Today In Oscar Hell: Crash These Parties!

· There’s good news and bad news about this weekend’s marathon of Oscar parties. The good news first: Nikki Finke has a sweepingly comprehensive list of those we expect you to crash. Godspeed!

· The bad news: They may not be much fun. But again, that’s where you come in. We’re counting on it.

· For all the yapping about there being little to no box-office bump among this year’s nominees, a look at the numbers suggests otherwise. Moreover, as indieWIRE notes, “If The Dark Knight, WALL-E and Gran Torino had been nominated instead of Milk, The Reader and Frost/Nixon, we’d all be talking about how this year’s best picture lineup cracked a billion dollars instead.” Seriously! Can it, Goldstein.

· Your Oscar ribbon du jour: White, in support of same-sex marriage.

· In contrast to yesterday’s automatic Oscar Speech Generator for those playing at home, why not grab a friend and play the more substantial Oscar Acceptance Speech Madlibs?

· Among Esquire.com’s Alternative Oscars, we’d nominate In Bruges‘ Best Profane Dialogue prize as our own favourite. “Cunt fucking kids” simply never gets old.