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Are members from the documentary branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences being paid to short list some films over others? That's what it sounds like director James Toback was alluding to when he spoke to the New York Times recently about how his buzzed-about documentary, Tyson, was left off the Academy's short list along with several other notable documentaries from the past year. Toback told the Times that at some point during the selection process he experienced something he puts "fully in the category of extortion", adding that he did not go along with it.

Speaking on behalf of the documentary branch -- which Toback refers to as "some tiny, dirty covert weirdly protective group" -- chairman (and filmmaker) Rob Epstein said, "I have no idea. It certainly hasn't come before me." Among some of the critically acclaimed docs snubbed this year are Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story, the awesome Anvil! The Story of Anvil, and The September Issue. This year's documentary short list was narrowed down to 15 finalists from 89 possible contenders. So, yeah, obviously you're going to see some fantastic films miss the cut, and, subsequently, some pissed off filmmakers, but it's a pretty bold move for Toback to go and claim extortion, don't you think?

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences documentary committee has watched the 89 eligible docs that were submitted and whittled the field down to 15 finalists, from which the five Oscar nominees will be chosen. But before we even get there we gotta talk about the snubs.

Notably absent from the shortlist are Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story and the highly praised Anvil! The Story of Anvil, which last month earned the distinction of being the first "for your consideration" screener sent to Academy members this year. Last year's best-reviewed documentary, Man on Wire, went on to win the Oscar; Anvil! holds that title this year (98% at Rotten Tomatoes), but it's not even going to be nominated.

Other noteworthy titles not among the top 15: Tyson (about the boxer, not the chicken company) and The September Issue (about Anna Wintour and Vogue magazine). Michael Jackson's This Is It and Chris Rock's Good Hair didn't hit theaters until October, qualifying them for next year's documentary category -- for docs, the eligibility period is September-August, not January-December. (This Is It might not be eligible anyway, since Academy rules forbid films that are "essentially unfiltered records of performances," which could apply here.) The highest-grossing documentary of the year, Earth, isn't eligible because it was mostly repackaged material that had already aired on TV.

The complete shortlist is after the jump.

[Note: Scott Weinberg has the pro side of this argument -- why Roger Corman does deserve an Oscar -- in an article that will run later today.]

In a post yesterday about the honorary Academy Awards given out over the weekend, I said this about one of the recipients, Roger Corman: "Corman, who has directed more than 50 films and produced nearly 400 (!), has never been nominated for an Oscar, probably because all of his movies are terrible. But apparently the Academy is rewarding quantity now, too. So don't give up, Uwe Boll! Just make another 300 movies!" These remarks were met with much disapproval by many readers, and so I would like to elaborate -- assuming any of the people who swore they'd never read Cinematical again are in fact still reading Cinematical (which they are).

First, a correction. I shouldn't have said "all of his movies are terrible." I should have said something like "his movies are generally terrible." "All" suggests that I've seen all 400 of them, which of course I haven't. I ought to have used more general language. That was my bad, as the kids say.

I stand by the point I was making, though. If the Academy is giving out Oscars based on the production of quality work -- which, last time I checked, was the basic idea behind the Oscars -- then Roger Corman does not qualify. The vast majority of his output is mediocre at best. Some of it is downright awful. A few films are good enough on their own, but not to where any of them would deserve Oscars individually. Even as a body, those moderately good Corman movies don't outweigh the dozens -- literally dozens and DOZENS -- of cheap, forgettable clunkers.

Producing a huge quantity of work whose overall entertainment or artistic value averages out to be somewhere between "mediocre" and "mediocre-plus" isn't worthy of Academy Award consideration. That's neat and everything, producing 400 movies over the course of 50 years. Very ambitious of you! But the Academy should be rewarding quality, not quantity.

As you've probably already heard, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is shaking things up at this year's Oscars by having 10 Best Picture nominees instead of five, and by moving the honorary awards (read: the boring part of the show) to a special ceremony of their own. That ceremony will be held in November, and-- holy crap, it was this weekend! The almost-Oscars were on Saturday!

