Ay caramba! Is America's worst slob, Homer Simpson, even lower than a rat?

Perhaps not, says Edward Douglas of Comingsoon.net: "I think 'The Simpsons Movie' is going to be Pixar's prime competition at the Oscars," he says, referring to presumed front-runner "Ratatouille."

Other potential contenders: "Shrek the Third" (the original won the first Oscar for Best Animated Feature; part two was nommed), "Bee Movie," "Surf's Up" and, perhaps, "Beowulf."

But according to Jeffrey Wells of Hollywood-Elsewhere.com, "'Ratatouille,' at this stage, has the lead. Apart from the fact that it's one of the best animated films ever."

"The race is largely over for this year with the artistry and box office success of 'Ratatouille' absolutely dwarfing everything else," declares Pete Hammond of Maxim and HollywoodWiretap.com.

To which I add this warning: rats!

Let's recall that last year "Flushed Away" looked like a shoo-in to be nommed for Best Animated Feature, considering its rave reviews and its pedigree: created by DreamWorks and the Oscar-winning creators of "Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit." But at Oscar time, it vanished down, well, a rat hole. When it comes to choosing between Homer Simpson and a rodent this year, beware: those snooty Hollywooders may feel compelled to embrace, with pinched nostrils, Springfield's worst.

When I asked Jeffrey Wells of Hollywood-Elsewhere.com to pipe in on the Oscar race for Best Animated Feature (CLICK HERE), he brought up a fascinating question: Is "Beowulf" eligible?

Jeff saw a reel of footage yesterday and it "may not, according to the Academy's 'Rule Seven,' be an animated film," he warns. "It's a real eyeball-popper and clearly something else in the realm of animation — each and every frame is, in fact, animated by the standard of digital animation — but the Academy seems to be saying that any film that starts with live action footage and then uses digital animation to enhance or augment that footage (like Richard Linklater's 'Waking Life' and 'A Scanner Darkly') is not eligible.

"The animation in this film, however, is real animation. It's not unvarnished reality. And it's also live action at the core. It was shot at Culver Studios against a green screen. It just doesn't seem to fit the Academy's definition. Roger Avary is calling it digitally enhanced live action, but it's also, in my view, unquestionably, animation. It's also mind-blowing. I loved it."

CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING JEFF'S RIFF

Here is Oscar's Rule Seven: CLICK HERE

Weeks before "The Simpsons Movie" bowed to such boffo box office, it was already an award winner having picked up the prize for best animated movie preview at the 8th annual Golden Trailer Awards. Those May 31 festivities feted a variety of films including "300" and "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix."  CLICK HERE for the full list of winners.

Trailers (so named because they used to unspool at the end of the feature film) can be the most effective marketing tool studios have for generating buzz about their upcoming slate. A good trailer makes you want to see the movie, teasing you with snippets of scenes and dialogue. And a bad one gives away too much, showing you all you want to know and more.

Four more possible Academy Award contenders have new previews available online.

CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING

Last Sunday marked the final performances of three musicals on Broadway. The acclaimed revival of "110 in the Shade" closed as scheduled, leaving leading lady and four-time Tony winner Audra McDonald free to fly west to join the cast of the "Grey's Anatomy" spin-off "Private Practice." And "Beauty and the Beast," the legit version of the first animated film nominated for the best picture Oscar, ended after a lucky 13 years, making it the sixth longest running show on the Rialto.

Then there was the surprise shuttering of "Grey Gardens," only seven weeks after Christine Ebersole and Mary Louise Wilson both won Tonys for playing the eccentric relatives of Jackie Kennedy who lived in squalor in the tony Hamptons. When Wilson had announced in late June she was leaving as planned at the end of July, theater insiders expected her role to be recast. But the show proved to be a hard sell to the tourists who fill theater seats in the summer months. Leading lady Ebersole is still hoping to transfer the tuner to the West End in the coming months.

Oscar champ Woody Allen calls Ingmar Bergman "the greatest artist since the invention of the motion picture camera."

