This year's segment should continue the trend. Over the past 12 months, we lost the sublime Eric Rohmer, the effortlessly intelligent Natasha Richardson and legendary film composer Maurice Jarre. We saw the passing of teen movie maverick John Hughes, "On the Waterfront" screenwriter Budd Schulberg and actress Jennifer Jones, who received a staggering four consecutive best-actress nominations in the 1940s, and won for "The Song of Bernadette." The thought of Sunday's tribute is enough to give any movie lover a case of premature nostalgia, remembering the event before it has even occurred.

The cinema's remarkable power as a vessel for nostalgia is precisely what gives "In Memoriam" its emotional charge. The medium has an unparalleled capacity to capture an artist's creative spirit in its prime, preserving its essence for posterity. As critic Philip Lopate once observed in an essay on the films of Carl Theodor Dreyer, "perhaps there is something in the very nature of film, whose images live or die by projected beams of light, that courts the invisible, the otherwordly." Dreyer was no fan of montages, believing that a certain spiritual and aesthetic stillness was integral to the movie camera's mission, but he might have made an exception for "In Memoriam." Its crystalline images and smooth dissolves echo the Great Dane's efforts "to record the motions of the soul."

Or maybe "In Memoriam" is just an elegant way to give whoever's hosting the Oscars a bathroom break before throwing to a Doritos commercial. Whatever the reason for its inclusion in the Academy Awards, it's a welcome reassurance that, warts and all, they remain a wonderful celebration of the movies. As the segment's last image fades to black, we may find our critical synapses reigniting: "Why did they devote 30 seconds to George Harrison but only three to Akira Kurosawa? Did they really leave out Brad Renfro and Robert Goulet?" But even then, caught in the most dyspeptic throes of Oscar angst, we are as inextricably tied to this annual ritual as Jack Twist and Ennis del Mar were to their yearly trips to Brokeback Mountain. "You are too much for me, Oscar," we yell at the TV every year. "I wish I knew how to quit you." "In Memoriam" reminds us why we never do. 

I'm no good at picking acting awards, but I know the smart money is on Jeff Bridges and Sandra Bullock. (Does that presage a major Republican sweep in November?) I'd prefer to think it's a Clooney-Streep year; that's a fine blend that's not going to make anybody unhappy. I write that without even having seen "Julie and Julia," mind you. I love Meryl Streep almost always, in almost everything, and it isn't the chick-ness of the film that's driven me away, exactly. (I saw "Mamma Mia," for God's sake!) Mo'Nique is a shoo-in, and so, I suppose, is Christoph Waltz, although I think "Inglourious Basterds" is a vastly overrated film and suspect Waltz is skating on slimy, superficial Euro-urbanity. Best documentary is a category I should be able to pick but never can -- I'm betting on "Food, Inc." this year, without much confidence.

As far as what should happen, but probably won't -- I'd love to see "The White Ribbon" win the foreign-language award, largely because I suspect that if and when dour Austrian auteur Michael Haneke actually touches an Oscar statuette, the universe will implode. It's like a matter-antimatter reaction, something that defies and subverts the laws of physics.

We definitely won't see Agnès Varda pick up an Oscar for her autobiographical documentary "The Beaches of Agnès," which wasn't even nominated. That is absolutely scandalous, but it's no good being scandalized by the Academy nominators being idiots and philistines. That's more or less their job. All Varda did was launch the French New Wave and become a pioneering female filmmaker when there weren't any role models (who weren't Nazis). I don't even want to say this -- it's not like there's some competition between them -- but that kind of puts Kathryn Bigelow, whom I admire, in the shade.

Lisa Rosman, critic for Us Weekly, Flavorpill and other outlets:

Predictions: While Kathryn Bigelow accepts her Oscar, the camera will focus for a miserably long time on Cameron, and vice versa when Cameron wins his (I agree it will be a split).

What I'd like to see: I want someone to thank their psychic (obviously), their rehab and (of course) their plastic surgeon.

Rosemary Picado, freelance writer and Open Salon blogger:

This year as I'm hosting my annual Oscar party, I know only one thing for sure. I'm going to miss Hugh Jackman's tour de force as host. Don't get me wrong, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin are great picks, and I'm actually glad they have a duo. It's a job almost too big for one man or woman. (Maybe the Academy should have tapped "30 Rock" co-host Tina Fey as well.) But it's hard to beat a song-and-dance-man of Jackman's charm and abilities for a night of the kind of pageantry the Oscars always strives for, but rarely achieves. Though reviews were mixed, I thought last year was pretty awesome. Who else could fill Jackman's shoes? Dare I suggest Stephen Colbert? Check out his Christmas special for some serious song-and-dance-man cred. Unlike Jon Stewart, Colbert has the ability to pull off postmodern humor in such a way that an older audience doesn't notice he's being postmodern. Or if the Academy really wanted to be daring, get another SNL fave, Dwayne ("The Rock") Johnson. Playing the Tooth Fairy isn't getting him any nominations, but a hosting gig? Why not? But I digress.

