To recap, for most of the season a troika of damaged contenders have been assumed to have a lock on nominations, with the assumption that one of them would take the top prize, despite the fact that each has big minuses. The top three have been Precious (too heavy-handed) Up In the Air (just not quite fantastic enough) and The Hurt Locker (too obscure, unseen by the public). And of those three, Up In the Air has remained the front runner with Hurt Locker taking a distant third at the back of the pack.

By weekend's end, however, the big three had been transformed into the big four, with Hurt Locker suddenly making a move on the outside.

The first piece of non-game changing news was the announcement of the slightly influential but important sounding American Film Institute's Top Ten list. The list reaffirmed the big three, giving them all slots. The one real possible game-changer was the stunning inclusion of The Hangover on the list, which has been mentioned as a dark horse contender for one of Oscar's ten best pic slots.

Next to weigh in was the LA Film Critics Association. The dwindling band of full time movie reviewers began what might prove to be a late surge for Hurt Locker, giving the little bomb-disposal movie that could the year's top honors.

A couple of other long-shots kept their dreams alive with the perhaps-not-all-that-influential Broadcast Film Critics nominations. The Weinstein Company's two dark horses, Inglorious Basterds and Nine, (the latter of which has met with very mixed, at best, critical response) led the pack with the most nominations as well as each scoring Best Picture nods.

And finally today, the New York Film Critics weighed in, seconding their LA brethren's support of Hurt Locker; naming the film as the best of the year and giving Kathryn Bigelow the best director nod.

However, the biggest news shaking up the race was not in the awards but in a flurry of reviews that emerged this weekend for James Cameron's long awaited Avatar. While widely assumed to be a stink-bomb in the making (by us at least) the film has met with rapturous, over-the-top hosannas, leading a stunned awards guru, David Poland, to write,"Avatar joins the 3 or 4 locks for an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture."

Here then are the current standings in the thrilling race to be Oscar's Best Picture of the Year, with a mere three months and a half months left to go; noting by the way, that the most important milestone on the Oscar trail, the Golden Globe nominations, happens tomorrow morning, potentially throwing the entire race in uproar once again.

THE STANDINGS:

1. UP IN THE AIR ↔
The Rap: Liked by almost everybody, head-over-heels loved by very few; a vulnerable front-runner. But who could knock it off its pedestal?
Favorable Winds: Continues to make best picture lists.
Negative Winds: Makes lists but leads very few. The "relevant" topicality, as pushed by Frank Rich, is a quality that generally fades in Oscar's mind as the season draws on and hype dies down.

2. THE HURT LOCKER ↑
The Rap: Little film with a lot of very very committed fans in the critical world.
Favorable Winds: Swept critics awards this weekend; possible Cameron vs. ex-wife director Bigelow storyline may be irresistible for Oscar.
Negative Winds: Bestowing the top trophy on a film no one has seen (grosses still total under ten million) is a potentially suicidal move for Oscar.

3. PRECIOUS ↓
The Rap: The little drama's power and messageyness still hits Oscar where it hurts, despite heavy-handedness.
Favorable Winds: Still riding its sweep of the Spirits.
Negative Winds: Hard hitting horror show story showing strong signs of looking less interesting as time passses.

4. AVATAR ↑
The Rap: James Cameron's 3D outer space epic exploded into the race with rapturous reviews this week, but remains unseen by Oscar voters.
Favorable Winds: The reviews have been strong enough that Avatar could potentially be that rare film Oscar prays for; the giant blockbuster with enough critical standing that it comes in and sweeps the table — and boosts ratings, like Titanic or Lord of the Rings.
Negative Winds: Question mark whether the 3D effects and 2D plotting will prove just too much for voters to swallow in a Best Picture.

5. INGLORIOUS BASTERDS↑
The Rap: Quirky war epic may be the Tarantino film with broad enough appeal to win him a seat at the table.
Favorable Winds: Led the Broadcast Film Critics nominations; retains a base of hardcore admirers.
Negative Winds: Remains a highly love-it-or-hate-it film, and with ultimately more post-modern fluff than weighty Oscar appeal.

