CLIPPETTES - Oscars; Jimmy Castor; Mariah & Janet; Toni Braxton; Ice Cube; Jesse L. Martin; Vin Diesel

It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp from Hustle & Flow was one of three nominees for Best Song at this year's Oscars. In the Deep from Crash and Travelin' Thru from TransAmerica will go against the Terrence Howard/Three 6 Mafia tune.....America Ferrera (Real Women Have Curves; The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants) has won the lead role in the movie version of the Columbian telenovela Ugly Betty about a young woman who is not terribly attractive, but certainly is an efficient secretary.....Old heads will appreciate the news of the legendary Jimmy Castor Bunch making a rare appearance in an After Grammy Jammy at L.A.'s Key Club on Feb. 8. He's slated to do all his hits like Potential, Hey Leroy, Bertha Butt, Troglodyte, King Kong, Super Sound, Space Age, and more.....Jermaine Dupri, boyfriend of Janet Jackson and the producer of Mariah Carey's comeback album - The Emancipation of Mimi - has told MTV he'd like to pair the two divas on disc.....Toni Braxton has been added to the Essence Music Festival lineup. The Festival set for July 1,2 and 3 in Houston, TX, includes Mary J. Blige, LL Cool J, Cedric "The Entertainer" and Maze featuring Frankie Beverly.....While putting his film career on hold, Ice Cube has announced that he's been working on his seventh solo album, Laugh Now, Cry Later, to be released June 6.....The sixth season of Surreal Life will have Mr. Jefferson himself - Sherman Helmsley when it debuts March 19.....Law & Order's Jesse L. Martin will play Marvin Gaye in an upcoming biopic called Sexual Healing.....Vin Diesel will star in Babylon A.D., a big-budget futuristic thriller about what happens when a mercenary, charged with delivering a young woman from Russia to Canada, learns that she has been manipulated by a synthetic virus and what lies inside her could doom the human race.