The Motion Picture Academy is confirming Sacha Baron Cohen has dropped out as an Oscar presenter.

He was supposed to take part in an "Avatar" sketch with Ben Stiller, playing a female Na'vi.   Stiller reportedly was going to "translate" what Cohen was saying in Na'vi.  The Cohen avatar reportedly would then reveal she was pregnant with director James Cameron's love child.

Sounds pretty funny to me, but the Academy says the bit "did not come to fruition" (maybe "gestation" would have been a better word). 

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“Guru is recovering and his doctors are guarded, but hopeful for his recovery,” Solar said.

He said the rapper has a history of lung problems and asthma and has been guarded about revealing his health issues. Solar, who says he is Guru’s best friend in addition to being his producer for the last few years, is currently acting as Guru’s spokesperson.

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Not everyone can take home a shiny Oscar statuette, so the Academy offers gift bags filled with the awesome as well as the bizarre.

Let’s start with the good gifts. Since those who lose out on Oscar night may feel the need to get a way from it all, there’s a $45,000 trip voucher for a South African safari, complete with personal chef, a $14,500 trip voucher for a getaway to Monaco, plus a $7,000 trip voucher to a posh resort in Connecticut.

There’s also deeli.com gift cards, an offer for an iFLY indoor flying session as well as a Tiffany cat collar and designer dog toys. And, because this is Hollywood, Oscar nominees will get gourmet chocolates that can be burned off with the gift bag's offer for personal training sessions and a week at a fitness boot camp.

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Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan didn't attempt suicide over the past decade - but that doesn’t mean he didn’t consider it.

As he told Rolling Stone magazine for their latest issue, until recently, Corgan's decision-making process on many mornings was choosing between eating breakfast, or killing himself.

What saved him, he said, was his unique sense of spirituality, including an association with a group called Source Family. If that sort of conversation seems personal, it’s just the tip of the iceberg – Corgan had a lot to say about the past 10 years, including his father’s heroin addiction and where he stands on his critics.

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All is still well for Jay Leno's late-night ratings: he's still in the top spot, easily beating his 11:35 p.m. rival, David Letterman.

"The Tonight Show" had a total of 5.1 million viewers on Thursday night, while Letterman's "Late Show" had a total of 3.9 million, followed by ABC's "Nightline" with 3.6 million.

Jimmy Fallon, on the other hand, slipped a bit on Thursday. "The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson" on CBS came in no. 1 at 12:35 a.m. with 1.9 million viewers whereas only 1.8 million tuned in to Fallon's "Late Night."

“Hurt Locker” producer Nicolas Chartier’s e-mail habits continue to intrigue.

Over at the L.A. Times’ movie blog, there’s yet another message from Chartier, who has already been banished from the Academy Awards because of a campaign note he sent to Oscar voters and other insiders that the Academy found to be in bad taste.

This message, sent in December, focuses on the other “Hurt Locker” controversy of the lawsuit brought by Sgt. Jeffrey Sarver, who claims the film isn’t fictional but based on his own experiences in the Iraq war that "Locker" screenwriter Mark Boal documented.

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My first encounter with Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" was watching it on my parents' TV on a VHS tape - a format now thought of as a bit outdated. It was the 1951 Walt Disney version.

But what some of us think of as the first time "Alice" hit the big screen is a far cry from her actual film debut in 1903. That's right, 1903. The Wright Brothers hadn't even gotten their plane off the ground until the end of 1903. Since then there have been quite a few "Alice" film adaptations.

As fans eagerly await the release of Tim Burton's 3D spectacle full of special effects, they should consider watching the first ever Alice to truly appreciate how far the film has come.

According to the British Film Institute there is only one copy of the 1903 "Alice." It wasn't until 2009 that the fragile film could be digitally restored. Only eight of twelve minutes of the scratchy black and white film were salvaged and have been published on the BFI's Youtube channel.

The seemingly magical appearance of the giant Cheshire cat - an actual cat - is an astonishing effect for its day. And even though the film is silent, the whimsical piano accompaniment moves the story right along. If I'd been a kid in 1903, I'm guessing I would have been blown away by this film. Just as I'm sure I'll be blown away when I go see Tim Burton's version.

Alice, you've come a long way.

Actor Sean Penn, most recently embroiled in a paparazzi scandal, had a few choice words for those who believe his service in Haiti didn’t come from a pure willingness to help others.

During an interview on CBS’ “Sunday Morning,” CBS News chief foreign affairs correspondent Lara Logan asked Penn if it made him angry when people talked about his work in Haiti in a cynical way.

The Oscar winner responded that he hadn’t “had an awful lot of time to pay attention” to the cynics, before adding, “you know, do I hope that those people die screaming of rectal cancer? Yeah, you know, but I’m not going to spend a lot of energy in it.”

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Country and pop music juggernaut Taylor Swift opens up to Elle magazine for the latest issue, and it turns out the “Fearless” songbird still has her fair share of anxiety.

Just three days from her 20th birthday when she sat down for the interview, Swift told the fashion magazine that while she’s “had countless opportunities to do some really bad things” by hanging out with the wrong crowd, she’s avoided those pitfalls.

Thus far, her biggest mistake has been forgetting to write diary entries while rehearsing for "Saturday Night Live," a clean record likely fueled by her biggest fear: “me making a bunch of bad decisions and embarking on a painful, slow, devastating tailspin.”
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Oscar oddsmakers have "The Hurt Locker" and "Avatar" in a virtual dead heat for best picture.  So it's a sure bet that one of them will win on Sunday, right?

Not necessarily.

Voting for best picture – and tabulating those votes – isn't a simple case of majority rule.  For one thing, with 10 nominees this year, it's more likely than ever that no film will receive 50 percent-plus-one of the vote: If "Avatar" and "Hurt Locker" are as close as believed, even if the other eight nominees combined drew, say, just 15 percent of the votes, that likely would be enough to keep either of the favorites from reaching 50 percent.

In the past, that wouldn't have mattered: the top vote-getter would take the trophy, end of story.

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