Brian Braiker takes time out from his regular duties at I, Breeder to weigh in on the Oscars:

Allow us to take the occasion of the Oscars to bring up something that has been bothering us lately: Lazy headline writers of the world, the jig is up! Time to retire the cliche "there will be ..." and "no country for ..." constructs. They've both been done to death. Behold, from this month alone (we'd like to blame this on the strike, but that doesn't seem quite right):

1. There Will be Disappointment; Cinematical, 2/24/08
2. There Will be Oscars; Times-Picayune, 2/24/08
3. There Will be Gold; Baltimore Sun, 2/24/08
4. There Will be Confusion; McClatchy Newspapers, 2/24/08
5. There Will be Booze; New York Post, 2/24/08
6. There Will be ... Oscar!; The Witchita Eagle, 2/24/08
7. Oscars: This Year There Will be Milk; Anderson Herald Bulletin, 2/24/08
8. There Will be Fun Trivia About The Oscars; Cleveland Plain Dealer, 2/23/08
9. There Will be Blood; The Mirror, 2/23/08
10. There Will be Oscar Specials; Suburbarazzi, 2/22/08
11. There Will be Oscars; New York Times, 2/22/08
12. Cool Swag of the Weel: There Will be Bullwhips; Cinematical, 2/22/08
13. There Will be Gold: Oscar Picks; Express From The Washington Post (wtf?), 2/22/08
14. There Will be Cake! Portal 2 Confirmed; PC Gaming, 2/22/08
15. There Will be Blood; Seattle Post Intelligencer, 2/21/08
16. There Will be Oscars; The Guardian UK, 2/21/08
17. There Will be Stars on Sunday at the Academy Awards in Hollywood; Voice of America, 2/21/08
18. There Will be Lots of Gazing at Stars on Oscar Night; The Tampa Tribune, 2/21/08
19. Hollywood and the Internet: There Will be Blood; The Economist, 2/21/08
20. There Will be Gloom and Doom at the Oscars; New Zealand Herald, 2/21/08
21. Drink Up: There Will be Rum; Seattle Post Intelligencer, 2/20/08
22. There Will be Oil; The Grist, 2/20/08
23. There Will be Blood Over Stolen Laptop; Silicon Republic, 2/20/08
24. Eco-homes: There Will be Floods; The Independent UK, 2/20/08
25. For Scott Rudin, There will be quality; The LA Times, 2/19/08
26. There Will be Memories; New York Times, 2/19/08
27. There Will be Blood on CBS via 'Dexter'; San Jose Mercury News, 2/15/08
28. State Budget, There Will be Blood; Arizona Daily Star, 2/15/08
29. There Will be Blood; New York Times (Maureen Dowd), 2/3/08

There Will be Beating a Dead Horse. But wait! There's more:

David Ansen does an excellent job of predicting all the major categories, so I'm just going to stick to the major-major ones. Here's what I think will happen.

Best picture: Really, is there any other movie that can upset "No Country For Old Men"? Not "Atonement," which I dubbed early as the Hillary Clinton of the campaign. (Sorry Hillary, it was originally meant as a compliment.) Not "There Will Be Blood," which is too long and difficult to win. I don't see enough people voting for "Michael Clayton." "Juno" will probably be the runner up. But if "Little Miss Sunshine" couldn't pull off a victory, it won't either. The winner: "No Country For Old Men." 

Best director: The Coens will take it. Julian Schnabel ("The Diving Bell and the Butterfly") and PT Anderson ("There Will Be Blood") will split the votes for second and third place.

Best actor: Daniel Day-Lewis for "There Will Be Blood." Even George Clooney said he should win.

Best actress: Will there be a surprise winner? If Ruby Dee wins best supporting actress, as expected, I think there might be. Marion Cotillard gives the best performance in "La Vie En Rose," but I think the fact that the movie is all in French will hurt her. And if it does, how could voters refuse Ellen Page? She's the heart of the movie, and if Christie and Cotillard split the vote, she'll benefit from it. I'm tempted to pick her. I. ALMOST. DID. But then again, I don't think Dee will win, so maybe best supporting actress will be the surprise of the night and this category will turn out as expected. The most likely scenario: Cotillard and Page, both newcomers, split the "youth vote," and Christie ekes out a win. My prediction: Christie for "Away From Her."

