Leading Performances

Best Actress: What a great category this year. Other than Kate Winselt (normally a fine actress, if you dont' count Titanic, but this movie unsettles me, and not in the way they intended), I would be happy with a win by anyone.

Will Win: The only real sure thing of the night, Helen Mirren. Just like Jennifer Hudson, she's won every award leading up to tonight, but unlike Hudson, the academy usually does not use this category to award something other than the nominee (with Halle Berry being the exception that proves the rule). It's true, the academy does like to award physical transformations over true acting in this category, but even there, Mirren has this one sewn up. An upset here would be more shocking than Crash, Juliette Binoche, Marissa Tomei, and Adrian Bordy put together.

Should Win: Judi Dench. She's been unfairly overlooked here several times, and this performance ranks head and shoulders above anything she's been nominated for in the past. In any other year, just like some of our other nominees, she'd be the winner. She made such a nasty woman totally sympathetic and managed to make us forget any concerns about the "predatory lesbian" image the character could have projected in lesser hands.

Should Have Been Nominated: Toni Collete. What is the academy's deal with her? Sure she got nominated for The Sixth Sense (and should have won), but she was ignored for Muriel's Wedding and Japanese Story (both of which she won her native Australia's Oscar-equivalent for), and now she's ignored again. Goddammit academy, get with it and give this woman her due already.

Should Not Have Been Nominated: Love her, loved the movie, but was Meryl Streep really the leading actress in Prada? This was a very lightweight role, and in a year that saw such meaty roles for women, I can't believe this was really one of the five best. Meryl is overdue for another Oscar, but if she gets it for this, she'll be the Marissa Tomei of leading actresses; no one will ever take this category seriously again.

Best Actor: Another category that's not such a lock upon closer examination.
Will Win: Peter O'Toole. Yes, Forrest Whittaker has won every award up to this point, but I think we're going to see a repeat of2002, and even 1989. In both those years, front runners swept most pre-Oscar awards, but that was because no one really bothered watching The Pianist or My Left Foot until after the Oscar Nominations were announced, and Brody and Day-Lewis swept up from behind to claim the award. Reportedly, the same thing is happening this year. According to inside sources, no one really bothered with Venus until O'Toole's Oscar nomination, and now it's getting a lot of talk from within the Academy. He also has the benefit of the Scorsese effect. He's another perennial underdog about to set a record for the most losses, and voters, after checking off Scorsese for director will probably want to set another score straight and check off O'Toole. They can right two wrongs in one night, that will do a lot to make up for last year. If one wins, they both will win, but if one loses, they both will lose.

Should Win: Despite my sentimental attachment to O'Toole, this award should go to Leonardo DiCaprio. He's worked hard to get past the Titanic stigma, and his hard work pays off in Blood Diamond. It's a great role, and he handles all of his scenes well. He manages to be an action star, romantic lead, redeemed scoundrel, and anti-social criminal all at once. He ran the table and scored every time. He's been ignored for some of his best work and nominated for one of his worst (The Aviator), it would be nice to see the Academy really get this one right.

Should Have Been Nominated: Aaron Eckhart for Thank You For Smoking. The film overall was shallow and slick (and again, not in the way it was intended to be), but he was so memorable and pitch perfect, he gave the film whatever moral high ground it had. He's another actor that's been criminally overlooked by the academy, and his streak continues. At least Susan Lucci got nominations.

Should Not Have Been Nominated: Will Smith. What the fuck? He's a good actor, and from all accounts a really decent guy, but why nominate him for The Pursuit of Happyness? It was a weak, shallow, preachy movie, and as I just mentioned, Aaron Eckhart did a much better job rising above preachy and shallow than Smith did here. He got this because Hollywood loves him as a person, not for his performance, and hopefully, the nomination will be seen as enough.