With the larger pool of nominations for the major categories this year, we may see split votes in many categories that let dark horses through. I imagine Bigelow will walk away with best director. Despite "Avatar's" success, Cameron has his Oscar. Oscar voters are all about rewarding an artist for cumulative works (see the wins for "The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King"). Women directors are due. And so is Jeff Bridges. He'll definitely walk away with his first well-deserved award for an amazing body of work. Mo'Nique deserves supporting actress for a performance that gave me chills. I'd love to see "Precious" star Gabourey Sidibe win for best actress as well, but that's just my Cinderella dream for her. Beyond that, I think it's a crapshoot.

Judy Berman, Open Salon editor:

Prediction: Drunk Meryl Streep. It never fails. Even if she doesn't win (and she probably won't), she'll be good for a hilariously sloppy post-ceremony interview.

What we should see: Kathryn Bigelow wins best director and/or best picture and begins her acceptance speech by saying, "You know what? James was right. I did deserve this more than he did."

Scott Mendelson, Open Salon blogger:

Predictions: Kathryn Bigelow will definitely win best director for "The Hurt Locker." She'll probably receive a gigantic plurality of the votes.

Gabourey Sidibe will, alas, not win best actress for "Precious." I adore Bullock's work in "The Blind Side," but Sidibe was a master class in underacting. I love "Avatar" as much as anyone, but nothing would make me happier than seeing "Up" pull the mother of all upsets and win best picture. Won't happen, but it would be a wonderful surprise.

I'd love to see "Food, Inc." win best documentary, but I think it will go to the slightly more buzzed-about "The Cove." And yes, as we've been saying for months on end, this year will be a split ticket, with "Avatar" winning best picture and Bigelow winning best director. And you can bet that photos of Cameron and Bigelow standing together and clutching Oscars will be the lead photo in most online and print publications on Sunday night and Monday morning.

Howard Feinstein, critic for Screen International, the Guardian, indieWIRE and other publications:

As much as I love "The White Ribbon" -- the best film I saw last year -- all polls show that the ancient Academy fogies who vote for this are going for an evidently sentimental Argentine film called "The Secret in Their Eyes."

I think "Food, Inc." is such an important film, but again, "The Cove" is going to win, according to all questionnaires. I guess dolphins are more appealing than chickens and cows, even if all are doomed.

Christopher Orr, critic and reporter for the New Republic:

I'm arguing that it's awfully hard to imagine the Academy giving best picture to a $12.6 million indie over the Biggest Thing That Ever Happened in the World. Here are the key paragraphs from my recent article for TNR:

The issue is not merely, nor even primarily, that "Avatar" made so much money; it's that "The Hurt Locker" made so little. The all-time lowest-grossing best-picture winner to date (adjusted for inflation) is "Crash," which made $55 million in 2005 -- more than five times "Hurt Locker's" adjusted box office. About half as many people saw Bigelow's picture in its entire theatrical run as saw Cameron's on its opening day. For the Academy to elevate so small a picture over one so big would be wildly out of keeping both with its recent, much-discussed desire to keep the Oscars "relevant" to a mass audience, and with its lifelong prejudice in favor of films that succeed commercially.

To wit: Over the past 20 years, the highest- or second-highest-grossing of the five best-picture nominees has won 19 times. The third-highest-grossing has won once -- in 1999, when "American Beauty's" $130 million box office narrowly trailed "The Green Mile's" $136 million. The fourth- and fifth-highest-grossing nominees have not won a single time in over two decades. Where does "The Hurt Locker" stand in this year's overcrowded field of nominees? No. 8 out of 10. (Thank you, "An Education" and "A Serious Man"!)

Or ponder this: Of the last 30 best-picture winners (beyond which comprehensive data is less easy to come by), 11 were among the top five grossing films of their respective years. Only two ("Crash" and "No Country for Old Men") were outside the top 25, and none were outside the top 50. "The Hurt Locker" was the 131st-highest-grossing film of 2009.

The question, I think, comes down to which will be a better predictor of this year's Oscar race: the behavior of the other awards groups over the past six weeks or so, or the behavior of the Academy itself over its 80-plus years of existence? I dearly hope that Vegas and the Oscarologists are right, but for my part I'm betting on history.

But the essence of everything we secretly love about the Oscars, the essence of everything we not-so-secretly love about movies, the essence of exhilarating philistine vulgarity, can also be found Sunday night, and this time, you can trust your DVR, as you must trust me.

And that essential item would be "The Oscar" -- perhaps the greatest single movie ever made.

Now, I know what you are thinking.

That’s kind of a bold statement, Sparky.

Well, yeah.

