It’s that time of year again….awards season!  Celebrities are running in high gear…and so are their plastic surgeons.  The glitz, the glamour, the red carpet, the jewelry, the leathery skin…but enough about Joan Rivers.  The time has come for talented men and women to receive recognition for achievements made to the entertainment business.  And there’s no bigger prize in motion picture than that adorable little gold guy Oscar.  With news of the nominations, Hollywood is abuzz with Oscar fever.  It’s such a shame the award comes so early in the year…by the time celebs send out their Christmas cards, they may forget they even have that old Oscar.  Especially if you’re Meryl Streep.

Yup, Meryl’s up for another award.  She may be portraying Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady, but the title is more apropos for Streep’s own career.  This marks her 17th career nomination for Oscar, the most of any actor.  She hasn’t won since 1983 for Sophie’s Choice, but this is quite an impressive feat nonetheless.  Given her win at the Golden Globes for Best Actress, Drama, it looks like Meryl may be making the trip to the podium for the third time (before Sophie’s Choice, there was her supporting actress win for Kramer vs. Kramer).

Sure, Meryl may be making history, but my favorite story to come out of these nominations has to be Melissa McCarthy.  Just a few short months ago, I had the pleasure of blogging Melissa’s Emmy win for Mike & Molly, and now the girl is an Oscar nominee!  It’s the Year of McCarthy, my friends, so jump on board this bandwagon!  McCarthy is up for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her breakout role in Bridesmaids.  Costar Kristen Wiig, herself a powerhouse comedic performer, is an Oscar nominee herself, snagging an Original Screenplay Oscar along with co-writer Annie Mumolo.  Oscar tends to shy away from comedies, so these nominations are a welcome change of pace.

My other favorite?  Jonah Hill for Best Supporting Actor in Moneyball.  Anyone who saw Hill in Superbad may not have thought that his career trajectory included “Oscar nominee”, but he proved those naysayers wrong.  My money has him losing to Christopher Plummer (whom you may know as Captain Von Trapp from The Sound of Music…sidebar: Plummer is about a million years old and has never won an Oscar.  This year, that will change.).  Either way, it’s a move in the right direction for this versatile young actor.

Winners will be announced on February 26.  Until then, I have lots of movies I need to see!

Sir Elton John won’t be receiving Christmas cards from Madonna this year, especially after his rant at the “Q Music Magazine” awards in London where he accused Madonna of lip synching once he discovered that she was up for the “Best Live Act Award”, and wanted to know since when is lip synching considered live? Elton was receiving a song writing award and it turned out that the Material Girl did not win the Live Act award, the British band Muse won it. He thought that anyone who lip syncs onstage should be shot for cheating their fans and charging £75 (US $134) a ticket.

There is no love lost between Madonna and Elton John. Nothing like a good catfight to keep awards season interesting!

In response Madonna’s US based spokeswoman Liz Rosenberg rejected Elton’s allegations by issuing this statement: “Madonna does not lip-synch nor does she spend her time trashing other artists. She sang every note on her Reinvention tour live and is not ashamed that she was well paid for her hard work.” Furthermore, “Elton John remains on her Christmas card list whether he is nice … or naughty.”

The tension between the two Divas continued at the Golden Globes when both were nominated for “Best Original Song” and Madonna won for her song “Masterpiece”. If it wasn’t enough that both Elton and his partner David Furnish had identical looks of displeasure when Madonna’s name was announced as the winner, David was so upset about Elton’s loss that he vented his feelings in not so many expletives on Facebook, criticizing her acceptance speech for reeking of  narcissism.

Sore losers, whose side are you on?

Who wouldn’t want Christmas cards from Tom Selleck? Mr. Tall, Dark, and Craggily Handsome Selleck is a picture worthy of receiving on the front of any Christmas card. Maybe we would have to settle for having his wife, Jilly, and his daughter, Hannah in the picture with him, but hey, we can just cover them up with our own picture and that would be perfect. I would like to be pictured standing next to Tom Selleck in my very own celebrity Christmas cards…my friends would be thrilled.

Tom Selleck is a nice looking guy who was born in Detroit on January 29, 1945, but he grew up in Sherman Oaks, California. He is the second of four children, and his mother must have loved sending out Christmas cards with the picture of Tom and his two brothers and sister. Can you imagine what a cute little boy he was growing up?