Best supporting actor: Javier Bardem for "No Country for Old Men." It's a sure thing, I promise.

Best supporting actress: The most difficult category of the night--the early frontrunners were Amy Ryan ("Gone Baby Gone") and Cate Blanchett ("I'm Not There"). Blanchett's already won, so I think that will hurt her. Then there was the late emergence of Ruby Dee, with her surprise SAG win. But does sentimentality really matter that much in the supporting categories--lead, yes, but remember how Gloria Stuart went home empty-handed for "Titanic?" I think Saoirse Ronan is out of the running. And Tilda Swinton, as wonderful as she is in "Michael Clayton," didn't steal the movie. (It was Clooney's.) So I'm going with the early favorite, and predicting Amy Ryan.

Best original screenplay: "Juno."

Adapted screenplay: "No Country For Old Men."

 NEWSWEEK film critic David Ansen gives his choices for who will win Sunday:

Nothing seems certain this year, in real or reel life. The political pollsters, normally so drearily accurate, emerged with egg on their faces after proclaiming a resounding Obama victory in New Hampshire. Why should the Oscars be any different? It feels as if this ceremony--which almost didn't happen thanks to the writers' strike--could produce some significant upsets for a change. The conventional wisdom may not apply to a field filled with more than the usual share of unconventional movies. Mainstream commercial movies are barely a blip on the Academy Awards landscape. Little "Juno" is by far the biggest hit among the five best-picture nominees, and the only one of the five that's considered a major studio movie, Warner Bros.'s "Michael Clayton," actually isn't: it was a pickup, financed by an outside company. The Oscars have become the Independent Spirit Awards on a bigger budget.

Here are my not-so-fearless prognostications for a night that may make all the soothsayers, myself included, look clueless:


Read the story

Here we go, down to the wire ... with the Oscars on Sunday night. The male acting races are pretty much locked up for Daniel Day-Lewis ("There Will Be Blood") and Javier Bardem ("No Country For Old Men") -- congratulations guys. So I'm betting it's the female categories that will give us our traditional surprise (or two) of the night.

Best actress seemed to be Julie Christie's award after she took the SAG and Globe for "Away From Her." But I dunno. Marion Cotillard delivers the better performance in "La Vie En Rose," though the fact that it's all in French could hurt her. Do you think the two might cancel each other out, leaving room for an Ellen Page/"Juno" upset?

As for supporting actress, it's always the hardest to predict. Ruby Dee ("American Gangster") had a slow awards-season start, but she's now the frontrunner. Too bad for her, the frontrunner usually doesn't win this category -- especially when you people use words like "sentimental favorite" (just ask Lauren Bacall or Gloria Stuart). Cate Blanchett would probably win for her Dylan turn, had she not already won for being Hepburn. The Academy loves "Michael Clayton," and if Tilda Swinton wins, she'll be this year's Marcia Gay Harden. But I think Amy Ryan, who was mesmerizing in "Gone Baby Gone," is the safest gamble.

Stay tuned. I'll post my full predictions on Friday (once I've changed my mind a couple more times).

NEWSWEEK's David Ansen and Devin Gordon talk to Academy Award nominees George Clooney, Angelina Jolie, Daniel Day-Lewis, Ellen Page, James McAvoy and Marion Cotillard:

Duh. Yes.

But that's the question CNN asks in this online column thingy, now that the strike from the Writer's Guild of America is behind us and the show will go on (and I will go back to blogging about them.) If you ask me, it's not that the Oscars don't matter, it's that the show needs a jolt to appeal to--ohIdon'tknow--the young voters viewers. The idea to bring Jon Stewart back as host is certainly a step in the right direction, but it's misguided. He doesn't make the show younger. He just makes it more awkward. It's like having your little cousin give an important toast at the wedding. He's all wrong for it.

That's why I'm posting this little For Your Consideration to the Academy: Next year, hire not one but two Oscar hosts. Their names should be Julia Roberts and George Clooney. Wouldn't you watch that?

