Give credit where due and acknowledge a knockout idea. The guy who suggested a Top Ten, American Idol-like framework on the Oscar telecast — a mad brush stroke of a concept– is video maestro Jamie Stuart, i.e., “mutinyco.” Here’s how he put it at 11:59 am today on The Hot Blog: “They need to treat the nominees as a top 10 list and not ‘nominees.’ And then structure the broadcast around the top 10 like American Idol and gradually count down the vote tabs from #10 to #1 throughout the program to create suspense.”

Is anyone listening? Have ratings not been a problem with the Oscar telecast in recent years? Not enough Eloi viewers, etc.? Well, the show would be through the roof if they went with this idea. On top of which it would be a huge amount of fun. Tom Sherak…seriously! David Poland showed his colors when he called the idea “slightly creepy”