6. AN EDUCATION ↔
The Rap: Charming little film that won't fade away.
Favorable Winds: Keeps making friends and wears perhaps the best of the Oscar dramas; should pick up lots of acting nominations.
Negative Winds: Too small and non-messagey a film to be a serious contender for the big prize.

7. UP! ↓
The Rap: Pixar cartoon is beloved by many, but Oscar remains no friend of the cartoon.
Favorable Winds: Shows up on almost every ten best of the year list.
Negative Winds: Has yet to show the sort of awards muscle with other prizes it would need to stampede over anti-cartoon prejudice and force its way into the top tier.

8. INVICTUS ↓
The Rap: The South African rugby picture is widely appreciated, but has few jumping with glee.
Favorable Winds: Oscar's love for Eastwood remains strong; Morgan Freeman's performance almost guaranteed nomination.
Negative Winds: Weak box-office performance has sapped what momentum the film have; Eastwood has been so celebrated by Oscar already that the bar has become very high for him to earn yet another.

9. NINE ↓
The Rap: Huge Oscar pedigree, but early response is very tepid.
Favorable Winds: Topped nominations in Broadcast Critics awards.
Negative Winds: Palpable lack of excitement about what should have been a shoo-in.

10. A SERIOUS MAN ↔
The Rap: What was thought to be the Coen's most obscure and personal film continues to win over fans.
Favorable Winds: Strong showings on ten best lists.
Negative Winds: Obscurity of topic and structure continue to keep it at arm's length from top tier.

11. THE MESSENGER ↑
The Rap: Almost entirely buried in its theatrical release, continues to impress those who have seen.
Favorable Winds: Should get acting nods for its strong performances by Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson.
Negative Winds: Could be the first film that failed to gross a million nominated for Best Picture in recent history.

Third tier contenders: White Ribbon, Lovely Bones, A Single Man, The Road, The Blind Side, In the Loop, Julie and Julia, The Hangover.

• For decades entertainment savants have pondered the question of how to bring art's greatest, almost elemental tale, the Yogi Bear saga, to the screen. Now at last thanks to new technology, they have found a way as a combo live action/CG animated version makes its historic way to the cameras. Naturally Hollywood's biggest stars have been vying for the leading roles, but when the fighting stopped, Dan Aykroyd was the warrior still standing; the former SNL star will voice the great Yogi in his epic search for picnic baskets. Clearly, the role of Boo Boo could go to none other than J Tims, and so it has. Anna Faris will play a previously unknown character described as a "documentary filmmaker." [Variety]

• JJ Abrams is in talks to direct his first TV episode since the 2004 Lost debut. Abrams is considering personally taking the wheel of Undercovers, a spy thriller series he will also Exec Produce. [Hollywood Reporter]

• Disney has made a big bet on 3D, Jim Carrey, Robert Zemeckis and Charles Dickens. The new adaptation of A Christmas Carol comes with a $180 million pricetag, making it the biggest, widest attempt yet to convince audiences that 3D is really so special that they should shell out extra dollars beyond the already wallet-breaking amounts they pay to take the family to a movie. But hey, if it can sorta look like its really snowing in a movie theater, who wouldn't take out a second mortgage to see that? [The Wrap]

• Christmas Carol is expected to win the weekend box office race, with its tracking projecting it to land somewhere between $35 and $45 million. None of the other films opening this weekend, Oscar contenders The Men Who Stared at Goats and Precious, or the alien-horror flic The Fourth Kind, are expected to wind up north of $20 million.

• Moving on from his Ali G stable of characters, Sacha Baron Cohen has formed a production company to develop new material. Four by Two Films has already signed its first deal to shoot Accidentes for Universal, based on the ambulance chasing attorney famed in LA for his side-of-the-bus ads. [Variety]

• With turmoil afoot in the industry, Daily Variety editor Tim Gray forsees a chaotic awards season ahead, thanks to among other factors: changes at the helms of four of the major film companies, the expansion of the Oscar race to ten films, the 3D wild card and a series of previously off the Oscar map companies such as Summit and Magnolia that could become players this year. [Variety]

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?

We're struggling for the term for the opposite of trainwreck...or when something is so complete and perfect a trainwreck that it becomes brilliant. Well, that's what the Gervais-helmed has the potential to be.

