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Unsurprising picks for what is sure to be an unsurprising night.

Bold = will win
Italics = should win

Best Supporting Actor

99.96% Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)
.01% Josh Brolin (Milk)
.01% Robert Downey, Jr. (Tropic Thunder)
.01% Philip Seymour Hoffman (Doubt)
.01% Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road)

No surprise here -- but let's face it: Heath Ledger deserved a Best Actor nod. Anthony Hopkins was only in The Silence of the Lambs for 22 minutes and he still managed to grab a Best Actor statue. Same for Forrest Whitaker and Denzel Washington. My personal pick is Michael Shannon (who was also amazing in Shotgun Stories) in a performance that miraculously upstaged both Leo and Kate and was the only redeemable element of Revolutionary Road.

Best Supporting Actress

20% Amy Adams (Doubt)
20% Penélope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona)
20% Viola Davis (Doubt)
20% Taraji P. Henson (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
20% Marisa Tomei (The Wrestler)

I have no idea what to make of this category. And I don't think anybody else does either. This is going to make or break Oscar pools.

Best Animated Short

89% Presto
6% La Maison En Petits Cubes
3% This Way Up
1% Lavatory - Lovestory
1% Oktapodi

Let's not kid ourselves: Pixar is going to win, but I much prefer the dark humour of This Way Up. A special WTF? to Le Maison for not being released on iTunes.

Best Live Action Short

34% The Pig
29% New Boy
28% Toyland
6% On the Line
3% Manon On the Asphalt

All five shorts are worth watching (and only 1.99 on iTunes) and in many ways more interesting than the Best Picture nominees. Toyland is by far the weakest, but still manages a sniffle or two out of its ludicrous Holocaust fable that is sure to garner an unfortunate amount of Academy votes. New Boy has a good shot at winning; it is a simple and effective story of an African refugee trying to adjust to his new school. I might be in complete denial, but I think voters are going to be equally as charmed by The Pig, a wonderfully comic allegory on the paradoxical right to free speech in a democratic nation.

Best Documentary Feature

40% Trouble the Water
35% Man on Wire
10% Nerakhoon (The Betrayal)
10% Encounters at the End of the World
5% The Garden

A tough call. Man on Wire is exhilarating, but I feel voters may try to balance out the frivolity of Slumdog with a weightier documentary pick. Big ups to Herzog for finally getting his first Oscar nomination, but there is no way he wins. Encounters is pretty much a two hour-long middle finger to the 2006 winner March of the Penguins.

Best Foreign Language Film

40% Waltz with Bashir (Israel)
30% The Class (France)
20% The Baader Meinhof Complex (Germany)
5% Revanche (Austria)
5% Departures (Japan)

I have only seen one of these, which is vexing. I don't understand why distributors would delay releasing these movies into theaters. Surely more viewers are going to be enticed by a potential winner than a once-runner. I am particularly incensed by The Class, which has had trailers in theaters for months, still hasn't been released. Hopefully, in a few years these are the kind of movies that bypass crowded cineplexes and head straight to digital distribution.

Best Actress

75% Kate Winslet (The Reader)
15% Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married)
7% Melissa Leo (Frozen River)
2% Meryl Streep (Doubt)
1% Angelina Jolie (Changeling)

Ricky Gervais was right. And I still haven't seen Frozen River, but surely Melissa Leo's performance has to be the best by the sheer improbability of her nomination alone.

Best Actor

36% Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler)
32% Sean Penn (Milk)
15% Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon)
4% Richard Jenkins (The Visitor)
3% Brad Pitt (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)

I think this is going to be tighter than most people suspect. Rourke put in a masterfully physical performance, but it is hard not to be dazzled by Penn acting against type -- and I hate it when people win for awards for historical mimicry. Anybody can win and I would be content. Mostly I am just happy for Jenkins. What a great guy.

Best Director

89% Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire)
5% Gus Van Sant (Milk)
3% Stephen Daldry (The Reader)
2% David Fincher (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
1% Ron Howard (Frost/Nixon)

It is a shame that Danny Boyle is getting accolades for his worst movie, but I certainly won't be unhappy when he takes the stage. Boyle is a relentlessly eclectic filmmaker and while his movies aren't always perfect, they are unfailingly interesting. Except Slumdog, which plays like a Disneyfied City of God. C'est la vie. It wouldn't be the Oscars if we weren't rewarding mediocrity and underachieving.

Best Picture

65% Slumdog Millionaire
35% Milk
7% The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
2% The Reader
1% Frost/Nixon

A Slumdog win is going to be a terribly anti-climactic end to the ceremony, but in case anybody forgot: Warner Independent Pictures was going to release this movie straight to DVD. Let me repeat that: STRAIGHT TO DVD. It is going to be a real travesty if anybody but Loveleen Tandan accepts this award.