She has to if she wants to write a gangsta rap script correctly. Also today: A sexy new Phantom, a twee indie movie gets turned into a twee regional musical, 3D sports!, and Baywatch alumni news.

We like Zach Galifianakis so much we won't ruin this post by complaining that anyone who first discovered him by watching "The Hangover" doesn't deserve to call themselves a Galifianakis fan. Whoops! Anyway, he is starring in a new film.

All around town, producers whose often-fuzzy roles in bringing together the various elements necessary to get prestige projects before rolling cameras are throwing open their windows and offering up an exultant "Huzzah! to the Hollywood heavens, as the Academy has ever so slightly loosened its Draconian rules about…

One of the last things we saw before we collapsed head-first into our laptop mere moments after the final credits rolled on the Oscar telecast was this press release from Access Hollywood, concerning the virtue-protecting jinx eventual Best Supporting Actor usurper Alan Arkin put on precocious co-star Abigail…

As long as we're on the subject of unconventional marketing campaigns for awards contenders, we pass along an operative's report of how her Sunday brunch was interrupted by Fox Searchlight's frosted Oscar-pandering on behalf of its hopeful Little Best Picture:

· The WGA awards Michael Arnd's Little Miss Sunshine screenplay their top award, as much for its quirky tragicomic dialogue as for the deftness with which it handled such highly plausible scenarios as Steve Carell, in a scene that gives added meaning to the term "convenience store," running into his former grad…

· More 2007 Flackies highlights: CBS President Nina Tassler picked up the Television Showmanship Award, Sony's Michael Lynton and Amy Pascal won the Motion Picture Showmanship Award, and Bob Barker, accepting the ICG President's Award, reminded the crowd "to have your pets spayed and neutered," though the microphone…

· The Academy has finally caught wind of the blogowebs, and they'll just as soon set their petticoats on fire than let Oscarwatch.com confuse readers who might be searching for the official Oscar® blog that updates once every couple of weeks. [The Envelope, Oscarwatch]
· More tidbits from this year's Oscar luncheon:…

· Winner Forest Whitaker remembers the lean days fondly: "I could live on somebody's couch and live on ramen. My friends and my family were more concerned than I was." Particularly the friends and family on whose couches he was dripping ramen broth for months at a time. [Variety]
· Curl up with Tom O'Neil, whose…

· The 3,300 members of the Producers Guild of America surprised just about everyone by giving its top honor to Little Miss Sunshine, the little Sundance acquisition that could. With the PGA predicting the Best Picture Oscar 11 out of the past 17 years, a Crash-style upset for Sunshine isn't beyond the realm of…

· The Directors Guild of America announced its short list of five nominees, including Martin Scorsese, Bill Condon, Stephen Frears, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, and Little Miss Sunshine collaborators Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, leading us to wonder why we don't see more directing duos willing to evenly split…

In our ongoing effort to bring you the best of year end movie lists and awards—no critics' circle too far or too small!—another round-up:
· Chargers fans also love Clint Eastwood, as Letters From Iwo Jima is awarded best picture and Eastwood best director from the San Diego Film Critics Society. And while Helen…

To promote Fox Searchlight's small scale comedy Little Miss Sunshine, the Fox marketing department had someone drive the movie's iconic VW bus around town. An eyewitness managed to snap a cameraphone photo of the saffron-hued promobile, which, through either faulty mechanics or bad driving, managed to make afternoon…