Jeff Bayer is not just my friend, colleague, and podcast co-host. He is also my rival and sworn enemy. So on this week’s “Movie B.S. with Bayer and Snider,” we wagered on who could correctly predict the most winners at Sunday’s Academy Awards. The loser has to watch and live-tweet an episode of “Two and a Half Men,” while the winner gets to not do that.

But Jeff doesn’t just like to wager! He likes to wager in a complicated fashion, hence the “confidence rankings” of our Oscar predictions. Here’s how it works: First you make your predictions for each of the 24 categories. Then you arrange them in order of how confident you are that you’re right. The one you’re most certain of will be worth 24 points if it actually wins; the one you were totally taking a wild guess on gets 1 point if it happens to prove correct. Whoever has the most points at the end of the show is the winner.

Here are my predictions, ranked in order of confidence. Jeff’s are here. Many of our predictions are the same, but we vary quite a bit in our levels of confidence. For example, if I’m right about the Best Makeup category, I’ll get 19 points, whereas Jeff will only get 3 if he’s right. And again, the loser has to live-tweet an episode of “Two and a Half Men,” so there’s a lot at stake.

24 – Animated Feature: “Toy Story 3″
23 – Actor: Colin Firth, “The King’s Speech”
22 – Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, “The Fighter”
21 – Screenplay, Adapted: “The Social Network”
20 – Cinematography: “True Grit”
19 – Makeup: “The Wolfman”
18 – Picture: “The King’s Speech”
17 – Director: David Fincher, “The Social Network”
16 – Actress: Natalie Portman, “Black Swan”
15 – Supporting Actress: Hailee Steinfeld, “True Grit”
14 – Screenplay, Original: “The King’s Speech”
13 – Documentary Feature: “Inside Job”
12 – Sound Editing: “Inception”
11 – Sound Mixing: “Inception”
10 – Visual Effects: “Inception”
9 – Film Editing: “The Social Network”
8 – Original Score: “The King’s Speech”
7 – Art Direction: “The King’s Speech”
6 – Costume Design: “Alice in Wonderland”
5 – Foreign-Language Film: “In a Better World”
4 – Animated Short: “The Gruffalo”
3 – Documentary Short: “Killing in the Name”
2 – Original Song: “We Belong Together,” from “Toy Story 3″
1 – Live-Action Short: “The Confession”

Very few of the awards at last night’s Oscars were a surprise, but the show itself was noteworthy for being slightly different from the norm. I appreciate that the producers, Laurence Mark and Bill Condon, actually made some changes in the way things were presented. Considering the show is usually identical from one year to the next, it’s almost irrelevant whether the changes were successful — I give ‘em credit just for trying.

And I really liked the one major alteration, where each of the acting awards was given out by five previous winners in that category. It was cool to see, for example, Sophia Loren (who looked like a witch from an old Italian book of fairy tales) speaking directly to nominee Meryl Streep and talking about her performance in “Doubt.” Or Robert De Niro ribbing Sean Penn while praising his work in “Milk.” And how awesome must that be for the nominees, many of them first-timers, to have a certified Oscar-winner single them out for a few seconds of sincere praise? Except Robert Downey Jr., of course, who had to get his from Cuba Gooding Jr.

The show was almost 3 1/2 hours long, but it flowed more smoothly and with more energy than it usually does. It never got mired in any overlong montages or boring tributes. Hugh Jackman’s song-and-dance numbers might have been cheesy and old-fashioned, but darned if they weren’t pretty well produced, too. Moving the orchestra out of the pit to bring the stage closer to the audience was a great call, and the sets were nifty. Good show, Oscars! Good show!

As for the awards, I correctly predicted 18 out of 24, which is the best I’ve done in a while. I’m kicking myself for missing Best Song and Best Score — they both went to “Slumdog Millionaire,” which in hindsight should have been a no-brainer. I also missed two of the short categories, which are always a crapshoot.

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It’s Oscar season, and there’s lots to talk about!

First, check out my exclusive Cinematical piece on the changes they’ve made for this year’s show.

If you’re in the mood for company, you can join me at Cinematical during the show, the first hour of which (5:30-6:30 Pacific Time) I’ll be live-blogging. It should be fun! Maybe! I’ve never live-blogged before!

Finally, here are my predictions. I’m on a streak here, having correctly predicted 13 out of 24 categories last year and the year before. I want that number to go up, though. I’m pretty sure my ESP is more in tune with Academy thinking this time around. No time to get into the details of why I think these will be the winners — just mark ‘em down, because THESE ARE GOLD! (A complete list of nominees can be found here.)

