses doing a four-part production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle for the acting awards and everything else getting lumped together hastily. They basically added even more silly pomp to the popular categories, and gave even shorter shrift to the ones no one cares about. Brilliant! But no matter how the changes and surprises (Eva Marie Saint is still alive!) turned out, the follow-through didn't really matter. It was the anticipation that brought the evening its successes.

Anticipation commingled with, yes, some curiosity about the gayness of Milk (including the Sean/Mickey love/hate fest) and Hugh Jackman, but also with the inevitable Heath Ledger death gawpers and those eager to see their beloved Titanic princess finally get her golden Heart of the Ocean. There was something more urgent and swoony about this year's Oscars, and the positive reception for the new, gayish stuff bodes well for the next go around. Hopefully the films will match, or surpass, this year's. And hopefully a movie star will die again!

Though, actually, the evening may owe the biggest debt of thanks the hideous recession. Terrified of the sound of the distant, gnawing, money-eating Langoliers outside, in recent months people have decided to stay at home and cower in front of the television more than ever before. So basically the Academy and ABC should say thank you to some very unusual suspects: The Gays, The Brits, Dead People, and The Banks.

Only in Hollywood!

The morning after an otherwise forgettable awardscast, count on one particularly strong aftertaste in Hollywood: That of Harvey getting over. Again. There's not enough Champagne in the room to wash it down, not enough hours of sleep to shake it off. Unfamiliarity accounts for much of its potency; this is a man who was last heard threatening to shoot himself if Cate Blanchett failed to net a Supporting Actress nomination in 2007. That wasn't the old Harvey, the dick-swinging, free-spending award-season monolith whose biggest Oscar triumphs came a decade ago at Miramax. There, with Disney's money funding full-on media saturation campaigns, the studio earned 249 nominations and 60 wins.

And the Harvey who maneuvered Kate Winslet and Penélope Cruz to victory last night wasn't necessarily the old Harvey either. He went two-for-six overall, fully knowing it really was an honor for The Reader just to be nominated. Sure, he'd have liked to win big (he was the prime suspect in numerous acts of supposed sabotage against his Best Picture competition), but what the new Harvey needed more than anything was an affirmation for his reeling moguldom. At first chastened a bit by his public battles with (and 2005 split from) then-Disney boss Michael Eisner, the Weinstein Company was a running joke of dump-and-run genre trash, hemorrhaging hundreds of millions of dollars while Miramax went on to near-perennial Oscar glory. His few awards splashes — Blanchett for I'm Not There and Felicity Huffman for Transamerica — yielded little gain on Oscar night or at the box office.

He had a few modest successes in there, though, and 2008 was, relatively speaking, the Weinsteins' banner year. When Vicky Cristina Barcelona earned $23.2 million last summer — on a maximum of 726 screens, according to Box Office Mojo — Harvey seized the opportunity to say he was back. Almost instantly, TWC began circulating Oscar buzz for Cruz.

Then came the layoffs. And the shelvings. And the excuses. And then — The Reader. He probably could have coexisted with co-producer Scott Rudin, with whom he quarreled over their previous collaboration The Hours, but Harvey didn't lift a finger to stop Rudin from leaving The Reader last fall over release-date issues. That was his first coup — likely unplanned, and generally pretty ugly, but it allowed Harvey to lock director Stephen Daldry in the editing room until his Oscar bait was ready. Neither Rudin nor Winslet wanted to compete against her other Big Serious Turn in Revolutionary Road, but Harvey had a studio to save.

Moreover, he had a point to prove. With films by Quentin Tarantino and Rob Marshall anticipated in 2009 — and with financing partners vanishing into thin recession air — it wouldn't be enough for Harvey to get over on Rudin once. Only real prestige would serve him going forward. Enter New Harvey, the half-man/half-animal whose misfortune all of Hollywood seemed to celebrate until he showed up with The Reader. Holocaust themes. Oscar darlings Daldry and Winslet, both career 0-fers but ready for redemption. It had cred. And Harvey was so much more charming these days! What's an Academy voter to do?

Knocking Revolutionary Road off at the Oscar nomination level could have been triumph enough. But Harvey's next opportunity was too good to be true: Not only did he have Winslet vs. Meryl Streep in Best Actress, he had Cruz vs. Amy Adams and Viola Davis in Best Supporting Actress. The competition from Doubt pitted Harvey against Rudin and Miramax. This required a vintage Harvey offensive — armies of publicists, truckloads of screeners, parties, abundant media buys, Winslet in front of any TV camera in America that was turned on. Basically, the expensive stuff that Rudin and Miramax did last year while pushing No Country For Old Men to its Oscar wins, all of which was based on the original Harvey schematic first sketched out 20 years ago.

And it worked. Of course it worked. Some will say New Harvey is just Old Harvey without the cigarettes, but as much as his legitimacy (if not his very solvency) required Academy validation in 2009, the Academy requires someone like Harvey Weinstein to bully, coax, nudge and compel in the service of their own self-importance. For better or worse, no one does it like Harvey, and whether or not Winslet's crappy accent or Cruz's canny hysteria "deserve" the recognition is as useless a debate as whether or not Harvey and the Weinstein Company are "back." In this insular world of totems and myths, no one ever really goes away. You just get used to a certain, well, taste.

