Photo by Weinstein Company

Very curious: Movies about 3D space aliens and animated giant green ogres never win Best Picture at the Oscars. Those flicks sell the most tickets at the box office, granted, but academy members -- snobs who get too much fantasy on the job every day -- prefer their award-crowned movies to be real.

They like flicks about reluctant British monarchs with a stutter ("The King's Speech") and the Iraqi war ("The Hurt Locker"). They just don't like them to be about one thing: movies.

It's weird, but no movie about making movies has ever won Best Picture. More than 25 of the 84 winners of the top Oscar have been about war. Most champs featured romance. Several were even about show business: three about Broadway ("All About Eve," "The Great Ziegfeld," "Broadway Melody") and one about the circus ("Greatest Show on Earth").

Photo by Lionsgate/Fox Searchlight/Millennium

The category is best actor in a motion picture, not best actor in a relatively tame motion picture. In certain quarters, there's still more passion behind actors left off the best actor list — and those never even considered — than the five chosen candidates. "Shame," "The Devil's Double," and "Rampart" are not easy films — they are violent and sexual and divisive. But what performances!

Photo by Fox Searchlight/Columbia/WeinsteinIt's raining men! For our second Yahoo! roundtable, I welcome my colleagues Jonathan Crow and Matt Whitfield, as well as actress-director Jordan Bayne, "Movie Mom" Nell Minow, IndieWire bloggers Melissa Silverstein and Anne Thompson, critic Caryn James, Awards Daily's Sasha Stone, and Oscar obsessive Nathaniel Rogers.

Let's hit the roundtable for best actor. Nathaniel Rogers started us off at the end of the last roundtable with this quote: "It always hurts when actors are having their best year and they're passed over, which is what's happening with Brad Pitt. What does he have to do to win awards? Age another 15 years I suppose. They do love to make the golden gods wait until they're old and grizzled."

Photo by Steve Granitz/WireimageIf the pundits are right, the King of Oscar losers, Peter O'Toole, is about to get a new queen: Glenn Close.

It's a crowded throne -- because two stars already reign as the biggest losers among actresses at the Academy Awards: Deborah Kerr and Thelma Ritter, with six defeats each. Having lost five times to date, Close ("Albert Nobbs") is pegged to do it again, according to the Oscarologists at GoldDerby.com, who rank her in fourth place with 14 to 1 odds behind Viola Davis (8 to 13 odds for "The Help"), Meryl Streep (4 to 1 odds for "The Iron Lady") and Michelle Williams (12 to 1 for "My Week with Marilyn"). Rooney Mara is in distant last place (33 to 1 odds for "The Girls with the Dragon Tattoo").

[ More from GoldDerby.com: Latest Oscar predictions from the experts ]

Technically, Peter O'Toole actually rules with the most over-all losses among all actors:

Peter O'Toole — 8

Richard Burton — 7

Deborah Kerr  — 6

Thelma Ritter  — 6

Glenn Close — 5

Irene Dunne — 5

Albert Finney — 5

Arthur

Photo: Jeff Vespa/WireImageThe tale's a familiar one in Hollywood -- rejected twice while growing up, rescued from a pound after biting a goat, honing skateboarding and waterskiing talents for that big break, and then being paid in sausages for the biggest role of his career.

Uggie, a Jack Russell terrier, has found fame late in his canine life as a silent matinee idol's best friend in "The Artist." Yet his appearance at the Golden Collar Awards on February 13 will likely be his last big public appearance. (Contrary to rumors, Uggie has not received an invite to the Academy Awards.) Age and a "mystery shaking syndrome" are contributing to Uggie's premature retirement from the silver screen. And, as with any Hollywood tale, there's an understudy -- or underdog, if you will -- ready to fill in Uggie's pawprints.

Mystery shaking syndrome
Media attention has focused on Uggie's shakes, a neurological condition which isn't debilitating but reinforces his age. "It's very sad but he is suffering from a mystery shaking syndrome. It is a neurological disorder and we've spent thousands on vets' bills trying to figure out what is causing it but the experts don't really know," owner/trainer Omar Von Muller said to the Daily Mail. "This is beyond what is normal for the breed, but all the vets can tell us, after all the scans and tests, is that it is neurological and he is not suffering." The condition manifests itself most when Uggie's kicking back. "It is a shame this has happened when he is getting the biggest success of his career but we feel the best thing to do is to retire him after the Oscars."

Photo: Frazer Harrison/Getty ImagesWhen Kathryn Stockett's "The Help" premiered last August, the movie's charming writer-director, Tate Taylor, was a relative unknown — except to his close circle of Hollywood friends and pal-since-preschool Stockett. Taylor was an actor who'd written and directed the 2003 short "Chicken Party" and the 2008 comedy "Pretty Ugly People." Both movies featured Octavia Spencer, Melissa McCarthy ("Bridesmaids"), and Allison Janney. Like "The Help," which is the story of tightly woven relationships in Tate's hometown of Jackson, Mississippi, Taylor's real-life Hollywood story is built on relationships.

Despite being the highest-grossing film franchise of all-time, Harry Potter has never received much love from the academy.

The eighth and final film in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, scored only three nominations in the technical categories at the 84th Annual Academy Awards -- something Daniel Radcliffe isn't too happy about.

PHOTOS: See the Harry Potter cast, then and now

"I don't think the Oscars like commercial films, or kids' films, unless they're directed by Martin Scorsese," Radcliffe, 22, tells Radio Times (as excerpted by The Guardian). "I was watching Hugo the other day and going, 'Why is this nominated and we're not?' I was slightly miffed."

VIDEO: Daniel Radcliffe weeps over Harry Potter ending

Says Radcliffe: "There's a certain amount of snobbery. It's kind of disheartening. I never thought I'd care. But it would've been nice to have some recognition, just for the hours put in."

PHOTOS: Ten years of Harry Potter premieres

Six of the eight Harry

The Academy Awards released a gallery that reminds viewers of magical movie moments, like the key scene from "The Empire Strikes Back." Below is an exclusive look at the blue heroes of "Avatar," with the message: "We showed you how to be free."  The movie picked up several Oscars in 2009, including a win for Best Cinematography. From a "Gone With the Wind" to "Sound of Music," click here check out the whole collection of classic scenes at Oscar.com. On Feb 26, tune in when the Oscars will honor the best films of 2011.