I've already sent out a couple of valentines from Fox's Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs site promoting the latest CG comedy from Chris Wedge's Blue Sky. This one is not only 3-D, but Scrat falls in love.

Here's the official trailer: the movie is due July 4.

UPDATE: Carrie Rickey recommends her fave Valentine's Day DVDs.

When I first heard of Twitter, I had the same response as NYT tech writer David Pogue: Do I really need another distraction? But I use it. I don't exploit it as much as I could (I should tweet more often), but I skim through my twitterfeed and grab the occasional quick hit for the blog--yesterday I got Crispin Glover's Letterman appearance from Jason Calacanis. When I have something newsy that I want everyone to see instantly: that's when I Twitter.

The Oscar producers are starting to leak things--on purpose, natch--to whet our appetites for Oscar night. It's called marketing. Between Academy president Sid Ganis and producer Laurence Mark, these guys know what they're doing. So what better way to draw some fans to the kudocast than to invite some Twilight stars to participate? And even if Peter Gabriel is out, the very pregnant MIA may be in. UPDATE: MIA gave birth to a healthy baby boy Wednesday. Which gives her time to get ready for the Oscars...

EW Oscar-watcher Dave Karger doesn't go out on a limb with his Oscar predictions. This is the safe line, all the way; he's going with the obvious front-runners. But brave forecasters with a shot at winning their office Oscar pools will make a few deviations from the norm. There's always a surprise or two.

Here's Karger's list, with notes in caps from me:

Here's another Letterman classic: Crispin Glover.

And Farrah Fawcett:

Compare to the current example, Joaquin Phooenix. UPDATE: Chris Willman examines the real vs. faux possibility that it's all fodder for Casey Affleck's mockumentary.

[Hat Tip: Jason Calacanis]

Next up: On March 21, the Twilight DVD hits stores, and on March 27, Rob Pattinson and Kristen Stewart's new movies open: he plays Salvador Dalí in the arty biopic Little Ashes, while she goes for laughs in Sundance entry Adventureland.

When I run into my fellow journos on the town, they look at me with palpable anxiety. I'm a reminder of their worst fear: losing their staff jobs. (The ranks of media freelancers are expanding rapidly.) And many of the people I'm talking about are stars, writers who by any measure are hard-working and successful. Some are veterans who expected to finish out their careers at their paper, others are young rising careerists. All are scared.

At Entertainment Weekly's party at the Sunset Tower (where Vanity Fair is throwing its Oscar party this year) to celebrate Jess Cagle's new gig as editor, the conversation surrounding attendees Jeffrey Katzenberg, Oscar producer Laurence Mark, Iron Man director Jon Favreau, producer Scott Stuber and his former partner, MGM's Mary Parent, PR folks and staffers from EW, was about how the economy was going to effect them. In a declining ad market, EW isn't immune to more layoffs either.

What is the future for magazines, when even film students at USC don't read EW? The magazine has always relentlessly chased young readers; I'd like to see it embrace a more sophisticated approach to its aging culture-vulture demo, at least in print. Cagle, who worked at EW when I was there in the 90s, spent years at People, one of the few mags with a rising circulation, so he knows a thing or two about pulling in readers.

Newsweek is giving up on trying to chase news in a print weekly. The paper is lowering its circulation base and going after charging more for its core aging readership:

Thirteen months ago, Newsweek lowered its rate base, the circulation promised to advertisers, to 2.6 million from 3.1 million, and Mr. Ascheim said that would drop to 1.9 million in July, and to 1.5 million next January.
He says the magazine has a core of 1.2 million subscribers who are its best-educated, most avid consumers of news, and who have higher incomes than the average reader.
“We would like to build our business around these people and grow that group slightly,” he said. “These are our best customers. They are our best renewers, and they pay the most.”
In the first half of 2008, the average Newsweek subscriber paid less than $25 a year, or 47 cents for each copy — less than one-tenth the $4.95 newsstand price. Newsweek wants to raise that average to $50 a year, Mr. Ascheim said, adding, “If you can’t get people to pay for what they love, we’re all out of business.”

Meanwhile, more layoffs are hitting the Chicago Tribune. Over the past year, reports Ad Age, the advertising and media industry represents a hefty percentage of all layoffs nationwide. The industry cut staff by 3.9%, or 65,100 jobs, since the recession began in December 2007. The areas that have expanded: marketing consultants, PR firms, online search, cable TV and internet media.

This year's global collection of Oscar-nominated live-action and animated shorts is impressive indeed. Shorts International started releasing them (on two separate 92-minute programs) in theatres in L.A. on February 6 and will continue to roll out other cities. They're well worth seeing.

