The Best Picture category isn't the only thing that bulked up.

What is it about the Academy Awards? Intellectually, it's hard to muster up that much enthusiasm about who "wore it best" (Ang Lee) or how modest Katniss will be in her acceptance speech, hopefully avoiding a First Wives' Club reference that sounded like she was hating on Meryl Streep this time. And yet ... we still feel compelled to watch. Maybe it's because secretly, deep down, we still find it fascinating that the guy who does the voice of Stewie looks like the host of a reality game show about finding true love by having a dance-off on a stripper pole.

Or maybe it's because we're just suckers, who deep down believe that Beasts of the Southern Wild might still possibly have a chance against Argo or Lincoln.

Come join us, will you, on this the most magical of evenings for producers, people who are married to movie stars, and dress designers? We'll be hosting a live chat below. Just click the big countdown button and you're all set. Got it?

Great.

This year we're making our predictions in order of the film and/or celebrity, not the award. That's because this time ... it's personal. No, seriously: between Kathryn Bigelow and Ben Affleck being iced out of Best Director, the Weinstein Bros. not having a snowball's chance in hell of scoring a big win and the fact that we're practically giving an award to Anne Hathaway just to make her stop sing-crying, there's going to be a lot of sore losers tonight. But don't worry; we're using a time-tested formula for predicting the bitter ceremonies, including taking all of the guesses on Twitter and averaging them against Nate Silver's predictions. Then we throw those out the window and  get ourselves angry over Lincoln’s inevitable windfall of awards that should be going to that movie that had all those great New Yorker articles written about it and stars a 9-year-old who wasn't even an actress when she started the film, which is about 50 percent more method than Daniel Day-Lewis's decision to become an Italian cobbler every time he's taking a hiatus from Hollywood.

So enjoy, and don't forget to tune into our live chat on the Oscars, starting at 7 p.m.!

Mr. Bowden at Tribeca Film Festival in 2003.

In a bit of holiday-appropriate news, The Atlantic national correspondent Mark Bowden has sold a book about the death of Osama Bin Laden to Morgan Entrekin at Grove/Atlantic, reports Publishers Marketplace. The book, to be published in October 2012, is "an account of the Bin Laden strike written in Bowden's signature 'you are there' style, going inside the war room as decisions were made and onto the ground as directives were executed." It's titled The Finish: The Killing of Osama Bin Laden.

The Finish seems ripe for cinematic adaptation—as Mr. Bowden's career-making book, Black Hawk Down, was—but any movie version would likely have to compete with The Hurt Locker director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal's film on the same subject.

Their adaptation of President Obama's greatest military victory, due out in December, has been the source of political controversy since Rep. Peter King alleged that the White House gave the filmmakers access to classified information. Documents obtained by Judicial Watch in May showed that the filmmakers were given access to a member of the U.S. Navy SEAL Team 6 and the C.I.A. Vault.

Here's hoping Mr. Bowden's been treated with similar hospitality.

Bigelow and Boal (Getty Images)

Per The Hollywood Reporter's coverage of a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act request, Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal, director and screenwriter of the upcoming Kill Bin Laden, met with government officials to discuss the mission to, well, kill Osama Bin Laden. According to 153 pages of records obtained, Mr. Boal met with Chief Counterterrorism Advisor John O. Brennan and Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough, among others. There's been predictable outcry, with Judicial Watch's president Tom Fitton claiming "politically-connected filmmakers were giving extraordinary and secret access to bin Laden raid information, including the identity of a Seal Team Six leader."

No chance of the film giving President Obama a "home-stretch boost" as Mr. Fitton claims, though, unless people are inspired by trailers--it comes out in December, after the election.

The Modern, who has acquired the director's archives for its collection, notes she has succeeded in "transforming the language of genre films," which is what you say when somebody who early-on made good, stylish, genre films later wins an Oscar.  

Maybe she was picked, just in small part, because she's a woman? This would be a totally offensive question if the Museum, which has said recently it is attempting to correct past slights towards women artists, didn't make such a point of her gender in their announcement.

For the annual Film Benefit, however the key question is always what celebs will come, and who will pay handsomely to see them? (Top ticket price is $75,000 for a table.) In the initial two years of the party/prize, guests included Johnny Depp, Hugh Jackman, Jessica Biel, Danny de Vito, Maggie Gyllenhaal and, of course, the Olsen twins, all swanning about MoMA director Glenn Lowry.

Expect some big names and serious schmoozing at the Nov. 10 dinner. Earlier this week, Bigelow, along with director Michael Moore, was elected to the Board of Governors that oversees the Oscars.

Yeah, we're not buying it either. But, there's still plenty of hope for HBO. (Besides all the shows they currently air and the upcoming Martin Scorsese-led Boardwalk Empire.) Miraculous Year, Academy Award-winner Kathryn Bigelow's foray into cable television, has begun staffing up. The series, about a Broadway family from playwright John Logan (Red) will feature Frank Langella, Norbert Leo Butz, Hope Davis, Patti LuPone and the newest Tony winner, Eddie Redmayne (Red as well). Um, is it 2011 yet?