They're called the Governors Awards, and while they won't be televised, the AMPAS website has some photos and background info. Honorary Oscars went to actress Lauren Bacall (pictured), cinematographer Gordon Willis (the Godfather trilogy, Manhattan, All the President's Men), and director/producer Roger Corman (numerous MST3K films). Astonishingly, the legendary Bacall has only received one Oscar nomination in her 65-year career, for The Mirror Has Two Faces. Willis was nominated for The Godfather: Part III and Zelig. Corman, who has directed more than 50 films and produced nearly 400 (!), has never been nominated for an Oscar, probably because all of his movies are terrible. But apparently the Academy is rewarding quantity now, too. So don't give up, Uwe Boll! Just make another 300 movies!

The other award at the special ceremony was the Irving G. Thalberg Award, given to John Calley, who produced The Remains of the Day and Closer and oversaw worldwide production for Warner Bros. throughout the 1970s.

The Governors Awards were also a chance for Oscar telecast producers Adam Shankman and Bill Mechanic to drop a few hints about what the big show will be like on March 7. Mechanic said they're not going to repeat the thing the 2009 show did where a coven of five past Oscar winners introduced the acting nominees.

I'm so pleased to learn from IndieWIRE that five animated features will probably be in the running for a 2009 Academy Award. If fewer than 16 films are eligible, then only three films end up on the list of nominees. But the shortlist released today by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences includes 20 films eligible for Oscar nominations, assuming that all films on the list have a qualifying run in Los Angeles before the end of the year. That means five films will be nominated for Best Animated Feature.

Of course the list includes lots of big animated films: Pixar's Up, Disney's The Princess and the Frog, Henry Selick's Coraline, Wes Anderson's Fantastic Mr. Fox and Dreamworks's Monsters vs. Aliens, among others. But I may or may not have squealed and bounced in my seat to read one unexpected candidate: A Town Called Panic, the Belgian animated film that won the Audience Award at Fantastic Fest this year, and which I reviewed. I hope the film will hit L.A. for the required time, and although it is the world's biggest longshot, I'd love to see it get a nomination. The Best Animated Feature category needs something this bizarre, original and creative. We'll find out for sure when Oscar nominations are announced on Feb. 2, 2010.

Well, it's November, which means the awards contenders are steadily coming out of the woodwork, and just as we have the Academy Awards to look forward to, we also have their fine print to tolerate. The first of this year's disqualifications naturally come from the music end of things, the same category that didn't see fit to honor the tremendous original scores composed for The Dark Knight last year and There Will Be Blood the year before that.

According to Kris Tapley over at In Contention, both "Up in the Air" and "Help Yourself" from Jason Reitman's Up in the Air have been pulled out of the Best Original Song race. The former was written by Kevin Renick before he met Reitman (the song is presented in the film as it was presented to the filmmaker, with homemade introduction and all), not to mention that it comes halfway into the credits when only the first song over them can qualify. (Really, AMPAS?)

And a portion of the latter had existed earlier in Sad Brad Smith's career and thus means the song itself was not created in full for the film. It's an earnest and catchy tune, used prominently in the trailers and well in the film (and now available on iTunes, cough), but it now looks like those are two more slots left to be dominated by Disney's latest...

In the 2007 awards season, Fox Searchlight had two strong films in the mix with Juno and The Savages, and then in 2008, they dominated with Slumdog Millionaire and The Wrestler. As many other indie arms were folding (Paramount Vantage, Warner Independent, Picturehouse), Searchlight managed to keep things up on their end.

2009, however, hasn't been so kind to them. January's Notorious didn't do bad actually, though March's Miss March was indeed D.O.A. June's My Life in Ruins similarly underperformed, while July's Adam failed to catch on as that same month's (500) Days of Summer had. Post Grad was dumped in the doldrums of August, while Whip It failed to find a crowd in October.

Cut to now: Amelia has been effectively neutered as a ready-made Oscar contender, while Gentlemen Broncos (from the director of Napoleon Dynamite, which did particularly well for the same studio) is being pulled from wider release after this weekend after posting modest numbers on two screens and earning savage reviews for the most part.

