An Eddie Murphy jab coming from someplace else! Radar‘s Jeff Bercovici has written that “a well-placed Hollywood insider” is predicting that David Geffen‘s Oscar strategy for Dreamgirls strategy “will not result in an Oscar for Murphy, noting the way the actor has alienated Academy voters by complaining in public about not getting paid enough for Dreamgirls. Says the insider, ‘You got paid for Norbit, you stupid prick.'”

The other half of Bercovici’s item says that “a source close to Jack Nicholson says the Departed star has been complaining about Geffen’s over-the-top campaigning for Dreamgirls. According to the source, Nicholson believes Geffen strong-armed Academy members into nearly shutting out The Departed‘s cast in the acting categories. (The exception is Mark Wahlberg, who is up against Dreamgirls‘ Murphy in the supporting actor category.)

“What particularly annoys Nicholson, adds the source, is the cynical way Geffen used the promise of an Oscar nomination to get Murphy to settle for less than his usual rate.”

The end-of-the-item residue is a bit muddled, but the linkage is more or less established: a vote against Murphy is a vote against a manipulative billionaire’s “over-the-top” Oscar strategy, which is also a vote against Geffen himself. Academy members, it’s in your hands. If I were voting I would say to myself, “No question about it — Geffen wants all the Dreamgirls Oscars he can get, and I, being a member of this industry and naturally susceptible to the animal-kingdom impulse to show obeisance before power, am going to vote to support Geffen’s latest power lunge.”