Later today, I’ll be serving up our Oscar Guide in the Best Actress category — but if you want an appetizer for that subject, Andrew O’Hehir has written a good piece on the sincere, season-long show of mutual appreciation between the category’s frontrunners, Viola Davis and Meryl Streep. (“This is your year,” Streep apparently said to Davis at the New York critics’ awards.) He gets a few things wrong (like saying that Davis wasn’t a surefire nominee last month, when she’s plainly been the frontrunner since August), and I’m not sure the title “how Viola Davis took Meryl Streep’s Oscar” hits the right note, but O’Hehir’s insights into Davis’s canny but not cynical self-campaigning, as well as the value of her relationship with Streep, are pointed and sensible amid a chorus of more hysterical commentary about the race. [Salon]
After Seth Rogen knocked the Academy for not nominating “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol,” Ben Child thinks he has a point. Where’s the genre love? [The Guardian]
Oscar-nominated sound editor Lon Bender — one of the nominees we’re hoping will upset on Sunday — talks us through his work on “Drive.” [New York Times]
Steve Pond on actress-turned-nun (and still-active AMPAS voter) Dolores Hart, subject of the Oscar-nominated documentary short “Gold is the New Elvis.” [The Odds]
Applying something called the “Heat Meter” to gauge if this is the best year of Meryl Streep’s career. Isn’t et easier just to look at the performances? Either way, the answer is no. [LA Times]
Harvard freshman Ben Zauzmer has devised some kind of mathematical formula to predict this year’s Oscar winners. Note: if/when Viola Davis wins, we’ll officially know that ALL MATH IS WRONG. [Oscar Forecast]
Julie Miller thinks it’s “safe to assume” that “W.E.” is winning an Oscar on Sunday. I reckon there’s an 80% chance of Julie Miller being very surprised. [Vanity Fair]
Ryan Jones consults the kids of America on this year’s Oscar race. They like the chance of “The Tree of Life” for Best Picture, and Selena Gomez for Best Actress. [Vulture]
On the resourceful ways studios have found to get around the Academy’s newly tightened campaign restrictions. [Baltimore Sun]
Away from the Oscar beat, Mike D’Angelo speaks up in defense of movie piracy. [Listen Eggroll]