· The Departed writer William Monahan will pen a true crime story based on an article about "a drug dealer who traded a prison sentence to go undercover at a maximum security hospital for the criminally insane." The piece will will appear in Playboy later this year: Look for the issue with either the politician-toppling hooker or supporting star of The Hills on the cover. [Variety]
· The boys from local sketch comedy troupe Summer of Tears have sold a screenplay, titled Beat Kip, to Paramount Vantage. Envious sketch comedy troupes are claiming the Tears boys used their past history as strippers to their self-promotional advantage. [THR]
· Sundance Channel, owned by CBS, NBC Universal and Robert Redford, may be up for sale, available for Rupert Murdoch to snatch up, hack the "Sun" prefix from its name, and replace its indie oasis mandate with 24-hour So You Think You Can Dance marathons. [THR]

• One Letter Off 2 [Worth1000]

10:19 So I finally asked a question of Graham King, the producer of best picture winner "The Departed:" What did he think about the Brad Grey controversy, the fact that the Paramount Pictures head was denied a producing credit? "I think he deserved the credit on the picture, but I don't make the rules." No, he doesn't, but as the sole credited producer, he did give the speech at the Kodak — and Brad Grey wasn't in it.

We're sure that King's omission of Grey was just an honest mistake (or, at the very least, an attempt not to bore a billion people* with an explanation of why Grey couldn't join him on the stage) and that the Paramount chief carried no ill feelings to the various after-parties they'd both later attend. Still, the security detail at the Vanity Fair event was on high alert to monitor any interactions between the two men, just in case Grey's jilting finally overwhelmed him, leading him to try and drown the victorious King in a chocolate fountain and make off with his loaner Oscar.

[*Not really a billion people.]

• Liveblogging the Oscars: In which we take it from the top [Var On The Town]

The field seems to have left a number of academy voters feeling dispirited. One director said he stared at the ballot and considered leaving the best picture category blank. Then he gave Clint a tribute vote. A publicist told us he did not check favorites in a couple of major categories for the first time in his years of voting. "I just said, 'Fuck it, I don't like any of 'em,' " he explained. [...]

When it comes to best picture, the publicist says, "These are five movies that will be largely forgotten. Other than maybe The Departed, as a cable staple."

After scanning the uninspiring ballot, the anonymous, disenchanted flack opted instead to slowly rip the pages from his voting booklet, crumple each into a perfect ball, then proceed to chew and swallow them in their entirety. Approximately 32 hours later, he was able to make a far more effective protest statement about the state of cinematic excellence in 2007 than had he merely left a few boxes unchecked and dropped his ballot in the mail.

• None of the Above [Slate]

The full press release (including the names of those awarded the Little Miss Sunshine producing credits) is after the jump:

January 26, 2007 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: [redacted]

Academy Announces
Best Picture
Producer Credits

Beverly Hills, CA — The Producers Branch Executive Committee of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced the final roster of producers nominated in the Best Picture category for the 79th Annual Academy Awards®:

Best motion picture of the year
"Babel" (Paramount and Paramount Vantage)
An Anonymous Content/Zeta Film/
Central Films Production
Alejandro González Iñárritu, Jon Kilik and Steve Golin, Producers
"The Departed" (Warner Bros.)
A Warner Bros. Pictures Production Graham King, Producer
"Letters from Iwo Jima" (Warner Bros.)
A DreamWorks Pictures/Warner Bros. Pictures
Production Clint Eastwood, Steven Spielberg and Robert Lorenz, Producers
"Little Miss Sunshine" (Fox Searchlight)
A Big Beach/Bona Fide Production David T. Friendly, Peter Saraf and Marc Turtletaub, Producers
"The Queen" (Miramax, Pathé and Granada)
A Granada Production Andy Harries, Christine Langan and Tracey Seaward, Producers

The producers of the films "The Departed" and "Little Miss Sunshine" were not announced on January 23. The nominees for these two pictures were determined by the executive committee at a meeting on Thursday evening (1/25).

• Brad Grey Denied [Slate]
• Brad Grey Just Happy To Be 'Nominee To Be Determined' [Defamer]

On Tuesday, academy spokesman John Pavlik confirmed that an executive committee of the organization's producers branch would meet this week to decide which producers would be given credit on two films, "The Departed" and "Little Miss Sunshine." That will determine who gets to leap to the stage to accept the Oscar on Feb. 25 should either film win.

According to one person close to the matter, the decision to review's Grey's credit was prompted by letters to the academy from prominent Hollywood figures lobbying on Grey's behalf. [...]

Immediately after the [producers] guild's decision to credit King as producer of "The Departed," Grey's camp inquired about the academy's appeal process.

Grey recently acknowledged to confidants that making an appeal could be tricky especially if "The Departed" ended up competing with a Paramount film, as turned out to be the case. But he also believed he deserved credit for launching "The Departed," a view shared by Scorsese and [producer Graham] King.

