Autotune, the technology giving guys like T-Pain, Akon, and Kanye West's 808s & Heartbreak their trademark sounds, was supposedly murdered by Jay-Z. Not so much: the I AM T-PAIN iPhone app enables ordinary folk to sound just like him.

Are you still trying to scrub the memory of those heinous Emmy awards from your brain? Perhaps this rumor will do the trick. We can all agree that one of the only bright spots of the awards were when Ricky Gervais did that “give me my Emmy” bit with Steve Carell. Well, according to E-Dubs (that’s Entertainment Weekly for you laymen), after that performance, “his reps were besieged with inquiries about his availability and were urged to book a meeting with Academy Awards organizers, stat.” So does that mean Ricky’s gonna host the Oscars? He’d probably do an incredible job, and frankly, he’s the only host who actually feels exciting these days. We’ve already been down the Jon Stewart and Ellen DeGeneres roads, Billy Crystal has been M.I.A. for years, and if they go with Whoopi again, America will pluck out its collective eyeballs in protest. So why not give a Brit a chance?He’ll certainly be in good company, now that Dreamgirls director Bill Condon has been tapped to executive produce the upcoming Oscar telecast. This is the same dude who wrote the screenplay for Chicago, so he definitely knows how to razzle-dazzle ‘em. But he also directed Kinsey and Gods and Monsters, so which Bill Condon will show up? Will it be his glitzy, gaudy musical side or his frank-exploration-of-human-sexuality side? Either way, it should make for an interesting evening, and as long as five reality hosts aren’t involved, we’ll be watching. [Photo Credits: Getty Images]

We needed a little time today to digest our feelings after the miserable box-office showing of Meet Dave, whose free-fall over the weekend resulted in the ugliest opening of Eddie Murphy's career. Not having seen it, we have to assume that $5.1 million gross aside, the film is at least superior to Norbit (not to mention Vampire in Brooklyn, Pluto Nash and a sprinkling of other Murphy misfires over the years). We'd even venture to say it'll be better than Beverly Hills Cop IV, the PG-rated abomination to which Murphy and Brett Ratner are attached for Paramount. Certainly it's better than The Love Guru, whose own beleaguered comic icon Mike Myers nevertheless had flowers and a thank-you note on Murphy's porch by sometime Sunday afternoon.

In what could point towards a slackening of the once-rigorous standards for recruitment into their Celebrity Goodwill Ambassadorship grooming programing, American Idol survivor and recent Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson was invited to address the U.N. yesterday. She wasn't there to tattle to the Committee on Human Rights Violations about Simon Cowell's Geneva Convention-violating treatment of fellow Idol contestants, however, but rather to represent ladies' face-painting giant Avon (she's their new spokesmodel!) on International Women's Day:

Now that the Oscar ballot deadline has passed, the DreamWorks publicity team can safely shift its focus from designing Dreamgirls ads aimed at reminding Academy voters of frequently latex-hampered thespian Eddie Murphy's mastery of the awards-baiting man-cry to ones like this full-pager that appeared in today's Variety, publicly apologizing for the confusing dramatic license the film may have taken with the Motown story. There's some background on the reasons for the mea culpa here, including a quote from Berry Gordy's public statement applauding the studio for reminding everyone about the difference between movie semi-magic and reality, demonstrating no bitterness that Jamie Foxx's performance as the character based on him wasn't good enough to get an Oscar nomination.

The peace of a Torrington, Connecticut multiplex was shattered Monday night, when an audience in the process of being vaguely disappointed by a 7:00 p.m. showing of Dreamgirls was suddenly jarred out of its immersively underwhelming cinematic experience by the unexpected intrusion of an out-of-control SUV barreling through the wall of the theater. The establishment's owner was predictably shocked by the unplanned intermission:

Presumably a little frightened by yesterday's LAT story wondering whether the inopportunely timed release of Norbit might make Oscar voters a little skittish about handing over their coveted acting prize to a man who's currently celebrating his craft from underneath a hundred pounds of cellulite-scarred latex, the DreamWorks publicity teams rushed this For Your Consideration ad in the trades today, one which immediately reminds the soul-searching Academy member that beneath those layers of stunt-blubber is a nuanced performer capable of an awards-worthy man-cry.

