Will silence be golden on Oscar night? That’s a question you could easily answer with another: How could it not be?

Is there anyone who seriously doubts, as this year’s ridiculously predictable Oscar derby approaches the finish line, that The Artist won’t take top honours Sunday night during the 84th annual Academy Awards ceremonies?

Never mind that French filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius’s beguiling, nearly wordless valentine to Hollywood’s silent film era has earned only

$25 million since it opened. That’s about a third of what The Descendants — the only one of the nine best picture nominees set in present-day, incidentally — has made, yet Hazanavicius’s nostalgic screen gem is the deserving frontrunner.

This is a year when Hollywood has unabashedly been living in the past with nominees such as Hugo, Martin Scorsese’s lovingly crafted 3-D tribute to French film pioneer George Melies, Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen’s whimsical throwback to 1920s Paris and The Artist.

This audacious black-and-white homage about a charismatic silent screen star’s downfall during the dawn of the talkies has assets enough to deserve Oscar gold. They include Hazanavicius’s visual innovation, dreamy score and stellar cast (including canine cutie Uggie). That’s not all, though. The film earned 10 nominations — second only to Hugo, with 11, has a mittful of Golden Globes, Screen Actor’s Guild and other awards and Oscar voters can’t seem to resist movies that celebrate their craft.

If The Artist triumphs, it will become the only silent film to win an Oscar since the 1927 wartime drama Wings was named best picture during the inaugural Academy Awards ceremonies. If not, chances are Hugo will get the nod. Despite some pacing issues and narrative clumsiness, Scorsese’s cinematic fable will resonate with voters who value film preservation.

It’s almost certain that Midnight in Paris, War Horse, Moneyball and weightier contenders like the dysfunctional family portrait The Descendants, the sombre post-9/11 drama Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close or Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life — surely too creatively ambitious for conservative voters — will be drowned by the tidal wave of cinematic nostalgia.

While Hazanavicius’s meta-movie proves a silent best picture is worth a thousand words, Hugo should score in technical categories, just as the civil rights drama The Help — the biggest box-office grosser — should compensate with acting nods.

Here’s another no-brainer. Expect Hazanavicius to collect the best director statuette, as well he should for inventively making old Hollywood new again. It helps that he was awarded top prize at the Director’s Guild Awards. Only six times in its 63-year history has the winner failed to take home the Oscar.

Malick is a visionary, but too out-there for many voters, and while Scorsese could conceivably cause an upset, he at least has the satisfaction of finally being honoured for his 2006 crime thriller The Departed with the equivalent of a lifetime achievement award. Hugo’s lukewarm box-office doesn’t help. As for Allen and The Descendants’ Alexander Payne, the nominations will have to suffice.

A similar, undeserved fate awaits Gary Oldman, despite his superbly understated turn as disgraced British spy George Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, under-appreciated Brad Pitt, whose pitch-perfect portrayal of Oakland A’s manager Billy Beane was a highlight of the sports drama Moneyball and Demian Bichir as an illegal Mexican immigrant in A Better Life in the best actor category.

Endowed with a SAG award among many others, Jean Dujardin’s irresistible portrayal of George Valentin, the dashing, fading silver-screen idol who refuses to adapt to the talkies in The Artist makes him a lock. The potential dark horse is a deglamourized George Clooney as a middle-aged family man trying to deal with a messy domestic crisis in The Descendants.

It’s a pity The Iron Lady

didn’t measure up to Meryl Streep’s astonishing portrayal of Margaret Thatcher. It likely cost her the award she richly deserves. With 17 nominations behind her, the two-time Oscar winner has already received what many voters will regard as ample recognition, so the smart money’s on Viola Davis, Streep’s scene-stealing co-star in 2008’s Doubt.

Davis deserves victory for her dignified, emotionally affecting performance as housekeeper Aibileen Clark in The Help. Heck, I’d love to see Davis win, if only to hear her repeat one of her memorable lines — “You is kind” — to Oscar voters.

It’s a predictable triumph, especially since Davis didn’t get the best supporting actress nod for Doubt and took the SAG award, a big Oscar predictor. We just wish she’d be getting the trophy for playing something other than the stereotypical black Southern maid, the same type of role Hattie McDaniel —Mammy in Gone with the Wind — won an Oscar for in 1940.