It takes real character for a show which owes its acclaim to a booze-fueled multi-decade run of awkward and embarrassing moments to double down on its off the rails strengths and book a host famed for creating legendary awkward and embarrassing moments. The combination of Gervais' bizarre out-of-sync with humanity style and a line of drunken award winners, could create the most brilliantly uncomfortable show of all time.

Certainly, this choice will widen the gap between the Globes and Oscars; as Oscar attempts to return to old timey glamour (and stodginess) the Globes will more become the free-wheeling, cantankerous, spontaneous alternative. There's definitely a market for both, but in this media environment, we know which side of the canyon we'd want to be on.

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.

Not only are the Oscars expanding the Best Picture category, they're now maybe getting rid of the silly Best Original Song award and saving us from the lengthy backslapping of the lifetime achievement awards. The Academy announced that the voting for the song award will change so that it's possible that no song will be nominated in a given year, and the old people are gonna die soon thing is going to be a private black-tie affair in November. So, we kind of win! [Variety]

Producers are gathering together to make Havana Nocturne, a 50s-set Cuban gangster tale based on the book by T.J. English. People who produced such varying fare as Hamlet 2 and Valkyrie are onboard to organize the project, which will feature a whole cross-section of Cuban life, from gangsters to street kids to revolutionaries plotting in the woods. [THR]

Nerdy it-boys of the moment Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, who wrote both Transformers 2 and Star Trek, will co-produce a new action comedy type picture called License to Steal. It's a movie about high-end, daredevil, globetrotting repo men, partly inspired by this Salon.com article. Oh, these dudes also exec-produced The Hangover, so essentially they're having the best summer of anyone ever. We're not jealous or anything. Really, we're just clawing the coffee table because we feel like it. [Variety]

Reliable old Lea Thompson has landed the role in a pilot called A Town Called Malice for director Howard Deutch. The dramedy is about a former rock star who returns to the hometown she fled when she was 16 with her daughter, who is now about that age. The two are broke and have to redo their lives. We think a better title would be Hope Floats Eastbound. [THR]

Oh, cute. Brandon Camp, who helmed the upcoming laff/weeper Love Happens with J. Aniston and A. Eckhart, will direct Relativity, about a bunch of grownup kids who go home for their parents' 30th wedding anniversary only to find out that... they're all adopted. Some guy behind the way-better-than-it-looked-I-promise Dan in Real Life will produce, so let's hope for warm/funny/secretly-wise again with this one. Seriously guys. Most underrated films of last year? Dan in Real Life and Ghost Town. Both very solid. [Variety]

Look. Some Canadian named Missy Peregrym from that show Reaper will star in a new Canadian "Grey's Anatomy about rookie cops" cop drama called Copper. It films in Toronto for 13 episodes. This wouldn't normally be news, except that everyone in American television is desperate, so ABC is actually going to air the damn thing in the States. [THR]

Fox-owned affiliates in Los Angeles KTTV and KCOP are facing major layoffs in the coming weeks. As many as 95 staffers could get the axe, including "editors, writers, shooters, promo people, our chief helicopter guy, the entire chyron department, most of the graphics department." The helicopter guy? And no more chyrons? What's the point of even watching the news, then? [Variety]

The Oscar best picture race has been dominated by tiny, often indie, films that not very many people see, i.e. The Reader. Widening the field could mean that they won't necessarily be the only ones competing for the top prize, and the studios and their big-budget "prestige" titles can finally play in the pool again. Ten nominees means more competition, which could net some eyeballs curious to see how the crazy It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World-style race ends up.

For example, had their been ten Best Picture nominees last year, The Dark Knight would surely have been among them, which would likely have brought in some curious fanboys. And if the studios have doubled chances of doing a blitz awards-tie-in marketing, then that's even better. More money for everyone means nicer, bigger parties and then everyone wins!

We think it's a fine idea, as more competition is more fun. Though we'll have to suffer through twice as many set-up clips, it ought to make the long, long, long evening slog to the final dance all the more put-up-withable. Because now TEN enter and only one leaves. Lots more carnage.

