Academy Awards

Scott Weiss could barely suppress his panic. Perspiration glued his tuxedo shirt to his back. The forged all-access badge and tiny digital camera hung like weights around his neck as he approached the loading dock entrance. The theater at Hollywood and Highland crawled with local cops, high-priced security guards and federal agents: FBI, sheriff's deputies, LAPD bomb squad specialists and SWAT team snipers, all on high alert.

Documentary maker Scott Hamilton Kennedy has earned critics' paeans and an Oscar nomination by training his camera on two intensely local, only-in-L.A. subjects: a play at a Compton high school and the rise and fall of a South Los Angeles community garden. But for Kennedy, the roots of these distinctly L.A. stories go back to the U.S. heartland and his youth.

Now that the Oscar field is finally set, Hollywood's most nail-biting, nerve-racking fashion exercise can officially begin. Of course, the dance between designers and stars lasts until the final hours before the Academy Awards, which means it's much too early to say for sure who will wear what on the big night. But there are plenty of clues to be found in previous red-carpet appearances by this year's contenders and presenters.

VANITY FAIR'S cancellation of its legendary Oscar party dramatically changes the landscape of Hollywood's most glamorous evening for the first time in years. When editor Graydon Carter threw his first Academy Awards viewing and post-party at Morton's in 1994, he wanted to inherit the uber-hosting mantle of the late talent agent Swifty Lazar. Instead, he did Swifty one better -- Carter practically eliminated the competition. Vanity Fair has been such a magnet for A-listers that studios don't even bother to compete anymore and throw pre-Oscar parties instead.

Academy Award nominees are usually revealed on a Tuesday about four weeks before the big show, which is typically held the last Sunday in February. For 2009, though, the targeted Tuesday -- Jan. 20 -- is Inauguration Day. So the 81st annual Oscar nominees will be revealed Thursday, Jan. 22, and the Academy Awards will be presented Sunday, Feb. 22 -- the earliest Oscars ever. "It didn't make any sense for us to try to compete with [the inauguration] from a news point of view," academy Executive Administrator Ric Robertson said Monday.

For anyone who has spent any real time in Los Angeles, the Oscars aren't simply an event -- they are a season, marked by limousines, road closures, early quitting times. Over the years, they've tweaked our rhythms, changed our priorities and altered our escape routes. Whether you love them, shun them or have built rituals around them, they have a significant presence for many.

Much is made in entertainment punditry of the Golden Globes' presumed status as a barometer for the Oscars. The Globes are not a bad indicator, but it's worth remembering that both events are essentially popularity contests. The Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. has fewer than 100 voting members; the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has about 6,000 voters. Both shows involve highly subjective decisions about roughly the same pool of movies and performances. Because the Globes nominates 10 movies, 10 men and 10 women in two categories (drama and musical or comedy)

Call it the Marion Cotillard Effect. Few American moviegoers had heard of the French actress before she won the Academy Award last year for her performance in the art-house film "La Vie en Rose." That year also marked the lowest ratings ever for an Oscar telecast. Publicly, executives of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and ABC, which has broadcast the show annually since 1976, shrugged off the sinking ratings.

A good Hollywood party these days combines certain indispensable elements: a beautiful room filled with beautiful people, good food and drink, efficient valet parking -- and a cause. At this year's Oscar parties, the cause element was especially important. (Oscar host Hugh Jackman wasn't the only entertainer who noticed that Oscar was throwing a glittering bash in hard times.) But that didn't mean forgoing glitz.

Whenever there's an overwhelming favorite in the Oscar race, you can be sure, human nature being human nature, and the media being the media -- in short, an institution that likes to build 'em up and then knock 'em down -- that the overwhelming favorite will soon find itself fighting off a nasty backlash. That's exactly what's happening right now in the Oscar race to Danny Boyle's "Slumdog Millionaire," which in recent days has gone from beloved underdog to embattled front-runner.