And whatever Harvey put in our drink last night, expect more where that came from. Talk about thanking the Academy.

Departures eluded most Oscar pools. Awards-obsessed street urchin Tom O'Neil, the Los Angeles Times Oscar expert, managed the correct final answer after a tipster told him that The Class wasn't even one of the original nominees—and that Bashir might not have been, either. So how did they make it through?

Outrage over a snub of Romania's 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days prompted the creation of an oversight committee made up of 20 Academy members last year, with the ability to ram three of their own nominees in, regardless of what all the general votes have indicated. The committee's unpopular picks, as O'Neil divined, were automatically disadvantaged, which helps explain why the idea hasn't seemed to work. So forget the committee approach! There are three bigger problems that need to be addressed—and cleverer solutions to them:

1. The voters: Despite the creation of a blue-ribbon panel to override bad nominations (an idea the Emmys adopted recently, then did away with), the Foreign Language Film category is still set up in a way that encourages bad picks. In order to vote, members must have seen all five films, and they need to have gone to special Academy screenings to have done so. While that seems like a fair rule, it's one that isn't applied to, say, the acting categories (when people can and do vote for performances they haven't seen). Thus the pool of Foreign Language Film voters tends to shrink to elderly, conservative voters with enough time to attend all five theatrical screenings. The Academy provides DVDs for members who miss the Best Song screenings—why not do the same here?

2. The eligibility: Each country can submit only one film, which means that some countries will sacrifice their strongest work for a more conventional choice, as Spain did in 2002 when it notoriously snubbed Pedro Almodóvar's Talk To Her. It's time to reward countries with flourishing film industries by allowing them to submit more films.

3. The new international film climate: Movies nowadays draw their financing from a full range of sources—but if those deep pockets come from different countries, none can have enough say to submit the result as their own. The Motorcycle Diaries was one of 2004's most acclaimed foreign films, but due to its eclectic, globe-spanning financiers, the rules disqualified it for a Foreign Language Film Oscar.

It doesn't matter how many oversight committees are put in place—until the whole voting system receives a radical overhaul, too many worthy films will never get a chance at nabbing the award given to such notable luminaries as Roberto Benigni, Renee Zellweger, and Crash. This injustice cannot stand!

Well, in some ways it's both. The Oscars aren't exactly the "one billion people are watching!" extravaganza of eyeballs they used to be, at least not in this country. Ratings for the telecast have sunk to precipitous lows in recent years, and all of the glitz and tomfoolery is increasingly being dismissed as cheesy indulgence by irony-fattened 21st century mindsets. But of course there is still the rabid faction of fans who lap up everything Academy Awards, mainly gays and the ladies who love them. So why not, ABC might have figured when hiring Hugh Jackman to host and Dreamgirls director Bill Condon as the man behind the scenes, just go for the gusto and gay the thing up. Support and satisfy the base and let the rest fall away like so much else in these belt-tightening times. The Oscars will be the Tonys, only slightly relevant!

So that might be part of the reason why Queen Latifah did her best Big, Black Broadway Lady and Hugh got some help from Beyoncé and the fagtastic Zac Efron to declare the musical alive and kicking, while the Swarovski bejeweled curtain thing hovered overhead like a murder of gay angels. But also, maybe (hopefully), the show just seems gayer these days because Hollywood has actually been pretty gay all along, it's just only recently that folks can be out loud n' proud about it. Sure Milk didn't win all the awards it should have, but that pretty pretty princess who wrote the script got to have his pretty pretty day on stage and say heartfelt, pretty pretty things about Why Gays Are Good. And the Academy voters forsook the opportunity to reward Mickey Rourke with a "we're friends again, k?" comeback award, which is their favorite thing to do ever, and instead gave it to the loudly political and difficult Sean Penn for playing a big loud homo. Hollywood is maybe, finally, thawing from the long, cold anti-gay nuclear winter that it self-defeatingly put itself in all those years ago when movies started being made.

Of course Milk's victories could be chalked up to a fitful, hand-wringing apology for Prop 8 and the sour Brokeback Mountain defeat of yesteryear. But still, it's progress. It's now actually a bad thing to be mean to gay people for being gay! Now if we could only start bestowing prizes upon movies and performances that highlight gay folks who aren't dying of AIDS or gunshots or like living in a concentration camp or something, we'll really be nearing the end of the woods. But that wouldn't be very Oscars, I suppose.

And as for Hugh and the singing and the dancing, well it's fun. But it didn't feel quite right. Not yet at least. Maybe let's try it again next year, work out the kinks. Maybe then everyone will feel OK about the fact that Hollywood and the Academy Awards were never really the rough and tumble stuff of faux-masculine cinema everyone pretended they were, at least not an inch below the surface. Down there lurked the costume designers and the set decorators and the writers and the fretful, closeted actors and every other fabulous fairy who helped cobble these pictures together. That those hardworking souls are finally getting the silly glitzy show they deserve is only fair. I just wish Cary Grant were around to enjoy it.

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