When you’re a terrible and boring actor, Hollywood has a couple of tricks up its sleeve to make you more interesting. The easy one is to put a cut on your lip. A cut on a blank face shows you’re troubled by a fight without having to resort to too much acting.

Another trick, of course, is to get you to take your top off. If you’re a handsome young buck, or indeed, a comely maiden, you don’t have to do any acting at all if you’re in the nip.

This coincides nicely with the mutterings that Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart want more sex scenes in the films they make, meaning that the fapping tweens might not be able to watch their films anymore because they’re suddenly R rated or something.

A few reports have surfaced about how steamed-up Rob and Kristen’s love scenes got down in Brazil while filming Breaking Dawn. You shrieking fans may have heard that the script calls for nudity too. We reckon most of you have already had a vision of what Robert Pattinson might look like with no clothes on already. That’s because you’re all horrific perverts.

Bill Condon, who is working on the flick, seems to have the ethos that, you shoot loads and loads and loads of stuff… way too much in fact… and then cop out all the crap. Like most directors then? Well, yes. What this means in real terms though, is that he’ll have to lop out all the sex and cock-shots so he can get the rating down to PG-13. So while you screw your little eyes up and try to imagine Kristen Stewart’s breasts or Robert Pattinson’s shapely ballbag, Bill Condon will have reels and reels of ghoulish genitals to ogle in his spare time.

And we didn’t make a joke about Condon sounding a bit like Condom in that whole paragraph. And yes, we do want a badge for it.

Of course, Pattinson and Stewart have the ability to see each other’s bared backsides whenever they like because they’re knocking their uglies together off-screen too. Naturally, the won’t indulge in such things for fear of raising their blood pressure ever so slightly, in an attempt to keep their ghostly pallor unblemished and of course, cling on to their title of Most Boring Celebrity Couple In Hollywood History.

Rumour has it that the couple take stills from adult films and photoshop their heads onto the participating actors, just so they can imagine what they might look like when they’re on the job. There was that time they did it with the light on, but sadly, so still were their bodies, that a moth (attracted by the bedside lamp) landed on Pattinson’s (on-top) arse and fell asleep.

Buzzkill.

Anyway, Breaking Dawzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

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Twilight vampire-bore Robert Pattinson (Count Yawncular) is not very good at standing still with some nice clothes on. Nope. He’s a serious actor. He likes standing still and wearing nice clothes while pretending to be someone else.

That doesn’t matter a jot to your screaming fans though, does it? You think he’s dreamier that Rip Van Winkle and he’s, like totally like an amazing actor? Like.

Your belief is so strong that it has pervaded Pattinson’s very essence. He believes he’s too much of a thesp to muck about pretending to be a model for Burberry. That’s right, you could have seen him with his top-off in glossy mags, but no, you made him believe he was a proper actor!

Apparently, Rob has turned down an offer from Burberry that would make him the brand ambassador. For that, he could have opened up his pocket and let $2 million fall straight into it.

See, Pattinson is just too focused on being an actor, which means that any pouting for photos that you might fiddle with yourself over is just too much of a distraction.

Still, at least you can indulge in onanistic pleasures over the thought of Pattinson kissing Kristen Stewart, right? Especially so, now that they have been photographed kissing on a street in Brazil! HOW ROMANTIC!

But wait. What’s this? This was no moment of spontaneous passion! No, they were shunted together by a director because it was all for the cameras. It all makes sense. Robert Pattinson is far too boring and focused to ever succumb to his carnal needs.

The couple were spotted filming honeymoon scenes for the new Twilight Saga film, Breaking Dawn (pics here).

After that, they were papped waving at fans and being unusually cheery with everyone, presumably, before sloping off into a dimly lit room to lie next to each other in bed, reading books, barely able to touch each other without feeling horrifically dirty about themselves.

Or something.

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Brace yourselves kiddiekins, because Kristen Stewart has opened and closed her mouth and some words came lolloping out like clumsy, but ultimately very tedious vowel noises. Like someone drilling the road up half a mile away.

Anyways, you screaming obsessives will no doubt be eager to hear what she has to say, regardless of how eye-dryingly dull it is.

