Hollywood is putting the final touches on its annual Oscar extravaganza while wondering whether one of the ritziest shows on earth will go on. The ballots have been mailed, the gowns are being fitted and the golden statuettes have been cast for the March 23 Oscar ceremony — around the time many analysts believe the United States and its allies could be at war with Iraq.‘‘It is mind-boggling enough to put the thing on in the first place,’’ said Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences spokesman John Pavlik.The Oscars have been postponed on only a handful of occasions in its 75-year-long history, none of them to do with war — after a 1938 flood in Los Angeles, after the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King and after the 1981 shooting of President Reagan. (Reuters)