Gifted newcomer Rooney Mara (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) still has plenty of time to prove her Oscar mettle, and this just isn’t Glenn Close’s year despite her admirable portrayal of a woman disguised as a male butler in 19th century Ireland in little-seen Albert Nobbs. As impressive as Michelle Williams’s embodiment of Marilyn Monroe was, the reliable three-time Oscar nominee had to carry a film that was enjoyable but too slight for Oscar in a year with such stiff competition.

As much as we enjoyed Kenneth Branagh’s giddy portrayal of Sir Laurence Oliver in My Week with Marilyn, count him out as best supporting actor. Ditto Jonah Hill (Moneyball), Nick Nolte (Warrior) and Max von Sydow, whose haunting performance as a mute mystery man in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close won’t just be overlooked because of the film’s flaws.

It’s because no one can compete with Christopher Plummer, the odds-on-favourite who has come a long way since playing Capt. Von Trapp in The Sound of Music. The veteran actor, who was nominated for 2009’s The Last Station and inexplicably overlooked for his terrific performance as Mike Wallace in 1999’s The Insider, should finally get his due for his nicely understated performance as a septuagenarian family man who comes out of the closet after his wife’s death in Beginners.

If he does, Plummer, 82, would become the oldest Oscar winner.

While it would be nice to see the Academy show some love to the art of comedy by handing the best supporting actress Oscar to Melissa McCarthy for her consistently hilarious, scene-stealing performance as the brash gal pal in Bridesmaids, the fact she was nominated and Bridesmaids even acknowledged as Oscar material is a wacky kind of honour in itself.

Finally, despite worthy competition from Berenice Bejo, so radiantly mesmerizing as rising starlet Peppy in The Artist; Janet McTeer, who subtly steals the gender-bending drama Albert Nobbs from Glenn Close as the title character’s sympathetic cross-dressing kindred spirit; and breakout star Jessica Chastain, terrifically scattered as white trash Mississippi mistress Celia Foote in The Help, this trophy belongs to Octavia Spencer.

It’s not for nothing Spencer has already won several awards for imbuing Minny Jackson, her dominant, acid-tongued character in The Help with equal parts sassiness, humour and dramatic heft when called for. And if both she and Davis were to win, it would mark the first time two African-American actresses featured in the same film won.

mreid@timescolonist.com

Michael D. Reid’s picks and predictions

BEST PICTURE

Nominees: The Artist, The Descendants, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, The Help, Hugo, Midnight in Paris, Moneyball, The Tree of Life, War Horse

Who Will Win: The Artist

Who Should Win: The Artist

BEST DIRECTOR

Nominees: Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist), Alexander Payne (The Descendants), Martin Scorsese (Hugo), Woody Allen (Midnight in Paris), Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life)

Who Will Win: Michel Hazanavicius

Who Should Win: Michel Hazanavicius

BEST ACTOR

Nominees: Demian Bichir (A Better Life), George Clooney (The Descendants), Jean Dujardin (The Artist), Gary Oldman (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy), Brad Pitt (Moneyball)

Who Will Win: Jean Dujardin

Who Should Win: Jean Dujardin

BEST ACTRESS

Nominees: Glenn Close (Albert Nobbs), Viola Davis (The Help), Rooney Mara (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady), Michelle Williams (My Week with Marilyn)

Who Will Win: Viola Davis

Who Should Win: Meryl Streep

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Nominees: Kenneth Branagh (My Week with Marilyn), Jonah Hill (Moneyball), Nick Nolte (Warrior), Christopher Plummer (Beginners), Max von Sydow (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close)

Who Will Win:

Christopher Plummer

Who Should Win:

Christopher Plummer

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Nominees: Berenice Bejo (The Artist), Jessica Chastain (The Help), Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids), Janet McTeer (Albert Nobbs), Octavia Spencer (The Help)

Who Will Win: Octavia Spencer

Who Should Win: Janet McTeer

Here are trailers to the nine Best Picture nominees:

The Artist

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8K9AZcSQJE

The Descendants

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q2b51tv_dc&feature=fvst

Hugo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hR-kP-olcpM&feature=fvst

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaPhWvzczE0

The Help

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_ajv_6pUnI&feature=fvst

Midnight in Paris

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atLg2wQQxvU

Moneyball

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4QPVo0UIzc

The Tree of Life

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXRYA1dxP_0

The War Horse

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhueHIXbTF4&feature=fvst