· It's a record-setting Oscar year, and not a single award has been handed out yet: Dreamgirls has the most nominations in history without receiving a Best Picture nod; not since the very first Oscars have none of the nominated Best Actor performances come from the nominated Best Pictures*; and only once before have none of the Best Picture nominees received a single cinematography nomination. Another Oscar milestone: No former men's underwear models have been nominated in any acting category since the 1937 ceremony, when popular longjohns pin-up of the day Leonard "Chug" Diamond lost Best Supporting to Walter Brennan. [Variety]
· Finally, Toho Co. chairman Isao Matsuoka will get his due, receiving the ShoWest International Lifetime Achievement Award for excellence in bringing film programming to Japan, including a guarantee to every ticket buyer that they won't be crushed by a runaway SUV while watching Hello, Dream Kittens!, the dubbed Japanese version of Dreamgirls. [THR]
· Not to be outdone by the LAT's The Envelope, the NY Times launches their own awards section, Awards Season. Lead story: How the Oscar-nominated foreign films are the category to look to this year for the Big, Message Pictures the Academy usually loves. [NY Times]
· Commercial time is sold out for the Oscars telecast, with advertisers shelling out an estimated $1.7 million per ad, courting a somewhat more sophisticated audience than the Super Bowl. In other words, expect the two accidentally gay guys making out over a shared Snickers bar to be corporate lawyers, not mechanics. [The Carpetbagger]

*Our previous wording allowed for the exception of Leo, as a commenter points out.