Oscar picks

Nothing like leaving this to the last minute. I guess it indicates my lack of interest in this year's Oscar's. Still, it's a long standing tradition that I make my best guess, and so here it goes:

Best Picture
Brokeback Mountain. Pay no heed to those saying Crash might be a surprise. Every year people try and promote a long shot that might pull an upset. In recent memory, it's only happened once, when Shakespeare in Love robbed Saving Private Ryan.

Best Director
Ang Lee. Spielberg already has two. People seem to like Capote more for the acting than the actual film and Clooney is getting nailed with vote splitting where he is nominated all over the place.

Best Actor
Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Pretty much a lock. I almost feel bad for Heath Ledger. I think Hoffman is going to be nominated again. You got to wonder how many times Ledger is going to get this much attention.

Best Actress
Reese Witherspoon. Let's hope she makes some better post-Oscar choices than some other recent winners of this award (Hello, Halle Berry).

Best Supporting Actor
George Clooney. There's been some talk of Paul Giamatti getting this because he was robbed of a nomination last year for Sideways. Maybe, but I think they want to reward Clooney, who had a heck of a year and backed some courageous movies. This is his best shot.

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams. I haven't seen the movie or even heard that much about it. But the academy likes to do weird things in this category. I'm tempted to pick Rachael Weisz, but I saw The Constant Gardner and while I thought she did okay, it didn't grab me that much. Still, it's a toss up. This category is the Oscar predictor graveyard.

Best Adapted Screenplay
Brokeback Mountain. You're nominated that much, you've got to win a few.

Best Original Screenplay
Crash. Paul Haggis's movie isn't going to win that much this evening. He will get this one. Good Night, and Good Luck is also a strong possibility, but I'll stick with Crash

Best Animated Feature
Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Pretty much a lock for this one, and well it should be.

As for the rest, it's total guesswork and honestly, no one cares. They really are better off casting some of these awards off into the technical awards ghetto. The number of people who care about Best Sound Mixing who are not relatives or involved in sound mixing can be counted on one hand. So I'm not even going to bother. The only awards I'm interested in, I've made my picks.

Now here's hoping that Jon Stewart doesn't stink up the place...

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