Heath Ledger, light and dark.

I'm not a betting woman, but if I were I'd say the only safe bet Oscar night is that Heath Ledger, who died a year ago, will take supporting-actor honors for his role as the Joker in "The Dark Knight" and become the second actor, after Peter Finch ("Network"), to receive a posthumous Academy Award.

He won't win because he died too tragically and too soon. He won't win because Oscar passed over his performance as Ennis Del Mar in "Brokeback Mountain." He will win because he delivered the finest of all the fine performances in his category (the others are Josh Brolin in "Milk," Robert Downey Jr. in "Tropic Thimder," Philip Seymour Hoffman in "Doubt" and Michael Shannon in "Revolutionary Road").

Argue my case, you demand? A superhero movie is only as good as its villain is bad, as as the Joker, Ledger created a character of such extreme malevolence and instability as we've never before seen. Jack Nicholson plays the Joker with anarchic glee; Ledger plays him as a deep well of evil, a psychotic challenge to good guys Harvey Dent (Aron Eckhardt) and Batman (Christian Bale) who can't best him because his Joker keeps changing the rules of the game. King Lear had a pathological need of being loved, the Joker has a patholgical need of being feared -- it's his lifeblood, his drug.  I like what Roger Ebert says here, although I don't agree that there's anything self-pitying about Ledger's Joker.

From the anachronistic fun of "A Knight's Tale" to the horror of "The Dark Knight," Ledger, who passed at 28, was supremely gifted. I always liked the way he seemed to speak through his mouth rather than with it, as though he were withholding something he didn't want the audience to see. Your thoughts on his Joker? Your favorite Ledger performance? Here were my thoughts a year ago), before I saw "The Dark Knight."

The critics are getting rabid about Slumdog.

Who wants to be a "Slumdog Millionaire"? At the nanosecond Danny Boyle's dynamic and Dickensian tale of the great expectations of a Mumbai street kid  is the front-runner to sweep the Oscars. But critics, some of them in Slumdog's backyard, are sticking out their legs in efforts to trip up the film in its final laps toward the finish line. The critics are getting rabid about "Slumdog."

Most impassioned is Dennis Lim's consideration, which wonders to what extent the romance set against the backdrop of the Mumbai slums, can be considered "poverty porn."

"A white man's imagined India", complains a professor from India.

And then there's the grassroots campaign on behalf of  Loveleen Tandan, the film's assistant director, to share the director's glory if the film wins an Oscar for its filmmaker.

I very much like the film, don't think it condescends to its subjects or their milieu any more than Dickens condescended to his characters, and don't think it promotes "poorism" -- as wags have tagged slumming tourists. As for Tandan, she is on the record as saying it's Boyle's film.

Your thoughts?

NO DOUBT: Meryl Streep honors her sister nominees while accepting her Screen Actors Guild statuette for "Doubt."

By now Mary Louise Streep -- Meryl to you -- has a mantel with almost enough trophies as a chess board has pieces. The 15-time Academy Awars nominee (a record), has two Oscars, two Emmys, six Golden Globes and, now, two Screen Actors Guild awards. Sunday night she won the mate for her first SAG statuette for her work as Sister Aloysius in "Doubt."  Streep, who turns 60 this year, was dressed in street clothes and genuinely stunned to get the award that everyone predicted Kate Winslet ("Revolutionary Road") would win. (Winslet did get a supporting prize for "The Reader.") Without a speech prepared, La Streep delivered a hilarious stemwinder of about five minutes that was a high point of the awards ceremony. How gracious was she in suggesting the assembled to give Viola Davis, her co-star, "her own movie"? If there were awards for awards speeches, this would get one.

From the giddy frivolity of "Mamma Mia!" to the steely sobriety of "Doubt," Streep had quite a 2008. In the past she has incarnated writers Isak Dinesen ("Out of Africa"), Nora Ephron ("Heartburn"), Carrie Fisher ("Postcards from the Edge") and Susan Orlean ("Adaptation"), whistleblower Karen Silkwood ("Silkwood"),  a thinly-veiled Anna Wintour ("The Devil Wears Prada") as well as the formidable Sophie of "Sophie's Choice" and the heroine of "The French Lieutenant's Woman." In 2009 she will be Julia Child in Ephron's "Julia and Julia" and also appear in an untitled Nancy Meyers comedy.