Here are reviews from the NYT's A.O. Scott, Kris Tapley, and cinemascopian, which posts five of the six animated shorts on one handy page.

Of the animated shorts, I adored the breathlessly comedic octopus chase Oktapodi, which was made by UCLA student Emud Mokhberi on a low budget with a team of French co-directors. It goes up against the costlier Presto, a delightful rascally rabbit vs. uppity magician comedy crammed with Pixar magic, which is pretty hard to top. But the one that grabbed my emotions was the Japanese La Maison en Petits Cubes, which will move the older members of the Academy with its brilliant concept: an old man keeps adding more bricks to his house, trying to keep his living space above the rising water. When he dives down through the floors of the tower he has constructed over decades, each flooded space calls up memories of his lost wife and family. Sob.

All of the live-action shorts made me cry. (I'm easy.) Each one tugs at the heart strings. On the Line is about a lunky German security guard in love with a co-worker; he likes spying on her from the safety of his security cameras. He is more comfortable watching other people than engaging with anyone--with tragic results. I was also taken by the moodily French Manon of the Asphalt, about a young woman who watches over her friends' reactions to her bicycle accident.

My favorite of the lot, The New Boy, was adapted by writer-director Steph Green from a story by Roddy Doyle about a nine-year-old emigre from Africa who endures a rite-of-passage at his new Brit school. It's sharp, succinct, funny, gorgeous.

My pick to win, though, is the World War II period drama, Spielzeugland (Toyland). Why? It'll hit the Academy Holocaust sweet spot.

The most remarkable thing about the top-ranked players in the Forbes Celebrity 100 (which measures power, money and fame) is that Angelina Jolie is at number three, ahead of Johnny Depp, her partner Brad Pitt, and Will Smith. It helps that she nabbed an Oscar nom for Changeling. But she's ranked so high because of Wanted. She nabbed $14 million to anchor that movie, because she's an action star, the first ever to compete on a level playing field with her male peers. The studios will even give Jolie a role written for a man: she replaced Tom Cruise in Phil Noyce's upcoming studio thriller Edwin A. Salt.

There was a time when movie audiences would not accept a woman with a gun. James Cameron's kick-ass heroines Sigourney Weaver and Linda Hamilton were understood to be fighting to save the world--and protect children. Somehow, from Tomb Raider to going mano a mano with Pitt in Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Jolie has been able to push the limits for women in action.

There is a downside to Jolie's action stardom, though, just as there is with Cruise. She's bigger than life. She's a huge celebrity. She's distracting.

Cruise and Jolie can be formidable in big movie star vehicles. Jolie was the only actor in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow who could comfortably inhabit that stylized fake universe. But what happens when she plays a real character in A Mighty Heart, Changeling or The Good Shepherd? No matter how skillfully she performs, she's still Angelina Jolie.

Big movie stars are a distraction, especially when they are asked to be authentic real people, based on true stories, in naturalistic dramas. Cruise never quite disappeared into his role as heroic Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg in Valkyrie. In theory the movie could have been made with a less well-known actor (who could have done the German accent), for less money and potentially more profit. (But Cruise was able to get it made.)

Meanwhile, Cruise is trying to claw his way back into commercial contention with The Tourist, Bharat Nalluri's remake of the 2005 French thriller Anthony Zimmer, co-starring Charlize Theron, for Spyglass, and he's also in talks to star opposite Denzel Washington in David Cronenberg's film adaptation of the Robert Ludlum novel The Matarese Circle, for MGM (not UA). This should be well-tailored to the Cruise persona.

There's little question that audiences want to see stars like Jolie and Cruise in movie star mode. And for the moment, both seem inclined to give them what they want.

I take no pleasure in watching this train wreck of a performance on David Letterman. I love Joaquin Phoenix's work in Two Lovers--but the folks marketing the movie should ever have put a guy in the shape that Phoenix is in on national television. He could barely talk. I hope he gets his act together. Soon. "I'll come to your house and chew gum," said a pissed off Letterman. "Joaquin, I'm sorry you couldn't be here tonight. We owe an apology to Farrah Fawcett."

UPDATE: Two Lovers director James Gray writes his farewell to Phoenix as actor.

The Academy is using some old marketing tricks to lure viewers to the Oscarcast on February 22: mystery guests who aren't announced in advance and don't walk the red carpet; a possible in memoriam song by Queen Latifah. And host Hugh Jackman, interviewed by ontheredcarpet.com, promises a "twist." I'm there (literally on the red carpet Oscar night). But will these gambits work, as many of the films in contention flounder at the boxoffice--in desperate need of Oscar gold? Many Oscar-watchers think Slumdog Millionaire can't be stopped as it threatens to sweep. At least Mickey vs. Sean and Penelope vs. Viola are building some suspense--which is in short supply indeed.

