Football season's over, baseball hasn't started yet, the NBA & NHL are in the middle of their interminably long seasons -- does anyone actually pay attention before the playoffs start? -- and March Madness is still 3 weeks away.

So what's an entertainment-starved person supposed to do? Thankfully the Academy Awards, aka The Oscars, are on this Sunday. Okay, so it's not exactly the Super Bowl, but it is entertaining. Whether you like the "pre-game" outfit critique, the often interesting opening monologue, or the long, drawn out acceptance speeches, there's usually something for everyone.

Given how many movie buffs we have here on the search team, we thought we'd burn the candle a bit at both ends and see if we could come up with something fun for all those movie fans using Yahoo! Search. Luckily all that late night pizza & take out Indian food paid off.

Now when you search for movies that are in theaters or coming soon, you'll see something new on top of the search results page. For example, searching for The Departed the Yahoo! Search Buzz Log favorite for Best Picture, gives you a new Yahoo! Shortcut:

These new movie shortcuts are designed to give users a more complete answer to their movie query -- movie trailers, user and critic ratings, a brief summary, and movie showtimes -- all in one place. Think another film is going to win Best Picture? Try these nominee searches: Babel, The Queen, Little Miss Sunshine, and Letters From Iwo Jima. We used Hollywood CA in honor of the Oscars in my query to get those showtimes, but you can enter your own city or just type the movie title itself.

Some other movies we're looking forward to seeing, both in theaters now and coming soon include: Pan's Labyrinth, 300, and a couple we've been waiting a long time for: The Simpsons Movie and Transformers.

This is just a first step for our movie shortcuts. We'll be adding more films, inline showtimes and more trailers to name a few. And look for some more new shortcuts in the future, all part of our mission to continually improve the search experience for our users.

Let us know what you think.

And good luck Marty! We hope you finally get that Oscar.

Raj Gossain & Don Chennavasin
Yahoo! Search