Oscars: Not perfect, but at least they’re on

It almost didn't happen.

If the Writers Guild strike had slogged on for a few more weeks, the 80th Academy Awards ceremony would have been forced to resort to Plan B: some weird assemblage of film clips and cluckety-clucking recorded segments without Jon Stewart to lance the carbuncles of Hollywood pretense and narcissism. Whatever shape it would have assumed, the Oscar telecast would have been depressing.

But lo, the writers and producers have made peace, and the Oscar ceremonies are on at the Kodak Theatre, starting at 8 tonight on 6ABC - and boy, are the movies depressing!

Atonement: thwarted love, statutory rape; Juno: unplanned unwed teen pregnancy (and this is the funny one!); Michael Clayton: corporate malfeasance, moral uncertainty, murder; No Country for Old Men: murder, murder, murder; There Will Be Blood: mighty greed, false propheteering.

It's going to be a great show.

Actually, it could be. The contests are tight, the categories rich with worthy nominees. The musical numbers promise to be enchanting (three of the five best songs come from Disney's Enchanted). And "I drink your milkshake!" - catchphrase of There Will Be Blood's demented oilman - might become the mantra of the night.

Of course, there are things to gripe about - egregious omissions, a few half-baked categories. In truth, the best original song is one of them: It's nice that Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová's "Falling Slowly," from the wee Irish pic Once, is in there, but three Enchanted tunes? What happened to Eddie Vedder's stirring songbook for Into the Wild, or the charming pop send-ups penned by Fountains of Wayne's Adam Schlesinger for Music and Lyrics? Or "Come So Far (Got So Far to Go)" from Hairspray, Bob Dylan's "Huck's Tune" from Lucky You, and Rufus Wainwright's "Another Believer" from Meet the Robinsons?

Speaking of Meet the Robinsons, how did this eye-poppingly inventive piece of computer animation not get a slot for best animated feature, while the generic dancing-penguins Surf's Up did? At least Persepolis, the elegant black-and-white 'toon, has one of the three slots - due recognition for this achingly good coming-of-age autobiographical piece.

Of course, Persepolis should have been nominated in the foreign-language category (it's in French). But this year, even more than in recent Oscar meets, the international selection seems uninspired. The grim but inarguably great Romanian film 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days won the grand prize at Cannes and boasts an astounding 99 out of 100 points on Metacritic, an online site that tallies movie reviews. But it's not one of the five foreign-language pics, nor is the most-worthy The Band's Visit, about an Egyptian orchestra lost in the Israeli outback, because it was deemed to have too much English in it. (The Egyptians don't speak Hebrew, the Israelis don't speak Arabic, so they resort to - English.) How do you say "not fair" in Coptic?

But as viewers check off their Oscar ballots, as the inevitably cheesy production numbers and long-winded acceptance speeches drag long into the night, as the homages to the recently departed (poor Heath!) and the winners' salutes to respective moms, dads, personal publicists and gods go on and on and on, let us be thankful.

The 80th Academy Awards are happening. The gowns will be resplendent, and the gaffes, gags, and gracious movie-star moments - and, possibly, a few transcendent ones - await.

There will be Oscars.