You’ll be thrilled to learn that she’s going to take all her clothes off in the next Twilight film and pull her fangs out with pliers before fashioning them into bullets and firing them at the necks of busty lesbian ghouls.Of course, this is a massive lie.

Kristen Stewart has actually graced us with the knowledge that she’s quite looking forward to starting work on the next Twilight film.

Yep.

Shooting for the final instalments in the blockbuster series are set to begin in a couple of weeks, and the young actress is absolutely looking forward to starting the filming with Robert Pattinson, who has been spending his summer standing in for a coat rack in a water cooler factory in Leamington Spa.

Apparently, Pattinson has done “a pleasingly adequate job” according to H2Yo! deputy team leader, Louise Pennington (standing in for Joyce Pilkington who is off on maternity leave).

But yeah, Kristen is going to be taking on the role of Bella Swan once again, to make young men and women around the world jealous as they constantly remind themselves that she’s yawned at Robert Pattinson’s cold, glittering penis.

Stewart says:

“I’m excited about a lot of little bits, but I’m most excited about — Bella turns into a vampire obviously in this one — I’m not spoiling anything for anyone — and she’s so different.”

She continued:

“She’s like the best vampire in the series, basically everything about the story leading up to it, it just feels so right because it’s so natural to her and just so satisfying.”

She then karate chopped a desk in half before leaping out of a 40ft window and parachuting herself into passing convertible sports car.

On fire.

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Watching Robert Pattinson at work is like watching a tortoise slowly chew a piece of old lettuce. Slow, methodical and containing the briefest glimpse of life. Of course, what puts Pattinson above tortoise status is his pretty, pretty face.

And so exasperated is Hollywood by Pattinson and his shedful of boring is that they’re thinking of giving him an Oscar just to see if he does anything even vaguely interesting. Failing that, they’ll have to stick a cut on his face to give him ‘character’.

You shrieking Twilight fans probably think that all that fandom you’ve shown is going to finally pay off in the form of a golden statue. Not so.

That’s because Pattinson isn’t going to get a gong for his role as a vampire with a chastity belt on. Nosireebob, Pattinson may be up for an Oscar for his role as Jacob Jankowski in the upcoming ‘Water for Elephants.’

Remember him nearly getting killed by an elephant? That elephant should be given an honorary Oscar as well, just for livening up Pattinson’s astonishingly dull life.

Anyway, when R-Patz’s co-star in the movie, Oscar-winning Christoph Waltz, was asked where he kept his trophy, he said, “It’s in my house, but the way things are looking, I might have to hand it off to Rob next year!”

Pardon? Christoph Waltz now decides who gets an Oscar? When did this happen? We clearly missed that memo. If we knew that, we would have never bothered sending boxes of shit to half the directors in Hollywood!

Every day is a school day.

Anyway, Pattinson’s ‘Twilight’ co-star Kristen Stewart is being touted for an award after getting a lot of praise for her work in ‘Welcome to the Rileys.’

Neither will win of course because every single award will go to Natalie Portman and her really nice face.

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Do you like everything that Steve Martin has ever done, and everything that Alec Baldwin has ever done, and the Oscars?

You do? Then you’re probably the only one. Oh, and also we’ve got some wonderful news for you. Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin are going to host the Oscars next year! That’s right – the hilarious brain behind The Jerk and the glowering show-stealer from Glengarry Glen Ross are combining forces to host the most glittering night in the Hollywood calendar!

Or the old man from The Pink Panther 2 and the fat bloke from Thomas And The Magic Railroad are combining forces to trudge through six hours of smug backslappery that nobody really watches any more. One or the other.

This year’s Oscars were, it’s fair to say, an unqualified success. Whoever made the decision to book Wolverine, dress him up in spandex and make him hotfoot it around the stage desperately banging out old showtunes at the top of his voice until everyone started entertaining thoughts of suicide sure does deserve a promotion!

In fact, Hugh Jackman‘s turn as Oscars host was so revelatory that we assumed it’d be the formula for all other Oscar nights from now on. We thought that we’d get to see the star of a forthcoming action film thrashing through an extended song and dance number based on hokey old Hollywood in-jokes every year from now on. And that would have worked out pretty well for us, because one of our greatest ambitions has been to see Russell Crowe belt out a tapdancing version of There Is Nothing Like A Dame that’s been modified to include a reference to how old Jack Nicholson looks these days.

