So Sarah

In other female news: Sarah Polley, a rookie behind the camera, has quickly become someone to watch. Her nomination this morning for best adapted screenplay puts her in some formidable A-list (all-male) company.

The full picture: she's competing against the Coen brothers, Christopher Hampton ("Atonement"), Ronald Harwood ("The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"), who, not so incidentally, have all won before. The other nominee, Paul Thomas Anderson, has been nominated twice.

If she can lure Julie Christie out of semi-retirement and convince her to play a non-glamorous Alzheimer's patient, surely she can handle a little competitive heat. Go, grrrl!

So supportive

Lest we slight a couple of worthy noms, let's recap the entire best original screenplay list: in addition to the three chicks (Nancy Oliver, Tamara Jenkins, Diablo Cody), some testosterone slipped in. Tony Gilroy for "Michael Clayton" and Brad Bird for "Ratatouille." One of the strongest categories we can recall.

Another race with no losers (yes, we know what a cliche that is, but it's really really true this time) is the best supporting actor. Never mind that we think people like Ben Foster, Tommy Lee Jones and Max von Sydow never really got the consideration they deserved in this area, we can still get behind the picks.

Everyone would be forgiven for thinking it's already sewn up (Javier Bardem has cleaned up on guild and critics awards so far) but it's far from over with this field: Philip Seymour Hoffman for "Charlie Wilson's War," Tom Wilkinson in "Michael Clayton," Hal Holbrook for a heartbreaking turn in "Into the Wild," and Casey Affleck for "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford."

Not a nag in the bunch. Now that's a horse race.

Hysterical! No, actually, historical

It's hysterical -- no, we mean historical! AMPTP execs managed to look collected at a time when the Oscars are under siege with no waiver, no writers and a potential star blackout.

Wait, hold the phone: Sid Ganis just reverted to spelling his feelings. He's "h-o-p-i-n-g" that the show will go on. That's a new way to put it.

Another piece of history: for the first time, three women have been nominated for best original screenplay. Tamara Jenkins, Nancy Oliver and Diablo Cody for "The Savages," "Lars and the Real Girl," and "Juno," respectively. Too bad that didn't translate to more momentum for "Lars." (Ryan Gosling was robbed, and all because his love interest was an inanimate object).

Kathy Bates is cool

Kathy Bates is calming. Isn't she always? Well, not when she's playing that psycho chick from "Misery," but most other times, right? She's comforting.

She and Sid Ganis just prattled off the names of the Oscar nominees without flourish, which is the style, and now we're left to dissect and wonder.

One good area to start: best director. Julian Schnabel for "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," Tony Gilroy for "Michael Clayton," Paul Thomas Anderson for "There Will Be Blood," and the Coen brothers for "No Country for Old Men." The shocker here: Jason Reitman for "Juno." No Joe Wright, no Sean Penn.

And if we want to get picky about it -- and we do -- no David Fincher ("Zodiac"), no Tim Burton ("Sweeney Todd") and no Sidney Lumet ("Before the Devil Knows You're Dead"). If they rustle up some kind of "career achievement" award for the brilliant Mr. Lumet, let us be the first to suggest he boycott the "ceremony."

More recaps coming.

Surprises, we've had a few

Writers or no -- Sid Ganis says -- there will be an Oscar show. Are we all convinced?

Everyone at the Oscar noms look crisp, chipper and coiffed, which would be the polar opposite of your own Gold Rushers. Notice that we're not live streaming, and be very very grateful for that.

Some quick surprises: no Angelina Jolie (the fifth best actress slot went to Cate Blanchett for a movie few saw and no one liked, or it went to Laura Linney, depending on how you were keeping track), Tommy Lee Jones ("In the Valley of Elah") and Johnny Depp ("Sweeney Todd") in the best actor race, and "Atonement" wasn't dead after all, but it didn't sweep, by any means. It did, likely, take "Into the Wild" or "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly's" spot on the best picture lists.

Sentimentalists were right -- Ruby Dee snagged a best supporting actor nod for "American Gangster," the only major award for that crime epic.

More to come as we chug more coffee.

Pre-dawn rantings

Oh the pain. The agony. And we're not talking about the Oscar nominations -- those haven't started yet.

We're talking about this ungodly hour of the a.m., where we're expecting to live blog the Oscar nods using some form of communication other than clicks and grunts. We don't know about the rest of you, but ye ole Gold Rushers haven't seen 5 a.m. from the morning side for quite a lot of years. Maybe never.