But this rarely shown, not-available-on-DVD masterpiece has a hypnotic power and glory that can transform lives, conjure up its own language, and transport you to a land of surrealistic fantasy. Let a writer who has charted that borderland, Neil Gaiman, tell you just one of the reasons why. "'The Oscar,'" says Gaiman, "is the kind of film where enough little things go wrong to produce a film in which something huge goes strangely right -- but in a way that nobody who set out to make the film could ever have wanted."

The original writer of "The Oscar," Gaiman’s close friend Harlan Ellison, attended the 1966 premiere. Ellison recalls: "I practically wept. I saw this film for which I had worked for a year, and people are laughing in the theater and they're laughing at dramatic moments. And I'm sinking lower and lower and lower in my seat. I remember it as if it were yesterday. I said, 'This is the end of my feature film career.'"

Time magazine concurred with Ellison’s assessment, writing that the film "should be shown exclusively in theatres that have doctors and nurses stationed in the lobby to attend viewers who laugh themselves sick." The New York Times castigated "this arrantly cheap, synthetic film, which dumps filth and casts aspersions upon the whole operation of Hollywood -- a community that may not be perfect but is not so foul as hinted here."

Well, we’ll save that last bit for later dissection.

But even with this disastrous reception, the movie still might have managed to pull out of its death spiral, but it had the misfortune of coming out in the exact second that the Old Hollywood it celebrated was expiring. In a way, "The Oscar" was a barge at its own Viking funeral, dead on arrival.

Yet, here I am, staking my nonexistent critical reputation on this film being some kind of masterpiece.

It is.

Some background.

Last week, Der Spiegel published an article documenting the last four minutes of Air France Flight 447, lost at sea on a routine flight from Rio to Paris. This catastrophe was the result of a cascading series of small events that, when added up, created one of the worst manmade disasters in recent memory.

See where I am going here?

"The Oscar" was based on a trashy not-so-bestseller by Richard Sale, documenting the rise and fall of an unscrupulous heel, Frankie Fane. This is one of the few novels I have read that include footnotes, where the ludicrous action above is contextualized, or disclaimed. Somehow, someone thought this book would make a great movie. They were wrong. And in a decision that would forever haunt the Academy, it allowed its name and Oscar’s likeness to be expropriated. The film’s producer, Russell Rouse, and "director," Clarence Green, were now cleared for takeoff.

Then, the system failures began. Casting, story and script for starters. The original cast was to include Steve McQueen, who was just coming of acting age, as the unscrupulous Frankie Fane, with Peter Falk as his long-suffering best friend, muse and whipping boy, Hymie Kelly. Instead, we got Stephen Boyd and Tony Bennett, in his one and only dramatic role.

More on that later.

Next, the script. In 1964, when "The Oscar" was on the runway, Ellison was blazing a reputation as the fastest gun in Hollywood. Using his experience in the pulps, and ferocious talent for both writing and self-promotion, Ellison’s screenwriting potential seemed limitless. Swinging for the fences, he wrote "The Oscar" as if it were the last big studio feature he would ever get a chance to tackle.

He had that part right, at least.

During the writing process, the script was taken out of Ellison’s hands and "improved" by the director and producer, both of whom would ultimately receive screen credit. According to Ellison; "There were three offices at Paramount in a row. I was in a little room with my typewriter and my desk. In between was the foyer, and there were two secretaries there. I would write a page, and I would put them in the out basket on this side of my desk. My secretary would come in, she would take the pages, she would retype it and take it over and put it on the desk of the secretary over there. That secretary would pick it up, take it into Rouse and Green. They would work on it. They would give it back to her. She would retype it, give it to my secretary, who would bring it in to me. And I would see the same page I had just done. I would say, 'I need you like an extra set of elbows.' Which has got a little something to it. And it would come back, 'I need you like a hole in the head.'"

The end result of this hijacking is one for the ages.

Here are only few of the film's embarrassment of verbal riches, a jumbled remix if you will.

First off, "The Oscar" has its own private lexicon, its secret language. Not content to call hitchhiking, well, hitchhiking, it is called here "busting thumb." "Fat honey-dripper" or "soft in the gourd" is a term of apparent disparagement. "Birdseed," an expletive. People don’t just endure stress in "Oscar"-speak; they have "thrombos," a phrase later expropriated by Austin Powers. They don’t flatter, they "spread the pollen around." And "like a junkie shooting pure quicksilver" into our veins, this "Oscar"-speak eventually transforms into actual dialogue.

And what dialogue!

What’s not to like about using the line "You lie down with pigs, you come up smelling like garbage!" not once, not twice, but three times? And there is so much more. In a bedroom argument with Frankie, German then-bombshell Elke Sommer delivers the following gem almost phonetically: "You should put that speech on tape, It’s gotten to be a fireproof, gold-plated, diamond-encrusted excuse for never talking to me."

