By Steven Zeitchik

Lots of noise — not so much of the musical kind — over why Bruce Springsteen didn't get nommed for an Oscar for best song for his eponymous contribution to "The Wrestler." Even some drivetime deejays were talking about it the other day. So you know it's getting out there.

Springsteen has won a statue before (for "Streets of Philadelphia"), so it's not like the Academy doesn't have a thing for him. The Wrestler" is hardly the world's, or even the Boss,' most earthshaking, song. Lyrically and musically, he's been more ambitious plenty of other times. But for the kind of soulful poetry that captures the spirit of the film's beaten-down character — kind of like "Philadelphia," come to think of it — it more than does the trick.

So why didn't it make the cut? More specifically, why didn't it make the cut when the Academy nommed only three songs, leaving two perfectly good spots unused?

We caught up with music-branch chair Bruce Broughton, who explained that the rules are a little more complex than you'd think. First, the spots aren't guaranteed — songs are ranked by voters on a 6-10 scale, and only movies that garner an 8.25 or higher make the cut (which creates the possibility that there could be no nominees…but they're hoping that never happens). That's why only three songs were nommed.

More important, that 6-10 scale isn't just voted on once — it's voted on twice, first on the merits and the second on how a song works in the film. So a song that plays the end-credits — especially one that plays the end-credits without any visuals behind it — is going to be disadvanatged.

Which is pretty much what happened to Springsteen; the song is more powerful because it comes in on a black screen right after the film's powerful climactic final moments. But it's kind of hard to talk about how it worked in the context of the film, since it's not really in the film.

Thay means it's possible Springsteen nabbed an average of 10 on the merits, but only a 6 on how it worke din the film, which is why it didn't make the 8.25 cut.

Broughton acknowledges the problems. "It's not a perfect system. We're going to sit down after all this and see if there are ways to improve it."

That seems sensible. in the meantime, when the best song Oscar is given out, we'll just mute the television and put on Born to Run.

By Steven Zeitchik

A week ago, we were waking up for the Oscars, saluting the quality that is Slumdog Millionaire and Benjamin Button and wondering what slot, exactly, "The Dark Knight belonged in. It's a debate about the best movies around. But sometimes it's good to just slop around in the worst. This week, we're feeling slightly more purple as the Razzie nominations come out, providing just the tonic for these awards-choked times.

A surprising amount of big-budget studio fare — and former box-office faves — top the list, from M. Night Shyamalan (whose "The Happening" lands four noms, including worst picture, actor, director and screenplay) and Mike Myers (with "The Love Guru," the Ben Button of this year's Razzies, nabbing a list-topping seven nominations, including worst picture, actor, actress director, screenplay and two supporting actors).

And of course what would a Razzies be without a little-seen Paris Hilton movie. "The Hottie and the Nottie," all $28,000 of its box-office, is feted with five noms, including worst picture, actress, screen couple, director and screenplay.

Nor is it just the choices of the 700 or so voters that makes this such a must-see (for the must-misses.) There are plenty of others reasons to love the Razzies, like the fact that they take the boilerplate of awards season and use it to gleefully rip into the worst movies of the year:

"Among the contenders for the Worst Picture are several laugh-free comedies, the year's most laughable vision of the apocalypse, a pair of puerile parodies, a couple of big budget B.O. bombs, and a decidedly un-romantic “romantic comedy” co-produced by Paris Hilton," is their very formal-sounding comment.

Of course it's not just Hilton marginalia that makes the cut. The third-most moneymaking movie of the year — and subject of the best South Park parody in years — takes a big nomination in the charmingly redundant category of "Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-Off or Sequel," as Lucas/Spielberg creation "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" is the notable nominee.

Tentpole filmmaking has been blamed for the decline of studio statutes because these movies often put effects over nuance and flash over character.

 But they've had the unintentional effect of making the Razzies richer — and more relevant — than ever. Sure, Uwe Boll gets a career (un)achievement award, and Paris Hilton gets razzed for "Hottie and the Nottie." But this is just isn't a ceremony recognizing punching bags. The biggies are right in the mix — Fox, Paramount and other stalwarts, all of which might soon be lining their mantles with ignominious hardware after all is said and done.

And lest one think studios are starting to monopolize these categories like they do global audiences, don't worry, the minimajors are there too: Lionsgate gets six for "Disaster Movie."

The Oscars may be getting more niche and studios exiting the awards game. But they'll never be out of the Razzies Business. Get those acceptance speeches ready.

By Steven Zeitchik

C.S. Lewis and Chronicles of Narnia fans will have a chance to see a third installment made and released next year after all.

