The Oscars are on Sunday! Aren't you soooo excited? What's that? It's shaping up to be one of the least-surprising Oscars in recent memory? Well, OK, sure. But we think there are actually a few things to be excited about.

Yeah, yeah. A lot of the categories already feel like locks. Mo'Nique is going to win for her blistering turn as a psychotic Nazi in Precious and Ch'ristoph Waltz has already sewn up the Supporting Actor prize for his brilliant work as a terrifyingly violent lady in Inglourious Basterds. Yes, Jeff Bridges will grizzle his way to Oscar glory, most likely, for The Singing Wrestler, and Sandy Bullock's win will probably not Blind Side anyone (joke copyright: Jeffery Lyons). But there are a few potential nail-biters and show stoppers to look forward to.

Her(r) Directors
 At this point, Avatar and The Hurt Locker are duking it out for the Best Picture prize. The whole new 10 nominees thing was supposed to shake up the race a bit, but it really hasn't. These are the clear frontrunners. As this is how these things work, Kathryn Bigelow and James "King Kong Ain't Got Nothin' On Me" Cameron, ex spouses, are in a battle royale for the director trophy. The good news about this? If Kathryn wins, we get to witness history as the first woman in moviedom wins the top prize for directing. So we will remember it forever and tell our grandkids that, yes, we remember when the first lady paved the way for Dame Drew Barrymore's big Whip It 3: Whip It Some More win. And if Cameron wins, we get another horrible, aggrandizing speech about how amazing he is, plus a little awkwardness about beating his ex-wife. This is exciting stuff to blog and comment about, folks. So, set your phasers (or hair-penises) to fun!

The Baldwin Brother
 Steve Martin is hosting. Zzzzz. He's funny and all, but he's no Whoopi Goldberg! But at least there's an unknown variable in play as beloved ornery uncle of the moment Alec Baldwin joins him as cohost. Will he bellow at people? Tell awkward political jokes? He and Martin are both SNL legends, so we'd imagine they'd work well together. Of course there was that whole It's Complicated thing, which proves the two aren't always dynamite together, but that was all Nancy Meyers' fault. Here we're talking about the comedy stylings of the Bruce Vilanches of the world. This could spell comedy gold. Plus, both men can sort of carry a tune. This hopefully means we will get Crystalian levels of opening number songsplosion.

The Year of Death
 Every celebrity died last year, so that ought to make the In Memoriam segment extra touching. Who will win the applause-o-meter? We suppose it's awfully gruesome to say we're "excited" about this, so let's say instead that we're... curious. It was an especially brutal year in celebrity passings, and we have to assume that they'll try to address that in some way. Or maybe they won't! Which would be sort of interesting in its own right.

So that's what we're anticipating. As fun as Oscar predicting is, all the blog buzz and E! chatter has made the whole game pretty easy at this point, so we're not expecting too many actual awards surprises. Which is too bad. The predicting ruined the predicting. Meta?