But that’s not to be, because the 2010 Oscar hosts have been announced as Steve Martin from The Man With Two Brains and Alec Baldwin from the world’s most needlessly acrimonious divorce. The New York Times reports:

The coming Oscar show will have a pair of hosts who are not so much matched as deliberately mismatched: Steve Martin, the versatile comic, and Alec Baldwin, a straight man who sometimes reaches for a laugh… “We’re expecting a spirit du combat,” Bill Mechanic, a producer of the Oscar show, said of the Martin-Baldwin matchup.

Now at first glance you might think that Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin make an odd combination to host the Oscars. But you’d be wrong. For starters, Steve Martin is a seasoned host of the Oscars and Alec Baldwin has shown himself to be both a formidable straight-man and a gifted impersonator. Also, both Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin are famed for their work with Tina Fey, which shows that they have a complimentary sense of humour.

Most importantly, though, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin are set to star in It’s Complicated – a forthcoming romantic comedy starring Meryl Streep and directed by Nancy Meyers from What Women Want that opens on Christmas day – so it’s guaranteed that neither of them will actually win an Oscar next year. Who could ask for more?

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Oh Oscars, how could you? Up in chihuahua heaven, little Loki Rourke is in floods. Floods. Are you happy now?

You’d better be. Because, even though he’s won every single other award on the face of the Earth for The Wrestler, the Oscars have just decided to snub Mickey Rourke and give the Best Actor trophy to Sean Penn. Honestly Oscars, when Mickey Rourke goes off the rails again and ends up starring in Sylvester Stallone‘s Get Carter 2, the blood will be on your hands.

Also, Slumdog Millionaire won a bunch of Oscars, which is a great surprise to… oh, nobody.

Prior to Oscars, all the bookies were saying that the big awards were all sewn up. And, mostly, they were. What’s more, all the reactions to the big awards were sewn up too -

* Slumdog Millionaire won Best Picture and Best Director, and Danny Boyle looked like the happiest Morrissey impersonator on Earth on both occasions;

* Kate Winslet won Best Actress and immediately flew into her ‘asthma sufferer you’d most like to punch’ shtick;

* Heath Ledger won Best Supporting Actor and accepted the award in person, admitting that his accidental suicide was simply a ploy to win an Oscar;

* Mickey Rourke won Best Actor and… hey, wait a minute! Mickey Rourke didn’t win Best Actor at all.

Even though he was the critical and public favourite for the best actor Oscar, the Academy decided that the last thing it wanted to hear was another bloody eulogy for a dead chihuahua and gave the Best Actor Oscar to Sean Penn for his role in Milk instead.

Then again, it all seems so obvious in retrospect. The Oscars love Sean Penn. If Sean Penn did a fart in a ziploc bag, he’d probably get an Oscar for it. Because when Sean Penn wins an Oscar, you know you’re going to get a dangerously sincere acceptance speech about cinema’s ability to weave itself into the fabric of the national consciousness, and that tends to ease moviestars’ guilt about being paid millions of dollars to memorise a handful of words in the right order once a year.

Also, Sean Penn won his Best Actor Oscar for Milk, which allowed the Academy to register its disappointment of the passing of Proposition 8 in California last year. So now the entire television audience of The Oscars – essentially a dwindling handful of gay men and nobody else – know that some actors think Proposition 8 is bad. Thank God for that.

Also, did you see The Oscars? What with Sophia Loren, that man who balanced his Oscar upside down on his chin and Hugh Jackman’s big gurning head on top of that little puppet body, these were probably the gayest Oscars in living memory. At least Sean Penn’s victory was a decent fit.

But, despite this upset, the 2009 Oscars will go down in history as the Slumdog Millionaire Oscars. Actually, no, who are we kidding? They’ll go down in history as the Oscars where it looked like Angelina Jolie was cackling at Jennifer Aniston‘s inability to talk properly. Something tells us you’ll be hearing more about this soon.