I interviewed Heath Ledger last spring, a few days after the Oscars, and he was upbeat and charming. This is what he had to say about "I'm Not There," unpublished until now: "Cate Blanchett is Dylan. She's phenomenal. She's going to blow people's doors up. I can't say enough about the whole experience. Todd Haynes is a wonderful man. He's a genius with an incredible vision. I am fairly confident he's pulled it off from the dailies. It really looked like Fellini back from the dead."

He had just come from the Spirit Awards. "I was escorting Michelle," he said. "She was nominated for 'Land of Plenty.'" Did he go to the Oscars, too? "We stayed home and we caught the last three announcements. Missed most of it. We mainly watched to see Ellen. I thought she was fantastic."

Well, by now, you know them already. Here's the complete list.

The biggest surprise--other than the fact that none of my big predictions came true, so I can thank the Academy for making me look like a dummy--is the inclusion of Jason Reitman as best director for "Juno." He's not going to win. But it shows that the Academy loves his movie, and it's in the fight with "No Country For Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood" to take home best picture.

This has been a very difficult year to predict the Oscars, and not just because there might not be an Oscars night. Three months ago, the frontrunners for best picture were "Atonement," "Sweeney Todd," "Charlie Wilson's War" and "American Gangster." Now it's unlikely that even one of those films will be nominated. If "Atonement"  doesn't make the final cut, it'll mark a dramatic shift for the Academy, which has traditionally honored more safe, sentimental stories over experimental ones ("There Will Be Blood"). Or maybe we're in for some more surprises yet. Here's what I think we'll see when the Oscars nominees are announced Tuesday morning:

(1) "Atonement" will get snubbed for best picture. If someone wrote that sentence last November, we'd all think he was nuts. But this year's Oscar frontrunner has been shut out of being nominated for any of the major guild awards, and the guilds largely make up the academy. If "Atonement" does slip in, it will only be because enough voters ranked it as their No. 1 movie of the year. (The Oscar ballots are counted through a complicated preferential system of voting.) But that doesn't seem likely. Although "Atonement" won the Globe and swept the Bafta nominations, it just doesn't seem to be connecting with American viewers in the same way.

So what's in? "No Country for Old Men" is a lock. "Juno" is the quirky underdog that everyone loves, and the biggest box office hit in the running (unless you count "American Gangster," which I don't). "Michael Clayton" is the kind of adult thriller Hollywood eats up. "There Will Be Blood" is being called a modern day classic. And "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" is the emotional favorite and should get enough No. 1 votes to make the cut. I want to include "Into the Wild" on that list too, but there isn't room. So it will likely just fall short of the nomination.

(2) Johnny Depp won't get nominated either. The lead actor category is incredibly competitive this year. Daniel Day-Lewis is the frontrunner for "There Will be Blood," and George Clooney is in for "Michael Clayton." The rest is up in the air. The Academy likes to mix up this category with a couple new faces each year, so two of the following will make the cut: Viggo Mortensen for "Eastern Promises," James McAvoy for "Atonement," Emile Hirsch for "Into the Wild" and Ryan Gosling for "Lars and the Real Girl" (he's been nominated before, but he's still young enough to be considered a newcomer). The last spot is a battle between the veterans Depp in "Sweeney Todd" and Denzel Washington in "American Gangster." My rule when it comes to the Oscars is don't bet against Denzel. Final five: Day-Lewis, Clooney, Mortensen, Gosling and Washington.

(3) Amy Adams will sneak into the best actress category for "Enchanted." Before we get to her, let's look at the other nominees. Three are shoe ins: Julie Christie for "Away from Her," Marion Cotillard for "La Vie En Rose" and Ellen Page for "Juno." The fourth slot will likely go to Angelina Jolie for "A Mighty Heart." Keira Knightley will probably be shut out for "Atonement." Laura Linney is brilliant in "The Savages" but the performance was largely ignored. Which is why Adams will round out the category for her crowd pleasing turn as a princess. Plus, Hollywood has already crowned her as its next princess--she's backing four movies next year.

(4) Jennifer Garner is the bellwether nominee. If she lands a supporting nod for "Juno," then maybe the movie does have what it takes to win everything. After all, it's hard to love the movie and not admire her work as the emotional center of the film, though she hasn't been recognized for anything until now. Final five for best supporting actress: Amy Ryan for "Gone Baby Gone," Cate Blanchett for "I'm Not There," Tilda Swinton for "Michael Clayton," Saoirse Ronan for "Atonement" and Garner.