So bear with us. Or feel free to point and laugh as we digress into some form of jibberish when our favorites get passed over. Hang around as long as you have the stomach for it. It'll be such fun.

Cates and the calm, cool ocean

Is it just us, or has Gil Cates started to sound a little looney, like the awards-show-producer version of Tom Cruise in the recently-released, voraciously-viewed Scientology video clips? And by that we mean, gee, Gil, get ahold of yourself.

Since he's under duress, perhaps we shouldn't be so unkind. You decide. Here's what he said in an L.A. Times story from Saturday (we'll use the quotes in order, which makes the poor guy sound progressively battier as the story reads along). Topic, of course, was the fate of the Academy Awards telecast as the WGA strike continues, no waiver's in sight and stars threaten to boycott.

"There are enough clips in 80 years of Oscar history to make up a very entertaining show. We'd have a lot of people on stage."

Like who? Cates wouldn't be specific, but we wonder if he was talking about a bunch of those laugh-a-minute Price Waterhouse goons. Can't wait for that.

After insisting that there will be a red carpet:

"I just hope that the actors are there. I pray that the actors are there. I'm planning that the actors are there."

Wow.

And finally, the kicker:

"It's a big moment for the town. The granddaddy of all the shows...The strike could be settled by then. Who knows?...Four weeks is a long way off."

The Times didn't fill in the little lapses in that particular speech -- maybe he was mopping up the flop sweat or doing some Stuart Smalley-style daily affirmations. Deep breaths, Gil, calm cool ocean.

Fruit salad

It's not quite Carmen Miranda, but we do have a bounty of fruit on display today -- raspberries and tomatoes, specifically, and yes, tomatoes really are fruit.

The Razzie nominations are in, and Head Razzberry John Wilson says he might be the only awards-giver in town who's not worried about the ongoing writers strike. Stars never show up to collect their "gold spray-painted $4.89 statuettes" anyway (with the notable exception of Halle Berry, being a brave good sport after that horrifying turn in "Catwoman" earned her a top Razzie).

Wilson said some stars outdid themselves this year by playing more than one crappy character in the same movie. Lilo is nominated twice (a historic moment!) for each of the characters she plays in "I Know Who Killed Me," which also topped the list with nine Razzie nods. Lilo was upstaged, though, by Eddie Murphy, who has garnered a record-setting five Razzie noms for all his various suckage in "Norbit."

(Sun)dance fever

Apparently there's a malaise in Park City, Utah, that even massive amounts of Airborne can't cure. THR's on-the-snowy-ground reporters Gregg Goldstein and Steven Zeitchik have diagnosed it as "Sundance Fever," also known as "temporary amnesia."

Personally, we often suffer from temporary Tourette, a syndrome that has us shouting out every creative profanity on our feeble brains at the most opportune (or inopportune, depending on how you look at it) time. But we digress.

This so-called Sundance Fever causes executives to forget just how badly their overpriced acquisitions from last year tanked ("Joshua?" "Grace Is Gone?") and forces them to plunge head-long into more bidding-war bad choices. With more indie product than ever to pick from, content-hungry strike-hobbled distributors could tear through town like Paris Hilton on a swag-and-Grey-Goose high. Among those benefitting, perhaps, could be Alan Ball's directorial debut, "Towelhead" (pictured).

THR's troops say the chatter is about "faster buys, frenzied bids and higher prices." And skiing!

An Oscar poster that Han Solo would love

If there were a soundtrack to the unveiling of this year's official Oscar poster, it would have to be Bill Murray from his SNL lounge singer days doing his medley/rendition/interpretive version of the "Star Wars" theme. Remember that one? "Star Wars," he warbled, "nothing but Star Wars."

Brilliant.

Not sure we can say that for the poster, though. It comes by its sci-fi look honestly, having been designed by illustrator Drew Struzan and executed by his son, Christian. The elder Struzan has been doing one-sheets for several decades and counts all six "Star Wars" posters as part of his portfolio. He's also doing the next "Indiana Jones" image.

He says this poster "depicts the impact and the emotion" of the Academy Awards. Oh yeah? Because any image this year without a picket sign in it doesn't necessarily capture the prevailing mood of the town. It strikes us (pun unintended, really) as a bit 1983, too, but that's just us. Feel free to disagree. That's what the comments button is for, so go ahead and use it.