In Contention rounds up the latest Oscar scuttlebutt.

You can't say Michael Moore didn't read the zeitgeist. Right now he's working on his film about Wall Street greed, that answers the question, how did this economic crisis happen? Who's responsible? But Moore needs help:

Will You Help Me With My Next Film? ...a request from Michael Moore February 11, 2009 Friends, I am in the middle of shooting my next movie and I am looking for a few brave people who work on Wall Street or in the financial industry to come forward and share with me what they know. Based on those who have already contacted me, I believe there are a number of you who know "the real deal" about the abuses that have been happening. You have information that the American people need to hear. I am humbly asking you for a moment of courage, to be a hero and help me expose the biggest swindle in American history. All correspondence with me will be kept confidential. Your identity will be protected and you will decide to what extent you wish to participate in telling the greatest crime story ever told. The important thing here is for you to step up as an American and do your duty of shedding some light on this financial collapse. A few good people have already come forward, which leads me to believe there are many more of you out there who know what's going on. Here's your chance to let your fellow citizens in on the truth. If you have any info that would help, please contact me at my private email address: bailout@michaelmoore.com. For the rest of you on my email list who don't work in the financial industry, you're probably wondering, "What the heck is this all about? I thought he said he was making a romantic comedy!" Well, I just can't say much right now. I'm sure you can understand why. One thing I can tell you is that you're gonna like this movie when I'm done with it. Oh, yeah... So, again, if you work for a bank, a brokerage firm or an insurance company -- or if you have seen things or heard things that you believe the American people have a right to know -- please contact me at bailout@michaelmoore.com. Thank you in advance for your help! Yours, Michael Moore bailout@michaelmoore.com MichaelMoore.com

At least the NYT's Lynn Hirschberg tries a new tack, providing a narration track for the online version of the NYT's annual Oscar photo spread, including Winslet as one of eight performers of the year. If Mickey Rourke doesn't win Oscar night, it won't be for lack of trying. He's done way more press than Sean Penn.

For the March Vanity Fair, photographer Annie Leibovitz not only shot cover subject Barack Obama (no Hollywood cover this year) but a series of movie partnerships that yielded not only Oscar contenders (Danny Boyle and Dev Patel, Sean Penn and Gus Van Sant, Woody Allen and Penelope Cruz, Mickey Rourke and Darren Aronofsky, Meryl Streep and John Patrick Shanley, Chris Nolan and Heath Ledger) but some also-rans as well (Sam Mendes and Kate Winslet, Baz Luhrmann and Nicole Kidman) who nonetheless yielded great photos. And there's behind-the-scenes video, too:

Los Angeles Magazine features cover girl Kate Winslet, while the much-improved glossy LAT Mag boasts Anne Hathaway on the cover (after the Calendar ran an "it girl" feature on her back in November) and the likes of Ron Howard, Steve Martin and David Steinberg on the inside.

[Photo of Kate Winslet courtesy The New York Times]

Check out a preview of a trailer for Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, which debuts on E.T. Tuesday night.

Amazon has Mickey Rourke's first film, Love in the Hamptons, a 25-minute 1976 short by Tony Folino, available on VOD.

Magazine sales were hit hard by the roiling economy last year, reports Reuters. The one mag that upped its circulation: the amazingly resilient People.

And last but not least, Sony can't be too happy about this piece from The Onion (foul language alert):

So the DreamWorks distribution deal with Disney is done. (The full release is on the jump.) The outstanding questions to be resolved:

1. Why did Steven Spielberg and Stacey Snider--and their reps, Alan Levine and Skip Brittenham-- secretly chase the Disney deal, risking the wrath of Universal honcho Ron Meyer? That's an old relationship. (David Geffen wouldn't have made this blunder.) My sense is that Meyer would have released them to do what was in their best interest if he couldn't satisfy their needs, as long as he had first crack at matching their deal. On the other hand, knowing that Meyer's hands were tied by fiscally anal GE, DreamWorks went after what it needed from Disney--a studio hungrier than Universal for its product--while trying to skirt the inevitable: press leaks.

2. What happens to the Spielberg/Universal theme parks arrangement going forward? It won't make Disney happy if new DreamWorks movies made under the Disney deal wind up in rival Universal theme parks. Disney is always invested in protecting its brand.

3. What will happen to DreamWorks Animation, a company that presumably will be sold to a studio someday? Jeffrey Katzenberg has been on a recent PR blitz, not just on behalf of 3-D but the value of his animation company in relation to Disney-owned Pixar. DreamWorks Animation will never be sold to Disney. No way.

