In a fluky show of solidarity, an Oscar winner and an Oscar presenter/hopeful/soon-to-be-exile spent the week demonstrating the full spectrum of women's power behind the camera. First, Reese Witherspoon hit the press circuit for Penelope, the new indie featuring Christina Ricci as a girl cursed with a pig nose and co-star Witherspoon in her debut as a producer. Stepping up from the more nominal executive producing duties she adopted for Legally Blonde 2, Witherspoon oversaw everything from development to distribution for her Type A Films shingle:

Perhaps to inject the otherwise snoozy Oscars tonight (no parties! Stewart again! predictable winners!) with some pizazz, the actresses on the carpet went with red dresses in all shades: Katherine Heigl, sans Josh as far as we could tell, wore a fire engine red one-strap number; Miley Cyrus proved she's still a girl, but not yet a woman, in a tight bright red dress to show off her underage, yet budding, figure; Helen Mirren proved once again that being a slightly more "mature" actress in no way means you can't look sexy. Take a look at all the ladies who took red and made it work:

As we read over the list of Oscar presenters released this morning, one sparkly name took all our attention away from the otherwise predictable lot — Miss Miley Cyrus. Just last week, producers of the Grammy Awards dissed the Tween Queen by not asking the biggest star in the recording industry to either perform or present during their flatlining ceremony. However, now Miley is riding high after being scooped up by the typically snobby Oscars. So what gives? Looks to us like quirky duck Gil Cates has his eye squarely trained on the Nielsen numbers.

Engulfed by automotive-safety-related controversy following a disturbing Consumer Reports exposé on their failure to wear seatbelts in a single scene in Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour, the Cyrus family was forced to apologize for giving millions of teens the false impression that Miley thinks it's totally hot to die in a car accident. It's totally not, says a regretful Billy Ray, so buckle up even if it's just a short minivan ride to your Hannah shows, rainbow parties, or whatever it is the kids are into these days: "We got caught up in the moment of filming, and we made a mistake and forgot to buckle our seatbelts. Seatbelt safety is extremely important." [People, Consumer Reports]

Yesterday, Fandango.com released a gushing statement to the press declaring that Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert had officially become their "best-selling concert film ever." Now, Var tells us this morning that the tweeny 3D release may be a biggie in more ways than just pre-sale ticket figures; some pundits are projecting that the concert movie could trump Jessica Alba's The Eye at the B.O. this weekend. The larger question, though? Have tweenybops become the new target demo for box office breakouts? Or will the potentially sold-out-everywhere Montana movie just turn out line upon line of horndogs recently captivated by those recently surfaced Miley Underwear pics?

Disney's latest teen star Hannah Montana also has a real name. That real name is Miley Cyrus, a personality no less scripted than her character. She's a pop singer and a fourteen year old. She helps sick kids, eats steak and charms Times music writer Kelefa Sanneh. And just as soon as America found a minor pop star who seemed wholesome and pure, these filthy filthy photographs of Ms. Cyrus in what appears to be a "sleepover" surface. We saw them on NS4W.org (.ORG!). They are, parenthetically, totally safe for work. Except that Cyrus isn't wearing pants.

In a story that tidily summed up the Spirit of the Holidays™, a Texas girls' clothing chain offering four seats and a flight to see Miley Cyrus's solidly sold-out concert tour chose as the winner of its essay contest the six-year-old who began her entry, "My daddy died this year in Iraq." Trouble was, her daddy had never been to Iraq, and was alive and well living in the next town over. To listen to her mother, who orchestrated the entire thing, go on at length with a TV reporter about how she was never once told the "essay had to be true" and thus took offense at being labeled a liar, is to truly catch a chilling glimpse into the dark heart of a Hannah Montana concert-ticket-seeking parent's soul. But that would prove to be the lesser of two weekend controversies for the Disney Channel star:

As George and his A-list Clooneyites take a step back from electioneering, the resulting vacuum has found an unlikely demographic with which to fill the celebrity-grandstanding void: Hollywood's young starlets, whom, inspired by their patron saint Angelina Jolie's willingness to get her hands dirty with some face-to-face human suffering along her far-flung orphan-collecting travels, have now taken it upon themselves to do more for their own pet causes. The LAT reports:

It's not for nothing that youth-skewed cable network The Disney Channel has long been referred to by their competition as "Mickey's Little Tramp Factory," having churned out a steady stream of them since its 1983 launch. Its latest vixenish graduate, High School Musical star Vanessa Hudgens, was recently caught traipsing nakedly across the internets and into the hard drives of countless hormonally charged tweens and pervy MySpace users posing as such.