Mariah Carey at the Toronto Film Festival premiere of "Precious."

Credit: AP Photo

She's won five Grammy Awards, but is Mariah Carey ready for Oscar? Eh, probably not. 

The hip-hop diva delivered a solid performance as a sympathetic, but tough social worker in Lee Daniels' phenomenal "Precious: Based on Push a Novel by Sapphire" and it's certainly the best cinematic performance of her career.  However, even if the Best Supporting Actress field wasn't a logjam of epic proportions this year it would be hard for her to jump over co-stars frontrunner Mo'Nique and Paula Patton.  Still, The Palm Springs Film Festival announced today that Carey would be honored with the Breakthrough Performance Award during the organization's Jan. 5 awards show.  You can't argue tough that Carey's come a long way since the cult misfire "Glitter" and, moreover, you've got to credit her for sticking with it.

Carey actually joins an esteemed group of previous winners for this award including Marion Cotillard, Jennifer Hudson, Felicity Huffman and Frieda Pinto.  Other honorees this year include Morgan Freeman for "Invictus" and Anna Kendrick for "Up in the Air."


In other news...

- The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that Marc Shaiman will serve as music director for the 82nd Academy Awards.  Shaiman has a long history with Oscar and its new crew.  He recently collaborated with producer Adam Shankman on the musical "Hairspray," but also won an Emmy for co-writing former host Billy Crystal's "Oscar Medley" for the 64th Academy Awards.  He's also a former nominee for Best Original song for "Blame Canada" from "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut" and "A Wink and a Smile" from "Sleepless in Seattle."  Additionaly, he was recognized with nods in the Best Original Score category for "The American President," "The First Wives Club" and "Patch Adams."  More importantly, his inclusion means you can expect some funny musical numbers from co-hosts Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin during the show.

- The Gotham Awards have announced an impressive roster of presenters for their Nov. 30th ceremony including Patricia Clarkson, Rosie Perez, Sam Rockwell, writer/director Richard LaGravenes, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Ellen Burstyn, Joel and Ethan Coen, Willem Dafoe, Anthony Mackie, Oliver Platt, Jim Sheridan, Brooke Shields and Meryl Streep.  IFP also announced the juries for the competition awards which include notable names such as Julie Taymor, William Friedkin, William H. Macy, Marc Forster, Ellen Burstyn, Dylan Baker and America Ferrera amongst others.

- The Weinstein Company debuted two posters for their epic musical "Nine" today.  Awards Campaign prefers the one that premiered on Yahoo!Movies below, but you can also check out this alternate version on Cinematical.  Hardly a contest no?  Look for an exclusive interview with "Nine" star Fergie tomorrow on HitFix.

Sad Fact #1: Do you know that Sam Rockwell can't be nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for his acclaimed performance in "Moon"?  Because the film was funded with international financing it's not eligible under the show's American-only rules.  That's something that's got to change.

Sad Fact #2:  Rockwell has never been nominated for an Indie Spirit, Golden Globe or Academy Award.

For constant updates on awards season and entertainment news follow Gregory Ellwood on Twitter at Twitter.com/HitFixGregory