Walden, as Borys Kit reports, takes "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" to its go-to partner Fox (this time it will be Fox 2000, which we imagine might be a sign of a slightly more modest budget than had it ended up at the parent studio), after Disney opted out of continuing its run with the franchise.

There are creative questions to the third title in Lewis' popular, religion-inflected series — including a visually-friendly but antagonist-lite tale. We're sure the villains will come once writers get their hands on it (no one confirmed yet, though Michael Apted will likely direct). For now, though, it's a question.

Either way, whatever happens on screen may not be nearly as juicy as what happens off it: With the rare instance of a studio ditching a franchise midway and a rival picking it up, the success or failure of the Fox effort will ensure that between it and Disney, someone will be the hero and someone will be the goat. Which is a lot worse than being the lion.

By Steven Zeitchik

Comments for our Lara Croft story – in which we note that Warner Bros. has picked up the rights and is trying a reboot six years after the second Angelina Jolie pic flopped – have ranged from the "Angie is hot; bring her back" to "why would you think of taking a video game that has seen better days when so many good ones struggle to find a suitable bigscreen translation?"

Valid points across the spectrum, but either way, writers are being invited to offer their take, and actresses no doubt will be lining up to figure out the role.

it's going to be a tough road for anyone who steps into the leather pants of the videogame heroine. Sure, it's a plum role in some ways — a movie from a solid  producer like Dan Lin and with some financial muscles from the studio. But anyone who tries to become the swashbuckling heroine will find that the Angie comparisons will inevitably follow. Can anyone truly top what has now become, for all its campiness, a sort of iconic representation of the star-in-waiting?

Then again, maybe there's some magical property to the role: you take it, five years later you'll adopt eight kids, get nominated for an Oscar and marry Brad Pitt. Managers, start your engines.

By Steven Zeitchik

Oscar backlashes tend to happen the way Ernest Hemingway went broke: gradually at first, then all at once. it's hard to know, from the middle of the storm, if we're in that gradual phase right now, and if we'll ever graduate to the next, more consequential one.

But if a Slumdog backlash does improbably materialize, it's this past weekend that armchair historians will point to.

On the surface, of course, the movie had another Millionaire-like weekend — it answered the PGA question correctly Saturday and then one-upped itself with a Cast award at SAG on Sunday. It aims for even more rupees with the DGA this weekend, and it's hard to envision a flub. There are, um, simply too many friends for it to phone.

But the media response has been a little more mixed. First came the India-centric jabs of the Los Angeles Times on Saturday. "Even as American audiences gush over 'Slumdog Millionaire,' some Indians are groaning over what they see as yet another stereotypical foreign depiction of their nation, accentuating squalor, corruption and impoverished-if-resilient natives," wrote Mark Magnier form Mumbai.

More important, the piece was followed by pundits starting to write about the potential backlash –  influential, Academy-attuned writers like Defamer's S.T. VanAirsdale (he wrote about it on Tuesday), and The Envelope's Pete Hammond, who offered his take the day before. Though both dismissed the Mumbai story — they didn't believe the backlash, let alone endorse it — the combined effect of these pieces and other coverage was at least to put the idea of "Is this the real India" into the awards-season bloodstream.

But backlashes aren't that simple. For a frontrunner to lose its place exactly three weeks before Oscar ballots are due requires a constellation of events, not just a few naysayers. Specifically, it needs  another movie has to capitalize on the bad will.

In 2006, it was "Brokeback Mountain" that began to hit a fatigue level with its message of tolerance just as "Crash" surged on a story of racial understanding. What's notable is that they happened simultaneously. Simply getting tired of "Brokeback" (the Brokebacklash, as one colleague memorably described it at the time) wasn't enough. If that was was the case, voters disenchanted with the frontrunner would simply scatter harmlessly to other movies.  What had to happen was a more direct transfer of members from one movie to another, a feat that was achieved because Academyites who were voting their conscience on Brokeback now had a better alternative — a story of racial understanding set in their hometown.

That's why it's hard to see a repeat on "Slumdog."

Yes, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" provides an antidote to "Slumdog." Unlike "Slumdog,"  it's a big-budget, effects-driven picture with Hollywood royalty like Kathleen Kennedy behind it that has given work and dollars to many people in town, including those with voter affiliations. But those voters haven't voted for Button over Slumdog yet, which means there isn't a critical mass of people who want "Button" on their own. So there's little reason to think an unrelated Slumdog backlash will change their minds.

Plus we're not sure the insider-vs-outsider logic applies here anyway. Slumdog, for all its underdog aspects, has the Danny Boyle factor; the director has had creative milestones in Hollywood with movies like "Shallow Grave" and "Trainspotting" and "28 Days Later," and talking to people around town, there are plenty who want to reward him. 

