One of the reasons I haven't been writing here is, whenever I decide for sure that I have anything tay, I go do a little research and find that Stephanie Zacharek has already said it better. Her two moist significant "said it betters" in: re tonight's -- festivities? least offensive background noise while your finishing your tax returns? -- are:

a) Why do you guys think The Dark Knight was so great?
b) It's fun to crap on the Oscars.

We'll talk about a) later -- maybe -- but the respunding point of b) is that, because the Academy is s unfailingly predictable and middlebrow in its selections, it provides a perfect foil to make us feel more sophisticated and urbane in our own taste in movies.

But that's only for people who get joy out of being armchair cultural critics. (Not that there's anything wrong with that! You people are my tribe! Do you think I'd be "writing" this ill-tended blog if you weren't) But there's also a joy in seeing people genuinely grateful for being acknowledged for hard work well accomplished.

I'll never forget, long before getting t into movies in any kind of official or mainstream capacity, and before I secretly taped the Oscar ceremony that my parents frowned on me watching (along with pretty much anything else that wasn't on PBS), the day when my grandma waxed rhapsodic about Nicholas Cage's acceptance speech for Leaving Las Vegas, saying "he seems like such a nice man!" OMG, America, were we ever so innocent?

But it's moments of pure sincere emotion that make all the awful dance numbers and bloviating tributes of The Oscars worthwhile. The reason I'm cynical about tonight's broadcast has nothing to do with its self congratulatory length, or any other of the critiques often and facilely laid at Oscar's doorstep, but rather because I think those simple pleasures have been cheapened by a sense of inevitability.

Of the "prestige", "classy," award-mongering actresses working today, Kate Winslet is undoubtedly one of the most inventive and interesting. And considering that she's one of the only ones of her class and "weight" -- I'm thinking Tilda Swinton, Cate Blanchett, etc. here -- that hasn't gotten the golden boy, it's a no-brainer to look at her body of work and enthusiastically hoot, "At last! It's about damn time!" But the joy of that moment is tainted by the fact that Kate is probably going to indulge in the treacly, insincere weepiness -- Oh my, this is so unexpected! -- rings false. Her  presumed win is perhaps the biggest foregone conclusion in a night that promises to be full of foregone conclusions.

No I'm wrong. There's Heath Ledger. What should be a collective nostalgic moment for the expression of a fierce and unique talent too soon snuffed out is diminished by the fact that this posthumous win seems to have been sewn up weeks ago.

All the same, there may still be pleasure for me in seeing two of my favorite actors of the past decade get some recognition. As soon as a winner -- no matter how predetermined -- gets up on stage it's a delightful crap shoot, and the potential for a genuinely surprising moment hangs ripe in the air. I seem to remember that last year, Javier Bardem was considered a slam dunk, at yet he managed to get up there and deliver a surprisingly moving acceptance speech.

So I still cling to the hope that Kate will get up there and just say, "it's about fucking time."  Or that they'll let Todd Haynes accept for Heath and he'll do something awesome, as usual.

I also really, really, really hope that Mickey Rourke wins it over Sean Penn. There are a million reasons for that -- none of them having anything to do with the quality of the performances, cause I'd be hard pressed to choose. The main reason now is that I'm looking for what's going to entertain me during the broadcast itself. And while Sean Penn is one of the greatest actors of our generation, it's hardly a secret that out of character, he's a douchenozzle of the first water. What do I want to see Him prattling on about how enlightened he is cause he met with Castro Or Mickey in full Bret Michaels meets Dorothy Zbornak regalia, the comeback kid of all comeback kids, mourning his recently deceased dog in an acceptance speech? Which makes for better TV Which represents the redemptive power of Hollywood at  its best

So as we settle in with our takeout on the couch, let's not get our hopes needlessly high, but let's remember the warm fuzzies the Oscars can sometimes make us feel, cross our fingers, and hope for the best.