With all the fun of copyright, we can't post the shorts for you, but hopefully there's clips will give you a slightly better background on the shorts than the 3-second blurbs on Oscar night.

La Maison en Petits Cubes
In a world gradually flooding with water, an old man adapts to changing circumstances and looks back on his life.

Lavatory Lovestory
A lonely lavatory attendant finds a bouquet of flowers in her tip jar.

Oktapodi
An octopus fights to keep his beloved out of the cooking pot.

Presto
A carrot triggers a war of wits between a magician and his hungry bunny.

This Way Up
A series of misfortunes befalls a pair of undertakers on their way to the cemetery.

If you'd like to see thee shorts in full, at least a few will be making their way to iTunes, but also, Magnolia Pictures is running the films in theaters as part of a collection of Oscar-nominated shorts. You can see the city by city schedule here.

Start with the Wall-E bento, then move on to this second course of open face cheese sandwich. Polish it off with a shake of your choosing for dessert, then repeat as necessary. Given enough commitment and bone loss, you too can make yourself a piece of collectible Wall-E memorabilia. (Hey, there are worse ways to go.) [Flickr via Botropolis]

PC fanboys, you just really can't win.

Given the fact that Motorola is using Hollywood to garner publicity for one of its products makes me think that they are not bowing out without a fight. Athough *whispers* from a style point of view, fake iguana-skin boxes won't increase sales in my book—what you need, Greg Brown, is a new interface and sexier, non-four-letter-upper-case-word handsets. [Electronista]

As you pirating assholes know, DVD screeners sent to Oscar voters is a nice source of ones littered on BitTorrent. A lot of 'em are watermarked to curb leaks, but a more pro-active measure started in 2004 is encrypted disks that only play on the S-View DVD player made by Cinea. But lugging it around during the holidays—prime screener season—is a totally unrighteous pain in the ass, so the program has been killed this year. But it worked so well to keep screeners off the internet! Oh wait. [Torrentfreak]

If you didn't notice, the phone has an AT&T logo replacing the Cingular image, on the top left of the screen. And Richard Blakeley points out that the time used to say 10:15. Now it says 10:12. "It's a time machine!", says Richard.

I wonder if there's any significance to the numbers 10:12 and 10:15. Biblical, personal for Jobs?...OK, I need to get out of this cabin. This sort of obsession is best left to the real mac wonks.

And speaking of obsession, can anyone name all the actors in the commercial? Is there a pattern to the actors used, in term of time, studio, etc? (Hit the comments, we'll approve em after a short while.)

That's 40 million viewers, watching the second slot of the awards, btw. I wonder if it is too big of an assumption to think the mainstreamers are going to have a clue to what's going on in this spot. Regardless, the ad is a nice little collab between Hollywood studios and Apple. Here's hoping to more of that in the future, in terms of iTunes movie selection. -Brian Lam and Richard Blakeley

Apple iPhone Oscars Ad [myiphone]

Read on for the complete memo...

To the Attention of the Editor: I am writing on behalf of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with regard an article or press release posted on your web site (http://www.mobilewhack.com/motorolas-motorizr-z3-mobile-phone-debuts-at-academy-awards/) on the subject of the Motorola Rizr (Motorizr) Z3 phone and the 79th Annual Academy Awards(r). We suspect it is based upon a press release by Motorola, a copy of which is posted on their website at: http://www.motorola.com/mediacenter/news/detail.jsp?globalObjectId=7673_7603_23 The Academy believes this press release is misleading, and that you and/or your readers may be confused that Motorola is somehow affiliated with or sponsoring the Academy Awards(r). In particular, the Academy wishes to point out that Motorola will not in fact be, "...debuting its not-yet-available Motorizr Z3 at the 79th Annual Academy Awards(r)." Motorola is neither an official Academy sponsor nor provider, nor will a nominee even be allowed to carry this type of phone at the Academy Awards (guests are not allowed to bring cameras, including phones with a camera feature). Additionally, it should be made clear that the Academy does not give, and has never given, gift baskets to its nominees. We have in the past given gift baskets to our award presenters, but you may or may not have heard that this practice has recently been discontinued (see http://www.oscars.org/press/pressreleases/2006/06.08.17.html)

In light of the above information, the Academy would appreciate your revising or removing this article or press release.

Please let us know if you have any questions.

Very truly yours,

Scott Miller
Assistant General Counsel
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
www.oscars.org


cc: Motorola

–Brian Lam

This year, the highlight of the swag bags is the "Gunmetal" Motorola PEBL that we mentioned last month. The tech items make up the cheaper pieces of the swag bag including are a $600 expresso maker and a $550 VTech broadband phone system.

What's in this year's Oscar goodie bag? [Chicago Sun-Times]