Streep has revealed so many facets of woman that it's hard to name a favorite performance. For her ability to plumb the tragedy in comedy and vice-versa, my favorites are "Silkwood," "Sophie," "Prada" and "Adaptation."

Your favorite Streeps? Why?

Lee Daniels, poet of the social-problem film.

High five to Philadelphia-connected filmmaker Lee Daniels (producer of "Monster's Ball, and director of "Shadowboxer") whose new film, "Push," won both the jury prize and audience award at the Sundance Film Festival. "Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire," follows the journey of a teenage girl, victim of parental abuse, who overcomes her past and takes charge of her future. One thing for sure about Daniels, who takes on topics such as pedophilia ("The Woodsman"), racism ("Monster's Ball"), terminal illness ("Shadowboxer") and incest: He is unflinching. Are you a Daniels fan?  He's the poet of the social-problem film.

Steve Martin as Inspector Clouseau. Can you say fromage?

For us Steve Martin aficionados, we who laughed ourselves senseless during"All of Me," and "The Man With Two Brains," and "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid," we who loved "Pennies from Heaven," "L.A. Story" and "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," we who solved the puzzle that was "The Spanish Prisoner" and were struck by the eloquence of "Shopgirl" (both his novella and the movie based on it), there would seem to be three faces of Steve. One is the slapstick genius ("The Jerk," "All of Me"), the second the restless artist ("Pennies from Heaven," "Shopgirl") and the third the platinum-haired guy who tarnishes his rep by appearing in recycled schlock such as "Cheaper By the Dozen" and "The Pink Panther." Why a comic original would want to remake a character created by another comic original, Peter Sellers, is beyond me.

The good news: Martin is hosting "Saturday Night Live" on Jan. 31. The bad: His second "Panther" film opens February 6. Can you say fromage?

Your favorite Steve?

Oscar wonders, "Where's Felix? Where's Clint?"

You can check here for the complete list of Academy Award nominees. But the headline news is: 13 nods for "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," including star Brad Pitt and supporting actress Taraji P. Henson; 10 for "Slumdog Millionaire," 8 for "Milk," including lead actor Sean Penn and supporting Josh Brolin, and also 8 for "Dark Knight," led by supporting actor Heath Ledger. "Doubt" got Oscar noms for all four of its leads, an actress bid -- her 15th nomination -- for Meryl Streep and supporting for Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams and the incredible Viola Davis.

 Kate Winslet was nominated for "The Reader," where her main competition are Streep and Anne Hathaway for "Rachel Getting Married." Penn's main competition is Mickey Rourke for "The Wrestler" (which also snagged a bid for supporting actress Marisa Tomei).

Pleasant surprises: Richard Jenkins received an actor bid for his stunning work in "The Visitor," likewise Melissa Leo an actress nod for hers in "Frozen River," which also won a screenplay nom for writer/director Courtney Hunt.

Shut out: Clint Eastwood for actor ("Gran Torino" and director ("GT" and "Changeling," which got a nod for its star, Angelina Jolie); Woody Allen for "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," for which supporting actress Penelope Cruz was cited); and Bruce Springsteen for his moving theme song for "The Wrestler." Is this a sign of generational change?

Interesting story about the weighted ballots behind the nominations.

Your thoughts about the noms? Anyone robbed? I was sorry not to see more love for Robert Downey, Jr., passed over for "Iron Man" but cited for his supporting work in "Tropic Thunder."

Elizabeth Taylor kisses Montgomery Clift in "A Place in the Sun," one of the movie greats Oscarologist Robert Osborne thinks was overlooked by the Academy.

