With that in mind, "indie" and Oscar are not as conjoined as it may appear this year. Though films with directors like Paul Thomas Anderson and the Coens leading the nomination pack may suggest otherwise, both films (each co-productions of Miramax and Paramount Vantage) were ineligible for Saturday's Film Independent Spirit Awards due to their over-the-cut-off budgets. The only best picture nominee that also was honored in that category at the Spirits, oddly, was "Juno." Which means the most "independent" of the five best pictures is a $130 million+ grossing pop culture juggernaut. While "Indiewood" abounds throughout the nominations (and likely winners), more definitively "independent" films are slight. Arguable examples like Julian Schnabel's "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" has four nominations going into the ceremony, while Todd Haynes's "I'm Not There" and Sarah Polley's "Away From Her" are likely (or not) to be the lowest budget films to take home a golden guy in the so-called "bigger" categories.

In the other categories, one absolutely independent film that isn't in the documentary or short categories with a good shot at Oscar: John Carney's "Once," seems likely to surpass a trio of nominations for "Enchanted" to win best original song for its stars-songwriters Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. And in the controversially chosen documentary and foreign-language film categories, it seems documentary is a heated race between Michael Moore's "Sicko" and Charles Ferguson's "No End In Sight" (though watch out for Alex Gibney's "Taxi To The Darkside," which won the WGA's documentary award), while Stefan Ruzowitzky's Austrian Holocaust drama "The Counterfeiters" will likely make use of Oscar's tendency toward its themes and its inexcusable exclusion of superior films such as "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" and "Persepolis," to take the country's first-ever win.

In the end, I suppose all Oscar enthusiasts should be pleased with the simple fact that they'll be watching a fully-executed, picket-free ceremony Sunday night. And if a song from "Enchanted" wins or a poorly-produced montage runs a little long, remember that you could have been watching Billy Bush announce the winners from the set of Access Hollywood.