Sawt Falasteen - It's 'Sinners' vs 'One Battle' as the Oscars begin

Tinseltown's biggest stars were at the Dolby Theatre where host Conan O'Brien wasted no time in addressing one of the biggest talking points of the last few weeks-- not conflict in the Middle East but controversy around Timothee Chalamet.

"Security is extremely tight tonight," he told an audience who had walked through numerous checkpoints and a widened exclusion zone.

"I'm told there's concerns about attacks from both the opera and ballet communities," he said as the camera cut to Chalamet, a best actor nominee who caused a stir when he dismissed both art forms as things that "no one cares about."

"They're just mad you left out jazz," quipped O'Brien.

Amy Madigan took home the first prize of the evening, winning the Oscar for best supporting actress for her turn as a demented witch in horror "Weapons."

The veteran actress, who scooped the Actors Award two weeks ago, said she had known immediately that she wanted the role when she saw it.

"I love this script, and as soon as I read it, I knew I knew this woman," she told journalists backstage.

"I was in the shower last night, and I thought, 'Well, this must be a special day, because I'm shaving my legs'."

- Tight race -

This year's Oscars are the most wide open in years, with political thriller "One Battle" neck-and-neck with bluesy vampire horror "Sinners" for best picture, while several acting prizes are similarly impossible to call.

Either movie could "break multiple Oscar records," Variety awards editor Clayton Davis told AFP.

But until "the final envelope is opened for best picture, we're not going to know who's going to win."

Both the frontrunner films have a chance of breaking the all-time Oscar wins record -- shared at 11 between "Ben-Hur," "Titanic" and "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King."

"Sinners," the tale of gangster twins returning home to a supernatural and segregated Deep South in the 1930s, has already made Academy Awards history with its whopping 16 nominations.

Ryan Coogler, previously best known for "Black Panther," could become the first ever Black person to win best director in the 98 years of Oscars history.

But "Sinners" will have to surge past "One Battle," about a washed-up, off-grid revolutionary whose teenage daughter is being hunted by a white supremacist soldier in a time of immigration raids and political extremism.

Its director Paul Thomas Anderson is one of the greatest auteurs of contemporary US cinema, but has never won any of his 11 previous nominations for films including "There Will Be Blood" and "Boogie Nights."

One Oscars voter, who asked to remain anonymous because Academy members cannot disclose their ballots, told AFP they voted for Anderson "because of his body of work" but admitted the choice was "very tough."

"It is time. I think the Academy will honor" Anderson, they said. "But that's not to say that Ryan Coogler is not equally deserving."

- Tight races -

While suspense about best picture doesn't happen every year, what is truly unusual this time is the amount of uncertainty surrounding the acting prizes.

Chalamet had long appeared a lock for his pushy 1950s ping-pong player in "Marty Supreme," but the category has sprung wide-open in recent weeks, with Michael B. Jordan's chances seen as surging.

The "Sinners" star plays two roles as twin brothers, and won the important Screen Actors Guild's Actor Award this month, just before Oscars voting closed.

"This is a movie star performance that we don't get very often," Davis said.

The supporting actor prize is also up for grabs.

Sean Penn could win a third acting Oscar for his comic yet terrifying soldier in "One Battle."

But he is up against international arthouse favorite Stellan Skarsgard ("Sentimental Value") and veteran Delroy Lindo, who earned his first Oscar nod at 73 for "Sinners."

The only sure thing appears to be best actress nominee Jessie Buckley, who plays William Shakespeare's wife in "Hamnet."

"It's been the steamroller all season. That's the one thing you could take to the bank," Davis said.

- K-Pop, Redford tributes -

For best international film, the Norwegian family drama "Sentimental Value" will vie with Brazil's surreal political thriller "The Secret Agent."

The annual in memoriam segment for recently passed icons will honor Robert Redford, who died in September, and Rob Reiner, who was murdered in December.

Oscars producers declined to comment on reports that Barbra Streisand will sing a tribute to her "The Way We Were" co-star.

Ejae, Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami, the singing voices behind the "KPop Demon Hunters" fictional girl group HUNTR/X, will perform the Netflix smash film's Oscar-nominated song "Golden."

The film was awarded the Oscar for best animated feature.

X.AbuJaber--SF-PST