Brian Braiker takes time out from his regular duties at I, Breeder to weigh in on the Oscars:

Allow us to take the occasion of the Oscars to bring up something that has been bothering us lately: Lazy headline writers of the world, the jig is up! Time to retire the cliche "there will be ..." and "no country for ..." constructs. They've both been done to death. Behold, from this month alone (we'd like to blame this on the strike, but that doesn't seem quite right):

1. There Will be Disappointment; Cinematical, 2/24/08
2. There Will be Oscars; Times-Picayune, 2/24/08
3. There Will be Gold; Baltimore Sun, 2/24/08
4. There Will be Confusion; McClatchy Newspapers, 2/24/08
5. There Will be Booze; New York Post, 2/24/08
6. There Will be ... Oscar!; The Witchita Eagle, 2/24/08
7. Oscars: This Year There Will be Milk; Anderson Herald Bulletin, 2/24/08
8. There Will be Fun Trivia About The Oscars; Cleveland Plain Dealer, 2/23/08
9. There Will be Blood; The Mirror, 2/23/08
10. There Will be Oscar Specials; Suburbarazzi, 2/22/08
11. There Will be Oscars; New York Times, 2/22/08
12. Cool Swag of the Weel: There Will be Bullwhips; Cinematical, 2/22/08
13. There Will be Gold: Oscar Picks; Express From The Washington Post (wtf?), 2/22/08
14. There Will be Cake! Portal 2 Confirmed; PC Gaming, 2/22/08
15. There Will be Blood; Seattle Post Intelligencer, 2/21/08
16. There Will be Oscars; The Guardian UK, 2/21/08
17. There Will be Stars on Sunday at the Academy Awards in Hollywood; Voice of America, 2/21/08
18. There Will be Lots of Gazing at Stars on Oscar Night; The Tampa Tribune, 2/21/08
19. Hollywood and the Internet: There Will be Blood; The Economist, 2/21/08
20. There Will be Gloom and Doom at the Oscars; New Zealand Herald, 2/21/08
21. Drink Up: There Will be Rum; Seattle Post Intelligencer, 2/20/08
22. There Will be Oil; The Grist, 2/20/08
23. There Will be Blood Over Stolen Laptop; Silicon Republic, 2/20/08
24. Eco-homes: There Will be Floods; The Independent UK, 2/20/08
25. For Scott Rudin, There will be quality; The LA Times, 2/19/08
26. There Will be Memories; New York Times, 2/19/08
27. There Will be Blood on CBS via 'Dexter'; San Jose Mercury News, 2/15/08
28. State Budget, There Will be Blood; Arizona Daily Star, 2/15/08
29. There Will be Blood; New York Times (Maureen Dowd), 2/3/08

There Will be Beating a Dead Horse. But wait! There's more:

David Ansen does an excellent job of predicting all the major categories, so I'm just going to stick to the major-major ones. Here's what I think will happen.

Best picture: Really, is there any other movie that can upset "No Country For Old Men"? Not "Atonement," which I dubbed early as the Hillary Clinton of the campaign. (Sorry Hillary, it was originally meant as a compliment.) Not "There Will Be Blood," which is too long and difficult to win. I don't see enough people voting for "Michael Clayton." "Juno" will probably be the runner up. But if "Little Miss Sunshine" couldn't pull off a victory, it won't either. The winner: "No Country For Old Men." 

Best director: The Coens will take it. Julian Schnabel ("The Diving Bell and the Butterfly") and PT Anderson ("There Will Be Blood") will split the votes for second and third place.

Best actor: Daniel Day-Lewis for "There Will Be Blood." Even George Clooney said he should win.

Best actress: Will there be a surprise winner? If Ruby Dee wins best supporting actress, as expected, I think there might be. Marion Cotillard gives the best performance in "La Vie En Rose," but I think the fact that the movie is all in French will hurt her. And if it does, how could voters refuse Ellen Page? She's the heart of the movie, and if Christie and Cotillard split the vote, she'll benefit from it. I'm tempted to pick her. I. ALMOST. DID. But then again, I don't think Dee will win, so maybe best supporting actress will be the surprise of the night and this category will turn out as expected. The most likely scenario: Cotillard and Page, both newcomers, split the "youth vote," and Christie ekes out a win. My prediction: Christie for "Away From Her."