With Miramax also facing tough times, it's a shame to see studios like these have an off-year, though there's time for a turn-around yet so far as Searchlight is concerned. Summer's summer release means the timing could work out to earn a push for Original Screenplay as a happy-go-lucky alternate to many dour contenders. This month's similarly light Fantastic Mr. Fox is an Animated Feature candidate at the very least, and -- according to THR -- the Jeff Bridges drama Crazy Heart is getting a last-minute test run of sorts at the moment to see if it can merit a move to be positioned for this year's race instead of next year's.

Yesterday was absolutely buzzing with Oscar buzz. First, the rumor that Ben Stiller and Robert Downey Jr. said no to the gig. Just a few hours later, the official announcement came: Next year's Oscars will be hosted by Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin. Entertainment Weekly then talked with Adam Shankman about the picking process. Some highlights:

• Steve Martin was shocked that he was picked again. Shankman's response: "Yes, because I want the show to feel that we are continuing to build on the Oscars and I'm not trying to make the MTV Movie Awards."
• He was teamed with Baldwin because: "I know that they really adore and respect each other. Plus, I know that they'll be hilarious. I wanted there to be extra comedy in the show. It will keep it high entertainment."
• There was a plan to have two hosts right from the get-go.
• On not picking Tina Fey, a rumored choice: "It wasn't that she turned us down but her work schedule right in that time, she's writing the last of her shows, and we realized then that it wouldn't work."

When the comedy gods close a door, they open a window. Ben Stiller and Robert Downey Jr. said no to co-hosting next year's Academy Awards, and we barely had time to grieve for what might have been before we received this news: Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin have said yes. It's official, as detailed in a press release from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Martin has hosted the Oscars twice before, in 2000 and 2002, and he happens to be my personal favorite host. In fact, he's one of my personal favorite entertainers, period. The man is a straight-up genius, the terrible movies he's made in the last decade notwithstanding. Baldwin was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for The Cooler, so he at least knows his way to the theater, and he's currently enjoying a resurgence in popularity thanks to his top-notch work on TV's 30 Rock.

Martin and Baldwin have worked together several times thanks to their longstanding affiliation with Saturday Night Live. Martin has hosted 15 times -- more than anyone else -- and Baldwin is right behind him at 14. In 2006, Baldwin showed up on a Martin episode, followed a few months later by Martin crashing a Baldwin show, both times with Martin trying to kill Baldwin to prevent him from overtaking his hosting record. (In the Oscar press release, Martin says, "I am happy to co-host the Oscars with my enemy Alec Baldwin.") Martin guested on an episode of 30 Rock, and both actors will appear in It's Complicated this Christmas.

I think both of these men, separately and together, are hilarious, so I'm excited about the Oscars (to be held March 7, 2010). What do you think?

Back in October, Adam Shankman was determined to make the Oscars fun, itching to "kick up the funny a little bit" and celebrate entertainment. But there wasn't a whole new revamp in mind -- he still wanted to continue with the path laid out last year and have Hugh Jackman host ... but the actor refused. Rumors immediately started bubbling that Neil Patrick Harris was circling, but there were other funny men in his sights. Deadline Hollywood reports that Shankman and Bill Mechanic went to Ben Stiller and Robert Downey Jr. to host as a duo.

But they said no.

Talk about a bummer. It's quite easy to imagine the red carpet coverage wind down, and Stiller and Downey Jr. dancing or strolling to center stage. They could easy bring a healthy dose of classic funny, yet still embody the new spin focused solely on entertainment and mirth. Hell, I would easily take Robert on his own. Can you imagine a series of blips where he acts out scenes from the top contenders or top grossing films? He could fall in love and be a lonely old man with a balloon house, travel into space, throw out classic Tarantino dialogue, channel Julia Child, suffer through a painful locker, feel the pressure of A Single Man...

But that dream is done. Is there any duo who could bring the same excellence? It would never happen, but if Ben and Robert are a no-go, I want insanity with a slice of brilliance by joining Christopher Walken and Jane Lynch. How about you? What other Oscar hosting duos would you suggest?