Special thanks to James Cameron for providing two of the three most excruciating moments of the Academy Awards broadcast -- the performances of the nominated songs aside.  (Most excruciating:  The embarrassing, but revealing, cuts to Lou Gossett Jr. and Spike Lee when Samuel L. Jackson walked onstage -- pointedly singling them out as token blacks in the Academy's eyes.) 

Let's thank god (or James Cameron) that Cameron's not an actor -- his "I'm king of the world -- woo-woo!" semi-exclamation when accepting the director trophy was agonizingly lame and unconvincing. He didn't exactly come across as enthusiastic, so why did he force himself to do it? (At least poor Sally Field's "You really like me!" was spontaneous.)  At first I thought Cameron was, for some reason, doing a pathetic job of misquoting the end of White Heat -- until somebody reminded me that he was actually quoting some immortal dialog from his own un-nominated screenplay.  Is that worse?

And then, at the end of a looooooooong evening -- in a really, exquisitely awful Oscar moment right up there with The Lord of the Dance or Rob Lowe and Snow White -- he let his Titanic ego run wild and actually took over the broadcast, directing the entire Academy to observe a moment of silence for the Titanic dead!  What a spectacle: a director in the temperamental tradition of von Stroheim forcing an entire industry to bend to his directorial will!  It was a patently insincere stunt (that silence was deafening), egomaniacal grandstanding on a grand scale --  gaudy and ghastly in the finest overblown Hollywood tradition. (And not unlike his grand and overblown movie!)  I used to believe in this guy.   Think I'll go back and watch T2 or The Abyss (movies I thought were really good)...

Notes on the race:
Crews may not be crazy about him (because he isn't very diplomatic about getting what he wants), and some actors (the Academy's biggest voting branch) think he's more of a tyrannical dictator than a director, but there's no question that James Cameron is the captain of The Titanic. It's his baby, all the way, and everything, from the performances to the digital effects, were under his meticulous iron control. (He reportedly sent one expensive digital scene back to the CGI folks because they had the ship's prop still turning, when it shouldn't have been -- that's the kind of attention to significant detail you want in a director.) Before the movie was released, there was a lot of press portraying him as an out-of-control perfectionist/egomaniac (like the Michael Cimino of Heaven's Gate) -- but Cameron has been through this before (The Abyss and T2 come to mind) and he has always delivered the goods.  Then everybody forgives and forgets.  The fact is, Cameron has a reputation of being difficult, but it's because he'll do anything (including forfeiting his salary) to put his vision on the screen.  In another year, Curtis Hanson (a heretofore competent but mediocre director who launched himself into the bigtime as he swept the critics' group awards for L.A. Confidential -- lightyears beyond anything he's done in the past) would be the pick, but that neo-noir is seen more as a writer's/actors' movie than a director's one -- and there's no stopping DGA winner Cameron and Titanic, both already recipients of Golden Globules.

Winners marked in blue.

• Other necessary nominations: A picture has been known to win without a best director nomination (see Driving Miss Daisy).   But a director cannot win without a best picture nomination.
  
• Other awards: In the last few years, the Golden Globes and Los Angeles Film Critics Association winners have been "leading indicators" (as those in the equally precise science of economics say) of the Academy's picks.
  GG -- Golden Globes (yeah, they're a joke, but their choices do sometimes coincide with the Academy's)
  DG -- Directors Guild of America (directors only)
  WG -- Writers Guild of America (screenplays only)
  SA -- Screen Actors Guild (actors only)

PG -- Producers Guild of America (producers only -- but, remember, they're the ones who take home the best picture statuette)
LA -- Los Angeles Film Critics Association
NY -- New York Film Critics Circle
NS -- National Society of Film Critics

• Bacon factor:  Computed with the invaluable assistance of the Oracle of Bacon at Virginia, the "Bacon factor" has never been shown to have statistical significance in choosing the Oscars.  Nevertheless, I knew you'd want to know.  This number indicates how many steps removed from Kevin Bacon a particular actor may be.  A Bacon factor of "1" means the person has actually worked with Kevin himself.  A Bacon factor of "2" means the person has worked with someone who has worked with Kyra's hubby.  And so on -- but these days (especially thanks to "Sleepers," which had everybody in it) you'd have to get really obscure to find anyone with a Bacon factor of more than 2.

*NOTE: Director Bacon factors are my own computations and only reflect whether the director has actually directed Kevin Bacon in a motion picture.

• Other factors:  These are just some of the other things that have been shown (or at least theorized) to affect the Academy's decisions. (For example: historical epics tend to win; comedies don't.)
  FC -- this indicates the results of Film Comment's annual "Oscar Predix" poll of 11 esteemed movie experts.  I've indicated here with a number (say, 10/11) only the predictions that are clear favorites or split decisions.  For the full breakdown, including who voted for what, you'll have to check out Film Comment, or its website at the Film Society of Lincoln Center.   FC's  "dream team" (and remember, these are predictions, not preferences) is: David Ansen (Newsweek), Sheila Benson (Microsoft Cinemania), Manohla Dargis (L.A. Weekly), John Hartl (Seattle Times), Dave Kehr (New York Daily News), Todd McCarthy (Variety), Andrew Sarris (New York Observer), Richard Schickel (Time), Gavin Smith (Film Comment), Anne Thompson (Premiere), Kenneth Turan (Los Angeles Times).