[Oscars.org]

Fey, a total talk show pro at this point, regaled the crowd with stories that highlighted her ordinary-ness: Gawking at stars at the Oscars, dodging drunks, raising her three-year old daughter and just generally not knowing what the deal is with professional vampire Robert Pattinson, of Twilight.

Fallon too often tended toward the opposite, complaining about his showbiz hours and getting way too deep into chummy inside-NBC stories with Fey.

But most of all, the Late Night host needed to quit with the over-laughing. The home audience chuckles more easily if Fallon isn't having a conniption every time his guest says something mildly amusing.

Still: He got Tina Fey on. For like 15 minutes, it felt like! So at least Fallon's viewers were laughing pretty hard too.

Frank Coraci had done the same bit just the night before at the Independent Spirit Awards, Page Six reminds us. Stiller was at the ceremony only via recorded video, since he was in his ill-fated Oscar rehearsals at the time, but would have had time to hear buzz about Coraci's stunt in the intervening day. Stiller kept his impersonation plans secret until he arrived at the theater Sunday, according to Page Six.

Coraci's impersonation (above, NSFW) wasn't as good, but then again he's a director, not an actor. And he was first! Plus the idea of pairing Phoenix with a ranting Christian Bale is inspired. It's not, in the end, surprising that a mainstream actor like Stiller would appropriate and reprocess the idea for a broader audience (video below): That's how his business works, and how the Oscar audience was able to enjoy some biting humor along with all the cheery musicals.

Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black's acceptance speech provided the most vivid example of the latter: A tearful testimony of what it meant to live life openly as a gay man, it ended with comforting reassurance to the millions of fledgling gay boys—and smattering of girls—out there in the Oscars audience. Echoing a similar Harvey Milk speech that inspired Black himself to come out of the closet, the writer promised these bullied Beyoncé fans that they too have worth, and will one day escape the small towns in which they're trapped (whether by wheelchair, or some other, less literal-minded literary device).

Beautiful, right? Surely a sentiment with universal appeal, and one that would bring a tear to even the most child-blindingest of Mumbai slumlords. That is, if it hadn't been edited out of India's Oscars broadcast. A tipster writes:

It is my understanding that Dustin Lance Black's acceptance speech was edited for the rebroadcast of the Oscars in India such that the mention of being gay was removed. The actual broadcast began at 630a.m., so it's aired in real time and also taped and rebroadcast later in the day. My source for the info saw both broadcasts of his acceptance speech, so there you are.

If that's true, it's an unconscionable act of censorship and a giant step backwards for what was touted as the most global Oscars in history. We mean, how would they like it if every time A. R. Rahman or an adorable Slumdog Millionaire orphan took to the stage to praise their country and culture, The Abbey's Official Viewing Party cut to more "acceptable" footage of Baz Luhrmann mouthing the words to his big musical number?

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!

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.

Image via Getty

Silver rose to prominence by forecasting the results of the last election year with eerie accuracy (he even had the amount of angry Bill Clinton finger wags down to the decimal point during the primaries!), yet his foray into Oscar prognosticating was torpedoed with the very first award given out, Best Supporting Actress. Not only did his misguided pick, Taraji P. Henson, lose to Cruz, but he also blew the Best Actor category, choosing Mickey Rourke over eventual winner Sean Penn.

How did Silver take the news? With liveblogged profanities ("7:47 PM. Penelope Cruz? F*ck. I demand a recount") and a painful Ram Jam onto an already defeated Rourke ("Perhaps we [should have] had some way to quantify someone's jackassedness: Days spent at the Betty Ford Center?"). Then, saddest of all, Silver disowned his model for predictions today in a regretful Oscar postmortem which reads like Mom (numbers-based prognosticating) and Dad (Silver) have decided to see other people. Nate Silver will soon be moving into a pre-furnished apartment by himself, and it is all the fault of a Latina spitfire we have taught to speak English. For shame, Hollywood.

• Some Post-Oscar Thoughts on Forecasting [FiveThirtyEight]

Thanks go to whiz Mike Byhoff for the video magic.