Finally, not only Steven Spielberg, but India-based Reliance, are dealing as best they can with a very nasty credit-scarce economy. UPDATE: Spielberg emails Peter Bart from the set of Tin Tin. Next up: bank financing. And then, next spring, cameras will roll.

The London broadcast of the BAFTA Awards on Sunday does not cue what will happen on Oscar night. Suddenly, everyone says, as they did after the Golden Globes, Mickey Rourke will win. The folks voting for the BAFTAs are from the UK film industry, they aren't the same as the 5800 Academy voters. Of course the ceremony does take place smack in the middle of Oscar voting. (Still, many Academy members have already filled out their ballots, due February 17.) But they aren't widely viewed. More people see reports of the winners than the actual show. So rather than being predictive, the BAFTAs may have some slight influence on momentum. Winners look like winners, and so on.

"Will there be a Slumdog backlash?" asked my pal Dan as Slumdog took home seven wins. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie sat patiently, as did producers Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy and director David Fincher, as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button picked up technical awards only (three)--as it likely will on Oscar night.

Slumdog will also be a big winner on February 22. But maybe not as big. My hunch is that more films will win more awards through the categories, including Benjamin Button and Dark Knight and Wall-E. The actor race is still tight between bad boys Sean Penn and Rourke (who will have to watch his potty mouth on live TV); Cruz has won more than Viola Davis has, at this point, and Winslet and Ledger seem good to go. Milk still plays into the soft spot of the politically-correct Academy; it's very American, it's about our history. If Milk doesn't win picture, Penn could get actor, and Dustin Lance Black may beat Wall-E for screenplay.

Winners list is on the jump.

As Steven Spielberg and Stacey Snider prepare to take their DreamWorks deal to Disney--an announcement is expected today--Kim Masters lays out more details on just what happened. It does seem a blunder to me that secret negotiations with Disney should have blown up Spielberg's old relationship with Ron Meyer at Universal. Never burn your bridges.

Yes, it's that time of year when studios release second-tier pictures, ones for which nobody has high expectations. Some are mediocre (Pink Panther 2), others are terrific but not overtly commercial, like Henry Selick's stop-motion Coraline.

And yet, some of these movies (like Paul Blart Mall Cop) are doing better than anyone expected. This weekend women flocked to He's Just Not That Into You, which despite mixed reviews is yet another chick flick hit. And Coraline earned solid $16 million opening off critical raves. Maybe we all just want to have fun?

Here are the Variety numbers.

Milk scripter Dustin Lance Black, 34, tearfully accepted the Writers Guild Award for best original screenplay for Milk Saturday night by calling up the ghost of slain San Francisco politician Harvey Milk, the man who inspired Black when he moved to the Bay Area from San Antonio, Texas as a closeted gay 13-year-old. "I want to thank God for making my dreams come true," said Black, who was raised a Mormon, "and for giving us Harvey Milk."

Here are all the WGA winners, including non-attendee Simon Beaufoy, who won for Slumdog Millionaire's adapted screenplay, and Ari Folman, for the animated documentary Waltz with Bashir, which is on track to win the best foreign film Oscar.

Black had earlier accepted the WGA's Paul Selvin Civil Rights award. "This is a spec script," he told the writers. "It wasn't the easiest subject matter to pursue; it's pretty gay. Why would I spend five years with this Harvey Milk guy? It's the longest relationship I've ever had. His message of hope allowed me to dream, and to heal."

Black exhorted the gay community to learn from Milk's message: "Be proud, represent yourself, reach out," he said. He criticized the anti-prop 8 organizers for not pursuing outreach and education, of not following Milk's model of grassroots activism. When he told Cleve Jones, the character played by Emile Hirsch in Gus Van Sant's Milk, that he was getting the Selvin award, Jones told him, "Civil rights? We don't have them, and we want them." Black quoted Milk, who said, "If they demand the real thing, I find, they can get it."

Now is the time to think big, said Black, who asked the federal government to follow the model of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and ensure equal rights to GLBT people. "It's bigger than 8," he said. "Harvey Milk and the movies inspire people to dream big. That's how change really happens."

As far as the Academy Award voting goes, while Beaufoy will likely repeat his win, Black is competing with a rival, Wall-E writer-director Andrew Stanton (animated films are not eligible for WGA awards). Ballots are due on February 17; the Oscarcast is on February 22.

