Will Coens Make Oscar History?

Random notes on the blissfully strike-free Oscars as less than a week of voting remains and there is evidence of some races tightening:

One race that isn't is best picture, where a gallant attempt by "Michael Clayton" to overtake apparent leader "No Country for Old Men" is probably going to fall short despite a surge of support for the George Clooney film.

The only real question remaining about "No Country" is just how big -- and potentially historic -- is its win going to be?

Producers, directors, writers and editors Joel and Ethan Coen are personally nominated in those four categories and are enjoying front-runner status in just about all of them with significant recent guild wins from the WGA, DGA and PGA. The American Cinema Editors hold their own guild awards show Sunday.

For the first time since 1953 (and potentially only the second time in Academy history), the Coens could earn individual victories in four separate categories. Only Walt Disney, as producer of three live-action, animated and documentary shorts in addition to a documentary feature, was able to leave an Oscar ceremony with four statuettes in hand.

If the Coens can pull off the same feat, they would be the first to do it for a single film. Orson Welles for "Citizen Kane," and Warren Beatty for both "Heaven Can Wait" and "Reds," each had four nods but walked off with only a single Oscar (Welles shared the 1941Screenplay prize while Beatty won Best Director in 1981 for "Reds"). A few artists have won three Oscars in one night, including Billy Wilder, James L. Brooks, James Cameron, Francis Ford Coppola, Marvin Hamlisch and others. However, the Coens would join Disney as the only ones to take four.

But there is a catch.

In the best editing category, they credit themselves under their joint pseudonym Roderick Jaynes. Should the Coens win that category , the Academy confirmed this week that there will be only one statuette presented and it would later be engraved as belonging to Mr. Jaynes. This means the brothers would only get that statuette and official Academy record books would technically not list Joel and Ethan Coen as the rightful recipients of four Oscars should they win in all of their categories.

The Editors guild, however, says it will be happy to give both Coens, a.k.a. Jaynes, Eddie awards if they win there Sunday and they can have whatever name they want engraved on them. A spokesperson at the guild said they would be thrilled just to have them show up!

Meanwhile there's lots of tension in other categories not involving the Coens.

Although both actor races seem fairly locked with predicted wins for bad boys, Daniel Day-Lewis and Javier Bardem, the two actress races -- which at one time seemed sure things for Julie Christie in a leading role and either Amy Ryan or Cate Blanchett in a supporting role -- now seem like they are turning into nail-biters.

Christie, as an Alzheimer's victim in "Away From Her" is still regarded as the favorite -- a Hollywood icon in a critically praised role -- but after last weekend's back-to-back wins from BAFTA and the London Film Critics in Christie's hometown, "La Vie en Rose" star Marion Cotillard has raised some eyebrows and is seeing the seeds of her grass-roots campaign (engineered by Picturehouse honcho Bob Berney) start to pay off. And with her L.A. Film Critics and Golden Globe wins, her own awards chest is starting to challenge Christie's considerable 2007 booty, making an upset a realistic possibility.

The disadvantage for Cotillard is her Edith Piaf is a foreign-language performance and those rarely win. On the plus side, she's playing a well-known real-life figure and since the dawn of this millennium, no fewer than eight actresses have won Oscars in either leading or supporting roles for doing the exact same thing. It's a trend seriously worth noting and should make front-runner Christie just a little nervous.

The Supporting Actress race has turned into a slugfest. Blanchett, doing her best Bob Dylan impersonation, won the Globe, Ryan in "Gone Baby Gone" took the lion's share of critics awards, "American Gangster" 83-year-old veteran Ruby Dee grabbed the SAG trophy, and most recently, "Michael Clayton " nemesis, Tilda Swinton, got the BAFTA prize. Only "Atonement"'s young Saoirse Ronan has yet to register on the awards circuit.

With "Clayton" a popular best picture nominee against virtually single nods for the films featuring Blanchett, Ryan and Dee, previous dark horse Swinton could be peaking at just the right moment in a film that is widely seen and liked by the Academy at large. Plus, she's the villain in the film, and with Day-Lewis and Bardem, it could prove to be a very big night for evil at the Oscars.