Oscar Night: 2010 Some Movie Titles And Famous Faces Will Probably Be With Us For Many Years To Come

One thing we can predict with certainty: Tonight’s 2010 Oscar ceremonies will be like a box of cholesterol denatured, synthetically sweetened joy bites - we won’t know what we’re getting!

Yes, the Microsoft 82nd annual Academy Awards are shaping up as the most unpredictable of the century.

“Gump Goes to Philadelphia” star Tom Hanks, vying for his 16th Best Actor Oscar, literally faces his stiffest competition in years from a computer-regenerated Humphrey Bogart (“Back From the Big Sleep”). Although the two versions of Paul Newman (20th century vintage in “Stung,” 21st century - and still looking great! - edition in “Won’t Get Fooled Again”), likely will split the Blue Eyes vote, the biggest new star of the year, “Jurassic Jones and the Temple of Dumb and Dumber’s” 60-footer Rex E. Fex, could conceivably stomp the competition.

Still, the smart money’s on Hanks, who’s only lost the Best Actor nod once since 1994 - in 2003, when an overwhelming sympathy vote went to a hologram of Jim Carrey, after the beloved comic died of exhaustion making his 127th movie, “Think That’s Retarded? IV (3).”

Everybody so adored Hanks’ slowdance with 17-year-old footage of himself in “Gump/Phil” that that scene alone all but cinched the Oscar; Forrest’s climactic discovery of a cure for AIDS seemed almost an emotional afterthought. Of course, the fact that the formula of chewing tobacco, shrimp heads and groundup Nikes really works guaranteed “Gump/Phil” a Best Picture nomination.

The other front-runner for Best Picture is Oliver Stone’s provocative “virtual history lesson,” “OJFK,” in which suspect-but-patented Time Travelcam technology purportedly proves that the Simpson-Goldman murders were committed by a ruthless cabal of tabloid TV show reporters. Some have questioned the veracity of Stone’s self-styled “docuhallucination,” but that’s certainly balanced out in academy voters’ minds by the fact that everybody’s seen this movie.

Everybody except, of course, the jurors in the 788-week-old Tropicana O.J. Simpson Trial.

Also up for Best Picture is enfant terrible writer-director Vincent Barbarino’s celebrated and reviled genocide comedy, “Real Pulp Fiction.” Some think the genetically engineered, 4-year-old film genius’ third feature is all vulgar flash. But others found substance in this story of a foul-mouthed dictator (Samuel L. Jackson) who, after murdering millions, has a change of heart, saves the world from bio-nuclear destruction, establishes free international health care and discovers the secret of absolute spiritual enlightenment.

Jackson is up for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar.

The dark horse nominee is “The Lyin’ King,” CBS-Disney’s groundbreaking, reality-based animated musical about the Whitewater scandal. Socially committed director Jonathan Taylor Thomas insists that the historic, interactive impeachment proceedings represented “America’s loss of innocence until proven guilty,” and reviewers have hailed the film as the most intelligent of the year.

The fifth and most quizzical Best Picture nominee is the critical and commercial disappointment, “Jurassic Jones.” The fact that “JJ” received twice as many nominations as any other movie is just the latest mystery connected to the film, which at a cost of $2 trillion is believed to be the most expensive production in history.

“Whaddaya mean? What’s so strange?” the film’s Rex E. Fex, an animatronic dinosaur whose artificial ego became self-programming halfway through production, asked during an exclusive interview at his plush office, the former Culver City. “Hey, it wasn’t easy takin’ over directin’ and producin’ the thing from Mr. Spielberg - who I hope wit’ all my heart (burp) is found safe an’ sound. But I t’ink da academy voters recognize I did a pretty fine job for sometin’ wit’ a microprocessor no bigger than a pea.

At least there’s no mystery about who will win the Best Actress Oscar. Jodie Foster, Hollywood’s last leading lady since Shannen Doherty’s retirement two years ago, is in a fiveway competition with herself. She’s up for all four title roles in the latest, digital-split remake of Louisa May Alcott’s literary classic, “Mighty Morphin Little Women,” and for her subtly compelling portrayal of a coma victim in “Null.”

Of course, Foster’s impressive showing has not come free of controversy. Some obviously jealous former rivals have suggested that, even assisted by Industrial Laser and Magic’s YouthSerumSys program, she’s too mature to play teen-age Civil War-era crime-fighting sisters.

The ever-reliable Hoop Dreams Was Robbed Society will once again be protesting the Best Documentary entries.

As always, the academy documentary committee insists that its choices - “Changing the Lightbulb,” “Bad Corporation,” “Nail Dancers of the Solomon Islands: Cries of Art, Cries of Pain,” “Unemployed Actresses” and “My Cats” - are the most worthy.

And, as has been the case since the United States of Europe was formed in 2005, no Foreign Language Film entries from that continent were allowed to compete except for the allAlbanian production “Urgu, Adorable Child.”