It may rain on the Oscars. Which, all things considered, is pretty good bad news.
The 80th Annual Academy Awards are Sunday. The show will go on, showers or no—just as it was to go on, stars or no.
With the writers' strike ended last week, the blackest of clouds over the ceremony was lifted. Nominee attendance should be strong; the red carpet should be crowded; and, as planned, the presenter lineup will be A-plus-list—Miley Cyrus debates aside.
Here's a look at the night to come:
- Showtime, ABC says, is 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET. Although, really, that's when the Oscars' official red-carpet coverage, with Regis Philbin, Samantha Harris and Shaun Robinson, starts. Look for the actual Oscars—awards, host Jon Stewart and all—at 5:30 p.m. PT/8:30 p.m. ET.
- E! and TV Guide Channel present their arrival shows starting at 3 p.m. PT/6 p.m. ET.
- According to BookMaker.com, and most pundits, anything less than a big, Best Picture-winning night for No Country for Old Men will be an upset.
- Other favorites of the online gaming site: Daniel Day-Lewis (There Will Be Blood) for Best Actor, Julie Christie (Away From Her) for Best Actress, and Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men) for Best Supporting Actor.
- Double-nominee Cate Blanchett is expected to lose Best Actress, where she's up for Elizabeth: The Golden Age, and win Best Supporting Actress, where she's up for I'm Not There, although the buzz, and the BookMaker.com odds, say Gone Baby Gone's Amy Ryan will make it close (and maybe just steal the category).
- When selecting your office-pool picks, listen to eBay at your own risk. The online auctioneer says last year its buyers snapped up merchandise at a rate that correlated with wins in two of three top Oscar categories—i.e., among nominated directors, Martin Scorsese stuff sold the best. If you follow eBay's thinking this year, you'll wade in with Juno for Best Picture (a longish-shot), No Country's Joel and Ethan Coen for Best Director (a safe pick, to say the least), and Sweeney Todd's Johnny Depp for Best Actor (good luck with that).
- If there is to be an upset in the Best Actor race, by the way, conventional wisdom says it'll be George Clooney for Michael Clayton.
- Miley Cyrus' scheduled Oscar ceremony appearance has been hotly debated in the blogosphere, but after 27 Dresses' Katherine Heigl, no presenter has starred in a bigger hit movie this year than Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert.
- Less hotly debated presenters include the likes of George Clooney, Denzel Washington, Tom Hanks and Nicole Kidman.
- Cyrus, by the way, will be near-impossible to miss on Sunday. She's also a guest on Barbara Walters' annual Oscar night special, airing on ABC before the show (or, after it, on the West Coast).
- Harrison Ford, Ellen Page and Ugly Betty's Vanessa Williams are Walters' other interview subjects. Of the bunch, only Juno's Page is an Oscar nominee.
- Certainly, you'll pay attention to the commercials...won't you? Oscar advertisers spent, on average, a record $1.8 million per 30-second spot.
- According to the National Weather Service, there's a 70 percent chance of rain in Los Angeles on Sunday. But not to worry, the red carpet's got it covered, literally.
- With the strike over, the post-Oscar parties will go on—just not all of them. Vanity Fair, among others, canceled its traditional bash. But, per E! Online senior editor Marc Malkin, the invites are out to a new soiree being thrown by Madonna, Demi Moore and music mogul Guy Oseary. Prince, a past Oscar winner himself, is also in hosting mode, per the columnist, as is Elton John, he of the annual Oscar night AIDS benefit.
- According to Nielsen Media Research, if you plan to watch the show, statistically speaking, you are probably a college-educated woman, at least 35, who lives in New England, the Mid-Atlantic or the Pacific. Old southern men, however, are still invited to tune in.
- If you saw only one Oscar movie, the box-office totals suggest it was probably Juno. Not only is the comedy the only Best Picture nominee to top $100 million, it's the only nominated film in the Best Actress category to take in even $20 million. (Through Wednesday, the movie had grossed $125.8 million, per Box Office Mojo.)
- In general, Nielsen found, Academy Award viewers "tend to be health conscious consumers of wine, nuts, pretzels, yogurt, liquor, health bars, trail mix, coffee, pudding and popcorn," and, may we add, plucky optimists who actually believe liquor, pudding and popcorn make for part of a well-balanced diet.