In recent days, high-profile academy members such as George Clooney and Tom Hanks have publicly urged a negotiated end to the strike immediately, partially in the hopes that the Oscars show, which has never been canceled in its 80-year history (even during World War II) will not be harmed by this frustrating labor action.

Hanks, in fact, is an academy governor for the actors branch, and his chess moves should the Screen Actors Guild recommend their members boycott Oscar Night rather than cross a picket line could be key in whether any stars actually turn up on the premises.

The WGA seems to have no clear policy in granting waivers. This week it gave one to the NAACP for its Image Award show, showing solidarity with a group that has taken historic stands in labor disputes, albeit not necessarily ones revolving around how much "new media" cash a writer for "CSI: Miami" is entitled to.

Of course, the WGA turned down both NBC's Golden Globes and CBS' People's Choice Awards, leading those normally glamorous galas to put on truncated shows and consequently tank in the ratings. The Grammys on CBS is now awaiting word of its fate as well.

It does appear a key strategy in the WGA strike is to be as disruptive and publicly demonstrative as possible. Surely the media bang they could get by damaging or even shutting down the granddaddy of all awards shows is not lost on the PR-conscious leadership of the WGA.

And given the opportunity to deny the academy a writing waiver, the guild's press release would surely emphasize its "respect" for the organization while at the same time pointing out that Oscars' network, ABC, stands to reap millions of ad dollars from what is annually the most-watched entertainment event on television.

In light of the potential power play in making trouble for 'ol Oscar (not to mention the underlying bitterness against ABC this week in exercising force majeure clauses and canceling more than two dozen lucrative writering deals) seemingly makes disrupting this year's Academy Awards extravaganza a no-brainer for guild leadershipif the strike is still going on.

Let's hope this all gets worked out, and it just may if Cates is able to help work out a likely deal for his union that forces the WGA to follow suit.

We've said it before and we'll say it again: We do not want to contemplate a world without Oscar, not this year at least.

Notes on another academy battlefront this week: the announcement of the nine finalists for the five best foreign language film nominations. This weekend a disparate group of 30 higher-profile professionally active academy members will view all the entries (whittled down from 63) and choose their favorite five.

This is a system Foreign Language committee head Mark Johnson successfully put into place last year when the nine finalists were generally regarded as the nine best foreign films in the competition.

This year, however, a media outcry heard across the land has erupted over the omission of Cannes Palme d'Or winner "4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days," the Romanian abortion drama that has become the most critically acclaimed foreign film of the year.

Along with other high-profile entries from new directing talent such as France's animated "Persepolis" and Spain's "The Orphange," the several hundred member committee that viewedall the entries this year did not give first-time feature director Cristian Mungiu's drama a high enough number of points to make the list, which is crowded with works by such Oscar winners as Denys Arcand, Andrzej Wajda, Giuseppe Tornatore and Nikita Mikhalkov.

Whatever the reason the committee members had for passing on "4 Months," some entertainment journalists are calling it a "black mark" on the academy and a major mistake ranking with the same committee's slight of Brazil's "City of God" in 2002. That film which didn't have its official American opening until 2003 came back with four major Oscar nominations in regular categories to make up for being overlooked the previous year.

Johnson himself is reportedly upset over the absence of "4 Months" from this year's finalists and suggested this week (in an L.A. Weekly article by critic Scott Foundas) that "further retooling" may have to be done.