Variety just announced that the Directors Guild of America has reached a tentative three-year deal with the AMPTP. The new deal has three major components: establishing DGA jurisdiction over programs produced for distribution on the Internet, boosting the residuals formula for paid Internet downloads by double the current rate, and establishing residual rates for ad-supported streaming and use of clips on the Internet. Gil Cates, chair of the DGA's negotiation committee, says: "Two words describe this agreement -- groundbreaking and substantial. The gains in this contract for directors and their teams are extraordinary -- and there are no rollbacks of any kind."

This is great news for the DGA, and the pressure is definitely on now for the WGA to come to a resolution and end the strike. The writers, as you may have heard, have been on strike since November 5th, and representatives haven't been back to the negotiating table since December 7th, when talks last collapsed. The WGA has not issued an official reaction statement to today's DGA announcement, but many think the DGA deal is strong enough that the WGA will follow suit. Here's hoping that happens, and happens soon, so that everyone -- not just the writers are out of work here, remember -- can get back to work. The DGA deal is set to go into effect on July 1st.

"Sound is more important than picture!" Robert Wuhl said with conviction. I absolutely agree ... sound is crucial. It is exactly what sets a film's tone before you ever see a picture projected on the screen. I knew exactly what I was in for the minute I heard the beauty pageant announcer exuberantly talking over the music of Devotchka before ever seeing Olive's face in Little Miss Sunshine. A sound mixer's stamp on a film is that deafening. Even silent films relied on sound to tell their stories. Buster Keaton's impeccable talents in The General still couldn't mimic the sound of a frantically moving train and the beating heart of a man driven by love.

"Sound people don't get the respect they deserve," Wuhl also said. The work of a sound mixer can, ironically, go unheard. It's the more 'technical' category of the Oscars where the winner will certainly be hushed off the stage by a premature sound cue -- the irony ensues. Luckily, the Cinema Audio Society held their 43rd Annual award ceremony on February 17 to honor their own for their outstanding achievements in filmmaking.

Last year, as you avid Oscar watchers may recall, Academy Awards producer Gil Cates (pictured, right, with his hand in a rather, er, compromising position on Mr. Oscar) unveiled a daring new plan to speed up the Oscars - let's eliminate that long, boring walk from the back of the auditorium to the stage by seating some of the nominees on stage. Not the ones from those craftsy categories no one cares about, though -  just the big names. This year's plan is not "quite as dramatic" as last year's (in other words, it was designed in response to the bitching from the folks in the crafts categories that they, like lower classes from time out of mind, were being relegated to the lower decks of the Oscar cruise ship).

Instead of segregating nominees into "deserves to be on stage" and "hide him at the back where no one can see him", this year the nominees will be hustled up to seats at the front of the auditorium just in time for their camera "face time" as their category is announced. Then the winner goes up to stage to snag their prize, the losers are shuffled back to their seats, and the next group moves up.

This sounds waaaaay too complicated to me, but at the same time, it has the delicious potential for a major screw up as some lackey forgets to get Keira Knightley or Heath Ledger into their front row seats within their allotted face-time window. Can't you just hear the publicists clearing their throats in anticipation of a mass bitch-out if their clients aren't on camera? Watching the musical chairs take place could prove to actually make the Oscars more entertaining than ever. Now I'm getting excited.

According to wire reports, poor Jon Stewart was very much not first choice to host the Oscars. In fact, former host Billy Crystal claims that show producer Gil Cates wanted him for the job, so much so that he "repeatedly" called Crystal, who refused because of his commitment to 700 Sundays (his one-man show). Despite being turned down, Cates was still calling as late as Christmas, fewer than two weeks before the triumphant Stewart announcement.

Hey, movie history is jam-packed with second choices that totally rule - personally, despite my soft spot for Crystal's work on the Oscars, I'm pretty confident that Stewart will do a great job. Here's my question, though: why the hell did Crystal go public with this? He's always struck me as a reasonably (for Hollywood, anyway) ego-free guy, but apart from the need for attention I can't think of any reason for him to talk. His words can't possibly do any good for the show; if anything, they'll just make people worry about how right Stewart could be for the gig, if he's not who Cates really wanted.