And the Oscar Goes to…

Ah, Oscar Week. Over the next six days we'll witness people praising the visionary talent of best-director co-favorites James Cameron ("Avatar") and Kathryn Bigelow ("The Hurt Locker"). We'll hear about Cameron and Bigelow's amazing skills: their unerring sense of story, their painterly eye, their supreme knack for framing an unforgettable story. Over and over, we will hear them be described as geniuses.

There's just one major issue we won't hear about: how did they get so good?

The surprising ...