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Academy Awards voters are expected to go very
big or very small on their best-picture winner at Sunday's Oscars.


      The two favorites in the expanded field of 10 best-picture
nominees are the as-big-as-it-gets blockbuster "Avatar" and the
critical darling "The Hurt Locker," which drew a tiny fraction of
the audience its mammoth competitor pulled in.

      Either movie would represent a first at the Oscars. James
Cameron's "Avatar" would be the only science-fiction film ever to
take home the best-picture prize. While war films have done well at
the Oscars, Kathryn Bigelow's "The Hurt Locker" would be the
first winner centered on the war on terror, a subject that has
stirred little interest among movie audiences shell-shocked by news
coverage of Iraq and Afghanistan.


      The other eight films competing for best picture: the football
drama "The Blind Side," the sci-fi thriller "District 9," the
British teen tale "An Education," the World War II saga
"Inglourious Basterds," the Harlem story "Precious: Based on the
Novel 'Push' by Sapphire," the Jewish domestic chronicle "A
Serious Man," the animated adventure "Up," and the recession-era
yarn "Up in the Air."


      Leaders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
widened the category from the usual five films to expand the range
of contenders for a ceremony whose predictability had turned it
into a humdrum affair for TV audiences.


      Oscar ratings fell to an all-time low two years ago and
rebounded just a bit last year, when the show's overseers freshened
things up with lively production numbers and new ways of presenting
some awards.


      The overhaul continues this season with a show that farmed out
time-consuming lifetime-achievement honors to a separate event last
fall and hired Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin as the first dual
Oscar hosts in 23 years.


      "Avatar" and "The Hurt Locker" lead with nine nominations
each, including director for Cameron and Bigelow, who have a
personal history that spices up the competition. They were married
from 1989-91.


      Cameron took the directing prize at the Golden Globes, but
Bigelow earned the top honor from the Directors Guild of America,
whose recipient almost always wins the same award at the Oscars.


      If it happens, Bigelow would be the first woman in the 82-year
history of the Oscars to win best director.


      Four first-time winners are expected to triumph in the acting
categories.


      Audience darling Sandra Bullock is the best-actress favorite for
"The Blind Side," which brought her the first Oscar nomination of
her career. Jeff Bridges, nominated four times previously without a
win, looks like a lock for best actor for the country-music tale
"Crazy Heart."


      Front-runners for the supporting categories are veteran Austrian
actor Christoph Waltz, who had been virtually unknown in Hollywood
until his star-making turn in "Inglourious Basterds," and
Mo'Nique, a performer known for lowbrow comedy who showed
unsuspected dramatic depths in "Precious."

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Academy Awards voters are expected to go very
big or very small on their best-picture winner at Sunday's Oscars.


'Avatar,' 'Hurt Locker' lead expanded Oscar parade

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