On Sunday night, the 76th annual Academy Awards will air at 8 p.m. on ABC, but this year, don’t expect the surreal sight of unsmiling, embarrassed celebrities hurrying toward the Kodak Theatre on an abbreviated red carpet. That was last year, when most felt compelled to wear black, diamonds were kept to a minimum in spite of the Academy’s diamond anniversary, and the awards were nearly canceled due to the war in Iraq.

This year, expect a return to form.

Fans will once again be allowed to cheer in the bleachers, freshly Botoxed celebrities will glad hand with the press, nervous stars will twirl before Joan Rivers, and Rivers – who has been in top form lately on E! – might just sucker punch them all. For the billion or so of us who care about this sort of thing, the evening promises to be a high night of time-delayed fun, with Billy Crystal back in his eighth turn as the event’s host.

Crystal’s own lack of a movie career should give the event the edge it needs, which is welcome since the show has increasingly become so unnecessarily bloated, with only the most stalwart of movie fans staying up past midnight to see who will win the major awards. After years of declining ratings and general audience malaise, this year’s show, according to producer Joe Roth, promises to be leaner and more focused.

We’ll see.

We’ll also see who wins. Out of all the major categories, a few appear to be locks.

Most notable – and most deserving – is Charlize Theron’s Best Actress nomination for her Golden Globe-winning performance in “Monster,” Patty Jenkins’ unsettling drama about the life of Aileen Wuornos, the Florida prostitute who killed seven men before being captured, convicted and sent to death row in 1992. Ten years later, she was electrocuted.

Theron’s beauty has long been used by Hollywood more often than her talent, but in “Monster,” she fully and defiantly transformed herself, greasing back her hair, shaving off her eyebrows, gaining 30 pounds, pitting her skin with makeup and, in the process, delivering the best performance of 2003.

As Wuornos, Theron is as remarkable as she is unrecognizable, but it would be a mistake to assume for a minute that the power of her performance is the result of mere physical transformation. It’s performance as art – so calibrated and raw, the screen could barely contain her.

Recently, Diane Keaton tightened the race with her own Golden Globe win for her performance in the comedy “Something’s Gotta Give,” in which she famously bared more than just her soul.

Still, since the Academy tends to favor dramatic roles over comedies, Keaton, as good as she was, will likely join the three remaining nominees – Naomi Watts of “21 Grams,” Keisha Castle-Hughes of “Whale Rider” and Samantha Morton of “In America” – in watching Theron rightfully take to the stage.

The award for Best Supporting Actor also appears to be a shoo-in, with Tim Robbins generating substantial heat for his performance in Clint Eastwood’s “Mystic River,” the bleak, working-class tragedy set in Boston that’s darkened by Shakespearean undertones.

While some thought Robbins’ performance was overrated – myself included – the good news for him is that plenty of others disagree.

Still, in order to win, Robbins will need to overcome two obstacles: The Academy dislikes being considered predictable almost as much as it dislikes Robbins’ politics. As such, this is one of those instances in which the Academy might offer an upset by giving the award to any one of Robbins’ fellow nominees: Benicio Del Toro for “21 Grams,” Ken Watanabe for “The Last Samurai,” Djimon Hounsou for “In America,” or Alec Baldwin for “The Cooler.”

Adding more drama to the night – as if it will need it – will be the five actors competing for Best Actor: Bill Murray as a lost soul in “Lost in Translation,” Sean Penn as a lost soul in “Mystic River,” Ben Kingsley for “House of Sand and Fog,” Jude Law for “Cold Mountain” and Johnny Depp as a loopy pirate in “Pirates of the Caribbean.”

In this case, it comes down to a race between the two lost souls, with the edge going to Penn, who also starred in last year’s “21 Grams,” and thus delivered not one great performance in 2003, but two.

The Academy will find that hard to ignore, but what they might not be willing to overlook is Penn himself.

Always difficult, forever aloof and more than a bit chilly, Penn is exactly the sort of actor the Academy tends to snub, particularly since in the past, he has publicly scoffed at the merits of awards shows. As for Murray, his cool arrogance isn’t exactly appreciated by everyone, though he is more likable than Penn and his performance in “Lost in Translation” was a career high. Expect their race to be among the night’s tightest, with one of them taking home the award.

After losing last year’s Best Actress award to Nicole Kidman, Renee Zellweger is back this year, this time for her lively yet cartoonish Best Supporting Actress turn as the gun-toting, hen-decapitating Ruby Thewes in “Cold Mountain.” Joining her on the ballot are Holly Hunter for “Thirteen,” Marcia Gay Harden for “Mystic River,” Patricia Clarkson for “Pieces of April,” and the unforgettable Shoreh Aghdashloo for “House of Sand and Fog.”

Though Zellweger is favored to win, it’s Aghdashloo who deserves the award.

As Nadi, an Iranian exile living in California with her husband and son, Aghdashloo was the soul of “Sand and Fog,” by far the best reason to see the movie. The actress, herself an Iranian exile, was the balance in a film whose two main characters – played by Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly – were so wildly emotionally unbalanced. As such, hers was the trickiest part to play, with the actress giving the film the heart, the intelligence and the grounding sense of believability it needed.

The award for Best Picture will be a horse race this year, but not because “Seabiscuit” is in the running. This year, the race comes down to the four other nominees: Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,” Peter Weir’s “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World,” Sofia Coppola’s “Lost in Translation” and Clint Eastwood’s “Mystic River.”

Though the Academy has never honored a fantasy film with Best Picture, they will this year. “Return of the King” will win Best Picture and Peter Jackson, for that matter, will win Best Director, triumphing over his fellow nominees – Sofia Coppola, Clint Eastwood, Peter Weir and Fernando Meirelles for “City of God.”

Why the double win for Jackson? Quite simply, he’s the most deserving, particularly now that his trilogy is complete and the full scope of his vision can fully be appreciated.

No one else in 2003 came close to accomplishing his feat of showmanship. For that matter, none of the other nominees created a film that generated nearly $1 billion for their studio, as Jackson’s has. Hollywood loves that more than anything and it will reward it Sunday night, when dual wins for “Return of the King” will close the show.

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, Tuesdays and Thursdays on WLBZ 2 and WCSH 6, and are archived on RottenTomatoes.com. He can be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.