1. Alice in Wonderland: $116.3 million ($116.3 million total)

As it turns out, there are bags of money down the rabbit hole. The $116.3 million opening for Alice in Wonderland was the biggest ever for a non-sequel (topping the $114.8 million of Spider-man in 2002) and the sixth biggest of all-time. It also broke two records that Avatar set back in December: best 3-D and IMAX starts, respectively. Meanwhile, Mr. Depp continued his run as one of the most popular movie stars in the world: he now owns the three highest Disney openings ever. Oh, and as if that weren't enough, Alice in Wonderland is already the top grossing release in 2010. And you wonder why every blockbuster is coming out in 3-D.

2. Brooklyn's Finest: $13.5 million ($13.5 million total)

Never has a runner up felt so insignificant... unless, of course, it was whoever finished second to Jeff Bridges, Mo'Nique, Sandra Bullock and Christophe Waltz. Despite a respectable showing—Brooklyn's Finest was the fourth biggest opening of all-time for Overture Films—we doubt anyone will actually care about this gross beyond director Antoine Fuqua's friends and family. Fun fact: it's been nine years since Mr. Fuqua wowed audiences with Training Day. It's nice to know that his career has come so far.

3. Shutter Island: $13.3 million ($95.8 million total)

We'll say this about Shutter Island: it's doing a lot better than we expected. Down just 41 percent, the film is already director Martin Scorsese's third biggest hit ever, and very well could wind up as his top earner. Not bad for a film with a twist ending that an astute viewer could have probably picked out from the trailer.

4. Cop Out: $9.1 million ($32.3 million total)

Kudos to Kevin Smith. The much maligned director (and flyer) has his biggest success ever with Cop Out; the comedy bested Zach and Miri Make a Porno to earn the title in just two weekends. Of course since Mr. Smith didn't write the film—and directed it like a studio gun for hire—we doubt all the members of the View Askew message boards will be all that happy with this result.

5. Avatar: $7.7 million ($720.1 million total)

It looks like Avatar will have to settle for grossing over fifty times what The Hurt Locker managed. Despite getting shut out of the big awards at the Oscars last night, James Cameron still came out of the ceremonies as the most successful director of all-time. Even in the face of the massive 3-D opening of Alice in Wonderland, Mr. Cameron's big blue escape found room for a fifth place finish and $7.7 million in revenue. Something tells us Mr. Cameron didn't mind staying off the Oscar stage after all.

Well, so that happened! Was it just us or were these just the most tediously boring Oscars in ages? And who should we blame? Maybe we should start with the very strange stage design, which we’re guessing was intended to be a nod to old Hollywood glamour, but felt more like an early-'70s set that was dusted off and given a quick polish (and please, we'll give a prize to anyone who can reasonably explain the lampshades). The last half hour of the show almost made up for it all, what with the history-making win of Kathryn Bigelow and the surprise shut-out of Avatar (yes, we know it won a bunch of technical awards but it didn’t crack any of the biggies).

So here are the top five moments of the night, as far as we can recall, though to be honest it is already beginning to fade into hazy memory. Oh, and not for nothing, that death montage was the worst! (And hey: did they forget about Farrah Fawcett? 'Cause that's just wrong.)

1. The ever-classy Bigelow goes down in history: the 58-year-old looked nothing short of fantastic as she became the first female to win best director, and was dignified and elegant during her acceptance speech. Take note, certain (cough) ex-husbands!

2. Best speech of the night? Probably a draw between Mo’Nique, who got an excellent dig in at all of her critics (“I would like to thank the Academy for showing that it can be about the performance and not the politics.”) in addition to a heartfelt thank-you and to the surprised-even-if-we-weren’t Sandra Bullock, who took the time to personally single out each of her fellow nominees (also, she may have very well won best dressed) and emotionally thanked her mother, "for not letting me ride in cars with boys until I was 18 because she was right. I would've done what she said I was gonna do." Honorable mention to Jeff Bridges, because he just seems like a class act.

3. The John Hughes tribute: after getting past the holy-bananas-is-that-really-Molly-Ringwald of it all, seeing the well-chosen clips from She’s Having a Baby, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles, Weird Science, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Vacation, The Breakfast Club, and more, really showed just how influential a writer and director Hughes was. But oh my god, how strange was it to see how those actors aged? My god, Judd Nelson. The horror!

4. The general WTF moments: the dancing (oh, the dancing). The tribute to horror – who, what, where, and most importantly, why? The American Idol-like opener. The woodland creature Paul N.J. Ottosson who won all those sound mixing awards. Love that guy!

5. Did Tom Hanks run out of time at the end or what? Didn’t it seem like he just got up there and yelled Hurt Locker and that was it? And isn’t it weird that while Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin were charming every time they were on stage (loved the Paranormal Activity sketch) but this thing just seemed to drag? What the heck, movies of 2009, we think you're better than that. 

svilkomerson@observer.com

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