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My pal Jeff Bayer has a site called The Scorecard Review, which rates various elements of a film on a scale of 1-10, making it the perfect movie-review site for numerophiles and illiterates. He also has the TSR Movie Awards, designed as an alternative to the Oscars, and he is eagerly awaiting YOUR vote! Yes, YOURS!

He writes:

It’s that time again …

The Academy Awards just don’t cut it. Every year I watch, and every year I think they get something wrong.
Not only that, why can’t there be more than five nominations? Categories that fans care about (no offense “Best Achievement in Sound Editing), and why can’t we know who got second place?

Instead of sitting still — I created the Scorecard Movie Awards.

Categories range from the typical (Best Overall Cast, Best Actor, Best Film) to the atypical (Best Ending, Best Quote, Funniest).

If you have seen two movies or 200, it doesn’t matter. You only vote for the films you have seen.

There are 27 questions including the Hall of Fame.

Enjoy.

Here’s the link. Go vote! Come on! WHO’S IT GONNA HURT??

The Oscars were reasonably short (3:17), reasonably entertaining, and not terribly surprising. Jon Stewart was very funny (Gaydolf Titler!), Helen Mirren was elegant even while saying the word “cojones,” and a whole lot of foreigners won awards. Several of the acceptance speeches were actually quite touching and sweet, which is rare.

I correctly predicted 13 out of 24, same as last year. I note that while I intentionally avoided matching Entertainment Weekly’s predictions in the short categories because of their poor track record, this year we split: EW got the documentary short right, I got the animated short, and we both missed the narrative short.

The big winner of the night was “No Country for Old Men.” That’s only the second time since I started doing top 10 lists in 1999 that my pick for the year’s best film actually won the Oscar for Best Picture. (The other time was “Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.”) Am I starting to have the same tastes as the Academy? Am I turning into an old white liberal rich man? I hope so!

“No Country” won four prizes. The second biggest haul was three awards for … “The Bourne Ultimatum”? It won all three of its categories (editing, sound editing, and sound mixing) — not bad, considering the first two “Bourne” films didn’t even get nominated for anything.

After the jump, the complete list of winners, in case you didn’t watch the show and haven’t been anywhere else on the Internet yet today.

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I correctly predicted 13 out of 24 awards last year, and I was very proud of that, as a lot of categories last year had no obvious frontrunner. So I think I’m on a hot streak right now. I’m feelin’ good about these picks. Bet on ‘em. I’m goin’ 24 for 24 this year, baby!

Best Picture
Nominees: Atonement, Juno, Michael Clayton, No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood.
Should win: I believe No Country was the best film of 2007 — and lookee here, it was nominated for Best Picture, too! (It doesn’t always turn out that way.)
Will win: It’s gonna win, too. Atonement doesn’t have a chance (a film rarely wins Best Picture without having a director nomination), Juno is the “it’s cute, but let’s be serious here” entry, Michael Clayton just doesn’t have the momentum, and too many people think There Will Be Blood is weird.

Best Director
Nominees: Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood; Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men; Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton; Jason Reitman, Juno; Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.
Should & will win: The Coens. They’ve got the momentum to win it, having already taken awards from quite a few other guilds and critics groups.

Best Actor
Nominees: George Clooney, Michael Clayton; Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood; Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street; Tommy Lee Jones, In the Valley of Elah; Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises.
Should win: I saw no better performance all year than Jones’ in Valley of Elah. That man is a marvel.
Will win: … but nobody saw that movie, and besides — they’d rather vote for Jones in No Country for Old Men. Mortensen is out, considering his is the film’s only nomination. Depp and Clooney are both Hollywood favorites, but they can’t pass Day-Lewis, who’s been lauded for this role since before the movie was released.

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Jerry Seinfeld presented the Oscar for Best Documentary at the Academy Awards last week, and he used the opportunity to go off on a couple of Seinfeldian tangents. Here is a transcript:

A few years ago, I was the subject of a documentary called “Comedian,” which won nothing and made even less. But it was good, it was so good that as a direct result, I have been asked to be here tonight to present the award for outstanding documentary feature. And I love documentaries. I find them to have a very real quality.

And I know all the nominees are excited, because when you are nominated, you’re being told, “We think you might be the best. MIGHT. We won’t know definitely until you get all dressed up and get in a room together with all the other people, and on TV, because if by some chance it should turn out that you are not the best, we all want to see the look on your face when you get the news.”