Maybe it was a lack of preparation. Cultural insensitivity. Or maybe Seacrest is just getting tired of this sort of work. In any case, he was off his game. Examples:

Weird foreign kids who don't speak English confound poor Seacrest

What was Seacrest thinking? He was unprepared to read the names of some Indian kids from the cast of Slumdog Millionaire. The logical thing to do, then, would be to ask each child to quickly say his or her name. Instead, he briefly held an illegible piece of paper up to the camera. Then he asked the disappointed kids to all shout their names at once. They wisely ignored him.

There was some awkwardness over English, which some of the kids did not speak, and which Seacrest made them feel pretty much as terrible as possible about. (After we posted about this last night, commenters pointed us toward the other Seacrest flubs.)

Seacrest asks whether Slumdog cast real-live SLUM-DWELLERS

The host was fascinated that director Danny Boyle used actual slumdogs or whatever. Boyle reminded him that they try to think of the poor kids as normal human beings instead of total freaks. Then his eyes asked if Seacrest couldn't do the same.

Seacrest asks Marisa Tomei where she's been the past 15 years

Yes, she's made movies since My Cousin Vinny, Ryan. Dig the death stare at the end.

Slumdog Millionaire dominated as expected, an international sweep in a night studded with British, Indian and Australian wins. Not that there was much danger of nationalist unity within Hollywood; host Hugh Jackman managed to work some surprisingly vicious showbiz digs into the show, including lines from Steve Martin and Tina Fey not-so-subtly mocking Scientology and Ben Stiller's unsparing imitation of Joaquin Phoenix.

There were some misfires, like the lengthy nominee tributes involving top stars giving overlong, wedding-toast-style speeches for each contender in top categories like Best Actor and Actress. But there were also more memorable moments than any viewer had a right to expect. The best:

10. Franco and Rogen turn the Reader into stoner comedy

"Their giggling and guffawing at The Reader is somehow more damning (and more exposing of the film's overweening pomposity) than a thousand bad reviews." —Guardian. (OK, sure, but Kate Winslet's little gold man begs to disagree about the Reader.)

9. Angelina Jolie grins big at Jennifer Aniston

You just had to cut to Jolie during Aniston's animation award presentation, didn't you, ABC? OK, so we secretly enjoyed the shot of the Brad Pitt-stealer's wide grin, but that's not the point.

8. Philippe Petit's statuette-balancing magic trick

The star of Best Documentary Man on the Wire was making a naked bid to become the stuntman for all future Academy Award ceremonies. We're all for it, as long as the Frenchman returns each year with his charming white scarf.

7. Host Hugh Jackman: "The Musical Is Back"

Is it? Because some of us felt like we were stuck on the lido deck of a cruise. Including Penelope Cruz, judging by her arched eyebrows at the close of the biggest number.

6. Ben Stiller as Joaquin Phoenix

Oscar presenters don't normally go after their own. Stiller did. His deadpan, unmistakable imitation of Phoenix's notorious performance on David Letternan is as good a sign as any that Phoenix, who has declared himself retired from acting, is now being as much pushed out of the Hollywood community as leaving it.

5. Tina Fey and Steve Martin's Scientology dig

Or maybe they were talking about some other "made up" religion involving an alien king scattering seeds across the Earth to "fuel our positive transfers." But you don't have to be a Clear to know that's unlikely. (Though this is the best bit, Fey and Martin's overall routine was excellent. As was their rapport.)

4. Heath Ledger's family accepts his award

The late Dark Knight actor received a touching tribute from his father, mother and eager sister. But what happened to the mother of his child, Michelle Williams? She wasn't even mentioned.

3. Kate Winslet's whistle

The Englishwoman's Best Actress win was widely expected; her sweet call-and-response with her father was not.

2. Dustin Lance Black on gay rights: "God does love you."

The Mormon-raised Milk screenwriter once found inspiration and emotional sustenance in California. With his heartfelt message to "gay and lesbian kids," Black returned the favor.

1. Sean Penn: "You Commie, homo-loving sons of guns."

Accepting for Best Actor, Penn killed. The tightly-wound actor was charmingly self-deprecating. And his cutting comments on California's gay marriage ban, which came near the end of the Oscar telecast, provided the perfect bookend for Black's statements, near the start.