Sally Potter's new film Rage stars Jude Law as a transvestite. It screens at the Berlin fest on Sunday. Law is often best when playing down his good looks (I love him in A.I.: Artificial Intelligence and Road to Perdition) but in this case, Potter writes in her online press notes, the director (Orlando, Yes) took advantage of the actor's beauty:

"Part of the subject matter of Rage is the ugly use of beauty in the pursuit of profit," Potter writes. "Drugged by marketing, sapped by fear of aging, conned by the cult of celebrity -- image becomes all."

"Law, whose beauty has sometimes been held against him as an actor, made the courageous decision to accept the role of Minx -- a 'celebrity super-model' -- and took on a kind of hyper-beauty for this persona...a 'female' beauty which gradually unravels as the story unfolds. Strangely, the more he became a 'she', coiffed and made-up, the more naked was his performance. There was great strength in his willingness to make himself vulnerable. It was an extraordinarily intense part of the shoot."

"I was out of order beyond belief," he said. "I acted like a punk, I regret that. There is no one who has heard that tape that's been hit harder by it than me... I'm not comfortable with this notion of being a movie star. I'm an actor... I put so much into what I do and care so much about it and sometimes the enthusiasm just goes awry. I'm embarrassed by it. I ask everybody to sit down and ask themselves, have they ever had a bad day and have they ever lost their temper and really regretted it immensely...I've seen a rough cut of the movie and it looks fantastic and Shane did a wonderful job. Please don't allow this incredibly embarrassing meltdown to overshadow this movie."

Sean Penn is on the Oscar campaign trail: here he talks to wily interviewer Tavis Smiley about his limitations:

Whatever became of Bennett Miller? He's the guy who came out of nowhere to direct Philip Seymour Hoffman's Oscar-winning performance in 2005's Capote, for which he was nommed for directing. Miller's been working on a number of projects since then--he's developing Dante Harper's The Immortalist (for Paramount and Plan B), and the true sports story Foxcatcher (with producer Jon Kilik). So while he's trying to get these movies up and running, the producers of the Oscars, Laurence Mark and Bill Condon, have hired Miller to do the opening Oscar short (the second to be produced by Radical Media) which we'll see on February 22.

Word is, the short not only celebrates "the language of film and the spirit of moviemaking" --natch--but will feature some major movie stars. I would hope so.

After Thursday night's pre-Oscar Frost/Nixon celebration at L.A.'s Nobu, several reporters at the party called Universal execs to inform them that they had heard that DreamWorks was negotiating a new distribution deal with Disney. This came as a shock to Universal, which had been trying to accommodate DreamWorks' increasing demands. The next day, the studio severed the deal that had been hammered out four months ago.

DreamWorks heads Steven Spielberg and Stacey Snider have faced an uncertain economic climate as they try to raise hundreds of millions in debt against the $550 million in equity promised by India's Reliance, which they cannot use until they raise bank funding against it. Initially, the company had planned to raise $750 million: on the advice of J.P. Morgan, it's now $325 million, which would free up $650 million to start funding production of 18 movies over three years. When the economy improves, DreamWorks plans to raise a second phase of financing.

Spielberg put up some of his own money to start the new iteration of DreamWorks away from former studio parent Paramount; he and Reliance are co-financing the company's current overhead (which is trimmed down from $50-million a year) and split the $26.5 million fee to acquire 17 projects from Paramount, including The Trial of the Chicago 7, Dinner for Schmucks, The 39 Clues, Motorcade and Atlantis Rising.

Universal had agreed that if DreamWorks needed funds at the end of their term--after the studio had released several films--the studio would loan DreamWorks $150 million. But with the delay in their bank funding, DreamWorks asked to get that money up front, for their immediate needs. Universal was willing to lend the $150 million against future earnings. But DreamWorks was asking for more, and when they were not able to score the terms of their old HBO deal, Universal would only give up a few slots to Spielberg and Snider--not the six a year they needed.

When Universal was unable to satisfy DreamWorks' extra demands, Spielberg and Snider reopened talks with Disney, which had been interested in the deal. (Spielberg had preferred to stay in his comfort zone with Ron Meyer and Universal.) It's easier for Disney, which releases fewer pictures a year, to deliver DreamWorks their Starz Pay-TV slots. And a DreamWorks announcement could boost Disney's stock price. (Nothing that Universal does has much impact on parent General Electric.) When Universal called DreamWorks and got confirmation of the Disney talks on Friday,the studio instantly severed the deal.

In other words, Ron Meyer was pissed. Universal insiders insist that GE was supportive of releasing Dreamworks product, and was willing to extend as much as they could--as long as the deal made good business sense. The original deal was based on DreamWorks paying its own way--not leaning on Universal. "Their needs got bigger and bigger," says one exec. "They kept changing their deal."