At this point, the good folks here at Vulture seem to have covered every conceivable aspect of this year’s Academy Awards — except the actual awards! They almost seem anticlimactic, don’t they? Well, babe, not if I can help it. Sure, with Harvey Weinstein turning the old farts against The Social Network (“This dang Internets punk billionaire — you don’t know what you’re supposed to feel!”), The King’s Speech is a lock. Sure, Colin Firth, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale, and Melissa Leo are In Like Flintstones and have given the same acceptance speeches so many times that they’ll have to be good actors to make it all seem fresh. But but What if The Fighter somehow punches its way in like the never-to-be-discounted Micky Ward? What if people wake up and realize what a treasure they have in Annette Bening? What if Anne Hathaway and James Franco get the runs and are hastily replaced by Charlie Sheen and Mel Gibson? But assuming Hathaway and Franco do go through with it, it will be such fun to have young and exceptionally lithe and pretty box-office draws whom folks at home could actually fantasize about seeing naked. That’s why I’ve decided to set aside my distaste for this vulgar, self-aggrandizing monument to middlebrow taste and live-blog the Oscars. So join me on Vulture Sunday night at eight, comment like mad, and let’s make this a party.