I’m a huge fan of movies in general. I go all the time. I’ve noticed in theaters now they’re running some announcement trying to get you to pick up the garbage from around your seat. Oh, OK! Let me bring my orange jumpsuit and a wooden stick with a nail in it, too! Maybe I’ll work my way down the highway after the credits roll.

I’m not pickin’ nothin’ up! I’m the one that threw it down. How many different jobs do I have to do here?! There is an agreed-upon deal between us and the movie-theater people, it’s understood by every single person in this room. The deal is, YOU rip us off on overpriced, oversized crap that we shouldn’t be eating to begin with, and in exchange for that, when I’m done with something [holds out hand as if holding a soda cup], I open my hand [opens hand, letting the cup fall]. I’m not stickin’ my hand down into a dark hole to try and pry out three Goobers that have been soda-welded there since “The Shawshank Redemption” — which is not a nominee this evening, but these five incredibly depressing movies are. [Lists nominees; presents award.]

It was a good routine, typical Seinfeldian observational humor, and it got laughs. Not laughing, however, was John Sinno, producer of the nominated documentary “Iraq in Fragments.” On Friday, every movie critic and industry writer in the universe (even me) got this whiny e-mail from him:

An open letter to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

I had the great fortune of attending the 79th Academy Awards following my nomination as producer for a film in the Best Documentary Feature category. At the Awards ceremony, most categories featured an introduction that glorified the filmmakers’ craft and the role it plays for the film audience and industry. But when comedian Jerry Seinfeld introduced the award for Best Documentary Feature, he began by referring to a documentary that features himself as a subject, then proceeded to poke fun at it by saying it won no awards and made no money. He then revealed his love of documentaries, as they have a very “real” quality, while making a comically sour face. [I guess that's open to interpretation. I didn't take Seinfeld's expression on that joke to be "sour," merely deadpan.] This less-than-flattering beginning was followed by a lengthy digression that had nothing whatsoever to do with documentary films. [What?! An irrelevant tangent?! At the OSCARS?!?!] The clincher, however, came when he wrapped up his introduction by calling all five nominated films “incredibly depressing!”

While I appreciate the role of humor in our lives, [Do you really? Or are you just saying that?] Jerry Seinfeld’s remarks were made at the expense of thousands of documentary filmmakers and the entire documentary genre. [Then how come you're the only one complaining about it?] Obviously we make films not for awards or money, although we are glad if we are fortunate enough to receive them. The important thing is to tell stories, whether of people who have been damaged by war, of humankind’s reckless attitude toward nature and the environment, or even of the lives and habits of penguins. With his lengthy, dismissive and digressive introduction, Jerry Seinfeld had no time left for any individual description of the five nominated films. And by labeling the documentaries “incredibly depressing,” he indirectly told millions of viewers not to bother seeing them because they’re nothing but downers. [Actually, I think what he did was make a joke that was funny because it reflected what most people think about documentaries. It was based on a generalization, like 90 percent of all humor.] He wasted a wonderful opportunity to excite viewers about the nominated films and about the documentary genre in general.

To have a presenter introduce a category with such disrespect for the nominees and their work is counter to the principles the Academy was founded upon. To be nominated for an Academy Award is one of the highest honors our peers can give us, and to have the films dismissed in such an offhand fashion was deeply insulting. The Academy owes all documentary filmmakers an apology.

Seinfeld’s introduction arrived on the heels of an announcement by the Academy that the number of cities where documentary films must screen to qualify for an Academy Award is being increased by 75%. This will make it much more difficult for independent filmmakers’ work to qualify for the Best Documentary Feature Award, while giving an advantage to films distributed by large studios. Fewer controversial films will qualify for Academy consideration, and my film Iraq in Fragments would have been disqualified this year. This announcement came as a great disappointment to me and to other documentary filmmakers. I hope the Academy will reconsider its decision.

On a final note, I would like to point out that there was no mention of the Iraq War during the Oscar telecast, though it was on the minds of many in the theatre and of millions of viewers. It is wonderful to see the Academy support the protection of the environment. Unfortunately there is more than just one inconvenient truth in this world. Having mention of the Iraq War avoided altogether was a painful reminder for many of us that our country is living in a state of denial. As filmmakers, it is the greatest professional crime we can commit not to speak out with the truth. We owe it to the public.

I hope what I have said is taken to heart. It comes from my concern for the cinematic art and its crucial role in the times we’re living in.

