Oscar 2012: Too Close to Call?
Day before the Academy Awards, it's still not clear who will win.
Feb. 25, 2012— -- Blame it on the expanded best picture race, on the films themselves or on the guilds that honored a variety of movies: This year's Oscar race is still too close to call in some categories.
"There is a little tension going into Sunday," Yahoo! Movies contributing editor Thelma Adams told ABCNews.com. "I know who I should be saying is in the lead, and then I think there is still a little bit of mystery left."
ABC News' Oscars Stock Market Index, a collaboration with Bluefin Labs, which provides a real-time snapshot of social sentiment, what's trending and the collective assessment of entertainment industry experts, shows just how much uncertainty there is going into Sunday's ceremony.
On the index, "The Artist" director Michel Hazanavicius overtook Alexander Payne who directed "The Descendants" and Martin Scorsese who directed "Hugo" as of 7 a.m.
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"Descendants" star George Clooney seemed to be hanging on to the lead in the best actor category, with Jean Dujardin from "The Artist" coming in a close second on the index.
Clooney's pal Brad Pitt who starred in "Moneyball" followed behind in third place.
"These front races are so close," Adams said, "there is a little wiggle room."
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"It's so muddled now," E! Online columnist Ted Casablanca told ABCNews.com. "I have no idea who's going to win this year, and I usually know by now."
"Iron Lady" Meryl Streep was keeping her lock on the best actress race, but Viola Davis, star of "The Help," and "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" star Rooney Mara were closing the gap.
"The issue is how much people love 'The Help' versus 'The Iron Lady,'" said Adams, believing the race is between Davis and Streep.
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Supporting actor Christopher Plummer and supporting actress Octavia Spencer were still holding onto the lead in their respective categories on the index.
Ultimately, the winners will be decided by the nearly 6,000 Academy members, which, according to a recent report by the Los Angeles Times, are overwhelmingly white and male, with a median age of 62.
While the figures are representative of the people who make films, they hardly reflect the people who watch them.
"Is most of commercial narrative filmmaking the product of mostly white men? Sadly, the answer is yes," "Descendants" director Payne told the Times.
Denzel Washington, who won an Oscar for "Training Day," suggested opening up the membership to "balance" it. "If the country is 12 percent black, make the Academy 12 percent black," Washington said, while admitting at a recent screening that his wife actually does the voting for him.
But Adams thinks that would be the wrong move.
"The Academy and the Oscars -- no one ever thought it was a democracy. That's the People's Choice awards," she said. "In time and slowly it will evolve. And inside that group, there are some people who are voting from their heart and the pure love of movies, like Mother Dolores Hart, a white nun (who once starred in films with Elvis). They are not voting as a block. There's still a little mystery."