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As we noted earlier, final ballots were mailed out today to the Academy's 5,380 voting members, but a single bullet-pointed note can't adequately convey the importance of this crucial step on the Path to Oscar™; to understand the potential mortal peril that heroic accountants routinely accept as part of their mission to maintain the integrity of the awards deliberation process, one need look no further than this image of Bradley J. Oltmanns of PricewaterhouseCoopers, who looks on dispassionately as a crazed, knife-wielding DreamWorks publicist is gunned down by Academy security before she could taint the ballot supplies with counterfeit forms on which Dreamgirls is presented as the sole Best Picture nominee. Despite the regrettable bloodshed, the ballots would go out on time, ready to play their part in the recognition of legitimate honorees.

[Photo: Getty Images]