John Sinno
Academy Award Nominee, Iraq In Fragments
Co-Founder, Northwest Documentary Association

Sinno does make a good point in stating that most awards are prefaced with some kind of tribute to the craft involved (writing, editing, art direction, etc.). But that is not true of the “best picture” awards. When they present Best Picture, Best Animated Film, Best Foreign-Language Film, and Best Documentary, there’s usually just a little banter and then a list of the nominees. They don’t talk about how animation works, or how amazing it is that movies are being made in foreign languages. They just do some shtick and hand out the trophy. True, they don’t usually make fun of the category, either, but come on. Lighten up a little.

And Sinno completely loses me with his next-to-last paragraph, the one about how there was no mention of the Iraq War during the Oscars. Guess what, John: There was no mention of pedophile priests or fundamentalist Christians, either (the topics of the other nominated documentaries). And there wouldn’t have been any references to global warming (and I’ll grant you there were too many) were it not for the fact that “An Inconvenient Truth” had been discussed and debated extensively in the media for the past year and was now the frontrunner to win, with a former U.S. vice president in attendance to support it.

Mention of the Iraq War was not “avoided,” as you put it; it just didn’t come up. Do you really think liberal Hollywood has somehow magically forgotten about the Iraq War and how much they’re against it? That’s absurd! Believe me, everyone in that room (along with most of America) was just as opposed to the Iraq War as you are. The fact that they failed to turn the Oscars into an anti-war demonstration does not indicate that they have gone into a state of denial and are pretending Iraq doesn’t exist. Global warming didn’t get mentioned last year, but I assure you, lots of people were still concerned about it. The recurring themes of any given Oscar ceremony don’t necessarily indicate the Number One Thing People Are Thinking About. They mostly just reflect what’s “big” at the moment with regard to the nominees, and “An Inconvenient Truth” was the high-profile “message” film this year. That’s all it means, nothing more.

Also: I would bet money that if “Iraq in Fragments” had won, this letter would not have been written.

So I ask you, readers: Were you offended by Seinfeld’s appearance at the Oscars? (I’m talking about if you actually saw it. You can’t go by my transcript; it’s always funnier in the delivery.) Did you think, at the time, that he was out of line, or that it was inappropriate? Or did that viewpoint not even occur to you until you saw John Sinno’s letter? I was astonished at the idea of someone as mainstream and un-edgy as Jerry Seinfeld being considered offensive, but I’m curious what others think.

Wow, was everyone off on their Oscar predictions. Yeah, we got most of the big ones right (Scorsese, Mirren, Whitaker, Hudson, etc.), but everything else was all over the map.

“Pan’s Labyrinth” wins three — the second-highest total of the night — yet fails to win Best Foreign-Language Film, which seemed like its most obvious victory.

“Dreamgirls,” which led the Oscars with eight nominations, got only two wins. Three of the five Best Song nominees were from “Dreamgirls,” yet it still managed to lose that category.

“An Inconvenient Truth,” which everyone figured was a lock for Best Documentary, did indeed win that award. But it also won Best Song, thus putting it ahead of the much-ballyhooed “Babel,” which got only one prize all night long. Poor “Babel.” Poor, crappy “Babel.”

There were surprising upsets (Alan Arkin over Eddie Murphy for Best Supporting Actor; “Happy Feet” over “Cars” for Best Animated Feature), but there were some comforting sure things, too. Helen Mirren is gorgeous, classy, and supremely talented; we should give her awards any chance we get. Martin Scorsese has finally won an Oscar, which helps to right a lot of the unbalance in the universe.

And though “The Departed” wasn’t the best film of 2006 — I’m not even sure it was the best of the five Best Picture nominees — it’s likable enough that we can be happy with its winning the big prize. I know people who didn’t see “The Departed,” and I know people who weren’t blown away by it. But I don’t know anyone who actually disliked it, the way a lot of people have disliked certain past Best Pictures (“Crash,” “Titanic,” “American Beauty,” and “The English Patient,” to name a few). We can feel good about “The Departed.”

Most of all, I am happy about this: I correctly predicted 13 out of 24 awards. That’s not very good, but it’s better than my friend Chris Clark, who routinely outguesses me but who this year only got 11 right. SUCK IT, CLARK!

* * *

As for the show itself:

I’m browsing around the Interwebs, and I’m discovering that I seem to be in the minority for liking the show! In fact, I thought it was one of the most diverse and entertaining broadcasts of recent years. I liked the opening montage of nominees, I liked the dancers making silhouettes of movie images, I liked the medley of movie sound effects as created by a choir of humans, I liked the song by Will Ferrell, Jack Black, and John C. Reilly, and I liked carefully watching Jennifer Hudson’s breasts to see if they would fall out of her dress. (Beyonce, meet Be-ouncy.)