Best supporting actor: Javier Bardem for "No Country for Old Men." It's a sure thing, I promise.

Best supporting actress: The most difficult category of the night--the early frontrunners were Amy Ryan ("Gone Baby Gone") and Cate Blanchett ("I'm Not There"). Blanchett's already won, so I think that will hurt her. Then there was the late emergence of Ruby Dee, with her surprise SAG win. But does sentimentality really matter that much in the supporting categories--lead, yes, but remember how Gloria Stuart went home empty-handed for "Titanic?" I think Saoirse Ronan is out of the running. And Tilda Swinton, as wonderful as she is in "Michael Clayton," didn't steal the movie. (It was Clooney's.) So I'm going with the early favorite, and predicting Amy Ryan.

Best original screenplay: "Juno."

Adapted screenplay: "No Country For Old Men."

 NEWSWEEK film critic David Ansen gives his choices for who will win Sunday:

Nothing seems certain this year, in real or reel life. The political pollsters, normally so drearily accurate, emerged with egg on their faces after proclaiming a resounding Obama victory in New Hampshire. Why should the Oscars be any different? It feels as if this ceremony--which almost didn't happen thanks to the writers' strike--could produce some significant upsets for a change. The conventional wisdom may not apply to a field filled with more than the usual share of unconventional movies. Mainstream commercial movies are barely a blip on the Academy Awards landscape. Little "Juno" is by far the biggest hit among the five best-picture nominees, and the only one of the five that's considered a major studio movie, Warner Bros.'s "Michael Clayton," actually isn't: it was a pickup, financed by an outside company. The Oscars have become the Independent Spirit Awards on a bigger budget.

Here are my not-so-fearless prognostications for a night that may make all the soothsayers, myself included, look clueless:


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Here we go, down to the wire ... with the Oscars on Sunday night. The male acting races are pretty much locked up for Daniel Day-Lewis ("There Will Be Blood") and Javier Bardem ("No Country For Old Men") -- congratulations guys. So I'm betting it's the female categories that will give us our traditional surprise (or two) of the night.

Best actress seemed to be Julie Christie's award after she took the SAG and Globe for "Away From Her." But I dunno. Marion Cotillard delivers the better performance in "La Vie En Rose," though the fact that it's all in French could hurt her. Do you think the two might cancel each other out, leaving room for an Ellen Page/"Juno" upset?

As for supporting actress, it's always the hardest to predict. Ruby Dee ("American Gangster") had a slow awards-season start, but she's now the frontrunner. Too bad for her, the frontrunner usually doesn't win this category -- especially when you people use words like "sentimental favorite" (just ask Lauren Bacall or Gloria Stuart). Cate Blanchett would probably win for her Dylan turn, had she not already won for being Hepburn. The Academy loves "Michael Clayton," and if Tilda Swinton wins, she'll be this year's Marcia Gay Harden. But I think Amy Ryan, who was mesmerizing in "Gone Baby Gone," is the safest gamble.

Stay tuned. I'll post my full predictions on Friday (once I've changed my mind a couple more times).

NEWSWEEK's David Ansen and Devin Gordon talk to Academy Award nominees George Clooney, Angelina Jolie, Daniel Day-Lewis, Ellen Page, James McAvoy and Marion Cotillard:

Duh. Yes.

But that's the question CNN asks in this online column thingy, now that the strike from the Writer's Guild of America is behind us and the show will go on (and I will go back to blogging about them.) If you ask me, it's not that the Oscars don't matter, it's that the show needs a jolt to appeal to--ohIdon'tknow--the young voters viewers. The idea to bring Jon Stewart back as host is certainly a step in the right direction, but it's misguided. He doesn't make the show younger. He just makes it more awkward. It's like having your little cousin give an important toast at the wedding. He's all wrong for it.

That's why I'm posting this little For Your Consideration to the Academy: Next year, hire not one but two Oscar hosts. Their names should be Julia Roberts and George Clooney. Wouldn't you watch that?