•Zooey Deschanel continues to play roles that make her look cool: She'll be starring in a half-hour pilot for HBO based on the Pamela Des Barres' memoir I'm With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie According to Deadline, "Des Barres bragged about her bedroom experiences with the likes of Mick Jagger, Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page and actor Don Johnson." We hear they're going to use archival footage of actual drugged-out orgies for the sex scenes. [Deadline]

•The Academy hoped to spice things up this year by expanding the best picture race to 10 pictures. Did it work? Signs point to: sort of. There were a wider variety of pictures, including "A Serious Man" and "The Blind Side." But then there wasn't a single comedy or musical, which suggests the Academy's self-seriousness would force it to pick only dramas and blockbusters even if there were 100 nominees. You guys don't matter that much, so just pick a movie with some dick jokes for once. Come onnnnnn. [Variety]

•Keeping with the Oscars: Here are some boring responses from people about their nominations: "I am stoked," said best director nom Lee Daniels. "Wow!" said Quentin Tarantino. Sandra Bullock said, "Everyone is as blindsided—can I say that?—as I am." (No, you cannot say that. Please, never again.) "We did well," said Jeff Bridges. The Coen Brothers said "Thank you very much." And Jason Reitman thanked his father. Are you as excited as we are to watch three hours of this sort of thing on TV? [THR]

•If Chinese movie pirates were really good, they'd figure out someway to make a bootleg Hugh Jackman. Then they wouldn't need to pay him all that money to come over and star in the new English languish film by Chinese director Wayne Wang. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan was originally supposed to have Zhang Ziyi in it, but she dropped out right before Jackman joined. The actual role that Jackman will play is unclear: Local press called it the "male lead," while his publicist said he was doing "an unbilled cameo." These are almost opposite things. [THR]

•Uma Thurman has been cast along with Christina Ricci and Kristin Scott Thomas to star with Robert Pattinson in Bel Ami, which is a film about Pattinson traveling through 1890s Paris "using his wits and powers of seduction to rise from poverty to wealth." (This is pretty much how I plan on doing it. -ED). [ScreenDaily]

•Ben Silverman is back, and he's got a Murdoch on his side: Elisabeth Murdoch, that is. The two are launching a new international distribution unit, Electus, under Barry Diller's IAC. It's a multimedia company, and their first deal attests to just how multitudinous are the medias they're concerned with: "Cukoo's nest," a Facebook game which turned into an Israeli TV show. What!? [Variety]