Could an upset send Oscar up in the air?
Imagine more than a billion people around the globe all united in a single, magnificent, collective yawn at precisely the same moment.
That could happen tonight if the major Academy Award winners go exactly as many critics, commentators, pundits and media seers have predicted.
In my three decades as a film critic, I have never seen such a level of robust agreement among Oscar prognosticators. These are considered locks:
Best film: "The Hurt Locker"
Actor: Jeff Bridges
Actress: Sandra Bullock
Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz
Supporting Actress: Mo'Nique
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
As my esteemed colleague Roger Ebert astutely noted, "I can't remember a year when it seemed easier to predict the Oscars."
Wait just a minute.
This could be a scenario ripe for shock, surprise and upset.
In 1996, everyone tagged veteran actress Lauren Bacall as winner of the supporting actress award for "The Mirror Has Two Faces," but the Oscar went to Juliette Binoche for "The English Patient."
In 1954, Judy Garland was the sure winner for best actress for her big comeback role in "A Star is Born." (A camera crew was even by her bedside Oscar night as Garland recovered from the birth of her son.) But a 26-year-old former model named Grace Kelly took the award for "A Country Girl."
So, upsets can happen.
Can they happen tonight?
Best Picture: It's a smackdown between the biggest moneymaker in box office history, "Avatar," and the lowest-grossing movie to be nominated for best picture, "The Hurt Locker." The winner has got to be one of those two.
So what could possibly upset this category?
Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds." It's possible, but not likely, that the nutty World War II black comedy could snatch the golden statuette while nobody's paying attention. That would be a shocker for the history books.
Actor: Everyone's waiting for Jeff Bridges to take home the Oscar for "Crazy Heart." Thus, George Clooney playing George Clooney in "Up in the Air" would be one level of upset here. But Colin Firth's subtle performance as a suicidal gay college professor suffering from the sudden death of his partner in Tom Ford's sensitive drama "A Single Man" would be a huge upset. As well as controversial.
Actress: If Meryl Streep, as Julia Child in "Julie & Julia," edges out Sandra Bullock in "The Blind Side," that would hardly be an upset, given that Streep poses a significant threat to Bullock here.
The stunner upset would be Gabourey Sidibe as the incest-victim young mother in "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire." Hers is such a powerful, natural and bold performance that not even the president of the Sandra Bullock Fan Club could complain.
Supporting Actress: The smart money is on Mo'Nique. A true upset would be the sexually smoldering Penélope Cruz winning as the adulterous lover in "Nine" in which she performs an outrageous lap dance - without the lap.
But Cruz just won the same award last year, and back-to-back wins are a rarity at the Academy Awards.
Supporting Actor: Here's the dirty secret the Academy doesn't want you to know.
Christopher Plummer's powerful performance as Leo Tolstoy in "The Last Station" should have been considered a lead role, hardly a supporting one - despite his nomination in this category. Academy voters have a history of messing this up, and if for some weird, inexplicable twist of fate Christoph Waltz doesn't win for his role in "Inglourious Basterds," that could mean Plummer could pull off the greatest Oscar heist of the new century.
Director: As in the case with best picture, the tug-of-war between "Avatar" director James Cameron and "Hurt Locker" director Kathryn Bigelow is a given. Now, if the smart, movie-referencing Tarantino would win the Oscar, wouldn't that be an inglourious upset?
<div class="infoBox">
<h1>More Coverage</h1>
<div class="infoBoxContent">
<div class="infoArea">
<h2>Stories</h2>
<ul class="links">
<li><a href="/story/?id=363924">'Avatar' cinematographer followed path from Palatine to Pandora </a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</div>