Antiquated ideas about studio loyalty aside, one can hardly blame Grey for seeking the measure of Hollywood immortality granted by an Oscar; unlike antediluvian Viacom master Sumner Redstone, who recently gave him a lifetime appointment to his Paramount gig, Grey knows he won't live forever, and that his best shot at being remembered will be for the clip of his awkward acceptance speech for a The Departed Best Picture win, in which he addresses the Babel crew with, "Wow, I really wish you guys could be up here with me now to share this. The next time we all do a movie together, I promise to campaign a little harder so that you can get a chance to experience how fucking incredible this feels."

• Academy to ponder credit for 'Departed' [LAT]

Martin Scorsese's gangster film "The Departed" received nominations for best film, best director, best actor (Leonardo DiCaprio), supporting actor (Jack Nicholson), best acting ensemble, best writer (William Monahan) and best composer (Howard Shore). [...]

Also competing for best picture are ["Babel," "Little Miss Sunshine," "Dreamgirls,"] "Blood Diamond," "Letters From Iwo Jima," "Little Children," "Notes on a Scandal," "The Queen" and "United 93."

Joining DiCaprio for best actor are Ryan Gosling for "Half Nelson," Peter O'Toole for "Venus," Will Smith for "The Pursuit of Happyness" and "Forest Whitaker for "The Last King of Scotland."

Competing for best actress are Penelope Cruz for "Volver," Judi Dench for "Notes on a Scandal," Helen Mirren for "The Queen," Meryl Streep for "The Devil Wears Prada" and Kate Winslet for "Little Children."

Also worth nothing is their singling out of Ben Affleck for his turn in Hollywoodland—a role that had garnered positive reviews and a Venice film fest award when the movie was released back in early September, but that might have otherwise gotten lost in the awards shuffle—and the lack of a nomination for former bromance partner/better-career-decision-maker Matt Damon's work in The Departed. It remains to be seen if this might herald a reversal of fortune for the duo, with Damon unexpectedly entering a semi-retirement of taking care of his newborn and making well-photographed Starbucks runs, while Affleck, even more astoundingly, finds himself no longer the object ot tabloid ridicule as he embarks on a string of well-received movies.

• Broadcast Film Critics announce noms [The Envelope]

· The AFI list gets happy, including such lighthearted fare as Borat, The Devil Wears Prada, Dreamgirls, Happy Feet and Little Miss Sunshine. To even things out a bit, United 93 and Babel are singled out as having impressively maximized the depressing potential of their "doomed 9/11 aircraft" and "randomly shot American tourist on a marriage-salvaging bus tour of Morocco" subject matter. [Variety]

· The NY Film Critics Circle names Paul Greengrass's United 93 as the year's best picture, instantly sending Oliver Stone into a spiral of self-doubt over whether he should have maybe told a less uplifting 9-11 story, and not had it star the guy from Ghost Rider. Forest Whitaker and Helen Mirren both take the top acting awards, he for playing bloodthirsty, psychotic despot Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland, and she for playing bloodthirsty, psychotic despot Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen. [THR]
· The Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. names the non-Ryan-Phillippe -starring-chapter of Clint Eastwood's ode to World War II couplet, Letters From Iwo Jima, as the year's best picture. Mirren makes it two and two, as does Whitaker, though in a stunning upset, he ties Sacha Baron Cohen in the best actor category. Instantly, the specter of the overexposed Kazakh correspondent showing up to the Oscars to compliment the "hilarious man in charge of ceremony, Ellen DeGeneres" looms ominously. [The Envelope]
· The Boston Society of Film Critics gives their top honors (picture and directing) to local favorite The Departed, and Whitaker and Mirren make it a hat trick. Best supporting actress went to Shareeka Epps for Half Nelson, which, along with Jennifer Hudson's NY Film Circle win in the same category, indicates that this is shaping into the year of young, unknown African American actresses who can both steal a movie and break your heart, all with a single, mournful look and/or high note held for approximately two-and-a-half minutes. [Boston Globe]

We sat in front of Keanu Reeves for a screening of The Departed, on 10/6 at the Mann Village in Westwood. He was with a very talkative lady (not the same one he was with when he was spotted at Il Sole a few weeks back) who could not shut the hell up through the movie. Considering the field in which Mr. Reeves makes his living, it was strange to us that he could abide by the behavior. He stayed pretty silent throughout the film except for one key moment in the film when he made a snarky comment about Jack Nicholson's acting choices. That's right, Keanu Reeves is our generation's Lee Strassberg. Whoa.

While they considerately avoided identifying the key moment so as not to spoil any surprises, we're almost certain the scene in question was the infamous strap-on dildo scene, which, while it did make the final cut, was hardly the kind of buzzworthy latex-sex-toy performance that is remembered come awards season. Reeves must have noticed the over-the-top, scenery-chewing manner with which Jack dangled the molded appendage in co-star Damon's face, thus causing him to involuntarily blurt out, "Nicholson forgets that acting is reacting. I could have won that big, black cock an Oscar!"

