Billy Crystal is hosting the 2012 Academy Awards. The Muppets won't.

But before you get too downhearted about Crystal stamping his feet all over the face of your Muppet Oscars dream, watch this Muppet Bollywood trailer:

 

 

There. That feels all better now, doesn't it? (For Muppet parody trailers, check out our video wall of the greatest Muppet videos of all time.)

 

After Brett Ratner pulled a Berlusconi and Eddie Murphy swiftly followed suit, the internet exploded in a giant bull of fuzzy joy yesterday with one absolutely genius idea: The Muppets should host the Oscars in 2012. 

Since then, no doubt tons of people have written blog posts arguing why (and new Oscars producer Brian Grazer better be reading ALL of them). Their impossibly likeable charm, the genuinely hilarious jokes, witty and original spoofs of award contenders, song and dance numbers to rival Neil Patrick Harris and Hugh Jackman, and (of course) the fact that ABC are owned by Disney anyway.

But rather than list all of those arguments again in massive detail, there's one simple reason why The Muppets should host the Oscars: they've been presenting them (and Emmys) for years.

Here's some video proof that The Muppets already know their way around an awards ceremony...

After the immense success of last week’s inaugural Home Videos post (Steven Spielberg’s Hook), even the Guardian have started writing about VHS (sort of). And so I continue to rummage through the big bag of tapes in my attic to waffle on about films what I saw when I were a youngster.

This week, out of the depths of VHS past comes Titanic:

Yes, Titanic – that Oscar-winning James Cameron epic that was formerly the most expensive movie ever made, not to mention the highest grossing movie of all time. Until Avatar came along, of course.

Gnomeo & Juliet has climbed back to the top of the UK Box Office during half-term, while Drive Angry 3D crashed outside of the Top Ten. 

It's not much of a surprise that a 3D animated film benefitted most from school holidays, with Gnomeo taking £2.5m (up by £300k) over the weekend. It's sad that the dwarf mess came out on top, but at least it's a long way ahead of Yogi Bear, which saw a weekend rise of £90k, jumping from sixth to fourth place.

Director: Ivan Reitman
Cast: Natalie Portman, Ashton Kutcher, Greta Gerwig, Kevin Kline
Certificate: 15

It’s the same every year. You go to the Oscars, you wear a pretty dress, you make some new friends and eat a massive Oscar dinner. Fatty cakes, protein-heavy canapes, rich desserts, tons of champagne - you quaff the lot. By the end of it all, you return home woozy and bloated before taking a trip to the toilet. Then you take a massive, horrible dump. This is No Strings Attached: the proverbial post-Oscar crap.

Paul invaded the UK box office this weekend with £5.52m, the highest opening of 2011 to date. But the surprise of the week was Justin Bieber hitting rock bottom: Never Say Never 3D took just £820,592. The Beliebers won't be able to, erm, Belieb it.

Simon Pegg and Nick Frost taking top spot was expected, of course, given that the film landed in cinemas on Monday. While £5.52m is technically a record-breaking figure, it had four days of previews to rack up that total.

Compare it to, say, the superior Hot Fuzz, which got £5.92m on its opening weekend with just Wednesday and Thursday previews and you get a better picture. Paul took around £3.2m over the weekend alone - a way behind Tangled's debut of £5.11m in three days. But with a lot of negative reviews (and without Edgar Wright or 3D), Universal will be pleased to label their sci-fi a smash hit.

It's always the same at the Oscars and BAFTAs - everyone knows the big stuff, but nobody's seen the shorts.

If you're lucky, your local arthouse cinema will put on a showreel of all the ones that are up for awards, but more often than not, people just don't get the chance to watch the Oscar-nominated Best Animated Short Films.

And so we all end up just randomly guessing which film we think will win. And that's a shame - especially when there are cupcakes at stake for the person who gets the most predictions right (see The Oscar Nomnomnom Challenge).

Which leads us neatly to a rundown of this year's nominees for Best Animated Short Film - complete with full videos.

Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Cast: Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin
Certificate: 15
Trailer

Hats are brilliant. You've got to love hats. The Coen Brothers learnt long ago (before No Country For Old Men) that if you put a man in a hat, you get results. Miller's Crossing had its fair share of hats. It was a straight-up masterpiece. And that was way back in 1990. But you know what? You've never really seen a hat until you've seen Hailee Steinfeld wear a hat. She takes hat wearing to a whole another level. Hats and her? It's a thing of beauty.

Director: David O'Russell
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Melissa Leo
Certificate: 15

Micky Ward (Wahlberg) is a boxer - not a great one, but a good one. He's the younger brother of Dicky Ecklund (Bale). Dicky's a boxer too. He once knocked down Sugar Ray. Now he spends his days honking on his crack pipe and talking bollocks to a video camera.

Think you can predict who will win the Oscars? Well token bloke off the internet Chris Blohm says YOU KNOW NOTHING. Prove him (and me) wrong with literally the 42nd most exciting thing you could do this January: The Oscar Nomnonom Challenge!

Write down your predictions for all categories. Twitpic them (use #oscarnomnomnom) or email them to [email protected]. The person who gets the most right will win cupcakes. 

 

 

We have entries from 6 people. They are:

- Andrew Jones (recently escaped from Barking to compete for cupcakes)

- Chris Blohm (never goes full robo-vag)

- Robbie Collin (him off News of the World)

- Selina Pearson (resident science junkie)

- Matt Reynolds (Digital Spy's gaming genius and part-time Ron Weasley lookalike)

- Me (who once got told he looks like George Harrison by a drunk Birmingham resident)

 

Who will win the coveted Oscarnomnomnom cupcakes?

 

This bake off is about to take off. Boom.