•  Jeffrey Wells spotlights a hair-raising quote from "No End in Sight" helmer Charles Ferguson in that New York Times doc piece. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

•  Richard Corliss digs into the Academy membership in a slightly different piece on the Oscars. [Time]

•  Sasha Stone previews all the guild commotion this weekend. [Awards Daily]

•  Tom O'Neil wonders whether Entertainment Weekly Oscar voter collective can be trusted. [Gold Derby]

•  David Carr reviews "There Will Be Blood," bubble-wrap style. [The Carpetbagger]

•  Stu VanAirsdale comments on Jane Fonda's C-bomb from last week, worships its usage in "Atonement." [Little Gold Men]

•  Anita Gates writes up Oscar's memories throughout the boob-tube years. [New York Times]

•  Randee Dawn, via slideshow, takes a look at the making of an Oscar -- no, an ACTUAL Oscar, at the R.S. Owens & Company plant in Chicago. [Gold Rush]

•  Todd Leopold asks whether anyone cares about the Oscars. [CNN]

•  In his first post in nearly a month, Ramin Setoodeh responds to the piece. [The Gold Digger]

•  The media, who wanted so desperately to have a story like Diablo Cody to cover, continue to tear the poor woman down because they're bored with their own Frakenstein. [Cinematical]

•  Donna Freydkin sits down with "La Vie en Rose" star Marion Cotillard. [USA Today]

•  According to the local paper, surfers love Best Animated Feature Film nominee "Surf's Up." [Los Angeles Times]

Stealing this from Anne's blog.  It isn't the freshest comparison in the world, but hey, it's Oscar related:

•  The London Film Critics' Circle taps "No Country" year's best.  Will BAFTA follow? [Variety]

•  Jeffrey Wells takes a solid jab at Paramount Vantage regarding yesterday's milkshake promotion with a hilarious note from Toronto Star critic Peter Howell. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

•  Ryan Adams points us to The New York Times Magazine and its 2008 "Oscar portfolio." [Awards Daily]

•  Tom O'Neil previews Sunday's BAFTA Awards. [Gold Derby]

•  Stu Van Airsdale gets some saucy comments from "Counterfeiters" director Stefan Ruzowitsky regarding the Oscar snub of "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days." [Little Gold Men]

•  Jeff Anderson, meanwhile, thinks "The Counterfeiters" has a play at worst film of 2008 so far. [Cinematical]

•  Anne Thompson reacts to the imminent "revamp" of the foreign language committee. [Thompson on Hollywood]

•  The new Oscar set reminds Nathaniel Rogers of something interstellar. [The Film Experience]

•  New York Magazine forecasts "The Hottie and the Nottie" for 2009 Oscar glory. [Vulture]

•  David Carr retires to his oxygen chamber to review a silent "Juno." [The Carpetbagger]

•  "Ratatouille" dominates the Annie Awards. [Variety]

Animated Feature Film  Ash Brannon and Chris Buck

Animated Feature Film Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud

Animated Feature Film  Brad Bird
Music (Score)  Michael Giacchino
Sound Editing  Randy Thom and Michael Silvers
Sound Mixing  Randy Thom, Michael Semanick and Doc Kane
Writing (Original Screenplay)  Screenplay by Brad Bird; Story by Jan Pinkava, Jim Capobianco, Brad Bird

•  The final guild out of the gate, the Motion Picture Sound Editors, annouce nominees for the Golden Reel Awards. [Variety]

•  Sasha Stone cooks up one of her infmaous Oscar comparison charts.  This time: SAG vs. Oscar. [Awards Daily]

•  Jeff Anderson finds plenty of room to complain about this or that, re: the nominations.  He also reveals a profound ignorance for certain crafts categories. [Cinematical]

•  Tom O'Neil has a new theory in the books.  Somethign about multile nominated contenders yielding one win, I think.  I got lost in the data.  You give it a shot. [Gold Derby]

•  Daniel Day-Lewis hits the daily talk show circuit with the owner of the world. [Oprah.com]