• an infernal movie date [JohnnyHongKong Says...]
• Previously: Jack Nicholson's Strap-On To Take Next Step In Its Promising Career [Defamer]

1. The Departed—$27.015 million
That a well-acted, funny, and overall pretty brilliant crime thriller starring a handful of Bonafide A-List Actors and directed by perhaps the greatest director of his generation would find this much success in its opening weekend was clearly an error. Surely, Warner Bros. meant not to break the studio pact that's enabled two straight months of box office blight, and mistakenly delivered prints of The Departed to thousands of theaters instead of the movie they'd agreed to put into wide release, the story of five computer-animated, wisecracking woodland creatures who learn an important lesson about chasing their dreams by forming a football team, performing light witchcraft, and kicking each other in the genitals. The Warners folks will probably have a lot of explaining to do this morning to their offended peers.

2. Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning—$19.150 million
Thank your Maker for His gift of Michael Bay. Without him, some of the most beloved horror flicks of the last couple of decades might have been left to languish unrented on video store shelves or buried deep in Netflix queues, never to find their way to a new generation of teenage eyeballs. By exhuming these tragically outdated genre masterpieces from the moribund DVD format, reshooting them with actresses most famous for briefly dating Marky Mark, and giving them a second life at the multiplex, he's truly doing the Lord's work.

3. Open Season—$16 million
For a second straight week, audiences have clearly stated their preference for experiencing Ashton Kutcher's acting talents filtered through his animated, mule deer form, rather than his more conventional, human shell.

4. Employee of the Month—$11.8 million
We're grateful that someone finally had the vision to strip Jessica Simpson of the bikini-top and Daisy-Duke-cutoff crutches that have unfairly distracted from her mastery of craft. Relieved of these bimbo accouterments, a true acting career has finally been born.

5. The Guardian—$9.643 million
Despite The Guardian's slow start, Disney is still thinking that a sequel might be viable with some strategic recasting. They plan on returning to the two salad bowls containing slips of paper with the names of Formerly Huge Stars That Will Work For Cheap and Pretty Boys Who Might Excite The MTV Crowd that brought Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher to this project, hoping that their next randomly selected pairing of actors might fare better than this duo.

• October 6-8, 2006 [Box Office Mojo]

When Jack Nicholson's strap-on first started making gossip sheet appearances last June, we feared that the actor's prosthetic member would burn too brightly too early, exhausting its buzz more than a year before its awards-worthy supporting turn in The Departed could be seen. But with the movie's release approaching, the up-and-coming dildo's publicist has wisely courted the tabloids again, pimping a crucial Rolling Stone mention to Page Six:

"I thought it would be more frightening if my character had a sexual component . . . so I called Marty up and said, 'Look, I just thought of what would be an interesting scene of [my character] having wild sex. And in this scene with two girls, one of the girls is wearing a strap-on' . . . This was my idea and improvisational, and Marty went for it."

While the strap-on may secretly resent Nicholson taking all the credit for launching its career, we're sure that it's happy to be getting the kind of pre-release publicity push usually reserved for above-the-title stars, which its savvy flack will soon spin into rumors that it's taking over the Mission: Impossible franchise from Tom Cruise and secretly dating Keira Knightley.

[Click here to see the uncensored, NSFW version of the fake-dick-slip image presented above—via Twitch.]

• FILM SEXUALLY ENHANCED [Page Six]
• Previously: Jack Nicholson Demands Dildos And Blow [Defamer]
• Defamer Corrections: Jack Nicholson's Appendage [Defamer]
• Jack Nicholson: Lakers Fan, Script Doctor [Defamer]

[S]tudio sources say Nicholson went way beyond making occasional changes to the script, and would actually rewrite each day’s shoot—to the point where Scorsese was forced to shoot the actor’s doctored script before shooting his own version just to keep Nicholson happy.
But Scorsese wasn’t the only one subject to Nicholson’s eccentric rule, we hear. While filming in Boston, the notorious Lakers superfan banned all Celtics merchandise from the premises, a top-level production source says. “If he caught anyone wearing a Celtics T-shirt, he’d literally shut down the set. It was no joke,” says the source. [...]

With the embargo on Celtics fashion keeping things tight on the Boston shoot, everyone was primed for a meltdown the day that co-star Leonardo DiCaprio showed up wearing the same strap-on as Jack. A tense silence descended on the set as Nicholson approached the young actor, his anger about DiCaprio's gaffe twisted onto his iconic face, the air thick with the threat of sudden violence. But Nicholson surprised everyone by exploding into laughter, embracing his peer—yes, he was truly a peer now—and joining bold Leo in a playful swordfight with the two prosthetic appendages. A bond was strengthened that day, and the two men would later share a laugh over those initial tense moments while buried underneath a pile of Beantown's finest hookers.

• Scorsese Gets Jacked [Radar Online]
• Jack Nicholson Demands Dildos And Blow [Defamer]