(Note for the casual reader: DGA, WGA, and SAG refer to the Directors Guild, the Writers Guild, and the Screen Actors Guild, respectively.)

The strange thing about this year’s race is that there are no frontrunners. Or, there are a lot of frontrunners. For the 2003 race, it was Return of the King all the way, with Mystic River hovering behind it. In 2004, it was Million Dollar Baby vs. The Aviator. Last year was a bitter fight to the end between Brokeback Mountain and Crash.

This year, while there seems to be a consensus about what will be nominated for Best Picture, who really knows? Dreamgirls has lost some steam and the reviews weren’t unanimous. The Departed lost the Best Picture – Drama award at the Golden Globes to Babel, which has mixed reviews and a (currently) pitiful box office. Little Miss Sunshine seems to fit the requisite indie slot – but the Academy has never liked comedies. The Queen? Well, The Queen is a fairly sure thing for a nomination. But it won’t win.

I’m very tempted, in light of all this, to say that the nomination announcements tomorrow morning will be extremely surprising, with a lot of dark horse inclusions. Naomi Watts for The Painted Veil? Sure! Children of Men’s Alfonso Cuaron for Best Director? Bring him on! Pan’s Labyrinth cracking any major award that’s not called Best Foreign Language Film? How cool would that be?

However, from experience we know that the Academy Award nominations are rarely revelatory. For every nomination that City of God or Talk to Her swipes out of nowhere, everything else pretty much follows the general consensus of predictions very closely. So while there may in fact be a few surprises (come on, Children of Men!), I’m not expecting any miracles.

Then again, Academy hero Clint Eastwood released two major Oscar-baiting films this fall and neither of them caught much of any buzz. So anything’s possible.

BEST PICTURE:

Dreamgirls

The Departed

Babel

The Queen

Little Miss Sunshine

Notes:

-The best chance for an upset here is Letters from Iwo Jima replacing Little Miss Sunshine. I can’t help but think Clint Eastwood has magical powers with the Academy…or maybe he just makes really good films.

-United 93 remains a complete wild card. It won a lot of critics society awards and is a real potential for Picture, Director, and Original Screenplay. My own feeling remains that not enough Academy members have brought themselves to see it (unlike the critics, who generally had to). But more so than any other film in memory, it has the potential to wreak havoc on the nominations if it has quietly gained enough support.

BEST DIRECTOR:

Martin Scorsese, The Departed

Alejandro Gonzalez-Inarritu, Babel

Clint Eastwood, Letters from Iwo Jima

Bill Condon, Dreamgirls

Stephen Frears, The Queen

Notes:

-Letters of Iwo Jima has been low-key enough that it could really swing either way – a complete snub (which is what happened with the Director’s Guild) is not out of the question. However, I think if they award it anywhere, it will be here.

-Get ready to hear the phrase “is this Martin Scorsese’s year?” a lot.

-In most recent years, there has been an out-of-left-field Director nominee. So while my heart says Alfonso Cuaron, it stands to reason that the true dark horse could be Pan’s Labyrinth’s Guillermo Del Toro.

BEST ACTOR:

Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland

Leonardo DiCaprio, The Departed

Peter O’Toole, Venus

Will Smith, The Pursuit of Happyness

Sacha Baron Cohen, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

Notes:

-The acting winners this year are the easiest things to call at the moment. So far, Whitaker, Mirren, Murphy, and Hudson are all solid frontrunners.

-While Pursuit of Happyness wasn’t an out-and-out critical hit, it’s hard to ignore a Will Smith feel-good movie that grosses 150+ million stateside.

-The critics and press were aroused way too much by Borat for me to think that they’ll ignore him. They love this guy. If Johnny Depp got in for the first Pirates, I don’t see why Sacha Baron Cohen can’t.

-Ryan Gosling for Half Nelson is the underdog favorite, and he’s got a SAG award to back him up. He has a more than solid shot, but who does he replace? Conventional wisdom says Cohen, but could DiCaprio get shut out as a result of a split between The Departed and Blood Diamond?

