Here’s a story that broke yesterday but has continued to pick up steam through the movie blogs today: The Weinstein Co. is planning to release box office champ Inglourious Basterds on DVD by the end of the year in order to use the discs for a cheap but aggressive Oscar campaign. This isn’t surprising news considering Harvey Weinstein’s Oscar addiction, but it has suddenly made me aware that Basterds is both deserving of and sure to receive a nod for Best Picture, which would be Quentin Tarantino’s first such nominee since Pulp Fiction 15 years ago.

Seriously, if we can be talking about District 9, Star Trek and other genre movies for the top category now that it will include ten contenders, how couldn’t Basterds be seen as a likely nominee? People have celebrated Christoph Waltz’s performance since Cannes, and he’s sure to garner a Best Supporting Actor nod, but few have noted how the film itself is a lock, too. Certainly if Weinstein can get The Reader a surprise Best Picture nomination with only five available slots, he can get this film onto a ballot double the size.

Don’t forget the Holocaust rule; how could the Academy ignore a movie that features vengeful Jews assassinating Hitler and 300 other Nazis all at once in a blaze of glory? Never mind that they didn’t get some of the worst offenders involved in the genocide.

Could Basterds garner more than the two obvious nominations? I doubt Tarantino will receive recognition for either directing or screenwriting, but who knows? Any other performances worthy? Any tech fields? Variety has an interesting article today on the costume design by Anna B. Sheppard. She’s been twice nominated for, interestingly enough, Holocaust films (Schindler’s List and The Pianist), but this time she was presented with more of a challenge. I have a feeling this third Holocaust-related project could be the one to get her the Oscar.

Check out what the other film blogs are saying about Basterds‘ Oscar chances after the jump:

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Now that Brüno is finished and in theaters, what is Sacha Baron Cohen to do next? Surely he can continue appearing in movies not his own, such as he did with Talladega Nights and Sweeney Todd, but will there ever be another shock-mockumentary in the style of Borat and Brüno? Even if he develops some new characters, people don’t believe he could make another one of these kinds of films stealthily enough to make it work.

Well, let’s hope that isn’t true, because we would love to see at least one more. And we think he’s enough of a chameleon that his increasing fame won’t get in the way. As Metromix recently pointed out, there are just so many people (live and dead) who still need to be interviewed and/or pranked by Baron Cohen. Also, there are so many more marginalized people out there who could use a Brüno of their own to challenge the stereotypes and expose the continuing prejudices of our country.

To help Baron Cohen come up with a new character and issue, we’ve selected five already existing scenarios — which should help garner funding since Hollywood is so into remakes — to inspire him.
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Due to the criticism and controversy of an alleged date-rape scene in Observe and Report, we bring you yet another list of sex scenes, this one focused on cinematic moments that stirred protest, censorship, bans and boycotts. Whether groundbreaking for their time or still questionable today, these scenes could probably have been included in our past highlights of films sold on a sex scene and films remembered primarily for a sex scene. But these are not leftovers. Many of them have merits and memorability outside of their “upsetting” depictions of a sexual act, though many of their objectors wouldn’t know since they never actually saw the films themselves.

One disclaimer must be made, because we’re sure commenters will jump in otherwise asking why A Clockwork Orange and other films with controversial rape scenes have not been included. Besides the fact that many readers will argue that such scenes are not rightly labeled “sex scenes,” there’s also the matter that too many films feature gratuitous rape scenes, and most of the time these are met with criticism. Of course, there are also a number of controversial consensual sex scenes that we’ve had to leave out, so feel free to name any excluded titles after reading the list.
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With Danny Boyle’s DGA win over the weekend, Slumdog Millionaire achieved a near-impossible feat; it became even more favored to win the Oscar for Best Picture. Once thought to be an underdog, Slumdog has been pretty much unstoppable throughout the awards season, even picking up the undeserved top honor at the SAG Awards, and has never fallen from its position of frontrunner since it took the lead months ago. Yet last week, the internet was populated by talk of a Slumdog backlash, and for the first time in weeks, other Best Picture candidates were seriously being discussed as slightly plausible victors. The two titles considered most likely to be a threat to Boyle’s film are The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Milk, with little concern for either Frost/Nixon or The Reader. However, while the former candidate is probably a sure thing to lose, the latter film should not yet be dismissed.

Before the Academy Award nominations were announced last month, The Reader wasn’t even thought to be a contender for any major category except Best Supporting Actress. Now, among its five nominations, it’s up for three higher-tiered Oscars, including Best Picture. So, we can’t rightly continue underestimating its potential. This isn’t to say that we are predicting The Reader to win Best Picture; Slumdog is still the safest bet for the top prize. But odds for The Reader do need to be adjusted, as its chances are a lot closer to, if not better than, secondary favorites Benjamin Button and Milk. Of course, as the it stands now, the film should be an appealing choice for any gamblers out there, because a surprise Best Picture win for The Reader would pay out big time. So, our immediate apologies to betters if the following seven factors have any influence on professional oddsmakers out there.
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Oprah Winfrey can certainly create a best seller when it comes to books, and her pick of the presidential candidates is on his way to the White House. But can she get behind a movie and contribute to its success? 20th Century Fox seems to hope so, because the studio apparently allowed the talk show host to screen an unfinished cut of Australia in preparation for her November 10 show, which featured the film’s stars, Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, as well as a live-via-Skype call-in from filmmaker Baz Luhrman. Fortunately for Fox, Oprah raved about the film, and now the media has latched on to the endorsement, creating some much-needed positive buzz for the Oscar-hopeful. Yet there’s a big problem with all the excitement: Oprah’s film recommendations have hardly been sure-fire champs in the past.

