February 25 is the big night:  names will be written in stone for all time as Academy Award Winners, while others will become trivia questions and footnotes.  Who will win?  Who am I rooting for?  Let's find out:

BEST PICTURE
Who's Nominated: Babel, The Departed, Letters From Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine and The Queen
My Preference:  It's a tough call between the powerfully mournful Letters From Iwo Jima and the spirited, fascinating The Queen.  They're such different movies, but I'll give it to Letters From Iwo Jima by a nose.
My Prediction:  Man, oh, MAN this is a tough call.  Somehow 9 different Critics Circle honors couldn't get the season's most honored movie, United 93, onto this list just as Dreamgirls became the first movie ever to have the most overall Oscar nominations without being nominated for Best Picture.  So what does that leave us with?  Babel won the Golden Globe but not much else.  Little Miss Sunshine is being sold as the Little Movie That Could after Producers' and Screen Actors' Guild award wins.  Letters From Iwo Jima picked up honors from the National Board of Review and the Los Angeles and San Diego Film Critics.  The Toronto Critics and the British Academy went with The Queen. The Departed was the pick of the Broadcast Film Critics Association as well as the Chicago, Florida, Boston, Las Vegas and Southeastern Film Critics.  In other words, there's no consensus.  At moments like this, one must take a deep breath and focus on what SEEMS like Best Picture.  My pick, with no more than 40% certainty: The Departed.

BEST DIRECTOR
Who's Nominated: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu 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
My Preference:  A lot of good work here:  Eastwood and Frears brought dimension to war drama and British palace intrigue I'd never seen before.  But Paul Greengrass made 9-11 happen again before my eyes:  the skill and importance of his work cannot be understated, and he's my pick.
My Prediction:  Finally giving Martin Scorsese his due has been the closest thing this awards season has to a theme.  He's captured the all-important Directors' Guild honor for the first time, along with the Golden Globe and awards from the National Society of Film Critics, the Broadcast and Online Film Critics Associations and 13 Critics Circles.  He's lost before as the favorite, but this time seems like a no-brainer.

BEST ACTOR
Who's Nominated: Leonardo DiCaprio for Blood Diamond, Ryan Gosling for Half Nelson, Peter O'Toole for Venus, Will Smith for The Pursuit of Happyness, and Forest Whitaker for The Last King of Scotland
My Preference:  I've complained about the fact that Forest Whitaker is totally out of category elsewhere, but his is the best of the three nominated performances (also Smith and DiCaprio's) I've seen and so I'll stick with him. 
My Prediction:  This is one of those categories where the favorite is SO favored, having won basically everything, that you almost expect an upset, but picking against Forest Whitaker is madness.  Only a sentimental selection of O'Toole seems remotely possible as an upset, but the Academy has been down on those kind of choices lately, particularly since he already has a Life Achievement Award.