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You know what movie we’d love to see? A movie starring the pointless one from Hancock and the pointless one from Lions For Lambs.

And guess what? That movie is being made. According to reports, Charlize Theron and Tom Cruise are set to team up for an adaptation of French movie The Tourist, with a script written by Oscar-winning writer Julian Fellowes.

Without knowing too much about The Tourist, it’s safe to say that Tom Cruise is still after that Oscar. It seems clear to us that Tom is only making the movie to glean Oscar-winning tips from Fellowes and Theron, and then put them to use in his next movie – which we’re expecting to be about a dirty-faced, slightly disfigured woman played by Tom Cruise who talks in lots of half sentences over himself all the time.

If we were Tom Cruise – which we assume we’re not because we aren’t rich and we don’t need a stepladder to kiss normal-sized girls on the cheek – then we’d be signing up for movies all over the shop at the moment.

Tom’s Nazi movie Valkyrie could go one way or the other – its release date has been ominously shuffled about all over the place, but its trailer does look pretty spiffy – and if it does end up doing a Lions For Lambs, Tom will need to have as many other movies on the go as possible. That way he can still have a career as an actor instead of committing himself fully to being a silly little lunatic who believes in aliens.

And, to his credit, that seems to be what Tom Cruise is doing. He’s already lined up his next film, and the omens look good. It’s The Tourist, a movie about a normal member of the public who’s coerced by a spy to help flush out oh for God’s sake it’s The Man With One Red Shoe isn’t it? Nice one Tom Cruise. What next? A high-remake of The Burbs?

Anyway, let’s not lose hope entirely, because The Tourist sounds like a very highbrow remake of The Man With One Red Shoe, as Tom Cruise’s co-star will be Oscar-winning actress Charlize Theron and they’ll be working from a script by Oscar-winning writer Julian Fellowes. Ropeofsilicon reports:

The Tourist, the Bharat Nalluri-directed remake of the 2005 French thriller Anthony Zimmer, is shaping up nicely as Charlize Theron is now in negotiations to join the cast. The flick will feature Theron as a female Interpol agent who uses an American tourist in an attempt to flush out an elusive criminal with whom she once had an affair. Obviously, Cruise is the tourist.

OK, so The Tourist is a thriller. That doesn’t help much. What we need to know is if this is a flashy blockbuster-style thriller, or if it’s a gritty indie-style thriller. Knowing that would really help, because we’ve got a formula to tell whether it’ll be any good or not. For instance:

LOW BUDGET INDIE:

Charlize Theron will disappear into her role, taking on a brave physical transformation for the sake of visceral realism.

Tom Cruise will try to disappear into his role, but still end up looking and acting like Tom Cruise.

BIG BUDGET BLOCKBUSTER

Charlize Theron’s character will be 85% shiny hair to 15% tits and it’ll be revealed that she and Tom Cruise have been lovers throughout history five minutes from the end even though that makes zero sense to any of the rest of the film.

Tom Cruise will spend the entire movie running as fast as he can while pulling a face that makes him look like he’s straining for a poo.

We only hope the producers have taken these calculations into consideration.

This is just a hunch, but we think Whoopi Goldberg might be having a competition with herself to find the most inappropriate time to mention her Oscar win.

Up until now Whoopi hadn't been doing so well, only talking about winning an Oscar on the day after the Oscars. But that was before Patrick Swayze was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer.

You see, Whoopi Goldberg and Patrick Swayze starred together in Ghost, the movie that Whoopi Goldberg won her Oscar for. And yesterday on The View, Whoopi paid tribute to Patrick Swayze by claiming that she wouldn't have won her Oscar if it wasn't for him. Which we're sure will brighten Patrick's day immeasurably, unless he happens to have something more important on his mind at the moment.

Patrick Swayze is in an unthinkably rough situation at the moment. It's one thing to be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer – one of the most vicious, life-destroying cancers there is – and to apparently be given just five weeks to live, but quite another for the media to discovery it and tell everyone.

What's happened – especially now that Patrick Swayze's cancer has been confirmed – is that Patrick Swayze is in the unique position of being able to read all his obituaries before he's even died. Newspapers are running retrospectives on his work and other celebrities are giving teary-eyed confessional tributes to him, and Patrick Swayze's still around to hear them all.

