If I had one hopeless dream for this year, it would be to see Before Sunset win. But virtually no chance of that. In the screenplay categories, the scripts for Best Picture nominees have a huge advantage, and since nobody appears to even remember that Finding Neverland is even nominated, that makes it between Million Dollar Baby and Sideways. As it happens, I've seen both, and would have a hard time choosing myself. The M$B script was written by Paul Haggis, who has done a lot of good TV work (EZ Streets, Mister Sterling, and... well, I also see Walker: Texas Ranger on his resume, so it's not all good!). Alexander Payne wrote Election (yay!) and About Schmidt (meh...). Sideways is probably the more likely winner here... like Lost In Translation last year, which was a critical favorite but had no chance of winning for best picture, a screenplay award is as much as you can expect. So, Sideways, and please, don't toast it with any f***ing Merlot!

Using the assumption that Best Picture nominees have a leg up, that makes The Aviator my pick, though I though the screenplay was the biggest problem with the movie. At the end of the film, was it about Howard Hughes the germophobe? Howard Hughes the moviemaking rebel? Hughes the aviation pioneer, Hughes the serial bedder-of-Hollywood-babes, Hughes the crusading businessman? Could a movie really handle all those subplots at once? I think it would have been better to focus on a few of those instead of all of them. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? Saw it last night. Deeply weird!

At various times during the last decade, I've wondered "What do we have to do to get Morgan Freeman his damn Oscar already?" I suspect that many in the Academy have been thinking the same thing... Morgan Freeman to win, but beware, I also thought that Ian McKellen was a lock a few years ago.

I like Laura Linney, and-- Confession Time-- I got a crush on Virginia Madsen 20 years ago in Electric Dreams and have never really gotten over it :) The winner here, though, will probably be Cate Blanchett, who did a good job... In fact, instead of being a supporting actress, she's really the lead actress for roughly an hour of the movie. And the opportunity to give someone an Oscar for playing an actress who won an armful herself will be too much to resist.

Given the right set of circumstances, virtually any of these guys could win. In particular, the chance to give Eastwood an acting Oscar must be very tempting. However, it seems a foregone conclusion that the winner will be Jamie Foxx, and who am I to challenge that?

Annette Bening in BEING JULIA; Catalina Sandino Moreno in MARIA FULL OF GRACE; Imelda Staunton in VERA DRAKE; Hilary Swank in MILLION DOLLAR BABY; Kate Winslet in ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND

It seems to be another foregone conclusion that Hilary Swank will win here, but I have a voice in the back of my mind saying that Annette Bening could pull of an upset. The voice isn't loud enough, though. Hilary Swank, unless the Academy objects to giving her a second Oscar when most people can only name two movies that she's ever starred in...

If the roles were reversed, it would be so easy. If Clint Eastwood were the guy who had never won the Oscar, and Marty Scorsese were the one who had already won, then it would be obvious that Clint would win for Million Dollar Baby. As we'll see (hint hint) I think that the evening is going to end up with a bunch of people from M$B on the stage, and Clint's DGA award is almost always a predictor of the Oscar.

I think this year might be different. It's not unknown for voters to slpit their tickets in unusual cases in order to recognize a director of a movie that isn't going to win (Warren Beatty for Reds, Spielberg for Saving Private Ryan), and since Eastwood already has his Oscar, Martin Scorsese will win, and get a huge standing ovation. The irony is that he would end up winning the award for one of the least uniquely-Scorceseian films of his career-- good work, but... well, if you didn't know who directed Raging Bull and Taxi Driver and Goodfellas, you'd be able to guess pretty quickly. With The Aviator, it's not so obvious...

Going back to my trusty Best Picture Oscar profiling tool, Million Dollar Baby matches all of the major requirements (nominations for editing, directing, supporting actor, adapted screenplay; no supporting actress nomination), with only Hilary Swank's best actress nomination marring a clean sweep. The Aviator has the supporting actor nomination, directing and editing nominations, but also a supporting actress nomination (I'm just saying... historically, films with supporting actress nominations don't win), and an original screenplay nomination (also less valuable, historically speaking). Ray has just two plusses (directing and editing), Sideways has everything but the editing nomination, and Finding Neverland was left out of the directorial nominations, always a bad sign.

Having seen The Aviator, Million Dollar Baby, and Sideways, I'd probably cast my vote for Sideways in a close choice over M$B. I was very impressed with M$B, and as always, I was amused at the way that people have completely misinterpreted the movie (yes, I'm looking at you Michael Medved). It's a great companion piece to Unforgiven, I think. Plenty of the same themes. Sideways was of course a different kind of movie, but no less impressive, and maybe I have a little more personal identification with that one. The Aviator, I wanted to like, and much of it I did. It just didn't hang together as well in the end.