Updated after the jump: Audio of Nikki Finke calling for the resignation of Academy President Tom Sherak!

Worlds more entertaining than the Academy Awards themselves this year were the fang-tastic bloggings of celeb scooper Nikki Finke — a celebrity in her own right, though she's taken the Banksy route and kept her physical appearance one big fat secret, knowing full well it'll only get her more attention in the end.

(The Daily, that awkward iPad newspaper still looking for its place in society, tried for its first exclusive with a stalker photo of Finke earlier this month, only to have the thing thrown back in its face by a smug blogosphere of insiders who knew it wasn't her, including Finke herself. And so grows the national intrigue.)

Anyway, after releasing a dead-accurate spoiler of the Sunday award show's presenters and sideshows on Saturday, her Deadline Hollywood blog was banned from the event — and thus (oh, the irony) became the go-to live snark for critics seeking an anti-Oscars Oscars experience. Let's just say Finke got the Academy back tenfold for its stodgy resistance to her Oscarleaks:

Day-of coverage began with a copyright-infringing replay of Anne Hathaway and James Franco's opening “Inception” dream sequence, accompanied by the line: “I think it was more like a nightmare by the time last night's Oscars ended.”

The live blog only got nastier from there, with insults like “there are no original ideas in Hollywood anymore” and, of James Franco, “Who isn't getting tired of him?”

Some choice clips, insulting both the broadcast itself and the Academy's taste in general:

“OK, it's been an hour and 15 minutes, and I want to put an end to this crapfest masquerading as an awards show. Why can't anyone ever get this right?

By the way, did you know that Academy President Tom Sherak expected to break the news that ABC's contract to broadcast the Oscars had been extended — but he couldn't even get that right? High time for this incompetent to step down. You know that Deadline was banned from receiving its backstage press credential to cover the Oscars? All because we revealed a bunch of show spoilers that the Academy gave us. F.U.”

“Uh-oh. President Obama just came onscreen. Hear that loud click? Because half the television sets in America just turned off. How dopey can the Academy be? Astoundingly.”

“So Anne Hathaway had something like 5 wardrobe changes so far, and she does the shimmy and thinks that'll amuse us. At this point, the only thing that'll amuse me after 2 hours of this tedium is if there's a public hanging onstage of the show's producers.”

And on. And on. And on. At a certain point, it devolved from any semblance of commentary into a long, drawn-out, devastatingly sarcastic whinefest priding itself on just how wide it could tear the Academy's new asshole.

For the show's producers, it's a rant that should be hard to tune out — Finke doesn't release page views, but if the post's 1,000-plus comments are any indication, hers was the go-to online Oscars coverage of the evening. And, to add morning-after insult to injury, Finke went on KNX news radio in the a.m. and ranted a little more to newscasters about the Academy's epic FAIL — giving an even wider audience to her 83rd Annual roast.

So, joining “really ridiculously old guys, no matter how legendary, don't make good presenters” and “you probably shouldn't let James Franco take that bong-shaped gym bag into his dressing room” on the list of things Oscars officials learned this year, is “don't snub your biggest critic” — no matter how anonymous.

But yeah… too late. And for the Weekly's own worst-ever commentary, as snarked by film critic Karina Longworth, see “Oscars 2011: The Most Embarrassing Academy Awards Ever?”

Update: KABC Radio Los Angeles interviewed Finke yesterday morning, and — wonderfully — Academy President Tom Sherak called in to defend the ban of Deadline Hollywood from the awards.

“She has the right because that's the business that she's in,” Sherak says. “But other people who had [the schedule] also wouldn't even think of doing it.”

That's when things get crazy. Finke starts calling out Billy Crystal, Sherak starts comparing the stink of this shit to “Gigli” (ouch) — and the real clincher:

Finke calls for Sherak's resignation. And then everybody laughs. Really really angrily. Well, except for the show hosts, who are kids in a freaking candy store: Listen for yourself.

Originally posted February 28 at 1:05 p.m.

[@simone_electra/swilson@laweekly.com]

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