Bring It On

The Oscars are tonight and it could be a good show. Not because of the repartee between James Franco and Anne Hathaway (not that I have anything against them), but the races.  There are some decent nominations and a few that look pretty interesting.

For Best Picture, the favorite is The King's Speech, but it's hardly a lock.  Former favorite The Social Network has a shot, and with ten nominees, if something has intense support, like, say, The Fighter, it just might slip through.

Best Actor looks like Colin Firth, though all of the others seem fine, and anyone winning wouldn't bother me.  For Best Actress, it looks like a battle between favorite Natalie Portman and Annette Bening, though, once again, they all did decent jobs.

The Supporting categories I like less in that in that there'll probably be a double-win for the overrated The Fighter, with Melissa Leo and Christian Bale taking the award. I'd prefer almost anyone else in these categories--maybe the popularity of The King's Speech will give us a Geoffrey Rush or even a Helena Bonham Carter.  Or maybe Hailee Steinfeld, whom everyone knows had the lead in True Grit, will shine through.  But I'm not too hopeful.

The Screenplay awards also seem predictable, with Aaron Sorkin's The Social Network and David Seidler's The King's Speech being the likely winners. Best Director is potentially up for grabs.  Tom Hooper's not especially showy work on The King's Speech won the DGA award, so that makes him the favorite, but David Fincher won everything else. (Heaven help us if they give it to Darren Aronofsky, whose Black Swan was showy enough for all five nominees.)

A lot of the secondary awards are up in the air, so the film that wins the most Oscars overall (sometimes used to settle pools) could be King's Speech, Fighter, Social Network, True Grit, even Inception.

So as long as no one takes the time the give us their thoughts on the world situation, it looks like it might be a decent evening.