BEST ACTRESS:

Helen Mirren, The Queen

Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada

Kate Winslet, Little Children

Judi Dench, Notes on a Scandal

Penelope Cruz, Volver

Notes:

-By far the easiest race to call. As is usual, the Best Actress race never has much competition and frontrunners are established early. Annette Bening looked strong for Running with Scissors until the movie flopped with audiences and critics.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:

Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls

Jack Nicholson, The Departed

Djimon Honsou, Blood Diamond

Jackie Earle Haley, Little Children

Michael Sheen, The Queen

Notes:

-By far the hardest race to call. Too many options without enough clear frontrunners.

-The SAG awards, which are usually a solid precursor, got screwed up when DiCaprio was placed in Supporting Actor for The Departed, probably taking one of his own co-star’s slots. So while I would love for Mark Wahlberg to get in as well, I’ll go with Jack Nicholson. But the male supporting cast is so strong in that movie that a split between the two of them, potentially along with Matt Damon, could leave them all out.

-Alan Arkin is taking Michael Sheen’s place on most prediction lists, but I think the nominations sweep of The Queen in the top categories (Picture, Actress, Director, Screenplay) will usher in Sheen as well. The Academy loves a good British movie.

-So what happens to Alan Arkin? I may be fatally underestimating Little Miss Sunshine here, but his role just seems too small, without any “big scene” to stand out in voters’ minds. He’ll probably make it in, but hey: no guts, no glory.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:

Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls

Adriana Barraza, Babel

Rinko Kikuchi, Babel

Cate Blanchett, Notes on a Scandal

Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine

Notes:

-I’m sticking with the SAG awards on this one, 5 for 5. No one else seems strong enough. Adriana Barraza has surprised me with her prevalence in the precursors – Rinko Kikuchi seemed to get most of the critical love for Babel -- but her inclusion in the Golden Globe nominations reassures me.

-Could Half Nelson’s Shareeka Epps pull a dark horse nomination? I’d say it was possible if there wasn’t already another cute kid on the ballot, and Breslin was the one to get the SAG nomination.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY:

The Queen

Little Miss Sunshine

Babel

Pan’s Labyrinth

United 93

Notes:

-Fearing a surprise showing by United 93, I’m placing it here, where critically lauded films that are snubbed in other categories tend to go. In that vein, I’m also including the late-in-the-game buzz-grabber Pan’s Labyrinth.

-The other three nominations are sure things.

-Other possibilities: Clint Eastwood’s double force of Flags of our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima, which will probably split some votes but you shouldn’t count out. Stranger than Fiction scored a surprise nomination from the WGA but has been otherwise nonexistent.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:

Children of Men

The Departed

Little Children

Notes on a Scandal

Thank You For Smoking

Notes:

-Children of Men! Children of Men! That’s my heart clouding my judgment, but it still has a solid shot. It won the Scripter award but was snubbed from a WGA nomination. Not sure what to make of that. And it had a surge of late-in-the-game buzz, but was it too late? Let’s hope not.

-The movies taking its place on the WGA list? Borat and The Devil Wears Prada. If either of those squeeze in – which is a real possibility – I will be very angry. As much as they all love Borat, it’s really hard to nominate a movie for Adapted Screenplay…that barely even had a screenplay. A bunch of catchphrases and unscripted comments from stupid Americans do not a screenplay make. The Devil Wears Prada’s screenplay, meanwhile, was a perfectly acceptable and well-done mainstream adaption of a chick-lit book. But c’mon – would it really be garnering awards attention if it wasn’t a box office sleeper hit?

-Thank You For Smoking was an early-year indie hit with a smart script, but if the Academy has a short memory, there are a few other well-liked indie hits that could take the slot, most notably The Illusionist and The Last King of Scotland.

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There you go friends. Another year, another list of predictions. As is the case with last year, I'm not going to predict the other categories, because except for purists, no one really cares. I actually do care -- let's hope films like Children of Men and The Departed boost their nomination count with categories like Art Direction or Editing -- but not enough to predict them all. There's always some category like Documentary Short to screw over my percent-correct stat.