· More 2007 Flackies highlights: CBS President Nina Tassler picked up the Television Showmanship Award, Sony's Michael Lynton and Amy Pascal won the Motion Picture Showmanship Award, and Bob Barker, accepting the ICG President's Award, reminded the crowd "to have your pets spayed and neutered," though the microphone was quickly turned off before he could go on to suggest doing the same for publicists. [Variety]
· An e-mailed conversation between Fox Searchlight's two nominated screenwriters, Michael Arndt (Little Miss Sunshine) and Patrick Marber (Notes on a Scandal). It's billed as "dishy," but we've read it twice now and there isn't a single word about how Abigail Breslin is actually a 48-year-old woman with a growth deficiency. [The Envelope]
· Your completely unsubstantiated Oscars rumor of the day: Diana Ross has been approached to sing one of the three nominated Dreamgirls songs. [Starpulse]
· Honorary Oscar recipient Ennio Morricone thought he'd never win an Oscar, telling the AP, "I have received so many beautiful, incredible prizes, but there was a little hole. Maybe the Oscar fills the hole." Maybe he does, Ennio. Maybe he does. [AP]
· Our favorite Oscar headline of the day: "Botox-aided pianist: Oscar cocumentary nod a 'gas'" No, we are not kidding. [Jewish Journal]

Eddie Murphy, according to today's LAT and various people not completely charmed by the actor's recent emergence from seclusion to humbly accept a handful of trinkets from various press organizations and professional guilds, might have a problem. While he's the frontrunner™ for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his eye-opening, "Hey, he can act!" turn in Dreamgirls, his peers in the Academy might pause as the quivering tips of their fountain pens approach his name on their ballots, have their minds flooded with unpleasant thoughts about the advisability of bestowing the single greatest honor in the history of human endeavor upon a man whose current project demands a Martin Lawrence-level of craft, and, after recovering from a prolonged vomiting fit brought on by thoughts of being asphyxiated by the disturbingly realistic, dimple-riddled ladyfolds of Murphy's Norbit costume, cast their votes for Djimon Hounsou.

· Celine Dion, the French Canadian chanteuse extraordinaire with seemingly insurmountable daddy issues, will be premiering a new song at the Oscars: "I Knew I Loved You," an Ennico Morricone composition with all new lyrics by Alan and Marilyn "Papa Can You Hear Me?" Bergman. [AP]
· Five time Grammy nominee James Blunt will be performing at Elton John's annual Oscar party at the Pacific Design Center. Whether that's an improvement or not over last year's entertainment, triple Grammy winner John Legend, we couldn't tell you, though it doesn't exactly surprise us that Elton's a real adult-contemporary Grammy whore. [ABCNews]
· Melissa Etheridge, nominated for An Inconvenient Truth's "I Need to Wake Up," compares the Oscars to the Grammys: "Being an Oscar nominee is a hundred times more intense. It's old school. They have rules—and they do things by the rules. The Grammys are more laid back." Translation: You're far less likely to stumble across a hastily scrawled sign reading, "DOIN SOME GROUPIES. DO NOT DISTURB" backstage at the Oscars. (But it's not out of the realm of possibility.) [LA Daily News]
· Bill Condon is putting together a Dreamgirls reunion performance, featuring Jennifer Hudson and "my Dreamgirls sisters," as she put it at Monday's luncheon. They'll start rehearsing just as soon as they can convince an increasingly unhinged Beyoncé to emerge from the bathroom in which she's been running a lipstick over her mouth while rocking back and forth and repeating, "You're still prettier, babygirl!" since last Thursday. [Orlando Sentinel]

Just in case you haven't yet had your fill of stories about the backbiting between Paramount emperor Brad Grey and the sneaky studio usurpers crouching not-so-quietly inside the DreamWorks Trojan Horse he bought a year ago, the LA Weekly's Nikki Finke reports that skeletal Viacom executive presence Sumner Redstone may have signed Grey's death certificate by letting slip at a cozy power-player dinner party a rather impolitic comment about why Dreamgirls found itself without a Best Picture nomination. Clasping your hand to your mouth while trying to suppress an outraged "Oh. No. He. Did. Int!" is completely optional as you read on:

· Quite frankly, we're surprised that the YouTubes haven't been completely jammed up with videos of people lip-syncing to Dreamgirls songs.
· Please contact Kevin Costner immediately and direct him to If I Blog It, They Will Come.
· Today in Who Is And Who Isn't A Celebrity Scientologist: Posh Spice: Isn't. J.Lo: Isn't, but her father is. Tom Cruise: Still is.
· Why Hitchcock wouldn't talk to the kid who made the fish movie.
· And, just because: Priapic iguana has his penis cut off. But good news: He has two of them! [via BoingBoing]

While we're generally content to let our wrong-coasted siblings over at Gawker have all the adventures in contextual advertising, we ran across this Little Miss Sunshine For Your Consideration ad in rotation around today's story about What Went Wrong with Paramount/DreamWorks' Oscar campaign for Dreamgirls. (Refreshing the page a few times might also yield a peek at the Dreamgirls FYC spot fighting for too-little-too-late pageviews.) If you watch Fox Searchlight's animated attempt to rub in "Little Best Picture's" nomination triumph closely enough, you may be able to see a single, fleeting frame in which the Sunshine's drug-addled grandpa symbolically shoves Beyoncé out of the film's iconic VW bus.