Frankie, or as Hymie refers to him, "Snarly Fane, the boy-faced dog!" has weighed in earlier. "You free-thinkers confuse me. Put a little chlorophyll in the conversation!" Over to Elke. "Take one from column A and two from column B, you get an egg roll either way. I am the end result of everything I've ever learned, all I ever hope to be, and all the experiences I've ever had." Frankie has had enough. "Will you stop beating on my ears! I’ve had it up to here with all this bring-down! I’m me! If you don’t like what you see, then change the scenery!" And of course, there is Hymie, watching it all go down to the wire. "You finally made it, Frankie! Oscar night! And here you sit, on top of a glass mountain called Success. Ever think about it? I do, friend Frankie, I do..."

And in conclusion, Hymie puts it best. "Man, what a scene," he notes. "Forget it!"

If only we could.

There is a very thin line between Clifford Odets' script for "The Sweet Smell of Success" and Ellison’s for "The Oscar." But one had a producer who knew how to cast (himself, in Burt Lancaster’s case) and a director who knew how to actually, well, direct. "Oscar" director Clarence Green clearly knew only one word.

"More."

And more is what you get.

It is one thing to read dialogue like the above, but to hear it, see it, live it in a garish, grossly overlit cheesily decorated set, with every verbal crescendo matched by Percy Faith’s melodramatic score, with a "who’s who" cast of cameos, many of them Oscar winners, is a kind of cinematic satori. And then, there is the rest of the cast, from Ernest Borgnine to Jill St. John to Peter Lawford to Walter Brennan to Joseph Cotten to Broderick Crawford to Hedda Hopper (!!) and Edith Head (!!!), all dialed to 11 on the performance scale. The written word, even in "Oscar"-speak, can only go so far.

Imagine if Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" were played, not as a climax, but 73 straight times. That would be "The Oscar." Just about every scene is a shrieking climax, with every available piece of scenery chewed and spit out with insane commitment. And that commitment is the key to the enterprise. It is clear that everyone felt they were making a masterpiece. From Ellison, who crafted every single line as a "too smart" bomb for maximum dramatic impact, to the feral Stephen Boyd, who seems to be having a thrombo in every single scene, to poor Tony Bennett, who bears a striking resemblance to an incontinent basset hound, everybody brought his or her A game. And when the most restrained and dignified performance in a movie is by Milton Berle, you can be assured that you are in the presence of something that seriously warps the space-time continuum.

Despite its criminal non-issue on DVD, "The Oscar" lives on. Years ago, SCTV brilliantly parodied the film in a sketch called "The Nobel," where Dave Thomas possessed the soul of Stephen Boyd possessing Frankie Fane. But the real thing is beyond parody. One anonymous commentator wrote on "The Oscar's" IMDb site that Boyd’s performance is what would happen "if one of the 'Thunderbirds' marionettes had been cast in 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' His body language is quite like some poor puppet being randomly jerked around while the puppeteer tries to shake off LSD-conjured spiders."

Uh, precisely.

As another, less anonymous commentator wrote, "Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go."

T.S. Eliot said that.

"You’re making my head hurt with all that poetry!"

Frankie Fane said that. Game. Set.

Match.

What makes "The Oscar" so mesmerizing is the consistency of its deranged vision. All its monumental problems and excesses somehow lead to a critical mass that defies all criticism. If it were any better, it wouldn’t be nearly as great. Like Hitchcock’s "Vertigo," it conjures up its own reality, and somehow, the insane parts make the whole less of a movie, and more of an immersive experience. James Cameron’s Pandora has nothing on Frankie Fane’s Hollywood. Neil Gaiman began watching "The Oscar" by himself but was soon overwhelmed. He had to bring some friends in to complete the journey. Which, of course, is why TCM’s showing Sunday night should make the perfect Oscar party.

Consider yourself warned.

At the same time this Viking barge burned down to the waterline, taking professional reputations with it, the film’s executive producer, Joseph E. Levine, prepared his next project. Levine had optioned another minor 1960s novel, also set in Los Angeles.

Only this time, everything went right, with the script, director and cast aligning perfectly.

Still, especially on Oscar night in Hollywood, I’ll gladly take Snarly Fane, the boy-faced dog, over Dustin Hoffman’s "Graduate."

"If you’re looking for a bruise," Broderick Crawford’s venal sheriff blusters to Hymie and Frankie, "keep scratching!"

If you’re looking for a cinematic revelation, well, you now know where to itch.

You’ve heard the lecture, now, experience the lab. "The Oscar" will get a rare public showing on TCM this Sunday night (8 p.m. EST). What is your favorite "Oscar"-speak moment or line? Come Monday morning, I’ll be waiting to hear from you "honey-drippers" in the comments section.

Remember, you do not judge "The Oscar."

It judges you.

[UPDATE: Two minor factual errors have now been corrected, thanks to readers. I originally referred to producer Russell Rouse as "Richard," and misidentified actress Elke Sommer as Swedish.]

But would she? It's a tantalizing face-off: George Clooney vs. Meryl Streep, Christoph Waltz vs. Anna Kendrick. Salon asked film critics and notable film buffs what they thought of such an awards twist, and whom they'd pick in a mixed-gender Oscar race. 

Dan Kois, freelance critic and author of "Facing Future":

I would give the Oscar for best lead performance to Meryl Streep for "Julie & Julia." If actor, actress and the supporting divisions were all combined, I would give the Oscar to Christoph Waltz of "Inglourious Basterds." And if all the categories were combined into one massive best anything award, I would give the Oscar to Janet Patterson for "Bright Star's" costume design. 

Molly Haskell , film critic and author of "Frankly, My Dear: Gone With the Wind Revisited":

I hope the academy has the sense to ignore this suggestion. It's hard enough settling on a winner when you're comparing actors among their own sex; to go beyond that simply widens the field hopelessly, opens up an apples-and-oranges multitude of standards for comparison. Separating actors by gender may not be as "essential" as it is for athletes, but it's a highly useful way of organizing wildly idiosyncratic and dissimilar talents into categories of competition.

I'd actually pick an actor not nominated (Matt Damon from "The Informant!"). If I have to choose from those nominated, I'll go with Helen Mirren in "The Last Station" and Woody Harrelson in "The Messenger." But this is too painful.

Eric Kohn, freelance film critic and journalist:

I think Jeff Bridges and Christoph Waltz. Granted, on a superficial level, these are performances entirely defined by the masculinity of the actors -- just as Mo'Nique's performance is defined by her expression of feminine fragility. But they are simultaneously free of gender boundaries because the roles are so closely related to the power of the performers, rather than the fact that they happen to be men.

I'm not saying that the Jew Hunter could've been played by a woman, but Waltz's unique combination of creepiness and comedic timing has nothing to do with his gender. And I would say the same thing applies to Daniels, with his sad eyes and grumpy expressions throughout "Crazy Heart."

Vadim Rizov, contributor to Sight and Sound and the Village Voice:

I'm sure Jeff Bridges is magnificent, but he always is, so I'm not opposed to giving him a de facto lifetime achievement award. Out of what's left, I guess I'd go with George Clooney ("Up in the Air"), whom people keep underestimating as just a facile charmer.

For supporting, Anna Kendrick ("Up in the Air") in a walk. Christoph Waltz is indeed very cool, but it's kind of hard to judge what he's doing, because essentially his ability to speak multiple languages flawlessly is blowing everyone away. To me he's not necessarily the most memorable part of the film. Mo'Nique is being given a lot of credit for not sucking, but her performance is textbook Oscar bait in a terrible movie; if not for her background, she'd be getting called out on it right now. What I really like about Kendrick is that she's an instinctual comedian who, I suspect, is basically a dramatic actress at heart; her timing and poise are remarkable. And I'd date her in a heartbeat given the chance.

Erik Nelson, director of the Harlan Ellison documentary "Dreams With Sharp Teeth":

No matter what the genderification, I would pick Jeff Bridges for best actor/ess. Not, of course, for his rote performance in "Crazy Heart," but for his performance in "The Fisher King" and "Cutter's Way." There is no statute of limitations on art, nor awarding same.

For supporting actor/ess, attention must be paid to Christoph Waltz for the coveted best Nazi in a movie slot. Previous winners of the coveted Golden Swastika include Conrad Veidt ("Casablanca:), Sig Ruman ("To Be or Not to Be"), Otto Preminger ("Stalag 17") and, of course, Erich Von Stroheim ("Five Graves To Cairo").

Chris Orr, senior editor at the New Republic:

It's an interesting thought experiment -- especially this year, when I have overwhelming favorites in all four categories: Waltz and Mo'Nique (like everyone else who went to a movie last year) in the supporting categories; Streep and Firth in the leads.

So, Waltz vs. Mo'Nique? Not a painless call, but I give it to Waltz for the surprise and variety of the performance: the charm, the menace, the wit, the remarkable shifts between understated and over-the-top.

Streep and Firth are a tougher call, because the performances are revelatory in such different ways. Firth imbues an underwritten role with extraordinary depth, balancing pathos and magnetism with such quiet elegance. But -- and this one does hurt -- I think I'd go with Streep, for the wittiest, most appealing performance of her storied career. There are two ways an actor can go when playing a modern figure with well-known mannerisms. The easy one is to mimic the surface, à la Cate Blanchett's wildly overpraised Katharine Hepburn impersonation in "The Aviator," which merely reflected back at us the celebrity we already knew. The harder way is to ignore the surface and work from the inside out, as Christopher Plummer did in his comparably underpraised turn as Mike Wallace in "The Insider." In "Julie & Julia," Streep somehow manages to do both at once, capturing the goofy, oversize Julia Child idiosyncrasies familiar to anyone who had a television in the 1970s, while also enriching and humanizing that distant but uniquely familiar figure

