Oscar Forecast: Director, Picture and the rest

When it comes to the Best Picture and Best Director categories at this year's Oscars, one category is settled and the other is as wide open as it has ever been.

The settled category is Best Director. Martin Scorsese, it seems, will finally get the statuette that he has deserved for thirty years (I think he should have won in 1976 for Taxi Driver, but of course he wasn't even nominated by the Academy). Counting screenplay nominations, he now has eight, and all signs point to him winning for The Departed, which some feel is one of his better efforts. But hey, Al Pacino finally won for Scent of a Woman, one of his worst performances. It's all about timing.

Scorsese had two publicized courtships with Oscar in the last few years but was left at the altar both times. This year, everyone associated with The Departed pooh-poohed Oscar talk and said it was just a good old-fashioned crime film. This strategy seems to have worked, and expect Scorsese to get a standing ovation as he accepts the trophy.

If Scorsese stumbles, it's hard to know who would take the prize. Some whisper about Paul Greengrass for United 93, but these people seem to have conveniently forgotten that no director has ever won when the picture was not nominated for Best Picture. There's also the presence of Clint Eastwood in this category (for directing Letters From Iwo Jima), who the Academy has bestowed with many hosannas over the last decade, but he won just two years ago (also over Scorsese), so maybe some will say, "Enough!"

Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu could be Scorsese's strongest competition, for his film Babel. Often a picture is more obviously directed than others, and Babel is one of those, with multi-storylines and a high concept. Babel is also a front-runner for Best Picture (see below), so it only makes sense that Gonzalez Innaritu would reap the benefit. Finally, Stephen Frears is nominated for The Queen. If Babel is a film that has been directed to a fare-thee-well, The Queen is the opposite, without many gimmicks or tricks. Of course, this is not an indication of work well done, but it may seem that way.

The Best Picture category is as wide open as I can remember. A reasonable argument could be made for all five pictures, but I think three of them have a decent shot. I'm going to go with Babel as the film that takes it all, beating The Departed by a nose and Little Miss Sunshine by a head. Babel won the Golden Globe for best drama, which is not a reliable indicator, while The Departed won the Director's Guild award for Scorsese. Little Miss Sunshine won the SAG award for Best Ensemble, another precursor which is hit or miss (Gosford Park, Sideways and The Birdcage also won this award). Babel, though, has a certain gravitas that I think Academy members will want to reward. Surely it has its detractors, but a film can win this award with 21 percent of the vote.

Normally The Departed would be a mortal lock in this category, for the DGA award is the most reliable precursor. However, given Scorsese's celebrity, it is certainly possible that there are voters who will split the ticket, voting for him but not voting for The Departed for Best Picture. It used to be a rare thing for Picture and Director to go to different films, but it has happened four times in the last nine years. Spreading the wealth seems to be a trend. The Departed, while a fun flick, is not the kind of searing drama of say, The Godfather, and the body count at the end is almost comical.

Little Miss Sunshine is an interesting case. Going into the nominations, it was the little engine that could, an indie film with a small budget that snuck into the party. Now some think it will win, but I don't, and I have a wonky reason. The film did not get a Best Director nomination, nor was it nominated for Best Editing. No film has won the top prize without being nominated in these two categories since Grand Hotel in 1932, and there wasn't an editing award then. Also, it's a comedy, and there hasn't been one of those winning since Annie Hall almost thirty years ago.

Letters From Iwo Jima can't totally be counted out, given the Academy's affection for Clint Eastwood. After Flags of Our Fathers was a bust at the box office, the companion film was rushed into release. It has lots of gravitas, but it is in Japanese (no film has ever won this award with a majority of the dialogue not in English). And I think there is some Eastwood fatigue. Finally, The Queen is my choice for best picture of the year, and it has all the right nominations, but I think it will be also-ran here, perhaps for its extreme Britishness, or that it is perceived more as a "nice" little film, kind of a very good TV movie.

Here are my final picks:

Best Picture: Babel
Best Director: Martin Scorsese
Best Actor: Forest Whitaker
Best Actress: Helen Mirren
Best Supporting Actor: Alan Arkin
Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Hudson
Best Original Screenplay: Little Miss Sunshine
Best Adapted Screenplay: The Departed
Best Animated Film: Cars
Best Makeup: Pan's Labyrinth
Best Foreign Film: Pan's Labyrinth
Best Art Direction: Dreamgirls
Best Cinematography: Children of Men
Best Costumes: Dreamgirls
Best Visual Effects: Pirates of the Caribbean
Best Editing: Babel
Best Score: The Queen
Best Song: Listen, from Dreamgirls
Best Sound Mixing: Dreamgirls
Best Sound Editing: Pirates of the Caribbean
Best Documentary Feature: An Inconvenient Truth

As for the Short Subjects, I haven't a clue.