All that stuff was slightly different from the norm, a little creative, a little vaudeville-variety-show-Ed-Sullivan-y. I didn’t love everything about the show — still lots of dull tributes and special awards and so forth — but overall, I came away from it with positive feelings. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe it was the seven doughnuts and one liter of Diet Dr Pepper that I consumed over the course of the broadcast.
* * *

The winners:

Picture: “The Departed”
Director: Martin Scorsese, “The Departed”
Actor: Forest Whitaker, “The Last King of Scotland”
Actress: Helen Mirren, “The Queen”
Supporting Actor: Alan Arkin, “Little Miss Sunshine”
Supporting Actress: Jennifer Hudson, “Dreamgirls”
Original Screenplay: “Little Miss Sunshine”
Adapted Screenplay: “The Departed”
Cinematography: “Pan’s Labyrinth”
Editing: “The Departed”
Foreign-Language Film: “The Lives of Others”
Documentary: “An Inconvenient Truth”
Animated Film: “Happy Feet”
Makeup: “Pan’s Labyrinth”
Art Direction: “Pan’s Labyrinth”
Sound Mixing: “Dreamgirls”
Sound Editing: “Letters from Iwo Jima”
Visual Effects: “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest”
Costume Design: “Marie Antoinette”
Original Score: “Babel”
Original Song: “I Need to Wake Up,” from “An Inconvenient Truth”
Animated Short: “The Danish Poet”
Documentary Short: “The Blood of Yingzhou District”
Live-Action Short: “West Bank Story”

It’s a crazy, wide-open year for the Oscars. Usually the film with the most nominations is the frontrunner for Best Picture — except that this year, for the first time in history, the film with the most nominations, “Dreamgirls,” didn’t get a Best Picture nomination.

Furthermore: The total number of nominations for the five Best Picture contenders (26) is the lowest in decades. For the first time since the very first Oscars, none of the Best Actor nominees are from Best Picture films. None of the Best Picture films have Best Cinematography nods.

So it’s difficult to predict an overall winner. As Entertainment Weekly pointed out, if “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” wins the four technical Oscars it’s nominated for, that could easily be more than any other film gets. A situation where no film gets more than one Oscar is not impossible, too.

Here are my predictions. I usually do fairly well, although that whole “Crash” thing last year upset everybody.

BEST PICTURE
Nominees: “Babel,” “The Departed,” “Letters from Iwo Jima,” “Little Miss Sunshine,” “The Queen”
Should win: Of these five, “The Queen” is the best film, though “The Departed” is right up there.
Will win: No film that is wholly or largely in a foreign language has ever won Best Picture, so “Babel” and “Letters from Iwo Jima” are out. No film whose only acting nomination is for Best Actress has ever won Best Picture, so “The Queen” is out. Only once has a remake ever won Best Picture (“Ben-Hur”), so “The Departed” has the odds against it. Of course, so does “Little Miss Sunshine,” since it’s very rare for a film to win Best Picture without being nominated for Best Director. My point? If we let history be our guide, none of these films are likely winners, but obviously one of ‘em has to win. I think it’s going to be “The Departed,” due largely to the Academy’s affection for Martin Scorsese.

(My friend Chris Clark, who routinely out-guesses me, is calling for “Little Miss Sunshine” in an upset. If he turns out to be right, then I will officially start tailoring all my predictions to match his from now on.)

BEST DIRECTOR
Nominees: Clint Eastwood, “Letters from Iwo Jima”; Stephen Frears, “The Queen”; Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, “Babel”; Paul Greengrass, “United 93″; Martin Scorsese, “The Departed”
Should win: Paul Greengrass did the most impressive work with the haunting “United 93″ — but I suspect if I were an Academy voter, I’d probably vote for Scorsese anyway.
Will win: Whether they think he deserves it for “The Departed” or not, everyone in Hollywood wants Martin Scorsese to be an Oscar winner. It’s just how the world should be.

BEST ACTOR
Nominees: Leonardo DiCaprio, “Blood Diamond”; Ryan Gosling, “Half Nelson”; Peter O’Toole, “Venus”; Will Smith, “The Pursuit of Happyness”; Forest Whitaker, “The Last King of Scotland”
Should win: Whitaker’s work as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin truly is outstanding. O’Toole got an honorary Oscar two years ago, so it’s not like he’ll die empty-handed if “Venus” turns out to be his last worthy performance. My sentimentality only goes so far.
Will win: While O’Toole is a more beloved Hollywood figure than Whitaker, I think quality will win out and Whitaker will take home the prize.

