It’s a good thing statuettes can’t have egos.
On Sunday, the red carpet will be unfurled, the media will swarm and Hollywood’s stars will arrive in limousines and gaudy clothes - all for the sake of a 13-and-a-half-inch tall, 8-pound man named Oscar.
And when the 73rd Annual Academy Awards are televised live from the 6,000-seat Shrine Civic Auditorium in Los Angeles, much of the world will be watching and betting on which film director, actor or producer will take home the next award.
Up for the coveted Best Picture award are “Chocolat,” “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” “Erin Brockovich,” “Gladiator” and “Traffic.”
“I think best film is tough,” said Bill Vincent, an English professor and co-director of the Film Studies Program. “But I guess I would say ‘Crouching Tiger’ is the likeliest to win - just a hunch.”
Vincent said this year he will probably watch the ceremony with people from the East Lansing Film Festival, which is taking place on campus now through Sunday.
The Academy Award broadcast begins at 8 p.m. on WLAJ, the local ABC affiliate.
For Best Actress, Vincent picks Julia Roberts for her role in “Erin Brockovich” and for Best Actor, he thinks Tom Hanks is the man.
In “Cast Away,” Hanks plays a man stranded on a remote island, left with only a volleyball named Wilson for a friend.
While he is going to watch the show, Vincent said he knows the evening “will be filled with disappointments and injustices and I’ll swear never to watch it ever again - and then I’ll watch it again next year.”
English senior Jill Polmanteer agrees with Vincent’s Best Picture pick.
“I can never guess, but I want ‘Crouching Tiger’ to win,” she said. “It was a really good film and the fight scenes rock.”
And though she doesn’t know who’s nominated for Best Actor, she doesn’t like Vincent’s pick.
“Anyone but Tom Hanks,” she said. “He wins everything.”
Polmanteer will be watching the Oscars along with Vincent and others from the East Lansing Film Festival, beginning at 7 p.m. at Troppo, 213 Ann St.
“It’s an Oscar party and we’re also giving out awards for films that are in our festival, so anyone who wants to can go and hang out,” she said.
Unlike Vincent and Polmanteer, English senior Alton Pelowski thinks “Gladiator,” which was nominated for 12 awards, will probably bring home the Best Picture Oscar, though he disagrees with the movies nominated.
“I thought ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou’ and ‘Almost Famous’ should have been on the list,” he said.
Pelowski, the president of the MSU Cinema Club, plans on watching the show at a friend’s house, but he said he doesn’t take the show “really seriously - like any art form, it’s largely subjective and it’s difficult to say which one is best.”
And like most of the people receiving the coveted trophy, Oscar has a story worth hearing about.
The statuette depicts a knight holding a sword, standing on a reel of film with five spokes, which symbolize actors, writers, directors, producers and technicians - the original branches of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
And the trophy hasn’t changed in decades.
Except for 1941 and 1942, when it was made from plaster to support the World War II effort, Oscar has always been plated in 24-karat gold.
Designed in 1928 by MGM’s chief art director Cedric Gibbons, the statuettes are now produced in Chicago by R.S. Owens, which also produces the Miss America Award, the MTV Video Music Award and the Emmy.
The statuettes are made using a process that involves 12 people who handcast, polish, buff, degrease, copper plate, silver plate, gold plate, emboss and assemble the pieces.
But even though they make the statuettes, don’t ask workers at R.S. Owens who the winners are.
“We do the (nameplates) about two to three months after the awards, after everything kind of calms down,” inside sales manager Tim Brown said. “When they’re shipped, they’re generic - the only thing they have is the serial number on the back.”
And don’t ask Brown about the price either.
“Through our contract, we can’t talk about the cost,” he said. “It’s up there, but we can’t divulge price.”
Last March, all 55 of the awards produced for the 2000 show were stolen en route from R.S. Owens to Los Angeles. Nine days later, 52 were found near a Dumpster in Los Angeles.
The Oscar kidnappings forced R.S. Owens to work overtime.
Producing the statuettes “normally takes two to three months and we had to make them in a week and three days,” Brown said. “We got them done and we got a lot of publicity out of it, but it was a bear.”
Brown makes sure he touches each individually numbered Oscar before they are shipped in unmarked boxes to Beverly Hills.
“Every year, I literally go out to all 55 just to say I’ve held one,” he said.