Oscar disagrees. When Bergman died today, peacefully in his sleep at age 89, he left this life technically never having won an Academy Award.

Yes, yes, three of his pix won best foreign-language film ("Fanny & Alexander," "The Virgin Spring," "Through a Glass Darkly"), but those statuettes went to the movies' producers, not its director. Personally, he was nominated many times in other categories, but he never won. Ultimately, the academy gave him the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1970 as an honorary consolation prize, but that award is given for producing and it's a bust of the 1930s studio wunderkind, not an Oscar statuette.

The film world's "greatest artist" should've won best picture and director at least once in his career, don't you agree?

But that was impossible, of course, because the Oscar really isn't the fair, wide-open, international contest it pretends to be. While a few foreign-language films have been nominated for the top best-picture award over the years — including Bergman's "Cries and Whispers" (it lost to "The Sting") — none has won and it's unlikely that one ever will.

Did any of Bergman's movies deserve to triumph? The National Society of Film Critics thought so. Twice it bestowed its best-picture prize to works by the Swedish genius: "Persona" and "Scenes From a Marriage."

Now the death of Ingmar Bergman seems to be the perfect time to address the Oscar inequity. Make that the Oscar absurdity.

More thanks to the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for providing us with crucial info about which video samples are being viewed by Emmy judges. Here are the episode titles submitted in the guest-acting categories.

GUEST ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES
Beau Bridges, "My Name Is Earl" ("Guess Who's Coming Out of Joy")
Martin Landau, "Entourage" ("What About Bob")
Sir Ian McKellen, "Extras" ("Sir Ian McKellen")
Giovanni Ribisi, "My Name Is Earl" ("Van Hickey")
Stanley Tucci, "Monk" ("Mr. Monk and the Actor")

"Boston Legal's" bid for drama series — that's the overwhelming verdict of our forum posters declaring the worst Emmy nom of the year. Even though The Envelope's poll offered 12 options, about half (47%) of respondents chose just one: ABC's legal thriller.

In second place, with 12%: "Two and a Half Men's" nom for best comedy series. SEE FULL RESULTS - CLICK HERE!

I voted for "Inside the Actors Studio" for nonfiction series. Such shameless, disgusting, indulgent slobbering over celebs should really be declared obscene by the U.S. Supreme Court, I say — right after it lifts all objections to pornography.

Just for fun I threw in Kevin Dillon as an option in the poll — to see all hell break loose among the hipster dudes and testosterone-charged "Entourage" fanboyz in our forums. Sure enough, they went ballistic at the suggestion that Dillon's Emmy nomination for supporting actor in a comedy series might be considered in a league below, say, Richard Burton's Oscar nom for "Becket."

But, speaking of Academy Award parallels, at least Dillon's Emmy bid ain't an outright joke like the Oscar nomination recently reaped by "The Departed" star Mark Wahlberg . . .

No more fence-straddling or lollygagging permitted! If you consider yourself to be a true awards guru, then prove it! Join our contest to predict 24 Emmy categories RIGHT HERE! Our "Road to Gold" pool is now open! Dive in! CLICK HERE!

Here's a schedule of imminent DVD releases of leading Emmy nominees. For example, you can put in an advance order right now for the first season of "Ugly Betty" at Amazon.com for $38.99.

"House M.D." (Season 3) -- Aug. 21

"Ugly Betty" (Season 1) -- Aug. 21

"Friday Night Lights" -- Aug. 28

"Heroes" -- Aug. 28

"Ugly Betty" and star America Ferrera won best TV program and actress at the Imagen Awards, which hail entertainment by and about Latinos. Among film honorees, "Pan's Labyrinth" took best picture, director (Guillermo del Toro) and actress (Ivana Baquero).

While Mel Gibson's "Apocalypto" lost best picture, stars Gerardo Taracena and Dalia Hernandez were chosen best supporting actor and actress. More than 2,000 people attended ceremonies at the Walt Disney Concert Hall. CLICK HERE FOR A COMPLETE LIST OF WINNERS.