As the Oscar ballots were just sent out to hungry voters for those pesky gold statuettes, the pressing question hovers around Dirty Harry and whether he’ll get the acting nod, the L.A. Times predicts.

The critics, well faux critics or columnists or whatever you want to call them, are in disarray as to whether Clint can cull an acting statue. Michael Musto of the Village Voice (who is not a critic), Anne Thompson of Variety (who also is not a critic) and blogger Jeff Wells of Hollywood-Elsewhere.com (who, surprise, is also not a critic) all like Clint for best actor. They seem to think he does feel lucky, punk.

But competition is pretty stiff this year. Frank Langella is likely to get nominated for “Frost/Nixon,” Sean Penn looks like lock for “Milk,” Brad Pitt for “Benjamin Button” and dark horse Mickey ‘They took my fuckin’ thumb’ Rourke for “The Wrestler.

Now remember, the noms haven’t even been announced yet, so these could all be false conjecture.

But Clint is definitely a special case. He’s won for directing and producing but acting has always been a non-starter. Not that Clint couldn’t pull off a decent “Hamlet,” if needed (or maybe “Lear”), but he’s worth voting for because he’s Clint.

And because we here at FBLA aren’t quite sure whether he shot five times or was it six and we don’t want to be the sixth.

The five documentary nominees for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association will be available to schmooze and discuss their work the day before the Globes are given out.

Nominees include: “THE BAADER-MEINHOF COMPLEX” (DER BADDER- MEINHOF KOMPLEX); “EVERLASTING MOMENTS” (MARIA LARSSONS EVIGA ÖGONBLICK); “GOMORRAH” (GOMORRA); “I’VE LOVED YOU SO LONG” (IL Y A LONGTEMPS QUE JE T’AIME); and “WALTZ WITH BASHIR.”

Each director will be available at 1 p.m. on Jan. 10 at the Egyptian Theater. So if you like docs, especially foreign ones, it’s an open house. Here’s the invite.

“In Hollywood they have a different language that they speak. It’s spoken by these folks that went to school for just one week.”

Thanks to Milk and Cookies for this clip.

Patrick Range McDonald wrote a blistering expose about Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in the LA Weekly back in September of this year. The article was scathing yet never once mentioned the Mayor’s love of the ladies…especially those that are members of the press.

Villaraigosa defended himself to the LA Daily News last Friday:

His active campaigning across the country for Clinton and, after her loss, Obama drew the most criticism this past year as he combined those events with his own fundraising. One newspaper, the L.A. Weekly, charted a period of his work then and concluded he only spent 11 percent of his time working on city business.

It’s a story that still rankles.

“It didn’t really go anywhere because it wasn’t true,” Villaraigosa said. “They were upset because we only gave them my public calendar. They didn’t get to see what I was doing privately, with meetings here (at City Hall) or in other places.

“Everyone who knows me, knows I work hard. That’s why both Sen. Clinton and Obama wanted me to campaign for them.

“And, I did most of that on weekends. I took a lot of red-eyes to make sure I was here.”

The answer to charges that the mayor is lazy? Red-eyes.

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Go on, you know you’re curious who made the cut. We love lists.

Our thanks to Ana Marie Cox for linking to this on her Twitter feed with the note:

I disagree with one of the names on this list (“people who should be unemployed”) but gonna let you guess which.

And make sure not to miss the special mention for “Never Ever Get Fired Award”:

Tribune Company Innovation Chief Lee Abrams He is an insane person and every dollar spent on him is a dollar wasted, by a bankrupt company, but he is a treat, and we would miss his memos.

Weltraffer from Jesus Diaz on Vimeo.

This is the second place winner in the Go Miniman Contest.

Awesome. Snort.

FBLA sat down with Jordan Osher, Chief Executive Officer of the site Meet The Famous for a little Q and A:

FBLA: So how do you think our pictures of Helen Thomas would fly on your site?

JO: If there’s an exclusive, never before seen photo of Helen with a great story that people want to read about, I think there would be a following. Unlike all the other celebrity blogs and entertainment sites, MeetTheFamous.com is the only one that allows everyone to post and share their celebrity photos and stories with the world (and get paid for it!)

FBLA: Isn’t Miley Cyrus awesome?

JO:I think her enormous success speaks for itself. How many people can accomplish what she has accomplished before the age of 18, let alone in their entire lifetimes? We have seen a lot of Miley Cyrus postings on our site and the overall consensus is that she is really cool to her fans and awesome to see live in concert.

FBLA:Where do you think we’d get the better photos – AA meetings or methadone clinics?

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In our quest to do nothing over the winter break – we ended up in a Operation Repo marathon on TruTV.

This “unscripted” show is Cops meets Jerry Springer.

Or it’s Reno 911 – if it decided to really be a show about the perils of police work.

You know how when your stupid friend begs you to go see their improv group at some horrible club in Hollywood and you spend the evening sitting in the back of some sticky theater watching the parade of lame and you wonder why you are friends with this guy in the first place and how the hell did you just get suckered into paying a cover to watch real life Hard Rock servers pretend to be Starbucks workers? “Ok, now we need help from the audience.” Indeed.

That’s how Operation Repo is…sans the stupid friend and the cover charge. It’s a series of reenactments of some of the “looniest” and “wildest” repo adventures in The Valley – but if John Waters cast it. There’s the obese blond Latina goth girl who repos vehicles in a floor length black tutu for starters…

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Hollywood muckraker extraordinaire Mark Ebner is getting it on with subject/socialite/womanizer Rick “Scum” Salomon, the blogger tells FBLA.

Salomon, who is best known for stripping down with Paris Hilton in a fun(?) porn romp that lit up downloading geeky computer screens around the world, wants to sue Ebner for some of his, shall we say, disclosures regarding a Las Vegas associate Darnell Riley (See, at right).

This is all in anticipation of Ebner’s upcoming book, “Six Degrees of Paris Hilton.”

Book, which comes out in early February will have the usual Ebner scoops that will no doubt piss off both Salomon and, of course, Paris.

Universal CitiWalk, calling itself “Southern California’s favorite New Year’s destination, is throwing its own local bash for the pending 2009 festivities.

The parties (at each end so of the CitiWalk) will include big-time fireworks explosions and a slew of local DJs spinning discs (what are those?).

Most interesting element is, bowing to NYC’s midnight ball-drop in Times Square, CitiWalk will start the bash at 9 p.m. complete with
outdoor big screens.

And they say they’re not the second city.

More info below:

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