BEST ACTRESS
Who's Nominated: Penelope Cruz for Volver, Judi Dench for Notes on a Scandal, Helen Mirren for The Queen, Meryl Streep for The Devil Wears Prada and Kate Winslet for Little Children
My Preference:  When I saw Mirren's awesome work in The Queen, I never could have imagined rooting for anyone else for Best Actress.  Until I saw Notes on a Scandal.  There's something about Judi Dench's career-best performance that seems to see into the darkest parts of human desperation.  I've never seen one quite like it, and she'd get my vote.
My Prediction:  If Whitaker's won basically everything, Mirren's won EVERYTHING.  The only other nominee who can claim a single award of any kind is Steep, which picked up the Comedy Golden Globe while Mirren was busy winning the Drama one.  It's Helen Mirren in a rout, particularly because Streep and Dench are previous winners and if Winslet had this kind of upset in her, she'd have already won.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Who's Nominated: Alan Arkin for Little Miss Sunshine, Jackie Earle Haley for Little Children, Djimon Hounsou for Blood Diamond, Eddie Murphy for Dreamgirls and Mark Wahlberg for The Departed
My Preference:  Arkin was fine in Little Miss Sunshine, but it was Steve Carell who gave that movie's most dynamic performance.  I'd love to see Djimon Hounsou win one of these years, but I can't pick on that basis when I spend so much time complaining about others doing it.  The best of the three nominated performances I've seen was by Mark Wahlberg.
My Prediction:  It's hard to bet against Eddie Murphy, who's dominated the second half of the awards season.  One favorite from the first half, The Queen's Michael Sheen, isn't even nominated.  The other, Haley, has lost most of his momentum in the Murphy landslide, but he's the best bet for an upset.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Who's Nominated: Adriana Barraza for Babel, Cate Blanchett for Notes on a Scandal, Abigail Breslin for Little Miss Sunshine, Jennifer Hudson for Dreamgirls and Rinko Kikuchi for Babel
My Preference:  Barraza's the victim of so much silly melodrama in Babel that I don't really get the widespread praise for her performance.  Breslin's childlike innocence is the key to pulling off Little Miss Sunshine's surprisingly moving climax.  But my two favorite performances in this category come from Blanchett, who so convincingly piles characterization and motivation that's nowhere in the dialog onto her Notes on a Scandal character and Kikuchi, who wonderfully peels back layer after layer (yeah, I know, insert nudity joke here) of a character who initially seems utterly unsympathetic.  Given that she does so much of it in the nude and never speaks a word (as her deaf-mute character only uses sign language), I've gotta give it to Rinko Kikuchi for Degree of Difficulty.
My Prediction: Jennifer Hudson, the only one of the five nominees I haven't seen, has owned the awards season up to this point. She's my prediction, although this category is famously unstable.  Little kids are always a threat, so keep an eye on Breslin.  Barraza is a wild card as well.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREEPLAY
Who's Nominated: Babel by Guillermo Arriaga, Letters from Iwo Jima by Iris Yamashita and Paul Haggis, Little Miss Sunshine by Michael Arndt, Pan’s Labyrinth by Guillermo del Toro and The Queen by Peter Morgan.
My Preference:  Some really good work in here.  Little Miss Sunshine's characters and structure are surprisingly sharp.  The Queen is jam-packed with fascinating information about the nature of the British government and makes icy real-life leaders into real, believable characters.  Letters From Iwo Jima takes us heartbreakingly behind enemy lines and gives us a real sense of how a totally foreign culture fought the Second World War.  But of all these stories, the best is Guillermo del Toro's masterful parallel stories about the courage of fantasy and fairy tale characters and real people in their darkest times.  Pan's Labyrinth isn't in English, so you know full well that no member of the Academy has actually read the script, but I haven't read any of them, so that's no reason for me to pick against it.
My Prediction: Michael Arndt won the Screen Writers' Guild award, and I expect him to win here as well.  This is the award most vulnerable to a late-season surge like the one Little Miss Sunshine has enjoyed.  Golden Globe winner Morgan is my best bet for an upset.  While foreign language scripts have been nominated more and more in recent years, wins are rare:  Arriaga has the best shot among the other three contenders.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Who's Nominated: Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan Screenplay by Sacha Baron Cohen & Anthony Hines & Peter Baynham & Dan Mazer Story by Sacha Baron Cohen & Peter Baynham & Anthony Hines & Todd Phillips, Children of Men by Alfonso Cuarón & Timothy J. Sexton and David Arata and Mark Fergus & Hawk Ostby, The Departed by William Monahan, Little Children by Todd Field & Tom Perrotta and Notes on a Scandal by Patrick Marber
My Preference:  I loved both Children of Men and Notes on a Scandal, but the former's merits are largely cinematic, while the later, as much as it's buoyed by great performances, is hugely reliant on its' cracklingly good dialog and well-developed themes.  My vote goes to Patrick Marber.
My Prediction:  Monahan took the Writers' Guild of America prize, but they usually only get one of the two right and I'm already going with their pick in the other category.  Still, The Departed is the only Best Picture nominee in this category, and the Academy never picks movies written by mobs of people, likely eliminating both Borat and Children of Men.  If Cohen had been nominated for Best Actor, I'd have more of a sense that a Borat consolation prize might be in the works here, but I sense that its' appeal lies mostly with younger Academy voters.  Enough to get nominated, but not to win.  I'm sticking with William Monahan.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
Who's Nominated: Cars, Happy Feet, Monster House
My Preference:  Three good movies, but my favorite was Monster House for the way it took me back to the “old house”-hating spookiness of my childhood.  It also featured the most amazing animation, particularly in the title structure's climactic rampage.
My Prediction:  Tough, TOUGH call between Cars and Happy Feet.  Honestly, it's kinda a coinflip, but I'm guessing the Academy will go with director George Miller's live-action track record (he's never won an Oscar) and Happy Feet's environmental themes over the more conventional Cars.

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Who's Nominated: After The Wedding (Denmark), Days of Glory (Algeria), The Lives of Others (Germany), Pan's Labyrinth (Mexico), Water (Canada).
My Preference:  I've only seen one of these, but I loved it so that I'm confident going with Pan's Labyrinth.
My Prediction:  It's the first fantasy movie ever nominated in the category, but its' WWII setting will likely make voters see Pan's Labyrinth as “important” enough to merit a win.  For an upset, look to The Lives of Others.

And there you have it.  And yes, I will face the music for these picks in a blog entry next Monday.  Until then, enjoy the show, it's the only one we've got!