•  Gerard Kennedy begins reacting to Oscar's tech nominations, some surprising, most expected. [In Contention]

•  The Gurus o' Gold chime in post-noms.  "No Country for Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood" take the #1 and #2 spots.  Scott Rudin does back-flips. [Movie City News]

•  Mike Russell sits down with "Persepolis" creator Marjane Satrapi in 2-D black and white. [Culture Pulp]

•  T.L. Stanley thinks there is no backlash in the cards for the most backlash-prone of the Best Picture contenders. [Gold Rush]

•  In a long interview never lacking the color of its subject, Mick Brown sits down with the Oscar-nominated Julian Schnabel to talk art, Schnabel, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" and Schnabel.  Good times. [The Daily Telegraph]

•  After years of disavowing Oscar bloggers, Stu VanAirdale finds his new role as...Oscar blogger. [Little Gold Men]

•  He also agonizes over the glut of Oscar prognosticators.  I'm sure he still cashes the checks, though. [Little Gold Men]

•  Globe reactions all over the place, starting with Anne Thompson. [Thompson on Hollywood]

•  David Carr chimes in with ruminations per category. [The Carpetbagger]

•  Brian Kinsley gives some knee-jerk thoughts. [In Contention]

•  Sasha Stone throws in her two cents. [Awards Daily]

•  Scott Feinberg tosses down the gauntlet, seems to take it all quite personally. [And the Winner Is...]

•  T.L. Stanley says the HFPA went with their typical M.O., sticking with "safe star power" and shunned risky efforts for the most part. [Gold Rush]

•  Lou Lumenick live-blogged the proceedings. [New York Post]

•  Stephen Galloway talks foreign contenders. [The Hollywood Reporter]

•  Nathaniel Rogers bemoans the snubbed. [The Film Experience]

•  Anthony Breznican talks to "Atonement" director Joe Wright and "Ratatouille" writer/director Brad Bird in a nice summary piece. [USA Today]

•  And David Poland would like to take credit for a number of the nominations due to his "Lunch with David" interview segments, thank you very much. [The Hot Blog]

•  Casey Affleck, Marion Cotillard, James McAvoy and Ellen Page to receive Santa Barbara's Virtuoso Award. [Variety]

•  The Features department turns its "Eye" toward the animation contenders. [Variety]

•  Colleen Atwood's march to an Oscar nod begins with the specifics of Pirelli's package. [E!]

•  Jeffrey Wells gets into why "Charlie Wilson's War" might have seemed a bit...neutered. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

•  John Horn and Chris Lee talk "I Am Legend" with Best Actor hopeful Will Smith. [Los Angeles Times]

•  Finally, Poland writes over 1,500 words on Scott Foundas' Oscar blogger meltdown earlier in the week, with nary a thesis in sight. [The Hot Blog]

The Annie nominations landed today.  Variety has the story.

"Ratatouille," of course, leads the pack with 13 nominations.  Can anything stop it from winning the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film?

The nominees for Best Animated Film were "Bee Movie," "Persepolis," Ratatouille," "The Simpsons Movie" and "Surf's Up."  Take away "Bee Movie" and "Surf's Up," and I think you're looking at Oscar's final three.

"Beowulf," which a number of people were hoping would land a berth with the Academy, landed a single nomination with the Annies: Best Production Design.  I guess they weren't too keen on "performance capture" as a brand of animation.

Personally, I was stoked to see, further down the list, that "Ren & Stimpy" creator John Kricfaulski was singled out as a Winsor McCay Award winner for career contribution.  Joy!

