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Oscar Predictions: 2006 (Top 8: 75%; Overall: 50% - ouch! )

An unpredictable Best Picture race should make the 79th Annual Academy Awards quite exciting on February 25, but it also may make accurate predictions an impossibility. But here goes anyway:

Best Picture
The nominees are: Babel, The Departed, Letters From Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine and The Queen.
What Will Win: Who knows? The Queen will receive its due in the Best Actress race, as it nomination here is doomed just as with similar recent movies like Ray and Capote. Letters From Iwo Jima's inclusion proves that Clint Eastwood has a Midas touch, but it's hard to imagine a foreign language war movie that's grossed less than $10 million winning top honors, particularly when Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby is such a recent winner in this category. Golden Globe winner Babel has dark horse potential, I suppose, but this film generates almost as much hate as it does love: can a film whose partisans are so divided really triumph? That leaves the two biggest hits: The Departed and Little Miss Sunshine. The former is the conventional frontrunner, although it is extra-violent and so far not winning many Best Film awards in the other competitions. Little Miss Sunshine seems to be on a roll, though, with SAG and PGA wins. It's also the film most likely to engender the warm-and-fuzzies in the voters, so I'm putting its name in the envelope...barely. [WRONG!]
What Should Win: Little Miss Sunshine would get my vote here, even though it's--GASP!--a comedy.

Best Director
The nominees are: Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu for Babel, Martin Scorsese for The Departed, Clint Eastwood for Letters From Iwo Jima, Stephen Frears for The Queen and Paul Greengrass for United 93.
Who Will Win: Not giving Martin Scorsese an Oscar for Taxi Driver was wrong. Not giving him one for Raging Bull: even more so. Not giving him one for Gangs of New York: very surprising. Not giving him one for The Aviator: stunning. Not giving him one for The Departed: not gonna happen. None of the other four--not even Eastwood--has the momentum to beat Marty this time. [RIGHT!]
Who Should Win: Even I'd vote for Scorsese here...The Departed's problems are not with its direction. Pan's Labyrinth's Guillermo del Toro should have been nominated.

Best Actor
The nominees are: Leonardo DiCaprio in Blood Diamond, Ryan Gosling in Half Nelson, Peter O'Toole in Venus, Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness and Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland.
Who Will Win: Whitaker's showy villainous turn in The Last King of Scotland may have been little-seen by the public, but it's been seen by everyone in the Academy and is the likely victor here. If the voters are feeling particularly sentimental, then Venus' Peter O'Toole might be spared the shame of being Oscar's biggest acting loser ever, at 0-for-8. But I doubt it. [RIGHT!]
Who Should Win: Ryan Gosling took it to a whole new level in Half Nelson.

Best Actress
The nominees are: Penelope Cruz in Volver, Judi Dench in Notes on a Scandal, Helen Mirren in The Queen, Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada and Kate Winslet in Little Children.
Who Will Win: A win by anyone other than The Queen's Helen Mirren would be jaw-dropping; she's the year's surest bet. [RIGHT!]
Who Should Win: Her Majesty, Helen Mirren.

Best Supporting Actor
The nominees are: Alan Arkin in Little Miss Sunshine, Jackie Earle Haley in Little Children, Djimon Hounsou in Blood Diamond, Eddie Murphy in Dreamgirls and Mark Wahlberg in The Departed.
Who Will Win: Dreamgirls' Eddie Murphy is the frontrunner of the acting category most ripe for an upset. Nipping most closely on his heels is probably Little Miss Sunshine's Alan Arkin, who is more than 30 years removed from his last nomination and who could be seen as more owed than Murphy. I'm sticking with Murphy to win, but I bet it won't have been by much. (As the days pass, I am more convinced Murphy is going to lose, yet I'm not changing my pick. If he loses, I will kick myself!) [WRONG! (And I'm kicking myself!)]
Who Should Win: A tight one, but I'd vote for Alan Arkin.

Best Supporting Actress
The nominees are: Adriana Barraza in Babel, Cate Blanchett in Notes on a Scandal, Abigail Breslin in Little Miss Sunshine, Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls and Rinko Kikuchi in Babel.
Who Will Win: And I am telling you, she's not losing! The one aspect of Dreamgirls almost everyone seems able to agree on was Jennifer Hudson's movie-stealing turn as Effie White. Only thing working against her is that she's been the frontrunner for so long. Little Miss Sunshine's Abigail Breslin would be the most likely spoiler, but that's a very unlikely possibility. [RIGHT!]
Who Should Win: Hudson, no contest. She may never do anything else on film again, but damn it, she did this.

Best Original Screenplay
The nominees are: Babel, Letters From Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine, Pan's Labyrinth, and The Queen.
What Will Win: A tight race in which all five nominees have a shot. Babel and Letters From Iwo Jima are most likely going to be also-rans in the Best Picture race, and often the writing categories are used for consolation. Pan's Labyrinth probably has the most buzz of any of these nominees right now. The Queen has won the most screenplay prizes of any film this season and is a very strong possibility, but I can't imagine Little Miss Sunshine winning Best Picture and nothing else. Since I'm not calling it to win either of its acting nominations, I'd say that positions it for a win here. [RIGHT!]
What Should Win: Little Miss Sunshine's spot-on dysfunctional family trump the creativity of Pan's Labyrinth.

Best Adapted Screenplay
The nominees are: Borat: Cultural Learnings of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, Children of Men, The Departed, Little Children, and Notes on a Scandal.
What Will Win: Unlike Best Original Screenplay, which is tough, the race on the adapted side is pretty easy. This category's only Best Picture nominee, The Departed, looks way out in front to me. Borat could play spoiler, but how much of that script was actually adapted and not ad-libbed? [RIGHT!]
What Should Win: Little Children's inventive screenplay was literate and diverting.

Best Original Song
The nominees are: "I Need to Wake Up" from An Inconvenient Truth, "Listen" from Dreamgirls, "Love You I Do" from Dreamgirls, "Our Town" from Cars, and "Patience" from Dreamgirls.
What Will Win: I suppose a split vote between the Dreamgirls triumvirate is possible, but "Listen" has the biggest push and the biggest names attached. It's my pick, but a win for the Jennifer Hudson-performed "Love You I Do" would be the ultimate F-you to Beyonce. Just don't bet on it. Second-most likely is probably "Our Town." [WRONG!]
What Should Win: "Love You I Do" is the best of this ho-hum lot.