The Final Five

After much too much mulling and fretting over this year’s Oscar nominees, I have arrived at my final picks and I’m sticking with them. Paul Dano? He's my wild card this year... if Blood makes an impressive showing tomorrow morning, I'm going out on a limb and betting he'll be swept along for the ride. Tommy Lee Jones, my other dark horse favorite, is also in this category and it's been fun/frustrating deciding which of them might make it into the final five. Of course to make room for one of them I had to let go of Hoffman which, by tomorrow afternoon, will most certainly prove to be the silliest call I've made thus far.

As for Atonement, it's all or nothing. I just don't believe the Academy has changed that much to ignore the kind of lavish "prestige" pick it has loved and honored for decades. (And besides, it's a really good movie). But if it doesn't get a Best Picture nod (and my hedging all bets on Joe Wright as an underdog is probably not wise), then I'd say Knightley and McAvoy --and possibly Ronan -- are out in the cold. It's been a wacky week, I must say, with opinions and predictions changing daily. My own best picture picks have swayed away from what I thought would be a DGA-inspired quintet. I've moved Juno up and dropped Diving Bell to runner-up status.
Oh well, it will all be over with in the morning. The nominations will at last be revealed and we can all move on to a fresh round of insanity.

So here we go: my fearless, perhaps foolhardy predictions. I started with no more than ten contenders per category. Those listed as alternates and surprises are, therefore, the runners up.

PICTURE
Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood
Alternate: Into the Wild
Nice surprise: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, 3:10 to Yuma, Sweeney Todd, The Bourne Ultimatum

DIRECTOR
Paul Thomas Anderson
Joel and Ethan Coen
Sean Penn
Julian Schnabel
Joe Wright
Alternate: Tony Gilroy
Nice surprise: Sidney Lumet, Tim Burton, James Mangold, Paul Greengrass

ACTOR
George Clooney
Daniel Day-Lewis
Johnny Depp
James McAvoy
Denzel Washington
Alternate: Viggo Mortensen
Nice surprise: Emile Hirsch, Frank Langella, Josh Brolin

ACTRESS
Keira Knightley
Julie Christie
Marion Cotillard
Angelina Jolie
Ellen Page
Alternate: Cate Blanchett
Nice surprise: Laura Linney, Amy Adams, Helena Bonham-Carter, Nikki Blonsky

SUPPORTING ACTOR
Casey Affleck
Javier Bardem
Paul Dano
Hal Holbrook
Tom Wilkinson
Alternate: Philip Seymour Hoffman
Nice surprise: Ben Foster, Robert Downey Jr, Tommy Lee Jones

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Cate Blanchett
Ruby Dee
Saoirse Ronan
Amy Ryan
Tilda Swinton
Alternate: Vanessa Redgrave
Nice surprise: Kelly Macdonald, Jennifer Garner, Allison Janney, Catherine Keener