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A man on his phone next to me at the concessions said, “Things have definitely taken a turn for me, today. I’m now four feet away from Salman Rushdie.” In an unusual act of altruism only found at Telluride, author Salman Rushdie has championed the small Indian movie, Firaaq. He is introducing the screenings with the first-time director and acclaimed actress Nandita Das, and he’s conducting the Q&A afterward. This, of course, is helping an unknown movie with no big stars draw a crowd.

Firaaq (translated: Separation) takes place in the immediate aftermath of the 2002 Gujarat riots, where as many as 2,000 people–mostly Muslim–were killed. The riots were a hindu backlash to the Godhra train burning where Muslims were accused of burning up a car with 58 Hindu pilgrims inside. Made with an ensemble cast and intersecting storylines, it’s a day in the life of would be neighbors right after the riots are over, the anger and fear still dense in the air. …Read more

• A California appeals court has refused to force the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to give a “retroactive Oscar” to Bob Yari for producing Crash. Yari was excluded from the film’s 2005 Best Picture win when the Academy changed qualification rules the same year, limiting a film’s eligible number of producers to three. Yari, who financed a large chunk of Paul Haggis’ “Race is hard” drama, has been in court begging for an Oscar ever since.
• In news that will crush Chris’ Brolin family dreams, Elizabeth Banks is on the verge of being cast as Laura Bush in Oliver Stone’s George W. Bush movie, which begins shooting next month.
• On what planet would investors think an extraordinarily fickle, recession-panicked moviegoing public would be willing to pay $35 for a movie ticket––plus extra for “theater-friendly foods” like sushi and wine? Um…

• From the Dear God, I Guess It’s Really Happening file: Dennis Quaid and Channing Tatum have been cast in the lead roles in Stephen Sommers’ G.I. Joe movie.
• From the Dear God, Why Are You LETTING It Happen file: Starz is turning Paul Haggis’ Crash into a miniseries. “This deal fits well with Starz’s strategy of making TV series out of presold movie commodities,” says Starz’ VP of programming, although as far as I can tell, this’ll be the movie net’s first original scripted drama as well as their first pillage of a “movie commodity.”
• Variety notices that Cloverfield dropped almost 70% in its second weekend–a day after the same statistic was glossed over in their own box office writeup–and then lines up excuses for why it’s not *that* bad of a fall-off.

• Talks resume today between the writers and the studios. The WGA’s chief priority is to “get a better proposal on the table”; the AMPTP seems most concern with stepping up their game on the PR front.
• Viacom is starting to hedge on earlier indications that they’re all but ready to unload Dreamworks. At the UBS Global Media Week & Communications Conference, Viacom’s Philippe Dauman talked sweetly about Steven Spielberg, whilst potential Dreamworks buyer Jeff Zucker of NBC/Universal focused on how his own company “is on a great trajectory, and we feel great about that.” Great.
• Anne Sweeney, co-chairman of Disney Media Network and president of Disney-ABC Television Group, has been named the most powerful woman in entertainment by The Hollywood Reporter. For her achievements, she gets to eat breakfast with John Travolta and Queen Latifah. Yay, girl power!
• Paul Haggis and writing/producing partner Robert Morescu have filed yet another lawsuit against Crash producer Bob Yuri, claiming he still owes them “$4.7 million in adjusted gross receipts for the film.” This is at least the fourth lawsuit to have followed the film’s 2006 Best Picture win, and you’d think it all would have been preventable––if anyone should know the ins and outs of inane misunderstandings, it’s the guys who wrote Crash.

The hands-down quote of the day comes from David Cronenberg. The filmmaker was recently asked how he felt about Paul Haggis naming his “race relations are hard” Oscar winner Crash less than a decade after Cronenberg released his own film, about car crash fetishists, with the same title. According to IMDB, there were at least five films called Crash before Cronenbeg’s, but his, based on a J.G. Ballard book of the same name, was certainly the most well-known. And according to the New York Post, Cronenberg thinks Haggis plagiarized on purpose:

I’ve told [him] that he was a [bleep]hole basically for doing that. And so have many other people. It’s very disrespectful, not only to me, but to J.G. Ballard, who wrote the book . . . I made my movie . . . in a very respectful way. Haggis just co- opted the title, and he knew what he was doing.

Did he, though? Could Haggis have really thought that the titular confusion would *help* his movie? I guess there could have been a cunning plot afoot, but I don’t want to give Haggis too much credit.