Possible Oscar upsets: Stanley Tucci

"It's weird, isn't it? Even I saw that. We're great friends and we're comfortable with each other. She makes you feel so comfortable, that's what's great about working with her. But we had become closer and closer friends since 'The Devil Wears Prada.' And then it was just fun. And those two people had an interesting relationship." — Stanley Tucci, LA Times

The Oscars threaten to be so boring this year, I'm hoping the Academy liven things up with a few curve balls. Fantastic Mr Fox could beat Up, for instance, and Stanley Tucci could, and should win, for his turn in Julie & Julia. It's rare that acting so crisp is also be so moving, but he's Tucci is the best thing in the film: a great mixture of technical precision and old-fashioned twinkle. His reading of the line "fuck them" will put a smile on the face of any aspirant writer. I know Christoph Waltz is the favorite for Inglorious Basterds but how difficult is it to play a Nazi, really? All you have to do is play things civilized and charming and everyone falls about gasping that you've captured the banality of evil or humanised a monster or somesuch. But to play a devoted husband, conveying decades of familiarity and fondness in a single gesture, that's got to be a hundred times harder.