I get a fair number of emails from Academy members, but most of them don't scare me.
The one that arrived last week, though, stopped me cold.
"I agree with you about the number of nominations," wrote a member after I wrote that I expected seven Best Picture nominees, "although I do disagree with your pick for best picture."
The member went on: "I believe there will be exactly seven nominations, and 'The Help' will be the Best Picture."
My first reaction was that there was no way that could happen – that the movie, while admirable on a number of counts, was too bland and too sappy, and just not what the Academy looks for in a Best Picture winner.
I felt, in other words, exactly the same way I felt when I first heard the suggestion that Sandra Bullock could win Best Actress for "The Blind Side."
Obviously, I was wrong about that one.
I'm not ready to admit that I'm wrong about this one; for now, at least, I'm sticking with my early-September prediction that "The Descendants" will take the big prize.
Also read: And the Next Oscar for Best Picture Will Go To ...
But I also think that this is an unusually unsettled year, and one in which all of the presumed frontrunners -- including "The Descendants," "The Artist," "War Horse" and "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" -- are either films with significant vulnerabilities (the first two) or unseen wild cards (the last two).
And it makes me wonder if there isn't some truth in the notion that "The Help" could actually win, even though not a single expert polled for the GoldDerby chart is predicting it to do so.
And I wonder the same thing about Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris" (also picked to win by none of the experts), and David Fincher's "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" (picked by a whopping four percent).
Even though none of the three are sure nominees by any stretch, here's how those crazy things could happen.
Also read: Christopher Plummer, Glenn Close, Nick Nolte -- A Year for Overdue Oscars?
"The Help"
When "The Blind Side" got a Best Picture nomination two years ago, and Sandra Bullock actually won the Oscar for a film largely dismissed by critics, it was a sign that populism can still work with Academy voters -- that even after a string of tough, uncharacteristic Oscar winners ("The Departed," "Slumdog Millionaire," "No Country for Old Men," "The Hurt Locker"), sentiment and corn still played to that group.
And "The Help" plays squarely to those people as well. And it gets a boost for addressing the Civil Rights movement and another, perhaps bigger boost for being a showcase for what is by far the Academy's biggest branch, actors.