Other predictions:

Best supporting actor: Javier Bardem, "No Country for Old Men," Philip Seymour Hoffman, "Charlie Wilson's War," Hal Halbrook, "Into the Wild," Tom Wilkinson, "Michael Clayton," and Casey Affleck for "The Assassination of Jesse James."

Best director: the Coen brothers, "No Country For Old Men," Julian Schnabel, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," Paul Thomas Anderson, "There Will Be Blood," Sean Penn, "Into the Wild" and Tony Gilroy, "Michael Clayton."

Best original screenplay: "Juno," "Michael Clayton," "Lars and the Real Girl," "The Savages" and "Knocked Up."

Best adapted screenplay: "No Country for Old Men," "There Will Be Blood," "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," "Into the Wild" and "Atonement."

Best animated film: "Ratatouille," "The Simpsons Movie" and "Persepolis."

This is a very odd awards season to start an Oscars blog, because there are no awards to blog about. Oh, OK--there are some, handed out by the critics at small ceremonies. But most of them aren't televised. The Golden Globes, for all their randomness and ridiculousness, were at least a chance for us to see how well the winners handled themselves at the podium. Yes, Oscar voters want to hear heartfelt, crazy, zany, silly acceptances--how else do you except Roberto Benigni's win for "Life is Beautiful"? This year, no race is shaping up to be closer than best actress. The frontrunner is Julie Christie, who won the Globe for best dramatic actress. If she had been there, she probably would've given a very humble speech, a la Helen Mirren in "The Queen." The best performance of the bunch is Marion Cotillard, who won the Globe for best musical/comedy performance. I think her speech would've probably been better, plus she would've shown everyone that she can speak English (the performance is French), giving her a little boost with voters. Now let's see who the SAG honors next weekend. Complete curveball prediction: Ellen Page wins, throwing the race wide open. 

As you may have heard, there are no Golden Globes this year. But that won't stop me from predicting the winners. Here are the names you'll hear at what's sure to be a spectacularly cheesy press conference Sunday night:

Best Motion Picture, Drama: "No Country For Old Men"

Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy: "Sweeney Todd"

Best Director: Joel and Ethan Coen, "No Country For Old Men"

Best Actor in a Drama: Daniel Day-Lewis, "There Will Be Blood"

Best Actress in a Drama: Julie Christie, "Away From Her"

Best Actor in a Musical/Comedy: Johnny Depp, "Sweeney Todd"

Best Actress in a Musical/Comedy: Marion Cotillard, "La Vie En Rose"

Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem, "No Country For Old Men"

Best Supporting Actress: Saoirse Ronan, "Atonement"

Best Screenplay: Diablo Cody, "Juno"

Best Animated Feature: "Ratatouille"

Best Foreign-Language Film: "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"

Best Score: "Atonement"

Original Song: "That's How You Know," from "Enchanted"

The Writer's Guild of America nominations were just announced this afternoon. For best adapted screenplay, the nominees are: "No Country For Old Men," "There Will Be Blood," "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," "Into the Wild" and "Zodiac." What!? "Zodiac." That means "Atonement" was snubbed again. Really? For screenplay -- it's such a masterful adaptation of the book. This can only mean one thing: the frontrunner is ... dead. They better get Keira Knightley on the campaign trail now, to shed some tears.

For best original screenplay, the nominees are "Juno," "Michael Clayton," "The Savages," "Knocked Up" and "Lars and the Real Girl."

Playing a little catch up--sorry I haven't posted more in the last few days. I'm starting to think "Atonement" might not get nominated for best picture, and that maybe it really is this year's "Cold Mountain": a beautiful, epic movie that's just a little too packaged for the Academy. There was no love from the SAGs. Then Joe Wright was snubbed by the Directors Guild of America this week.

So was Tim Burton for "Sweeney Todd." (Another movie that didn't get any love from the SAGs.) This means both movies are extremely vulnerable for best picture, despite what all the Oscar bloggers (I'm guilty too) have been predicting all year. I think the Directors Guild nominations are very close to what we'll see in the top five for best picture: "There Will Be Blood," "No Country For Old Men," "Michael Clayton," "Into the Wild," "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly."

The wild card: "Juno."