The “Best Original Song” portion at the Academy Awards is one of the annual Hollywood award show’s weirder categories. Most years I have no idea who is even nominated until the live broadcast when the host introduces Sting, Randy Newman, or whoever’s pretending to have written a song inspired by a film they likely haven’t seen in full that year. But then Three Six Mafia wins a gold statue, indie singer/songwriters Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová upset three nods for Enchanted, or Elliott Smith shows up to play “Miss Misery” dressed all in white, and they’ve grabbed my attention again.

In order to stir up some hope that next year’s broadcast will include a similar event, we’ll be posting from time to time on a few interesting possible nominees that come across the radar, starting with U2:

This isn’t too surprising, but it is a disappointment for those of us hoping to watch Steve “Lips” Kudlow crash the Oscars red carpet. Anvil! The Story of Anvil and It Might Get Loud, Jack White, the Edge, and Jimmy Page’s jam session-turned-film, have both been left off the Oscar short list for Best Documentary, /Film reports.

Even though director Davis Guggenheim won an Academy Award for Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth and It Might Get Loud will likely be joining the canon of great music documentaries, it never really screamed “Oscar” to me. I did honestly think Anvil had a shot for a nomination at least, but, as /Film’s Peter Sciretta notes, “the Academy obviously doesn’t like Rock music.”

Either U2 have the biggest stack of bills piling up or they’re the only band getting press about this sort of thing, but another financial woe has hit the arena-packing foursome: Ireland’s Herald reports that Bono, Edge, Larry, and Adam are responsible for a €36,000 fine after allegedly breaking noise limit restrictions at their recent 3-night stand at Dublin’s Croke Park Stadium.

Sure, M.I.A. disapproves of President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize, Asher Roth chimed in for some reason, and John Fogerty is just tickled pink over it, but there hasn’t been much talk from musicians about the media’s recent favorite go-to topic of the week (sans a smattering of 140-character tweets). Enter Bono.

In this week’s NY Times op-ed, the U2 singer seeks to draw a connection between the “fantasy” Obama and the “real” Obama, who, according to “some quarters of these not-so-United States,” is unworthy of such a preemptive award. The connection, Bono claims, lies in Obama’s statement to the United Nations that “we will set our sights on the eradication of extreme poverty in our time.”

This commitment is why Bono believes Obama “could well be a force for peace and prosperity — if the words signal action,” Bono says, later adding “The Nobel Peace Prize is the rest of the world saying, ‘Don’t blow it.’” Bono goes on to cite America’s recent climb on the “most admired country in the world” list from number seven to number one, as an example of the peaceful sea change afoot. A few interesting points from the Pope’s new buddy, as usual, but then it’s time for the obligatory Bono pull quote:

Americans are like singers — we just a little bit, kind of like to be loved. The British want to be admired; the Russians, feared; the French, envied. (The Irish, we just want to be listened to.)

Yeah yeah, Bono, we’re listening. And they can see your stage “claw” from space. Check out “Rebranding America” thataway.

When John Lennon said the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus,” it was, as we all know, quite a controversy. Somehow I doubt Bono’s recent boast about U2 knocking the previous pope off the Giants Stadium attendance charts will be as big of a deal. I mean, he’s already down with the Vatican and Pope John Paul II did amicably try on his “fly shades.”

The NY Times’ ArtsBeat reports that, according to Live Nation, U2 managed to fill 1,524 more seats at Giants Stadium last night than the previous record-holder did in 1995: Pope John Paul II. “We’ve broken every record for attendance in this stadium,” Bono exclaimed for 84,472 U2 fans last night, “including the Pope.”

Bono is a humanitarian, I’ll give him that, but he’s also a big ol’ cocky rock star. He may have let the pope try on his shades, but Bono wears those things every freakin’ day.

Now that a Florida church is celebrating the U2charist, perhaps Bono has an even better excuse to meet with the second pope of his career. I doubt that’s how this news came about, but Bono clearly knows how to work his Vatican connections.

ARTINFO reports Bono is one of several artists to meet with Pope Benedict XVI in November to assist the Vatican in its effort to bring back “the special historical relationship between faith and art”; what better place to do so than in the Sistine Chapel, which of course is home to Michelangelo’s stunning frescoes. A progressive effort on the church’s part, one I’m sure Annie Lennox wouldn’t find “irresponsible.”

Oh, to be a fly on the wall in the Sistine Chapel. When Bono met Pope John Paul II in 2005, the pontiff took an interest in the singer’s sunglasses: “I said ‘Holy father, do you want a pair of fly shades?’ and he said ‘yes’ and he put them on.” Now if we can snag a picture with Pope Benedict wearing Bono’s fly shades, our collection will be complete!

When it comes to bringing music-related film or theater productions to fruition, U2 frontman Bono has no problem ponying up his own cash. Not only has he saved the once-doomed Spider-Man musical from financial disaster, but now he’s backing a new feature film about an Irish showband singer.

Written by Barry Devlin of 1970s Irish rock band Horslips, The Virgin of Las Vegas stars Liam Neeson as an alcoholic, washed-up showband singer who travels to Las Vegas for a fresh start, Belfast Telegraph reports.

I’m not sure how big of a check Bono cashed to save his and the Edge’s Spider-Man project, but this Vegas film is said to cost at least $14 million. Good thing he’s been letting Coldplay borrow the private jet ‘cause Bono needs that fuel money for getting other things off the ground these days.