Never mind that nobody's going to write Patrick Swayze's actual obituary once he finally dies without repeating themselves, it's just a little bit, well, weird. But that hasn't stopped Whoopi Goldberg from paying tribute to Patrick Swayze on The View.

Whoopi Goldberg won an Oscar in 1990 – did she mention that before? Has Whoopi Goldberg ever happened to mention that she won an Oscar? Well she did, she won an Oscar even though everybody at the Oscars has obviously forgotten all about it – for Ghost. Ghost was, of course, a Patrick Swayze film, and Whoopi Goldberg maintains that she wouldn't have won her Oscar without Swayze's help, as BBC News reports:

Goldberg said Swayze, 55, told director Jerry Zucker: "I'm not making this movie unless you put Whoopi in there." The actress was speaking on US talk show The View. She became a co-host on the programme last year. Goldberg said she had not spoken to Swayze about his health but added: "We want you to feel better – we'll talk soon, I hope."

That's probably not entirely true – after her Oscar snub for The Colour Purple, Whoopi Goldberg would have probably won an Oscar if one of her next films was Meet The Spartans – but you can't blame her for wanting to pay tribute to Patrick Swayze, even though it might be a bit more traditional if she'd actually let him die first.

Anyway, join us next week when Whoopi Goldberg somehow manages to shoehorn a mention of her Oscar win into a serious discussion about the prevalence of institutionalised infanticide in China.

Read more:

Goldberg thanks Swayze for Oscar – BBC 

When the world woke up last week, everyone thought the same things. A) The weekend's finished and we have to go to work. B) Who's that chick who won the Oscar for best actress for a film we’ve never heard of before? 

Who was Marion Cotillard, where had she come from and what the hell was La Vie en Rose about? And what did it mean? For God’s sake why wasn’t it done in English? Surely the producers didn’t expect the majority of the world to watch a film they couldn’t understand. God damn those crazy French.

As an Oscar winner, we’d expect Marion Cotillard's career to go from strength to strength. If not winning more Oscars, then definitely starting up random charities or collecting third world children like Happy Meal toys. But instead of riding high on the success and mulling over lucrative film offers, Marion's gone and ballsed it up. Big style. 

With the Oscars being an American award ceremony. it would of course be dumb to slag off the country that’s elevated your status from a nobody to an A-lister. But this is what Marion Cotillard has gone and done. 

Everyone can remember what they were doing when they heard about the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It united the world in fear, terror, paranoia when we saw a Muslim with a bag and it sparked off a series of wars. But a tragedy like 9/11 is never without conspiracy theories, and old Marion is full of them.

In an interview with a French TV station, Marion Cotillard said: 

“I think we're lied to about a number of things. We see other towers of the same kind hit by planes. Are they burned? There was a tower; I believe it was in Spain that burnt for 24 hours. It never collapsed. None of these towers collapsed. And there [in New York], in a few minutes, the whole thing collapsed." 

Maybe it’s just us, but having watched the tragedy unfold on TV, we're pretty sure that the damage was caused by two massive planes. Something quite big flying relatively fast and crashing in to a stationary object won’t do it any help of staying up. Digging herself a deeper grave by the minute, Marion also added:

That the towers, planned in the early 1960s, were an outdated "money sucker" that would have cost more to update than to destroy.

Yup, we completely agree. It definitely seems plausible to then fund two wars against countries where people have died unnecessarily just so a new building can be erected in New York. Go USA for that brilliant scheme. On a more comical note though, Marion also questions the 1969 moon landing as well, by saying:

“Did a man really walk on the moon? I saw plenty of documentaries on it, and I really wondered. And in any case I don't believe all they tell me, that's for sure."

Not quite as controversial as her 9/11 comments but just as funny. Seeing as Marion Cotillard likes the odd conspiracy story, we wonder if her Oscar win was just a set-up. Perhaps the judging panel wanted her to believe Americans give a toss about foreign films. We wonder if she still believes in the Easter bunny. We hope so, because we don’t want her to miss out on those chocolate eggs.

