The night Peter O'Toole did a stupid pet trick for David Letterman

Can't believe I'd never even heard of this classic TV moment until today. Thank you, A.V. Club, for brightening my day by making me aware of it.

Peter O'Toole and Lenny Bruce: Together again for the first time

This is the city: Los Angeles. The year: 1962. Lenny Bruce, a free-wheeling comic who has brazenly courted controversy, is out carousing with Peter O'Toole, a young Irish actor awaiting the release of the movie that will make him a star. Pills, pot and booze figure into the festivities. What could possibly go wrong?

Quite a lot, as Joseph Wambaugh recalls here. (Hat tip to Todd McCarthy.)

R.I.P. Peter O'Toole, Tom Laughlin, Joan Fontaine and...

While running various and sundry errands today, I spent most of my time away from home base. But it seemed like, everywhere I went, death pursued me. Each time I checked my smartphone, there was news of another dimming of another luminary. First it was Peter O'Toole... then Tom Laughlin (a.k.a. Billy Jack)... then Ray Price... then not Ray Price (reports of his death were a tad premature)... and finally Joan Fontaine. Whew.

I scarcely know where to begin. I know I need to write something about my favorite film performances by O'Toole -- Lawrence of Arabia is on the Top 5 list, but so is The Ruling Class and My Favorite Year. And yet, I also should write something about Laughlin's fleeting heyday as a genuine pop-culture icon. (Billy Jack had one of its very first test engagements in New Orleans many years ago -- and I wound up being one of the first critics to praise it, in a review I wrote as a free-lancer for, no kidding, the weekly Catholic newspaper The Clarion Herald.) And how could I not write something about Fontaine and her Hitchcockian double play of Rebecca and Suspicion.

But the hour is late, and I am too weary to do justice to any of these folks right now. And, frankly, I have had enough of death for today.

I can't... resist... Overwhelming urge... Must offer Oscar predictions...

My track record as an Oscar prognosticator is, to put it charitably, uneven. On the other hand, I did manage to predict the Best Picture win by Chariots of Fire a quarter-century ago. And I think there may be two similarly surprising upsets on Sunday night. For what they’re worth – which, trust me, likely isn’t much – here are my guesstimates, along with some second-guessing.

BEST PICTURE

WILL WIN: Little Miss Sunshine
SHOULD WIN: The Departed
SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED: Marc Forster’s exquisitely spare yet emotionally resonant Stranger Than Fiction

ACTOR

WILL WIN: Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland)
SHOULD WIN: Peter O’Toole (for, I freely admit, purely sentimental reasons)
SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED: Aaron Eckhart, for his ferociously funny and fearless performance as an amoral PR spinner in Thank You for Smoking

ACTRESS

WILL WIN: Helen Mirren (The Queen)
SHOULD WIN: Helen Mirren
SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED: Gretchen Mol, for her tantalizingly ambiguous portrayal of a ‘50s pin-up queen who may be innocent and knowing in The Notorious Bettie Page

SUPPORTING ACTOR

WILL WIN: Alan Arkin (a.k.a. Upset No. 1) for Little Miss Sunshine
SHOULD WIN: Alan Arkin
SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED: James McAvoy, if only because he hasn’t been given sufficient credit for his shrewdly nuanced performance as the callow Scottish doctor who’s all-too-easily seduced by a gregariously psychotic Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland. (It can be argued, of course, that McAvoy actually was the lead, and Whitaker was the supporting player – but, hey, that’s showbiz.)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

WILL WIN: Abigail Breslin (a.k.a. Upset No. 2) for Little Miss Sunshine
SHOULD WIN: Rinko Kikuchi for Babel
SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED: Maggie Gyllenhaal for either World Trade Center or Stranger Than Fiction

DIRECTOR

WILL WIN: Martin Scorsese (The Departed)
SHOULD WIN: Martin Scorsese
SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED: Robert Altman for the deeply affecting long goodbye of A Prairie Home Companion

Handicapping Oscar, Take 1

Anne Thompson sizes up the Oscar race, seeing potential for Peter O'Toole to pull an upset in the Best Actor race, and more or less anointing Helen Mirren as Best Actress. Best Picture? The industry-savvy Thompson says that, even at this late date, "it's anyone's guess." But she does venture this: "Babel has art and gravitas and emotion. And a sprawling ensemble like Crash."