Gervais, Oscar and Sundance

Are we having a laugh?

Well, we were when one of our favorite funny men Ricky Gervais put a temporary halt to our hair-standing-on-end, cringe-filled Emmy experience a few months back by actually entertaining from the stage of the Nokia. Today, not laughing.

Seems that Gervais has confirmed that he received and swiftly shot down an offer to host the Oscars in February, saying it would be too buttoned-up for his style of humor and that basically it's a thankless job (something Jon Stewart should know well by now). Specifically, he said:

"It's a historic, stuffy thing and I would want to have fun with it, and I don't think they would want me to do that. I wouldn't be allowed to do what I wanted and it would be no fun for me reading from an autocue."

He's right. We're sad.

In brighter news today ...

Whiny next-gen love stories, environmental disaster tales -- Amazonian Chernobyl! -- and low-budget sci-fi. Anti-Prop 8 protesters potentially upstaging luxury swag suites. Maybe it's time to make those Sundance plans.

Full list of the 118-film Sundance slate here.

Look closely -- lurking somewhere in there could be the next "Hamlet 2."