Read more: 

Oscar winner Marion Cotillard dismisses 9/11 as conspiracy – NY Daily News

The Oscars almost didn't happen this year, thanks to the Hollywood writers' strike, and some people said that was a bad thing.

However, when the strike ended, the producers of the Oscars had a brainwave. "What's better than The Oscars That Didn't Happen?" they reasoned, "Why, The Oscars That Nobody Cares About!"

And, as such, the big winners at last night's Oscars were No Country For Old Men, There Will Be Blood, La Vie En Rose, The Counterfeiters and Michael Clayton – a selection of films whose combined box office grosses would just about stretch to buying you a particularly nice clothes peg. Oh, and Ratatouille won an Oscar too, but hopefully the tremendous oversight of giving an award to a popular film that people actually liked will be rectified by next year.

This year's Oscars had something of a traumatic birth, thanks to the writer's strike. As the Golden Globes and the People's Choice awards fell victim to the strike, no amount of wheezy rhetoric could ever fully convince anyone that the Oscars would really go ahead unless the writers went back to work. 

But the Oscars were saved by the bell when the strike ended in the nick of time, setting up the most talked about Oscars race in decades – who'd win Best Picture? Would it be that film that nobody went to see, that other film that nobody went to see, the other film nobody went to see that had George Clooney in it, Juno, or the film nobody went to see about British people bimbling sadly at each other?

Not a showstopping year for the Oscars, then, all said. In fact, the nominees for Best Picture were Michael Clayton – the 55th biggest movie of the last year – Atonement (the 53rd), There Will Be Blood (the 78th), No Country For Old Men (the 39th) and Juno (the 18th). More people went to see Alvin And The Chipmunks than any of the nominated movies, and that's a film about a shit-eating rodent for christ's sake. 

But still, the Oscars are becoming synonymous with high-end, deeply unpopular movies, so this wasn't really a surprise. But, hey, who won the Oscars this year?

Well, if you've been keeping an eye on awards season prior to the Oscars, you'll have noticed that the two frontrunners were No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood, and that's the way it went last night, with No Country For Old Men winning four Oscars for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Directing, and There Will Be Blood scooping Best Actor and Best Cinematography.

Although hopefully there'll be some decent ridiculous Eddie Murphy-style controversy bubbling up from this year's Oscars in the next few days, the only really interesting things to happen during the ceremony were Steve Carell possibly saying the word 'shit', the three billion mindless clip montages and Helen Mirren doing something so preposterously actorly during her time on the microphone that we wanted to shatter her ankles. Oh, and if you missed the Oscars and have been looking for clips on YouTube, we should probably point out that Miley Cyrus wasn't the only person to turn up, despite what it looks like.

But, if not, this year's Oscars might just go down in history as the one that people cared least about. Perhaps next year a big Oscar could go to a film that's done well at the box office, just for a change. Yes, we're basically saying that Jumper deserves to win an Oscar. God help us all.

Read more:

Winners – Oscar 

While everyone can agree that the writers' strike has gone on for too long, they all also secretly agree that it'd be nice if it just went on for long enough to screw up the Oscars.

However, as signs of a deal tentatively edge ever-closer, it looks like the Oscars might be business as usual again. And all the Oscar nominees had the traditional Oscar nominees' luncheon yesterday to prove it, with Academy president Sid Ganis promising that the show would go on regardless of the strike.

But that begs the question: what will the Oscars be like with no jokes, no song-and-dance numbers and no fun? Why, they'll be just like the Oscars, you halfwit.

The writers' strike has naused up Hollywood something rotten lately. Thousands of crewmembers are out of work, Lost is only going to be on for eight episodes instead of sixteen and the Golden Globes met a grisly end. But can the writers' strike kill the Oscars? Um, well, there's a possibility of that, we admit. But can the writers' strike kill the sort of luncheon thing that the people nominated for Oscars usually go to each year? NO!

