12/14/06: Oscar-wise...

I agree with TMundo: "Babel" and "The Departed" are likely to be up there, as is "The Queen". The other two spots will probably be taken by "Dreamgirls" (even if it winds up sucking big time) and maybe "Little Miss Sunshine". One of these may be replaced by "Letters from Iwo Jima", though.

As for the actors, Whitaker and Mirren already won the 2007 Oscars, as far as I'm concerned. The rest are hard to pick. For best actor mix up the lists of the Golden Globe nominees in Drama and Comedy in and thrown in Ryan Gosling for "Half Nelson". We then need to take out one of the DiCaprio nominations (I believe he was submitted for supporting actor for the Academy for "The Departed"), the Johnny Depp nomination (repeat performance), and probably rule out Will Ferrell, since his was the impressive effort of the list. That leaves us with: Whitaker, DiCaprio, O'Toole, Gosling, and a spot for some wildcards: Borat, Will Smith, Eckhart, Ejiofor, and, if "Letters from Iwo Jima" gets a BP nod, maybe Ken Watanabe.

For best actress, the other lock is Penelope Cruz. One may safely assume that all the GG dramatic nominees get in, although one will be ommitted due to the Meryl Streep reserved spot.

Assume that 3/5 of the supporting actor nominees also get Oscar nominations, as well as 2/5 of the supporting actress nominees.

The Best Director list will probably be similar, although I doubt that Clint Eastwood gets two nominations. Bill Condon ("Dreamgirls") could be the other nominated guy, although Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Farris have a slim chance to join the list. One spot usually goes to the director of the "runner-up" movie - the one that almost made it to the final 5 but didn't. Paul Greengrass ("United 93") and Pedro Almodovar ("Volver") are the only ones I can think of outside of the previously mentioned. The winner will be Scorcese, though.

The 5 screenwriters will probably be nominated (3 are adapted screenplays, by the way), together with the screenwriters of another 5 flicks, most likely out of: "Little Miss Sunshine", "Thank You for Smoking", "Half Nelson", "Letters from Iwo Jima", "Volver", and "Pan's Labyrinth", and "The History Boys".

Nominations for technical awards: "Babel" and "The Departed" will get editing nods and maybe cinematography nods, and "The Devil Wears Prada" gets the costume design one. Otherwise they are likely to be dominated by "Dreamgirls", Eastwood's WWII pics, "Marie Antoniette", "The Illusionist", "The Prestige", "The Black Dahlia", "The Fountain", "X-Men 3", "Curse of the Golden Flower", and maybe "Pan's Labyrinth", "V for Vendetta", and "Apocalypto". The FX ones in particular will be dominated by "Pirates of the Caribbean", "Superman Returns", and one of the aforementioned.

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