From Magnum P.I. to Blue Bloods, Tom Selleck is a hollywood hunk with an awesome 'stache!

Tom Selleck matured to be a tall, athletic young man and attended the University of Southern California on a basketball scholarship. Somewhere along the line, he decided to study acting and went to the Beverly Hills Playhouse. He appeared several times on The Dating Game and he was never picked! Of course, in those days he had no moustache! Yes he had some acting roles, but they were not so successful until he decided to grow his moustache. He became a celebrity and a sex symbol when he landed the role as Magnum, P.I.  Now, he may have been cute before then, but wow, who could resist watching the show so you could see this gorgeous man in a bathing suit on the sands of Hawaii with those long, long legs and irreverent smile. Better than that was when he was coifed and clothed in a tuxedo. Gorgeous!

Tom Selleck starred in Magnum from 1980 to 1988 and went on to star in feature movies and made for TV movies. Among these were Runaway, Three Men and a Baby, Lassiter, Her Alibi, and An Innocent Man. He can now be seen on the television show Blue Bloods, where he plays the patriarch of a family of police officers. Selleck has won several People’s Choice Awards, Golden Globes, and an Emmy.

Selleck has been married to Jilly Mack since 1987 and lives on an avocado ranch in Thousand Oaks, California. Can you see him standing in the hot sun pruning the avocadoes? Yes that would be a great picture which he could send out as his celebrity Christmas cards this year. Can anyone tell me how to get on his mailing list?

Mark Harmon keeps his family life tightly under wraps and out of the limelight. It is almost impossible to find out how he, his wife Pam Dawber (of Mork and Mindy and Sister Sam fame), and their family celebrate Christmas. In the early 80s, when Mark was celebrating the advent of a successful screen career, he gifted his father with a new Mercedes Benz for Christmas. Perhaps his family Christmas cards would be purchased from The Children’s Center, a charity he supports in Bethany, Oklahoma.

Mark Harmon has starred as Leroy Jethro Gibbs on NCIS since 2003. He plays a former Marine sniper who is now a Supervisory Special Agent at the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. His performance may be enhanced because his maternal Grandfather was William Franklin Knox, United States Secretary of the Navy during World War II.

Mark certainly had a lot to live up to. He followed in his father’s footsteps during high school and college by playing football and in his mother’s footsteps after graduation.  Mark’s sister Kristin was married to the late singer Ricky Nelson. His sister Kelly was married to car magnate John DeLorean.

In most of his roles he plays a heroic, low-keyed character. The role of hero came to life in front of his house in 1996 when he pulled two teenagers from a burning car after an accident. He had to break the windows with a sledgehammer. In his imitable style, he shunned the media attention that followed and said, “I was the one with the sledgehammer in my garage.”

As a huge fan of Denzel Washington, who happens to be my favorite actor, I was extremely curious as to what kind of Christmas cards he had chosen for his family holiday greetings. What did I find? Nada, zilch, zero! I did some more research and I came across several bios explaining how he keeps his family life private and how hard he tries to keep his family out of the celebrity limelight as well as little tidbits about his childhood in Mt. Vernon, N.Y., his support of the YMCA where he spent many of his younger years, and how he is a father of four, his two youngest being twins.

A heavenly angel from a movie is as close as we are going to get to seeing Denzel's Christmas cards!

Even though I couldn’t find Christmas cards sent by Denzel or the Washington family, I did find a picture that is noteworthy. I came across a Christmas picture from a movie Denzel made back in 1996, and looking at the photo I knew it would make a wonderful Christmas card that Denzel would be proud to send to his many adoring fans, myself included. The scene was from the movie The Preacher’s Wife and all I could see clearly was Denzel’s dreamy face and mega watt smile beaming back at me and boy did it take my breath away. The Christmas movie also included several other African American celebrities, Whitney Houston being one of them, but my main focus was on Denzel. The movie is a remake of the 1948 classic The Bishop’s Wife, but with a modern twist. The cast was all African American and the location of the story took place in Denzel’s home town of Mt. Vernon. The bishop was now a Baptist minister and the cathedral was now a small neighborhood Baptist church. But what really tickled my fancy and my attention was the ever handsome Denzel Washington who played the angel Dudley sent from above to help the minister with certain church and personal affairs. Wow, what a handsome Christmas angel he made! Denzel Washington posing as Dudley the angel would make the perfect celebrity Christmas card to send out to his fans.