How could the annual Oscar nominees' luncheon possibly be cancelled when it's responsible for golden Hollywood moments like Keira Knightley talking about herself? That's why every single actor and actress nominated for an Oscar attended yesterday's luncheon, with the exception of Cate Blanchett. And Johnny Depp. And Tom Wilkinson. And Daniel Day-Lewis, Saoirse Ronan, Tilda Swinton and Tommy Lee Jones. And Philip Seymour Hoffman. But everyone else turned up. Well, George Clooney and the girl from Juno did, anyway. The Los Angeles Times reports:

The Oscar nominees' luncheon — a long-held tradition at the Beverly Hilton Hotel that usually kicks off the giddy weeks before the televised ceremony — couldn't quite shake the long shadow cast by the 13-week writers strike, despite news that a settlement could come as early as Friday. George Clooney, nominated for his performance in the legal thriller "Michael Clayton," strode into the press room looking tan and trim and joking that he had just returned from "two weeks in four conflict zones" and was entering yet another.

And what's more, the president of the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Scientists Sid Ganis whipped the crowd into a quasi-biblical frenzy with his never-say-die attitude to the writers' strike:

"The Oscar exists because the academy founders believed movies were not just a business and people need to be reminded of this. We did it 80 years ago in the Blossom Room at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, and we'll do it again at the Kodak Theatre in three weeks."

Yeah! Except if the strike is still in effect on Oscar night then none of the actors will turn up because they don't want to be seen crossing a picket line, and there won't be anyone to present or accept any awards, and nobody will have written any jokes for the opening speech. And it might go down as one of the biggest embarrassments in showbusiness history.

But on the other hand, if all that happens we won't get to see Eva Longoria gonking up and down a red carpet dressed in what looks like a seat-cover from a 1983 Ford Sierra minicab. So it probably all evens out, really.

Read more:

Oscar nominees are eating lunch in this town again - LA Times 

Usually the most exciting thing about Oscar nominations day is knowing that all the months of  suffocating hype will soon be at an end, but not this year.

Because this year's Oscar nominations have just been announced – and, thanks to the writers' strike, nobody even knows whether there'll even be an Oscars this year. But if the Oscars do happen, then No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood should probably get their tuxedos pressed.

And so should Atonement. Even though it's bloody Atonement.

It's been a funny awards season, this one. Thanks to the neverending writers' strike, actors have been unwilling to cross picket lines to appear on televised awards shows like the People's Choice awards and the Golden Globes, leading to embarrassing clip shows and press conferences being hastily prepared instead of the glitz you'd usually expect.

And without anywhere to smarmily bluster about what an important job they do, several movie actors have been getting so bloated on their own trapped hot air that some of them might actually explode if the Oscars are cancelled as well.

That'll be a distinct possibility unless the writers and producers cut a deal before next month's ceremony, and even then it won't give Oscars host Jon Stewart much time to get a decent show going. But don't tell the Oscars that the Oscars might be cancelled, because the Oscar nominations have just been announced and as fas as the Academy is concerned it'll be business as usual right up until the bitter, face-losing last-minute cancellation.

So let's just assume that the Oscars are happening and see which films got nominated, shall we? As you'd expect, it's a big year for No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood, with Michael Clayton emerging as the dark horse of the year. Here are the nominations for the main categories at the 2008 Oscars:

BEST PICTURE
Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

BEST ACTOR
George Clooney, Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd
Tommy Lee Jones, In the Valley of Elah
Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises

BEST ACTRESS
Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Julie Christie, Away From Her
Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose
Laura Linney, The Savages
Ellen Page, Juno

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Charlie Wilson's War
Hal Holbrook, Into the Wild
Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There
Ruby Dee, American Gangster
Saoirse Ronan, Atonement
Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone
Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton

BEST DIRECTOR
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood
Joel and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton
Jason Reitman, Juno
Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Notice there's a strong skewing towards really miserable, grim-looking films? Well don't be – because Norbit, the film that did so well in yesterday's Razzies nominations, has got an Oscar nomination too! Admittedly it's just for Best Make-Up – the Oscars equivalent of Best Kept Village – but it's another stone-cold reason why the Oscars shouldn't be cancelled this year.

After all, if Norbit loses and the Oscars are cancelled, what the hell is Eddie Murphy supposed to storm out of?

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Oscars 2008: And the Nominees Are… -