Mary Elizabeth Williams , film writer for Salon:

My two favorite performances happened to be so incredibly wrapped up in gender identity -- Carey Mulligan in "An Education" and Jeremy Renner in "The Hurt Locker." You can't just play a character -- you're playing a man or woman. If there were a great gender-neutral performance, though, I'd give it to Sharlto Copley for "District 9," as an office drudge dragged into an incredibly complex and deeply human family drama. He was fierce, protective and heartbreaking, in a role that I think would have been equally effective with a strong male or female. But if I had to choose nominated people from the two categories? Carey Mulligan for lead and Woody Harrelson for supporting. 

Melissa Silverstein , media consultant and writer for Women & Hollywood:

Mo'Nique for best supporting performer, because she transcended what a lot of people expected. For best performance, I pick Jeremy Renner. What he did in that part is extraordinary.

But the academy would never go for the gender-neutral Oscar. One of the most interesting parts of the evening is getting to see so many different people wearing so many different clothes. You wouldn't see the beautiful dresses. Imagine! Heads would explode in Hollywood if there were fewer women and men to dress, fewer women to see. It's an economic issue. Plus, when you decrease opportunities, you decrease opportunities for women. I'm not going to fool myself into thinking women would still get the same proportion of nominations if they eliminated the best actress category. 

Bob Calhoun, Open Salon contributor and author of "Beer, Blood, and Cornmeal: Seven Years of Incredibly Strange Wrestling":

I really think that it's Jeff Bridges' year to get one of those best actor statues for an entire outstanding career. But all bets would be off if he had to face Gabourey Sidibe of "Precious." Bridges can take Clooney easy. Hell, he can even take Carey Mulligan of "An Education" without breaking a sweat. Everyone voting will know that they'll probably have many more chances to award Mulligan with a statue over the next decade or two. But when it comes down to Bridges against Sidibe, I have to lean slightly toward the latter.

As for the supporting actor category, Mo'Nique lays waste to them all. Maybe Woody Harrelson's performance in "The Messenger" stacks up against hers in "Precious," but the Academy voters have mostly forgotten about that movie. Christoph Waltz seems to be a critics' choice in the male actor category for actually finding a new way to play a coldblooded Nazi in "Inglourious Basterds," but when up against Mo'Nique, she'd just smack his Waffen SS ass with a frying pan.

Jonathan Kiefer, film critic for the Faster Times:

Given the crop of actual nominees -- it's still a tough call -- my choice for best performer would be Colin Firth for his exemplary craftsmanship. I thought "A Single Man" was flawed on a few important levels, and one of them was that it would be nothing without him. Such subtlety and finesse, such awareness -- not just of a given scene's exact intentions but also of the camera's proximity. He has a great touch. My choice for best supporting performer would be Mo'Nique for her clarity and total commitment. Yes, there's bravery there, for inhabiting such a repulsive person, but it seems condescending to congratulate her for that. It's more than brave. It's the scale of the life that she brings to the part, a Shakespearean grandeur.

In other bad news for Kathryn Bigelow's film about a bomb disposal expert -- which remains the presumptive favorite at this writing -- a real-life bomb disposal expert is suing the film. Master Sgt. Jeffrey Sarver, an Iraq war veteran, claims he deserves some "financial participation in the film," after writer Mark Boal immersed himself with Sarver and his unit during their time in combat. Boal's time in Iraq produced a feature article for Playboy, which in turn became the basis for his "Hurt Locker" script, although he has consistently said the film's characters are fictional. (Disclosure: Boal has also written for Salon, although not in recent years.)

Sarver argues that since the film is about him, he has rights to a portion of the profits, but in the Los Angeles Times, Boal defends his position: "There are similarities, because you'd find similarities to events that happened to lots of these guys. But the screenplay is not about him. I talked to easily over 100 soldiers during my research and reshuffled everything I learned in a way that would be authentic, but would also make for a dramatic story." Boal goes on to say he "didn't know there was a problem until recently, when the lawyers got involved."

An insider source claims that an Oscar skit involving Ben Stiller, a botched translation and a blue-skinned Sacha Baron Cohen dressed as a female Na'vi, pregnant with James Cameron's love child, followed by a Jerry-Springer type confrontation with the father, has been cut. Why? Because "producers think that Cameron is so thin-skinned he could literally walk out of the ceremony."

To interrupt the Oscar-heavy news with festival news for a moment, the upcoming South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas, has just announced it will host the premiere of producer Robert Rodriguez and director Nimród Antal's "Predators." This reboot of the action-monster franchise stars Oscar-winner Adrien Brody, along with Topher Grace, Alice Braga and Laurence Fishburne. In April, New York's Tribeca Film Festival will introduce its long-awaited move into theatrical and cable-TV distribution. TFF will be launching both Tribeca Film, a new venture that will distribute seven to 10 films a year in theatrical venues and via video-on-demand, and Tribeca Film Festival Virtual, which will screen a number of TFF features online simultaneous with their festival premieres (or "day-and-date," to use industry lingo).

