Obligatory Oscar Nom Form-Filling

Hmm...what to obsess over today? Dubya's State of the Union? Alito's confirmation? The passing of Coretta Scott King? Or petty Hollywoof politics? The latter, natch. I'm trying to spend the least amount of time thinking about them this year, but here's the breakdown, for what it's worth:

Huzzah! Noah Baumbach; Munich; Felicity; Wally Pfister for Batman Begins; Emmanuel Lubezki for The New World; Wallace and Gromit and Howl's Moving Castle; all the Brokeback stuff

Why (that are actually worth addressing) So many technical awards for Memoirs of a Geisha

Whereforth (that actually had a chance) Grizzly Man; Don Hertzfeldt's Meaning of Life; "Whoop That Trick"

Yo, fuck Capote; Crash; Narnia for visual effects (Shrek looked more realistic than Aslan)

I love you but c'mon Philip Seymour Hoffman, who will beat Heath Goddam Ledger with his (PSH's) least interesting performance not in a Jan De Bont blockbuster

Cheapest yet most crushing irony That David Cronenberg lost getting either Picture or Director the year a movie called Crash got both


Randomest tidbit with which to impress easily impressed people at parties That not one but two forgotten supporting actors from The Birdcage are now (underservably) Oscar-nominated screenwriters: Dan Futterman (pictured, opposite Calista Flockhart) for the craven Capote and Grant Heslov for the passionate yet smug Good Night, And Good Luck.

The Razzies were also announced today, if anyone still titters at their perpetually safe choices.