Robert Osborne, host of Turner Classic Movies and Oscarologist extraordinaire (he's author of "80 Years of Oscar")  would NOT like to thank the members of the Academy for some of their more glaring oversights.

More than 68 years after the fact, he still can't believe that in 1940 Henry Fonda was passed over for best actor in "The Grapes of Wrath" -- "I can't think of a better screen performance in the 1940s, can you?" -- in favor of James Stewart in "The Philadelphia Story." But then, he says by phone from his New York apartment today, Jimmy Stewart's performance the prior year in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" was passed over in favor of Robert Donat's in "Goodbye, Mr. Chips."

Of the best-picture contenders who were robbed, Osborne believes that the most egregious year was 1951 when "An American in Paris" edged out "A Place in the Sun" and "A Streetcar Named Desire." So embarassed was "Paris" ' studio, M-G-M, says Osborne, "That it took out an advertisement showing its shamefaced mascot, Leo the Lion, confessing, "Honestly, we were just standing in the Sun waiting for a Streetcar."

Osborne has a theory as to why some of the most beloved Hollywood figures -- including Fred Astaire, Charlie Chaplin, Greta Garbo, Alfred Hitchcock and Barbara Stanwyck -- never won competitive Oscars. "They were always so good. Often, the ones who win have often been mediocre and are honored when they surpass themselves."

Not only does Osborne's convivial Oscar chat anticipate Thursday's announcement of the Academy Award nominations, it also anticipates TCM's "31 Days of Oscar," its annual monthlong program devoted to movies that either were nominated for or won statuettes. "31 Days" begins on February 1 and will mark the TCM premieres of nominees that include "Carnal Knowledge" (1971), "Boyz N the Hood" (1991) and "Bugsy" (same year).

Your nominations for the movies, actor, actress or director that got robbed?

President Morgan Freeman in Deep Impact, a movie title that well describes the reaction to President Obama's and Rev. Lowery's eloquence today.

As hopeful is the antonym of hopeless, so speechless' opposite is speechful.

During the inauguration proceedings, I've never heard a newsroom so quiet. A John Cage-like silence punctuated by the Zen sound of tears rolling down cheeks.

Speechful.

Here comes the brides Anne Hathway and Kate Hudson in "Bride Wars." Hollywood loves bride movies because they purvey pretty ingenues and sell high-end dresses and rings. But do twentyish girls love them?

E-mail from my stepdaughter, Morgan, 23: "My friends and I were writing back and forth about how disgusted we are with movies like the horrific bride one with Anne Hathaway," she writes. "I feel like something needs to be written about how tired we are of seeing these movies that make the holy grail of our lives the wedding band."

Many have written about the horror of "Bride Wars". I think it's a marketing tool for the fashion and wedding industries.  The New York Times' Manohla Dargis thinks Hollywood executives think that women have a gene for tulle. She's equally disgusted that the wedding film "is one of the few storylines that afford American actresses screen time."

Wedding movies are attractive to Hollywood because they purvey pretty ingenues in beautiful dresses that are paid-for product placement by coutourieres such as Vera Wang, pretty ingenues flaunting wedding blings that are paid-for product placement by jewelers such as Tiffany & Co.

And wedding movies are also inherently attractive to writers at least since the Greeks because a wedding resolves the inherent narrative conflict of bringing two combative characters together. Me, I like movies that have weddings but aren't necesarily about them ("It Happened One Night," "The Lady Eve," "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" Elaine May's "The Heartbreak Kid" but not the Ben Stiller remake).

Still, what Morgan and Manohla and I worry about is that about the only time we see women on screen they are talking about diamond clarity and carat or planning a destination wedding. What happened to women characters like Greer Garson's "Madame Curie" who discovers radium? Or to Sally Field's "Norma Rae" who fights management for union rights? Or to Julia Robert's "Erin Brockovich" who leads the fight for restitution for the casualties of corporate greed?

My guess is the occasional farce like "Bride Wars" wouldn't make us irritable if we were also seeing screen representations of women in less trivial pursuits.

Your thoughts? (Or your favorite movie brides?)