With all the attention the Oscars garner, studios are trying to match eyeballs with movie posters -- even if it requires breaking the law. In Los Angeles, a building owner went to jail on $1 million bail for illegally mounting an eight-story billboard for DreamWorks' "How to Train Your Dragon." Apparently, the film distributor, Paramount, "won't be held accountable." This doesn't make the activists happy: "I would say 70-80 percent of the ads on illegal billboards in Los Angeles are for movies and TV shows. In fact, it might even be higher than that," said Dennis Hathaway, president of the Coalition to Ban the Billboard Blight.

"If 'The Hurt Locker' wins the Oscar for best picture Sunday night -- and at this stage, the race is really down to either 'Avatar' or the Kathryn Bigelow-directed film about bomb disposal experts in Iraq," writes Patrick Goldstein in an excellent article about the tenuous relationship between the Oscars and movies about war, "it will be the first war film to earn the academy's top honor in nearly 25 years. In the past 40 years, only three bona fide war films have won the top Oscar -- 1970's 'Patton,' 1978's 'The Deer Hunter' and 1986's 'Platoon.'"

If you're a Lewis Carroll buff, or a film history aficionado, check out Stephen Salto's fascinating IFC.com blog entry on the various incarnations of "Alice in Wonderland" leading up to the Tim Burton-Johnny Depp 3-D version. It features six video clips, including an excerpt  from a British silent version made in 1903 (!) and another from Bill Osco's 1976 soft-porn rendition, which stars a Playboy cover girl and emphasizes the tag line, "the world's favorite bedtime story ... that's finally a bedtime story."

James Cameron is planning to rerelease "Titanic" in 2011, except this time in 3-D. On Moving Image Source, film archivist and curator Leah Churner offers another historical treatise, this one exploring the allure of watching this great ship sink over and over again throughout the 20th century. Only one video clip -- but plenty of footnotes! "The first movie dramatization of the event, 'Saved From the Titanic,' premiered a month after the collision with the iceberg, on May 14, 1912," Churner writes. Not only that, the film starred an actual Titanic survivor, Dorothy Gibson, "an actress with the Eclair Moving Picture Company of Fort Lee, New Jersey." Gibson played herself, wearing the same dress she wore on the night of the disaster. Can you imagine a 9/11 movie released on 9/25?

Have you ever longed to see your favorite movies again, but for the first time? Cinematical ponders this hypothetical question. If your instant reaction is "No," take a look at these rare photos from the original "Star Wars" series, and see if you can't contain a bit of nostalgia.

In movie-development gossip, reports abound about "Zoolander 2," "Gilligan's Island," "Indiana Jones 5," "Space Invaders" -- based on the vintage video game, of course -- and a film based on the just-published novel "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter."

Charts can be nerdy, but fun at the same time. Click here to see a list of movie graphs and infographics, including "The Best Movies of All Time Map," which resembles a map for the London tube.

Since data always presents itself as having all the answers, we'll end with some questions:

What will it mean to be a film critic in 2010?

Has Hollywood started giving more and more of the plot away in trailers?

If Wes Anderson directed the "Spider-man" reboot, would it look like this?

One of the many things besides irony that faded in the few days after the attacks was a sense that assembly-line, ham-fisted, institutional movie violence of the kind so ably demonstrated by Bruckheimer's entire oeuvre was now behind us. A new era of a truly United States was ahead, and after the inevitable capture of Osama bin Laden, a new City on the Hill would rise, along with that magnificent Freedom Tower.

Well, as John Cusack says in "2012," ripping off Woody Allen in "Annie Hall," welcome back to Planet Earth.

This week marks the release of the above-mentioned blockbuster from that Auteur of Dumb, Roland Emmerich, a director who makes Irwin Allen seem like Michael Haneke, the man who puts the "nothing" in sound and fury signification. The most offensive thing about "2012" isn't that it is stupid, or about an hour too long, or full of bad science and worse dialog.

No, the truly offensive thing about "2012" is that it is impervious to my scorn, amassing such a critical mass of stupid that it is beyond anyone's ability to mock it. Stopping the tsunami of dumb of "2012" just can't be done, any more than stopping the apocalyptic events it delightedly depicts. And really, why bother to try? The entire thing is trailer for itself, with no actual movie attached. One thing I will say, "2012" has the courage of its lack of convictions. Any time the film was faced with making the drama human, or blowing up something iconic, the choice was made.

Boom.

