The Curious Case of Benjamin Button star Cate Blanchett was awarded with that most exclusive of all Hollywood decorations presented within spitting distance of a technicolor-wig store, the Walk of Fame star. There to share in the honor were producer Kathleen Kennedy, Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Crystal Skull director Steven Spielberg, and begoateed Button director himself David Fincher, who in his prepared statement likened Blanchett's luminous beauty and staggering talent to "my second rimjob. My first wasn't so hot, but the second one, I was like, 'OK—I think I get it. Yeah—this is pretty awesome.' That's how I feel about Cate Blanchett. I just get it, and I think she's pretty awesome."

The studio fatwa prohibiting early reviews of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button has ended, it seems, with Variety leading the critical charge online late Sunday. Prepare to be shocked by the general consensus: It's good, and will surely be nominated for Oscars! Who could have seen this coming? Nevertheless, the film has its detractors, and we hear from them — along with those slobbering at its altar — after the jump. (Light spoilers ahead.)· "David Fincher and screenwriter Eric Roth (Forrest Gump) have delivered an historic achievement, a masterful piece of cinema, and a moving treatise on death, loss, loneliness and love. As the movie proceeds, and Brad Pitt as Button ages backwards, we know where he is headed: it's where we are all going. But he feels he has to go there by himself, without his loved ones. And nobody wants to die alone." — Anne Thompson, Variety · "Perhaps it’s my youthful cynicism, who knows, but I thought Fincher brought an arm’s length approach to the emotions in the film and I wanted Roth’s reaction to that. Of course, Roth doesn’t particularly agree with my take. Indeed, he was right in the middle of telling me how the bathroom was filled with sobbers after the screening when a beautiful young lady walked up to us and told him how much the movie had affected her. But he took my comment in stride. 'Fincher is the kind of director that brings you right up to the point of sentiment and then brings it back,' he said. 'There’s something to be said for that I think.' " — Kris Tapley, InContention

The notable celebrity feuds of late have all been between well-matched pugilists: take the Battle of the British Funnymen (starring Ricky Gervais and Simon Pegg) or the Jewish Comic Conflict of '08 (pitting Sarah Silverman against Jackie Mason). Now, though, word has broken about a feud between two stars so different, it's hard to imagine them even sharing airspace: fulsome serial divorcer Pamela Anderson and Oscar-honored Cate Blanchett.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has been unveiled at last for international critics, and with most verdicts coming in mixed to above-average, our discriminating tastes still found much left to be desired. Defamer editor Seth Abramovitch and senior editor S.T. VanAirsdale attended yesterday's screenings in Los Angeles and New York, respectively, after which the slow process of psychological reckoning and franchise restoration began the only way they knew how: via instant messaging.

• Actress Cate Blanchett had her third son, Ignatius Martin, with husband Andrew Upton. Ignatius was born in Sydney. [People]

Thank God it's really cheap to fly to Australia. Cate Blanchett is scheduled to play Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire in Sydney, August 2009. The production will be staged by the Sydney Theatre Company, for which Blanchett and her husband are the artistic directors. [Playbill]

Compared to the last few years of beige, gold and altogether safe ensembles, this year's Academy Awards carpet was delightfully packed with surprising silhouettes (Heidi's exaggerated popped collar), feather detail that drifted nowhere near tackiness (Jessica Alba), and form-fitting strapless dresses that made actresses (gasp!) look like they have actual curvalicious figures (Cameron Diaz). Herewith, our glance at who we think stopped the show last night with their expertly picked dresses.

The question on the minds of the glossy mags isn't who will take home little gold men on Sunday night, but rather who'll make the biggest fashion faux-pas. And there's no shortage of mistakes made by this year's Best Actress nominees in the past. But we aren't hoping for new additions to the Fashion Police Hall of Fame; instead, we went digging through the archives to find the biggest mistake all five actresses tend to make in the style department, and our suggestions for which signature looks they should keep in mind to achieve sartorial success come Sunday.

[Actress Cate Blanchett speaking yesterday at the Santa Barbara Film Festival; image via AP]

Is Variety secretly trying to destroy Cate Blanchett's Oscar chances? In an illustration for a strange satirical piece that connects films from 2007 with tenuously related tabloid stories, they've disturbingly grafted Blanchett's Elizabeth: The Golden Age head onto Britney Spears' spangled-underthings-clad, MTV VMAs-era form, creating a pop-star/monarch abomination that will surely haunt the dreams of any Academy voter unlucky enough to flip to page B3.

• Katie Holmes, running as "Katie Smith," finished the marathon in 5 hours, 29 minutes and 58 seconds. Thanks, Scientology! [NYP]
  

"'I may be jumping the gun," [Harvey] Weinstein said, "but if Cate Blanchett doesn't get nominated, I'll shoot myself.'" [NYT]

Harvey Weinstein, seasonal mounter of bloody, take-no-prisoners Oscar campaigns that leave scores of voters forever scarred by his onslaught, knows that it's never to early to start For Your Consideration pimping for his beloved talent. In a NY Times story about the strategically slow rollout of I'm Not There, the Bob Dylan biopic (trailer here for the curious) in which the musician is portrayed by no fewer than 700 different actors, Weinstein threatens suicide if his favorite Dylan isn't recognized by the Academy:

· Even more than the original that inspired it, we blame this video for the loss of David Hasselhoff's visitation rights.
· Also pretty disturbing: This photo of Cate Blanchett.
· Nearly as unappetizing: the French Spider-Man cheeseburger.
· And don't even go there, sez Chloe!
· Now that you mention it: What's up with the ball-gag?

We've been waiting for the perfect moment to share the above, stunning, reader-supplied fan art depicting the CAA Death Star turning its particle cannons on ICM's inferior new headquarters (please notice the wonderful grace notes of the tiny Kevin Huvane and Jeff Berg photos adorning their respective fortresses), and given this morning's various reports on the evil agenting monolith's latest strides toward Hollywood hegemony, we might as well put it up now.

Sometimes, the pressures of working on a Big Important Picture get to be just a little too much; it then falls to the star to help loosen the mood of a challenging production, using anything and everything at their disposal to raise the spirits of cast and crew. And while George Clooney is considered a master of the genre, concocting elaborate ruses that can take months to unfold, his frequent Oceans co-star Brad Pitt tends to go for the easier laugh: