This afternoon, the Producers Guild announced its nominees for Best Picture: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Milk, Slumdog Millionaire and … The Dark Knight. With the first four films widely seen as Academy Award–nod locks, Knight's inclusion should give a boost to Batfans who've seen their movie get shut out at other important pre-Oscar awards despite a crack grassroots campaign. Though PGA winners have gone on to win Best Picture statues an impressive twelve times in the awards' nineteen-year history, notes L.A. Times Oscarologist Tom O'Neil, they have only a 76 percent success rate at predicting Academy Award nominations in the top category, meaning that one of their picks is statistically likely to get screwed on February 2 (and we doubt it'll be Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Milk, or Slumdog Millionaire).

Producers Guild of America nominations = Oscars' front-runners [Gold Derby/LAT]

With Beyoncé borrowing heavily from Lil Wayne's overly remixed “A Milli” for her latest single “Diva,” it only makes sense that her song would get the treatment sooner rather than later. Enter Ciara, who pays her respects to “that diva named B” before moving on to hype her own hood, sex appeal, and most important, her upcoming (and oft-delayed) third album, Fantasy Ride. The kittenish Ciara doesn’t top Beyoncé’s impressively tough performance, but she does a credible enough job to put herself back in the public eye for second, and we're psyched to see Beyoncé’s latest take on female empowerment go viral among music-biz women. Tip: If you want more details on Ciara's new single, just listen through the end of the track!

Download “Diva” remix: Dajaz1

Artist Megan Cedro's childhood doodling has developed into a rather attractive, if a tad malnourished, alter ego. Her drawings of stretched, stringy, solemn young ladies remind us of that scene in Ghost World where Enid, while in art class, scowls at the teacher's pet who is presenting a tampon in a teacup while Enid is busy creating a whole comic world. Cedro seems to have spent her art education taking inspiration from Pablo Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon to fashion the kind of women Dan Clowes would like to listen to records with. Her mademoiselles are on view at About Glamour Gallery through January 25.

"I would like to send Kristen Wiig a shiny new captain's hat because she's taking over the captain's position. It would be really stiff and high and when you tipped it over, birds would fly out of it, like squawking pigeons, and then you could bite into it, and it would be marzipan." —Amy Poehler bequeaths her unofficial title of SNL captain to Kristen Wiig [NYT]

"My reaction was, 'Are you kidding me? That's your marketing plan? Me sitting around and acting like a rock star?'" —Andrew Bird on a label's advice to stop riding his bike around town [NYT]

"For me, French is so rich and so sacred that learning it is like learning a foreign language. It's a victory. After learning French it would be bizarre to learn another language." —Fabrice Luchini on singing in English without learning the language [NYT]

"To be obsessed with Jewish image is a classic Jewish thing. It used to be when you had tough-looking Jewish actors they played Italians, like James Caan and Henry Winkler. Now you have tough-looking goyim [like Eric Bana] playing Jews, and that's progress." —Rich Cohen, author of Tough Jews [LAT]

Although David E. Kelley continues to churn out television shows at a rate that makes even Dick Wolf envious, it's been quite some time since one of his series captured the Zeitgeist the way he did in the late nineties. But now, after a career which has seen him create shows for every network but NBC, the impeccably eyebrowed Ben Silverman has managed to convince the prolific Kelley that the Peacock Network is the home for him to recapture his former glories. And while Kelley's new lawyer-themed dramedy, Legally Mad, isn't set to debut until next fall, the series is already making waves with the news that the virtually unknown British actress Charity Wakefield has been cast in the lead role. You might remember the last time Kelley went with a virtual unknown lead in a quirky show about lawyers. So, the question is this: What are Charity Wakefield's chances of becoming the next Ally McBeal?

Sly Bags Forest: Forest Whitaker is in negotiations to join the pumped-up cast of Sylvester Stallone's action flick The Expendables. Whitaker would play the CIA contact for a group of mercenaries (Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li) sent to South America to overthrow an evil dictator. Sly, who wrote and will direct the action flick, expressed his desire to cast Forest in November. And when Sly expresses his desire for something, he gets it. [HR]

Curran Is Beautiful, Damned: John Curran has signed on to direct Keira Knightley in The Beautiful and the Damned, the story of F. Scott Fitzgerald's chaotic marriage to his schizophrenic wife, Zelda Sayre. Curran replaces Nick Cassavetes, who recently dropped out of directing the period drama. No word yet on who will play F. Scott but whoever it is, good luck nailing the hair! [Variety]

Doctor to the Stars: USA has picked up eleven episodes of the hour-long series Royal Pains. Pegged as a possible companion for House, Pains stars Mark Feuerstein as an on-call doctor to the Hamptons elite. Meaning he better have a lot of adrenaline shots on hand. [HR]