Like some sort of spiritual Novocaine, "2012" numbs your face, and after the third "plane takes off as runway crumbles" scene, you actually find yourself wishing a nerve, somewhere, might inadvertently get hit.

One can imagine the story meetings for this idiocy. As in Daffy Duck's frenzied story pitch in the 1950 classic "The Scarlet Pumpernickel," absurd climax follows absurd climax, only lacking Daffy's cavalry charge and the $1,000 piece of kreplach. Perhaps that moment can be found in the DVD's extended scenes menu. I do know that like Daffy at the end of "Pumpernickel," after watching "2012," I too wanted to blow my brains out.

Now, there are some good things about this bloated epic. A friend of mine adept in CGI assures me that the effects are absolutely state of the art. Not only do the L.A. skyscrapers crumble, but you also see ant-sized people at their desks, falling to their deaths. Hmm, where have I seen that image before?

But to rage against the soulless machine that created, marketed and distributed this film is as much a waste of time, mine and yours, as sitting through this epic, so let's move on to a film that is all about those ants, "Miracle Mile."

Released in 1989, and starring a shockingly young Anthony Edwards and Mare Winningham, "Miracle Mile" (the only movie ever made by writer-director Steve De Jarnatt) takes place during the countdown to doomsday, this time, a self-induced nuclear war. The movie starts with a meet-cute in Los Angeles' iconic Page Museum overlooking the La Brea Tar Pits, and the film and its protagonists never leave the 'hood. While waiting around at the still-extant Johnnie's Restaurant for a late night date with Winningham, Edwards intercepts a call at an outside phone booth. The voice at the other end hails from a North Dakota missile silo, and briefly confusing Edwards for his father, the terrified caller tells him that the war has begun. The missiles are incoming, and will obliterate Los Angeles and everything else in just an hour and 10 minutes.

The entire movie revolves around one simple question.

Now what?

The rest of "Miracle Mile" is set in real time, and we watch the tremendously likable Edwards as he tries to connect with the new love of his life, and, in a parallel plot development to "2012," just get the hell out of town. Or get anywhere rather than the world they are about to inhabit.

This ticking clock begins as Edwards tries to rally the late-night shift at the diner, where it seems "Eggs-O-Stential" must be on the menu, for dialogue, performance and archetypes are all a tad on the overwrought side. But, hey, the world's ending in a little over an hour, so all is forgiven. And as that hour progresses, the viewer forgives an awful lot -- even the '80s outfits and haircuts. Some of the plot beats in "Miracle Mile" are not very much more logical than those in "2012," but the shadow that falls on the characters in the first few minutes covers up those trespasses.

What "Miracle Mile" has that "2012" so disastrously lacks is a focus on the perspective of its characters. It is all about a reality transformed by the unthinkable. If the budget had been any bigger, it would not have been nearly so good, or nearly so haunting. The desperate quest as Edwards tries to escape his fate is reminiscent of Griffin Dunne's hallucinatory lower Manhattan imprisonment in another bit of '80s marginalia, Martin Scorsese's "After Hours."

But this time, the stakes are as high as they can possibly be.

The Age of Reagan inspired two other "Armageddon Out of Here" films, "The Day After" and "Testament," and while there is nothing in "Miracle Mile" that approaches the desperation and pathos of Jane Alexander's brilliant "Testament" performance, "Miracle Mile" still resonates. Watching it after its elephantine doppelganger is akin to sipping a glass of ice cold water after a bracing draught from those La Brea tar pits. There are a few times when "Miracle Mile" resembles the effects sequences from "2012" as essayed by the Max Fischer Players in "Rushmore," but, unlike in "2012," these sequences are not the entire point. Overshadowing everything is that damn, pulsing, insanely compelling concept.

What would you do if you knew you had a little over an hour to live?

"Miracle Mile" builds to an unexpected and absolutely wrenching climax, and stays in your head like some kind of brainpan hologram, while the well rendered pixels of "2012" fade from memory within 10 seconds of the beginning of the end. Not the end of humanity -- the end of its own credit roll.

The sad thing about "2012" isn't that it is so bad, it is that it actually could have been so much better if only the filmmaker exhibited any spark of soul, of humanity.

But, maybe -- well, definitely -- this is beside the point.

"Only the morally courageous are worthy of speaking to their fellow men for two hours in the dark," Frank Capra once wrote, "and only the artistically incorrupt will earn and keep the people's trust."

Emmerich's incredibly successful and critic-impermeable career invalidates the second part of that observation, but that is not his problem.

It is ours.

Now, if the preceding doesn't exactly inspire you to run out and rent "2012," there is another release this week that might restore your general faith in humanity. And that would be "Ponyo," yet another masterpiece from Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. And the fact that I can be so blasé about tossing around the "M" word should in no way suggest that I take Miyazaki for granted.

His artistic existence, incorrupt and otherwise, soothes the soul.

I can't wait to see what the Master has in store for us, in say, 2012.