· Yesterday's Oscar nominations lead studios to adjust the release strategies for their recognized films, with Warner Bros. expanding The Departed from about 100 to almost 1500 screens and adding more showings of Iwo Jima this Friday; meanwhile, a despondent Paramount will fight the urge to yank Dreamgirls from theaters over its Best Picture snub. [Variety]
· A re-energized Harvey Weinstein continues his Sundance "feeding frenzy," "gobbling up a smorgasbord of films," bragging, "At this point, I'm buying shit just to piss off Sony Pictures Classics. Fuck, I'm good." [THR]
· American Idol continues to crush the hopes and dreams of rival network execs, pulling in 32.6 million more viewers even when hampered by the State of the Union address. [Variety]
· Dreamgirls' failure to be included in the Best Picture race deprives Oscar handicappers of the reliable predictive strategy of picking the most-nominated film to win the big prize, throwing the entire race into utter, wide-open chaos. [THR]
· Former MPAA head Jack Valenti defends the organization's pilloried ratings system, noting that surveys reveal that it serves its intended purpose of helping parents shield their children from exposed breasts while simultaneously allowing them maximum exposure to graphic violence. Also, a white elephant is mentioned, whom Valenti credits with originally dictating the ratings guidelines to him. [Variety]

· Pictured: At this morning's Oscar nominations announcement, Salma Hayek is thrilled to learn that Academy president Sid Ganis was just kidding when he told her that part of her duty as co-presenter was to give him a topless hot-oil massage at the conclusion of the press conference.
· While everyone's in an uproar over the Dakota Fanning rape movie at Sundance, no one's said anything about the one where Fanning rapes Rainn Wilson, a truly disturbing double-standard.
· Anna Nicole Smith is exactly as literate as you'd suspected.
· Jamie Foxx is exactly as classy as you'd suspected.
· It might be time for DreamWorks to cut down on that Dreamgirls For Your Consideration budget.
· Quickly, before he takes the podium: Here's your State of the Union drinking game.

· The Gold Derby blog's Tom O'Neil didn't take the Dreamgirls shut-out too well, but after some deep soul-searching and spiritual communion with his higher, musical-loving power, decided the only logical explanation was that Academy members simply couldn't identify with the African American, showtune-belting experience. Or, as he puts it, "Because they can't break out of their white skins, that's why." [GoldDerby]
· For counterpoint's sake, here's New York critic David Edelstein's thoughts on the matter: "I thought Dreamgirls was thoroughly mediocre (with one song, "We Are Family," among the most eardrum-lacerating things I've ever heard), but the dis is stunning." [New York]
· Imagine hearing this on your United flight into LAX: "The women in row 23 just got nominated for an Academy Award!" Then imagine the wild applause dying down once the captain comes back on the P.A. to announce, "Sorry, folks. False alarm...unless you're a big fan of documentaries about Jesus going to summer camp or something." [Yahoo/AP]
· With this year's Best Picture nominees grossing even less than last year's crop, Ellen DeGeneres is going to have to dance until her tuxedo is soaked through if she expects audiences to show up and stay. [PopWatch]

It just goes to show, there are no sure things. Well, except that we will continue to have these Adventures.

Hollywood's Christmas Morning is finally here, the time when eager Oscar hopefuls rise at an obscenely early hour, rush downstairs in their footie pajamas, and hope to find the previous year's good career behavior validated with lovingly wrapped awards nominations left under the Academy's gilded tree; those deemed good enough for recognition spend the day fielding phone calls from the media, who ask difficult questions about how it feels to be on the receiving end of the golden shower of adoration offered by one's peers (invariably, it feels good! And it's an honor just to be nominated!), while the snubbed quickly retreat back up the stairs to their bedrooms, where they self-medicate their soul-crushing disappointment by swallowing handfuls of prescription painkillers, sobbing through their publicist's assurances that they're still so very, very pretty, and that in this day of the YouTubes, no one watches the Oscars anyway.

Obviously looking to stir up some trouble, an anonymous tipster dropped us this note about the conspicuous table-hopping activities of Paramount emperor Brad Grey, whose various fiefdoms came away with awards for Dreamgirls and Babel:

The NY Times' David "The Carpetbagger" Carr explores the heart-stopping, bowel-loosening effect that yesterday's national day of mourning (and postal service interruption) to recognize former President Gerald Ford's passing had on studio publicists anxious to get their screeners into awards voters' hands on the first work day of the new year, who spent a jittery, mail-free Tuesday contemplating the cruel "purgatory" in which their precious DVDs languished because of the utterly inconvenient death of a former President: