Oscar Index: It's All Over But the Crying

The Nominees:

1. Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit

2. Melissa Leo, The Fighter

3. Helena Bonham Carter, The King's Speech

4. Jacki Weaver, Animal Kingdom

5. Amy Adams, The Fighter

Notes: While Melissa Leo spent even more time in the last week defending her Glamour Shots ad campaign, Hailee Steinfeld quietly climbed to the top of one prestigious set of power rankings and out in front of Sasha Stone's own Supporting Actress picks. "I won't be surprised if True Grit turns up in unexpected places, but one place it seems likely to show up in is this category," she writes. "Steinfeld has a lead performance here, so it tips the advantage in her favor. She plays a very likable, heroic little girl. The only other 'likeable' character she's up against is Helena Bonham Carter, and she could win also."

Very true! Anne Thompson laid out a detailed case for HBC's Oscar ascendancy, attributable in no small part to herself being due to win, The King's Speech's seasonal domination, her recent BAFTA victory, and her generally self-deprecating wit that represents the direct opposite of Leo's shameless self-promotion. Both women are inveterate cinematic presences, which the Academy historically has been know to prefer -- at least way more than screen rookies, a class to which Steinfeld belongs and who've only won eight times in 73 years of the Supporting Actress category. Then again, I've said it before about adolescent actresses who rise up once in a generation for this award: The Steinfeld force is strong, and I wouldn't bet against it come Sunday.

That said, I'm still personally picking Jacki Weaver. After all, I think we can all agree that this year's Best Supporting Actress will win by a slim margin of votes after a fierce three-way competition. In that scenario, it would seem to me that Weaver and Adams stand to benefit the most. Keep hope alive, folks!

The Nominees:

1. Christian Bale, The Fighter

2. Geoffrey Rush, The King's Speech

3. Mark Ruffalo, The Kids Are All Right

4. John Hawkes, Winter's Bone

5. Jeremy Renner, The Town

Notes: Oh, man. Has Rush really made this late run? Indeed, writes Scott Feinberg:

I know it's a gamble, but if The King's Speech has anywhere close to the Academy support that my colleagues and I are hearing it does, then it will also carry along some other close categories on its coattails, and none is more obvious than Rush because you cannot love The King's Speech without loving both of the performances at its center.

I know that it's incredibly rare for an actor or actress to win with the BFCA, HFPA, and SAG but not with AMPAS, but keep in mind that it does happen every once in a while -- three times, in fact, over the last decade. One of those three times was four years ago: Eddie Murphy (Dreamgirls), like Bale, was a first-time best supporting actor Oscar nominee with a checkered personal history who had also largely refused to campaign for the best supporting actor award, and he wound up losing to an older and more likable actor (Alan Arkin) who had been campaigning hard on behalf of his performance in a more popular movie (Little Miss Sunshine,which may have had fewer total nods than Dreamgirls but had the one that mattered, best picture).

The argument against this appears to be that Rush has won already, but I don't know what the hell that means; if Oscarlessness is such an influential prerequisite to winning, then we should all prepare to coronate Annette Bening -- two decades Natalie Portman's senior -- this year's Best Actress. Same with Carter, for whom TKS's supremacy elsewhere signifies a competitive edge over Leo: "My thinking," writes Sasha Stone, "is if they love The King's Speech enough to give Tom Hooper Best Director, Rush's win should be a cake walk." Precisely. The bulk of pundits remain faithful to Bale, but like I said about Bening, this is no longer the long shot it used to be. Pick accordingly.

In any case, I thank you for keeping an eye on this feature for the last five months (!) of awards madness. It's been a pleasure and a thrill reading and chatting with all the awards-culture observers out there -- the professionals, the amateurs, the deep thinkers and close readers, the irascible and challenging, the wits and the wild cards. You all know who you are, and I appreciate each and every one of you. Now bring on the Oscars, already!

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