And there's this simple fact: even if people believe the worst, that Slumdog represents a distorted India, will that deter voters from choosing it? Criticism of "Crash" by sociologists and African-American leaders (and indeed, most people with a pulse) that it bore little resemblance to the Los Angeles didn't dissuade voters from choosing that film.

We're sure there will be questions about "Slumdog" — if only because more pieces will come out needing fresh angles, and the fresh angle for a frontrunner is the negative one. Will that be enough to get another movie in? That fate, it seems, is far less likely to be written.

By Steven Zeitchik

As we wrote about Saturday, the debate over the "Reader" producers had nothing to do with the sexy Scott Rudin angle; he walked off the picture in October and was not making any move to come back. The real question was whether the Academy would allow Redmond Morris, a line producer who had been upped to producer on the credits, as the fourth producer for awards purposes, even though the academy's three-producer rule said otherwise.

In short, the question is whether the Academy would say that because two of the producers had passed away and thus unfortunately could not take the stage — not to mention the general circumstances of the film, with a rush to finish in the fall — means it should allow four producers?

Today, it did.

"Because four producers were listed on the credits form submitted for Oscar® consideration and Academy rules allow for only three producers – except in 'a rare and extraordinary circumstance' – to be nominated and potentially receive Oscar statuettes, a meeting of the executive committee was necessary.  In the end, the committee determined that the circumstances of 'The Reader' – in which the two original producers (Minghella and Pollack) both died partway through the process – met its definition of “'are and extraordinary' and that all four submitted individuals should be named as nominees," the Academy said.

So if the movie takes the statue, two people will take the stage, and no doubt pay tribute to the other two.

By Steven Zeitchik

You've got to hand it to Disney. It's plowing ahead with the campaign for "Confessions of a Shopaholic" that now-quaint-seeming , 2005-sounding story of conspicuous consumption, where the biggest worry was a shopping binge wiping out one's credit card, not the entire U.S. credit system wiping out. The  trailer for the February comedy has been out since the fall, but we've just seen a couple showings of the TV spot, and while it sets new records for brands-to-seconds ratio (Gucci! Burberry!) it won't shatter any marks for timeliness.

Forget taste; if half the workforce is losing their jobs and even the low-budget retailers are struggling to to stay in business, is it really the best time to pepper moviegoers with a character who spends thousands on dresses and handbags she doesn't need?

Pundits have talked about times changing so quickly to make political movies out of date by the time they hit the screen. But it turns out a new genre gets hammered by that too — chick-lit adaptations. We thought stories of Mr. Right and Ms. Bad Boss were perennial; as it happens, the play a lot better when times are frothy, and spending nearly a decade in development will hurt them as much as they do current-events pics. This is a movie with main characters that are supposed to be modern, yet at least judging by its marketing materials (no screenings yet) it already feels like a period pic. Hearts go out to director P.J. Hogan, who no doubt wishes he could be back in the days of his sleeper hit "Muriel's Wedding." They seemed so much simpler.

The book on which this Isla Fisher vehicle is based (the first in a potential franchise, it should be noted) ultimately wields some message about fiscal responsibility — there's even a bank's shenanigans brought low by the main character's vigilance — so at the very least it will tap into what people are talking about. That said main character ultimately ends up with more than enough money to indulge in shopping sprees? Not so much.

Then again, who the heck knows. Maybe as paychecks get cuts and jobs lost, nostalgia for a time when Prada vs. Gucci was the biggest worry around will seem appealing. Escapism is supposedly hot in tough times, perhaps even if means escaping into complacency.

By Steven Zeitchik

We usually keep the exec musical chairs game to a minimum here, but this one bears noting: Tom Ortenberg, longtime Lionsgate president (and one of the more soft-spoken minimajor figures around) leaves the House that Saw Built. Not such a surprise — since Joe Drake came in and began shaking the place up, it was probably just a matter of time before TO made a move.

What is surprising is where he's headed. The Weinstein Company has hired Ortenberg, in what is tellingly the same exact position (suggesting he was able to write his own ticket). Working with personalities as strong as the Weinsteins can be an all-or-nothing affair — it either works splendidly it doesn't. No sense yet of how this one will shake out. What is worth nothing is that the Weinstein Company, after some well-publicized exits, is staffing up with some solid distribution and marketing chops – and at just the tme it's getting ready for a big slate of '09 releases.

We caught up with both Drake and Ortenberg. The former made a point of taking about the amicability, but it was the latter's praise for TWC that was noteworthy. That the indie world is consolidating is nhadly news; that two of the biggesr minimjaor figures are now working under the roof is, and provides either reason to worry or cheer about the state of the universe. Time will dictate which.