•  Michael Cieply on the "ghettoized" Animated Feature category and the Best Picture hopes of "Ratatouille." [New York Times]

•  David Carr responds, then gets into Manohla Dargis' review of "The Savages." [The Carpetbagger]

•  Tom O'Neil calls New York's Gotham Awards a "fiasco." [Gold Derby]

•  Jeffrey Wells is a fan of the new trailer for "There Will Be Blood," which left another audience in stunned silence last night at the DGA. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

•  Brian Kinsley thinks Amy Adams may have won Best Actress when "Enchanted" opened to stellar business and reviews over the holiday weekend. [In Contention]

•  Yours truly isn't as convinced as Martin Grove on Frank Langella and Christopher Plummer. [In Contention]

•  Ramin Satoodeh recaps the Gotham Awards. [The Gold Digger]

•  After nearly a month's absence from his New York Magazine blog, David Edelstein finally makes a post -- this one's about polarized reviews of "I'm Not There." [The Projectionist]

•  In the wake of "Charlie Wilson's War" coming up short of expectations, more people come out of the woodwork to proclaim they "saw this coming." [indieWIRE]

•  Ryan C. Adams digs into the first UK reviews of "The Golden Compass." [Awards Daily]

•  Anne Thompson on the recent Variety screening of "The Savages" with Laura Linney and Tamara Jenkins Q&A. [Thompson on Hollywood]

•  Brian Kinsley points us to a couple of below-the-radar contenders.  I like the "Persepolis" mention for Best Adapted Screenplay. [In Contention]

•  Todd Martens gets into the tracks of "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story." [Extended Play]

•  The Envelope has officially gone off the deep end with its awards season content: I give you, a gallery of the top 9 dinner scenes of the year? [The Envelope]

•  Tom O'Neil talks to "Into the Wild" star Emile Hirsch. [Gold Derby]

•  Jeffrey Wells responds to an item from yours truly, stirs the waters of his comments section in the process. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

•  While at Jeffrey's site, I came across this interesting piece regarding potential inspirations for Cormac McCarthy's "No Country for Old Men." [Anti-Dis-Arts-And-Entertainmentalism]

•  David Poland has taken to iPosting, and his wheels are spinning about the box office of "Beowulf." [The Hot Blog]

•  Nathaniel Rogers, in the fifth of a superlative on-going Oscar column, sizes up musicals at the Oscars. [The Film Experience]

•  Checking names off his interview wish lists, Scott Feinberg gets ahold of veteran Max von Sydow to discuss "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly." [And the Winner Is...]

•  Lou Lumenick gets around to "There Will Be Blood," is dazzled by Daniel Day-Lewis' performance. [New York Post]

•  Susan Wloszczyna talks to Josh Brolin about that silly "overnight success" story business.  Anyone seen "The Goonies???" [USA Today]

•  Michael Fleming, Tim Gray get into the specifics of the strike's effect on Awards shows. [Variety]

•  Gerard Kennedy talks to the muti-nominated, yet winless, cinematographer Roger Deakins about his trio of projects this season. [In Contention]

•  Elizabeth Snead talks the fashion of Cate Blanchett. [The Envelope]

•  Speaking of fashion, the Gray Lady spotlights "Control" star Sam Riley in the Style section. [New York Times]

•  Randy Kennedy sits down with Best Director hopeful Julian Schnabel. [New York Times]

•  Dave Kehr digs into the technology behind "Beowulf." [New York Times]

•  Jeffrey Wells talks with Keri Russell about "Waitress," landing on DVD later this month and still an awards push for Fox Searchlight. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

•  Nathaniel Rogers expresses more interest in Russell Crowe's Richie Roberts than Denzel Washington's Frank Lucas. [The Film Experience]

•  Martin Grove makes a case for Frank Langella and "Starting Out in the Evening." [The Hollywood Reporter]

•  Anne Thompson chimes in with some things she learned froma  second look at "There Will Be Blood" Monday night. [Thompson on Hollywood] 

•  Sasha Stone senses a John Cusack surge on the horizon. [Awards Daily]

•  Lisa Rosen spotlights baddies at the Oscars, though it's becoming apparent that The Envelope is churning out TOO MUCH awards content.  Slow down! [The Envelope]

•  Susan King talks to Phil Bosco. [The Envelope]

•  David Poland was ALSO at the "Sweeney Tease" in NYC. [The Hot Blog]