BEST ACTRESS
Nominees: Penelope Cruz, “Volver”; Judi Dench, “Notes on a Scandal”; Helen Mirren, “The Queen”; Meryl Streep, “The Devil Wears Prada”; Kate Winslet, “Little Children”
Should win: Mirren, no question. The others are good, even great in some cases, but none of them accomplish as much as Mirren.
Will win: This is the only real lock of the night. Mirren has been the front-runner since Day One, and no one is coming close to defeating her.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Nominees: Alan Arkin, “Little Miss Sunshine”; Jackie Earle Haley, “Little Children”; Djimon Hounsou, “Blood Diamond”; Eddie Murphy, “Dreamgirls”; Mark Wahlberg, “The Departed”
Should win: Hounsou’s performance is one-note, and his movie isn’t very good. Apart from that, all the nominees are worthy of the award. I’d give it to Murphy, though, who showed a dramatic new side of himself in “Dreamgirls.”
Will win: The horrible ads for the horrible “Norbit” certainly haven’t endeared Murphy to voters in the last few weeks, but I think his momentum is such that he’ll win anyway. He’s the one people have been talking about for months.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Nominees: Adriana Barraza, “Babel”; Cate Blanchett, “Notes on a Scandal”; Abigail Breslin, “Little Miss Sunshine”; Jennifer Hudson, “Dreamgirls”; Rinko Kikuchi, “Babel”
Should win: Hudson blows the roof off with her show-stopping number in “Dreamgirls,” but let’s be honest: In the rest of the movie, she’s nothing special. Blanchett is the best of the lot.
Will win: Voters love Blanchett, but they’re used to loving her, so her performance in “Notes on a Scandal,” while excellent, doesn’t stand out. The “Babel” actresses cancel each other out. Breslin is too young. Hudson it is.

BEST FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM
Nominees: “After the Wedding,” “Days of Glory,” “The Lives of Others,” “Pan’s Labyrinth,” “Water”
Should win: I’ve only seen the last two, but “Pan’s Labyrinth” made my overall top 10 list for the year, so I’d be surprised if any of the others are better than it.
Will win: “Pan’s Labyrinth” is the favorite, especially since it has nominations in other categories, too, which helps reinforce it in voters’ memories.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Nominees: “The Black Dahlia,” “Children of Men,” “The Illusionist,” “Pan’s Labyrinth,” “The Prestige”
Should win: “The Black Dahlia” is impressive, but “Children of Men” is downright stunning with its lengthy tracking shots and various other effective uses of the camera.
Will win: The Academy seems to share my thinking on “Children of Men.”

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Nominees: “Babel,” “Letters from Iwo Jima,” “Little Miss Sunshine,” “Pan’s Labyrinth,” “The Queen”
Should win: The sharp, funny screenplay is really the best thing about “Little Miss Sunshine.”
Will win: It’s rare for a foreign-language screenplay to win, so that eliminates two of these (three, if you count “Babel”). “Little Miss Sunshine” is a lovable movie that a lot of voters do indeed love, its witty dialogue especially.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Nominees: “Borat,” “Children of Men,” “The Departed,” “Little Children,” “Notes on a Scandal”
Should win: “Borat” was this year’s WTF? nominee, as the mostly improvised film is neither adapted nor a screenplay. (Academy rules say films based on previously used characters must be “adapted,” even if the actual film is brand-new. Hence, any sequel, or anything based on a TV show, as “Borat” is, is “adapted.”) Anyway, “Little Children” has a tight, literate screenplay that covers multiple characters in a smooth, entertaining way.
Will win: I’m going with a general “Departed” theme for the night and predicting it will win here, too.

BEST DOCUMENTARY
Nominees: “Deliver Us from Evil,” “An Inconvenient Truth,” “Iraq in Fragments,” “Jesus Camp,” “My Country, My Country”
Should win: “Deliver Us from Evil” is a devastating expose of the Catholic Church’s cover-ups of sexual abuse, and is beautifully filmed and composed, too.
Will win: Doesn’t matter. “An Inconvenient Truth” has been the Hollywood favorite since it was released.

BEST ANIMATED FILM
Nominees: “Cars,” “Happy Feet,” “Monster House”
Should win: I didn’t dig “Cars” all that much. It’s a step down for Pixar. “Happy Feet” is better. I’m sorry, but it’s true.
Will win: Be that as it may, “Cars” is the favorite.

