Sony Pictures Classics and The Weinstein Company each garnered 13 nominations, the most for individual movie companies, on Tuesday morning, proving once again that size doesn't always matter in the Oscar race.

In what may be the final dramatic twist for Miramax, the Weinstein brothers are circling their old studio with an eye to buying it back from the Walt Disney Company.

Two hedge funds have approached brothers Harvey and Bob Weinstein about teaming up to buy the studio, according to an individual with knowledge of the plan.

The word from close to the Disney auction of Miramax is that about a dozen active bidders are in the mix.

WaxWord has already reported on Summit, Relativity Media, The Weinstein Company and Studio Canal.

Now I'm hearing that the dreaded David Bergstein and his billionaire backer, construction magnate Ron Tudor, are also entering the bidding. (Their Capco Group bought ThinkFilm in 2006.)

Late tonight comes the word that my friends over at HBO are doing something beneath contempt: mashing up a character based on Nikki Finke, Anne Thompson and me.

All I can ask is: Please. Don't.

Maybe I'm reading the story wrong. But here's what it says in the Hollywood Reporter: 

Ryan O'Hara, the president of TV Guide Network and TVGuide.com, is leaving the company, Lionsgate announced on Friday.

No replacement was named. O'Hara was said to be leaving for a new position elsewhere.

“Ryan will be missed, but Jon Feltheimer and I have tremendous confidence in the team of talented and entrepreneurial executives who will continue to build on TVGN and TV Guide.com's momentum," said Allen Shapiro, TV Guide Network chairman, in a statement.

He's 17 and hot and - now he's in 3D!

That would be 'Twilight' star Taylor Lautner playing the lead in 'Stretch Armstrong,' which Universal  is pushing to 2012 to turn it into a major 3D action hero blockbuster.

We told you that Hollywood has the 3D bug. Just two days Warner Brothers moved 'Clash of the Titans' to turn that into a 3D project. 

I'm relieved and thrilled to see that justice has prevailed in the newspaper wars in Santa Barbara.

It's been four years since I went up to cover the newsroom revolt at the Santa Barbara News-Press against a mercurial and ethically tone deaf owner, Wendy McCaw. I'm fairly certain that New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger regrets having sold her the newspaper, since the wealthy grandee McCaw set set out to run the newspaper like her own personal political blotter.

 It was with a feeling somewhere between nausea and fascination that I watched Larry King’s exclusive interview with Brittany Murphy’s husband Simon Monjack and the actress’s mother Sharon on Saturday night. 

When celebrity tragedy meets the spin machine, truth never ensues – only more sad spectacle.