•  Jeffrey Wells comments on Tom O'Neil's reaction to the 17 minutes of footage. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

•  Lou Lumenick agrees with the select few who think "Beowulf" won't land in the animated final three. [New York Post]

•  Peter Knegt takes a stab at predicting the top nine categories. [indieWIRE]

•  Yours truly on "Beowulf" and "Youth Without Youth." [In Contention]

•  David Poland on the former. [The Hot Blog]

•  Mark Olsen surveys double-dipping contenders this year. [The Envelope]

•  Tom O'Neil takes us back to 1995. [Gold Derby]

•  The Gurus o' Gold move "No Country for Old Men" into the pole position. [Movie City News]

•  Jeffrey Wells talks to Paul Thomas Anderson. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

•  Peter Kenegt takes a stab at predicting the Golden Globe nominees. [indieWIRE]

•  Sasha Stone kicks things into high gear in her State of the Race column. [Awards Daily]

•  Susan King ponders awards telecasts without writers. [The Envelope]

•  Tom O'Neil thinks "The Simpsons Movie" might bump "Beowulf."  Smart thinkin'. [Gold Derby]

•  Jeffrey Wells, still on the "Zodiac" train, is encouraged by Paramount spending this awards season. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

•  Lou Lumenick thinks Javier Bardem is his own competition -- well, not true, since he's going supporting in "No Country." [New York Post]

•  Anne Thompson has a joygasm over Jeffrey Wells' "There Will Be Blood" review (and with due cause). [Thompson on Hollywood]

•  Ryan C. Adams talks Roger Deakins and has an interesting clip of the lenser working in post-production on "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" [Awards Daily]

•  Gerard Kennedy sizes up this year's Best Makeup hopefuls. [In Contention]

•  Todd Martens lays the smack down on "Beowulf" track "A Hero Comes Home."  Good.  It stinks. [Extended Play]

•  Speaking of "Beowulf," Tom O'Neil responds to the film's Oscar eligibility. [Gold Derby]

•  And Jeffrey Wells still can't seem to understand why the film isn't animation. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

•  David Poland tries to simplify the Oscar year once again...this time it's "The Year of the Man." [Movie City News]

•  Nathaniel Rogers takes the right coast temperature at the New York premiere of "No Country for Old Men." [The Film Experience]

•  "Juno"-phile Scott Feinberg talks to Ellen Page. [And the Winner Is...]

With the announcement today of the Academy's Oscar-qualifying animated films (list below), Variety is on the beat with a number of stories in yesterday's "Eye on the Oscars: Animated Preview" Special Issue.

Some of the stories:

•  David Cohen on "action-cartoon hybrids" forcing the Academy to "define animation." [Variety]

•  Ellen Wolff ponders the valid question of whether animated films are stuck in an "Oscar ghetto." [Variety]

•  And Iain Blair talks to insiders about casting voice talent for popular animated endeavors. [Variety]

•  Oh, and for those who dig pictures over words, we have a photo gallery! [Variety]

Here's the list of Oscar-qualifying films in the category:

"Alvin and the Chipmunks," "Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters," "Bee Movie," "Beowulf," "Meet the Robinsons," "Persepolis," "Ratatouille," "Shrek the Third," "The Simpsons Movie," "Surf's Up," "Tekkonkinkreet" and "TMNT."

I think we can expect the nominees to be "Persepolis," "Ratatouille" and "The Simpsons Movie" to be the final three.  The crowd is over "Shrek," though the branch qualified it, I don't think "Beowulf" will make it through just as "The Polar Expressed" missed in 2004.  And this is a great way for a true animation hero, Matt Groening, to get his due.

"Persepolis" deserves the win in spades, however.  We'll see if the Academy agrees.