BEST FILM EDITING
Nominees: “Babel,” “Blood Diamond,” “Children of Men,” “The Departed,” “United 93″
Should win: “United 93″ is one of the most intense films I’ve ever seen, and it’s largely due to the careful editing. It’s really a masterpiece in that regard.
Will win: The editor of “The Departed,” Thelma Schoonmaker, has won twice before, also for Scorsese films. Seems only appropriate that she should win again on the night her boss finally gets one for himself, too.

BEST MAKEUP
Nominees: “Apocalypto,” “Click,” “Pan’s Labyrinth”
Should win: “Pan’s Labyrinth” has amazing makeup effects. “Click” is a crap movie in which Adam Sandler looks old for a couple scenes. And I don’t even remember there BEING makeup in “Apocalypto.”
Will win: Entertainment Weekly summed it up perfectly: No one in the Academy has seen “Click,” and no one in the Academy is gonna vote for a Mel Gibson film. “Pan’s Labyrinth” it is!

BEST ART DIRECTION
Nominees: “Dreamgirls,” “The Good Shepherd,” “Pan’s Labyrinth,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” “The Prestige”
Should win: “Pan’s Labyrinth” is fanciful and ornate, but also very often darkly lit. “Pirates,” on the other hand, is sumptuous, detailed, and sparklingly photographed, highlighting every buckling swash.
Will win: “Dreamgirls” will have to win some technical awards, and this will probably be one.

BEST SOUND MIXING
Nominees: “Apocalpyto,” “Blood Diamond,” “Dreamgirls,” “Flags of Our Fathers,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest”
Should win: The jungles of “Apocalypto” are quite strikingly conveyed. Plus, if it wins, it will be the first victory for sound engineer Kevin O’Connell — breaking his 18-nomination losing streak.
Will win: Musicals are generally favored in this category, making it “Dreamgirls.” Sorry, Kevin.

BEST SOUND EDITING
Nominees: “Apocalypto,” “Blood Diamond,” “Flags of Our Fathers,” “Letters from Iwo Jima,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest”
Should win: Tough call, but I’d go with “Letters” or “Apocalypto.”
Will win: The two Eastwood pictures cancel each other out, and nobody’s voting for “Apocalytpo” for anything. “Blood Diamond” doesn’t live in anyone’s memories for any reason. That makes it a “Pirates” night.

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Nominees: “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” “Poseidon,” “Superman Returns”
Should win: “Pirates” had more special effects total, and more individual ones that looked spectacular.
Will win: “Pirates.”

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Nominees: “Curse of the Golden Flower,” “The Devil Wears Prada,” “Dreamgirls,” “Marie Antoinette,” “The Queen”
Should win: It almost seems obvious that “The Devil Wears Prada” should win the costume award, right? But I have to say, the one thing “Marie Antoinette” had going for it was its fabulous, fabulous costumes.
Will win: “Dreamgirls” is the more Oscar-y movie, and that’s what generally takes this award.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Nominees: Gustavo Santaolalla, “Babel”; Thomas Newman, “The Good German”; Philip Glass, “Notes on a Scandal”; Javier Navarrete, “Pan’s Labyrinth”; Alexandre Desplat, “The Queen”
Should win: Philip Glass is a love-him-or-hate-him guy, and I love him.
Will win: Desplat’s “Queen” score seems to be the favorite here.

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
Nominees: “I Need to Wake Up,” by Melissa Etheridge, from “An Inconvenient Truth”; “Listen,” by Henry Krieger, Scott Cutler, and Anne Preven, from “Dreamgirls”; “Love You I Do,” by Henry Krieger and Siedah Garrett, from “Dreamgirls”; “Our Town,” by Randy Newman, from “Cars”; “Patience,” by Henry Krieger and Willie Reale, from “Dreamgirls”
Should win: I’m not a fan of a lot of the music from “Dreamgirls,” these three new songs included. I would probably vote for Randy Newman just because I love Randy Newman. I’d be selfish like that.
Will win: Does “Dreamgirls” split the vote? Probably not: The other two times a film has had three nominations in this category (“Beauty and the Beast” and “The Lion King”), they’ve won something. But which “Dreamgirls” tune takes it? The one sung by Beyonce, of course, “Listen.”

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM
Nominees: “The Danish Poet,” “Lifted,” “The Little Matchgirl,” “Maestro,” “No Time for Nuts”
Should win: Haven’t seen any of them.
Will win: “The Little Matchgirl.” Total guess.

BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT FILM
Nominees: “Binta and the Great Ideas,” “Eramos Pocos,” “Helmer & Son,” “The Saviour,” “West Bank Story”
Should win: Haven’t seen ‘em.
Will win: Let’s go with the singing-and-dancing “West Bank Story.”

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILM
Nominees: “The Blood of Yingzhou District,” “Recycled Life,” “Rehearsing a Dream,” “Two Hands”
Should win: Dunno.
Will win: “Two Hands” is about a guy who lost the use of one of his hands — and he was a piano player. Inspiring!

The Oscars will air LIVE at 5:30 p.m. PST (8:30 p.m. EST) Sunday on ABC.

First of all, Jon Stewart was great. His jokes were consistently funny and smart, the pre-recorded bits were hilarious, and his responses to the evening’s events were all on the mark. He was everything a host should be: funny, charming, respectful of the Oscar legacy, but not too serious about it.

Now then. The huge shock of “Crash” winning Best Picture was the night’s only real surprise, but it was a doozy. “Brokeback Mountain” was a lock. The polls of Academy insiders and Hollywood types had everyone 100 percent sure it would win.

But when you look at the night, it makes sense. It’s not like “Brokeback” was sweeping the Oscars up until the end. It had lost Cinematography (which was a surprise), and it had lost its three acting nods (which wasn’t).

However, “Brokeback” HAD won Best Director. Best Picture and Best Director usually match up. Tonight’s split marks only the 21st time out of 78 that that’s happened. (It happened a lot more frequently in the early days of the Oscars, at a time when directors were still viewed mostly as studio employees rather than artists who put their own imprimatur on their work. During the period of 1968-1980, considered to be a golden age of great directors and great films, it happened only once.)

When all was said and done, “Brokeback” had three Oscars — which is also how many Best Picture “Crash” had. And “King Kong.” And “Memoirs of a Geisha,” which everyone HATED.

That’s right, folks. No sweeps at all. The most Oscars anything won was THREE, and four movies did it. That’s the smallest haul for the “big winner” of the night since 1949. A 56-year streak of the most-awarded film always having at least four wins, and tonight we broke it. (Five is the average “most wins” number.)

(This year really was a return to old-fashioned Hollywood, as they kept telling us. Before 1949, there were six separate years where nothing won more than three awards. In 1940, no film won more than two Oscars, and five films got that many. And the second year the Oscars were given out, for films from 1928-29 [they went August-July in those days], the awards were completely even in their distribution: Seven awards were given, and they each went to a different film.)

What this big distribution of awards says to me is that while there were many excellent films last year, there was nothing that jumped out as being the clear-cut most awesome blow-you-away best picture. I noticed that when I compiled my top 10 list. My top three or four films could have gone in any order, really.

Some big shut-outs this year. “Munich” had five nominations and got nothing. “Good Night, and Good Luck” had SIX and also got nothing.

All four acting awards were their films’ only wins, despite multiple nominations for each of them.

Thanks to my 11th-hour decision to change my prediction for Best Supporting Actor, I correctly guessed 16 out of 24 awards. (It would have been 15 if I’d stuck with Matt Dillon.) My friend Chris Clark, who beats me every year, got 21 — a truly impressive figure. He and I only differed in seven categories, and in six of those instances, he was right. (We both missed the pimp number winning Best Song. I mean, who saw THAT coming?)

In the 17 categories where our predictions were identical, we both missed two. We had “Brokeback” for Cinematography and Best Picture; it won neither. But I think everyone mis-called Best Picture, so I don’t feel too bad about it.

For the record, here is the list of winners:

Best Picture: “Crash”
Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman, “Capote”
Actress: Reese Witherspoon, “Walk the Line”
Supporting Actor: George Clooney, “Syriana”
Supporting Actress: Rachel Weisz, “The Constant Gardener”
Director: Ang Lee, “Brokeback Mountain”
Foreign Film: “Tsotsi,” South Africa
Adapted Screenplay: “Brokeback Mountain”
Original Screenplay: “Crash”
Animated Feature Film: “Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit”
Art Direction: “Memoirs of a Geisha”
Cinematography: “Memoirs of a Geisha”
Sound Mixing: “King Kong”
Sound Editing: “King Kong”
Original Score: “Brokeback Mountain”
Original Song: “It’s Hard out Here for a Pimp,” from “Hustle & Flow”
Costume Design: “Memoirs of a Geisha”
Documentary Feature: “March of the Penguins”
Documentary Short: “A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin”
Film Editing: “Crash”
Makeup: “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”
Animated Short: “The Moon and the Sun”
Live Action Short: “Six Shooter”
Visual Effects: “King Kong”