The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, while readying itself for next year's Oscars, will honor Italian director Federico Fellini and the 50th anniversay of his film "La Dolce Vita" with an exhibition titled "Fellini Oniricon -- The Book of My Dreams," opening Jan. 24 at the Academy offices in Beverly Hills, Variety discloses.

One hundred sketches from Fellini's personal journals comprising his often sexual dreams; nocturnal notes that inspired movie characters; and caricatures that Fellini drew of famous artists, including Pablo Picasso and Marcello Mastroianni, will go on display at the Academy two days after the Oscar nominations are announced. The exhibition runs through April 19.

Touted as the most comprehensive attempt to date to reconstruct the helmer's fantasy world, "Fellini Oniricon" is divided into eight sections, which include "Dreaming and Filming," "All These Ladies" and "Giulietta," dedicated to his wife and muse, Giulietta Masina.

The show, co-produced by the Fellini Foundation, the Rome Film Festival and the Academy, also includes scores of on-set pictures documenting Fellini's career as well as the original copies of his huge two-volume diary, which cover the years 1960-90.

Gus Van Sant's "Milk," which opens Nov. 26, is already drawing raves from the long-lead critics, but the Sean Penn-starring film has already got local critics giving it plenty of thumbs up and Oscar buzz.

At a recent swanky Beverly Hills press screening, the film left the hard-bitten journos sniffling and downright weeping over the plight and ultimate demise of former San Fran board supervisor Harvey Milk.

What? Journos weeping and sobbing over a movie? What has the cinematic world come to?

And virtually everyone at the screening was convinced that Penn is a shoo-in for Best Acting Oscar. Well, he was pretty good.

Among the sniveling, er sniffling media reps were E! Online, People Magazine, Out.com and Campus Circle. No names were divulged, but FBLA watched as it went down and we have to admit we teared up (a bit) too.

Tom Cruise and his Hitler knock-off "Valkyrie" aren't exactly inspiring confidence from MGM studios or from ever-perspicacious test audiences, MSNBC says.

The film, led by "Usual Suspects" director Bryan Singer, has been bounced around the MGM schedule for the last few months and looked like it might be shelved, despite its star.

Trying to save face, MGM's marketing strategy is obviously now avoiding Cruise and his Scientological bent and rather focuses on Singer. To see a trailer, click here.

Film Threat, the snarky, biting answer to the film industry's constant inhouse sniping, opens its 50 Most Frigid in Hollywood with Heath Ledger and the politically incorrect, bad taste query: "Why so deceased?"

Heath Ledger was an actor on the climb, albeit a rather subtle one, to the upper ranks of his profession. While "10 Things I Hate About You" and "A Knight's Tale" weren't necessarily Oscar-contenders, at least one of them was based on Shakespeare. And while playing second fiddle to Mel Gibson in "The Patriot" wasn't a star-making turn, playing the skin flute with Jake Gyllenhaal in "Brokeback Mountain" and playing pseudo-Bob Dylan in "I'm Not There" were worthy of increased respect and recognition. Everything was pointing up and Ledger's role as the Joker was the prize fruit he'd been climbing towards.

The pesky mag goes on to bemoan:

Carmen Electra: Mindless tits and ass have their place in society, but her body has been duping people into paying for shit cinema for far too long, and it's not even as if folks are paying to see her naked! We're not saying the only good Carmen Electra is a naked Carmen Electra (okay, maybe we are), but how bad is it when Pamela Anderson is making more informed, and memorable, career decisions?

Pacino and De Niro: "Everybody said how great it was that De Niro was getting together with Pacino again after teaming up in 'Heat,' conveniently forgetting that one of the things that made 'Heat' so effective was the fact they were only in one scene together..."

Katherine Heigl: "It's so simple it's cliche, but if she doesn't have anything nice to say, and she wants to keep working, she might want to shut up..."

You said it, Film Threat...

Who says money can't buy happiness? In the indie world anyway.

Killer Films, the upstart indie producer of such low-budget films as "Boys Don't Cry" and "Far From Heaven," has sold off half of itself to New York-based venture capital fund GC Corp, Variety says.

With this influx of cash, partners Christine Vachon and Pam Koffler, who are mainstays at events like the Gotham Awards and the Independent Spirit Awards, will go from making $3 million to $5 million indie projects to $40 million to $50 million films.

Killer had been partnered with "ER" creator John Wells, who will stay on as an executive producer for Killer releases.

Mark (the Rabbi) Rabinowitz, a New York-based film writer and constant festival-goer, had an answer to the guy who's suing for rights to a name like Batman.

"What's next? New York City sues Martin Scorsese? Perhaps everyone named "Simpson" sues Fox and Matt Groening? Maybe the state of Indiana should sue Spielberg, Lucas, Ford and Paramount," Rabinowitz intoned.

He has the right idea.

You Tube has posted its share of two-minute indie shorts. Now, the radical web site has cut a deal with MGM to post full-length features, which we can only assume will include MGM's flagship series, the James Bond films, according to the New York Times.

If so, we'd like them shaken and stirred without a frame out of place.

Quentin Tarantino, who only likes to score his films with two kinds of music -- surf tunes and Ennio Morricone.

The "Pulp Fiction" director was able to nab Morricone (who scored all those great Spaghetti Westerns) on his 80th birthday to score his new film, "Inglorious Basterds," according to a film blog chud.com (Cinematic Happenings Under Development).

Tarantino couldn't be reached for comment, but it's pretty clear that he's turning cartwheels, or as Oliver Stone put it in "Wall Street," "bagging the elephant."

Lions Gate Entertainment, which is enjoying a wild ride with its "Saw" franchise and its Emmys for "Mad Men," announced Friday that it was laying off 8% of its workstaff across the board,including production, television, home entertainment, business affairs and legal.

Out of a workforce of 550, the Santa Monica-based studio eliminated 41 positions. The layoffs should save the company some $10 million annually, out of its $140 million overhead.

The moves may come as a treat to corporate raider Carl Icahn, who recently bought about 9% of the company, which many on Wall Street felt as an overture to an corporate raid on the company. Icahn has said he thought Lions Gate was undervalued and could perform better.

The Los Angeles Times take from reporter Claudia Eller on Lions Gate's woes is below:

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Marina Zenovich, a Los Angeles-based director who created "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired," a doc about the notorious statutory 1977 rape case against the famed director of such films as "Chinatown" and "Rosemary's Baby," will finally get to fully meet her subject at Italy's Turin Film Festival in mid-November.

Zenovich tells FBLA that she tried and tried to secure him for an interview for the doc, but was only allowed a passing accidental meet. But she still persevered over more than five years and the film screened earlier this year on HBO.

Oliver Stone, fresh off of the domestic release of his Bush-pasting "W," will also attend, according to Variety.