•  Anne Thompson has "Beowulf" reactions.  [Thompson on Hollywood]

•  Jeffrey Wells finall unleashes his "There Will Be Blood" review, smartly acknowledges that it takes a few moments of gathering oneself before fully appreciating the value of the film.  Calls it "diseased greatness." [Hollywood Elsewhere]

•  Elizabeth Snead talks to Paul LeBlanc about Bardem's do in "No Country." [The Envelope]

•  The Buzzmeter gets a fresh update. [The Envelope]

•  As do the Gurus, this time taking a stab at the screenplay races.  Good showing for Tony Gilroy. [Movie City News]

•  Noah Forrest makes an awards case for subtle performers. [Movie City News]

•  Scott Feinberg talks to Tabu from "The Namesake," getting an agressive push from Fox Searchlight. [And the Winner Is...]

•  Yet ANOTHER award...this time, Tommy Lee Jones is tapped to win the Santa Barbara Fest's American Riviera Award. [Variety]

•  In a fantastic column, Nathaniel Rogers contemplates a 1999-like middle-brow Oscar response to a high-brow year, expresses doubts for the Coen brothers' "No Country for Old Men" (finally someone joining me in being even-handed about that film's Oscar potential) and Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood." [The Film Experience]

•  Anne Thompson comments on a record-breaking weekend for "American Gangster." [Thompson on Hollywood]

•  Jeffrey Wells talks "No Country" with Josh Brolin. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

•  Also passes on some second-hand information about Amy Adams' supposedly awards-quality performance drowning in the "timidity" of "Enchanted." [Hollywood Elsewhere]

•  Michael Ordoña talks to Best Supporting Actor contender Paul Dano about taking risks, passion and "There Will Be Blood." [Los Angeles Times]

•  Rachel Abramowitz spit-balls "Persepolis" with the brilliant Marjane Satrapi. [Los Angeles Times]

•  Chris Lee spotlights Will Smith and "I Am Legend."  (Here's a crazy idea: supposing Francis Lawrence and Akiva Goldsman didn't rape and pillage Richard Matheson's brilliant work, could Smith be a surprise lead actor contender?  Seriously.  It's a fantastic role.  Well -- yeah - I guess it IS Francis Lawrence and Akiva Goldsman.) [Los Angeles Times]

•  Rounding up the holiday movie love fest, Gina Piccalo talks "The Golden Compass" with director Chris Weitz. [Los Angeles Times]

•  Caryn James gets into the subject of violence in the season's cinema.  I just finished a piece for this trade on the VERY SAME SUBJECT.  At least we're all on the same page...it'll be a Bloody Christmas indeed. [New York Times]

•  Sylviane Gold talks to Stephen Sondheim, Tim Burton and Johnny Depp about "Sweeney Todd." [New York Times]

There is a lot of talk lately about the eligibility of Robert Zemeckis' upcoming "Beowulf" in the Best Animated Feature category.  There is also a concerted effort to refrain from pitching the film as an animated endeavor for awards attention.  Additionally, the director himself has even said that "to call performance capture animation is a disservice to the great animators."

The fact is that it's very likely the animation branch will not nominate Zemeckis' motion-capture film, just as they snubbed "The Polar Express" in 2004.  The sound departments will certainly be on board (Gerard Kennedy fleshed out some interesting talking points with sound mixer Randy Thom at In Contention yesterday), and perhaps the music branch will follow suit -- again, just as in 2004.  But whether the film is good enough to muster a Best Picture nomination is still to be seen

Regardless of all of this, I think it's worth taking note of Zemeckis' obvious desire to push the industry forward by leaps and bounds.  Maybe he deserves some kind of recognition outside of the Oscar ceremony's typical order of proceedings.

In 1988, Zemeckis' "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" garnered a Special Achievement award for animation director Richard Williams, and it was obviously very deserving considering how innovative the effort was at the time.  It's been a while since the Academy has gone out of its way to offer such a designation, and given that Zemeckis is leading the charge on what very well could be the next major phase in cinema technology, perhaps it's time to dust that award off and toss it his way once again.

After "Beowulf," Zemeckis will be diving right back into the motion-capture fray with the Jim Carrey-starrer "A Christmas Carol," in which Carrey will portray Ebenezer Scrooge and all four of the ghosts from the tale.