The 81st Oscars say more about the people who make movies than about the movies themselves. All five best picture nominees are serious. A romantic fantasy with great production design and the two stars of "Babel"? A big movie about a disgraced president from the director of "Apollo 13" and "A Beautiful Mind"? A drama about a Nazi prison guard, the fling she has with a German boy, and her shot at redemption? With such conventional company (in order, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "Frost/Nixon," "The Reader") even an inspired movie like "Milk" seems like Ye Olde Biopic. "Slumdog Millionaire" didn't spring from that formula, but winds up fitting in its own crowd-pleasing way. So if you've entered an office pool and have no idea which end is up with, say, best adapted sound editing. (Neither do we! It's a fake category) take a look at our list of wishes and predictions for Sunday's awards ceremony. We may not help you win your pool, but we're trying. WESLEY MORRIS
BEST PICTURE
Will win: "Slumdog Millionaire"
Should win: "Slumdog Millionaire"
Was robbed: "WALL-E"
Shouldn't be here: "The Reader"
TY BURR: This year's dark horse has become the odds-on favorite because it's actually the most old-fashioned feel-good Hollywood movie of the year. The wave of awards-season triumphs should crest in either Oscar glory or one serious upset. Meanwhile, the awe-inspiring craft of "WALL-E" makes the fuzzy Nazi moralizing of "The Reader" look shameful.
BEST ACTOR
Will win: Sean Penn, "Milk"
Should win: Sean Penn or Mickey Rourke, "Milk," "The Wrestler"
Was robbed: Philip Seymour Hoffman, "Doubt"
Shouldn't be here: Brad Pitt, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
BURR: Which message will Academy voters want to send? "Sorry we screwed up on Prop. 8"? Or "Welcome home Mickey Rourke"? Hoffman's delicate balancing act - his priest in "Doubt" is a creep; no, he's a great guy - belongs in the best actor category. Pitt's nomination belongs in supporting. For "Burn After Reading."
BEST ACTRESS
Will win: Kate Winslet, "The Reader"
Should win: Melissa Leo, "Frozen River"
Was robbed: Sally Hawkins, "Happy-Go-Lucky"
Shouldn't be here: Angelina Jolie, "Changeling"
BURR: Winslet will win for all the wrong reasons: She's overdue, she gets tastefully naked, her character ages well into the Latex Decades, she's a regretful Nazi. Leo does something much harder, getting under the skin of a poverty-stricken woman in an out-of-the-way corner of America with a total absence of actorly vanity.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Will win: Heath Ledger, "The Dark Knight"
Should win: Robert Downey Jr., "Tropic Thunder"
Was robbed: Eddie Marsan, "Happy-Go-Lucky"
Shouldn't be here: Philip Seymour Hoffman, "Doubt"
BURR: Ledger would take this category even if he was alive, and he deserves to: His Joker is the opposite of a standard superhero-movie villain, a figure of frighteningly private demons. Downey, though, may be the only actor smart enough to make his "Tropic Thunder" shtick work, as a character and as ruthlessly satirical Hollywood commentary.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Will win: Penélope Cruz, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"
Should win: Marisa Tomei, "The Wrestler"
Was robbed: Rosemarie DeWitt, "Rachel Getting Married"
Shouldn't be here: Amy Adams, "Doubt"
BURR: Cruz's fierce, funny performance is a personal triumph, and voters do love giving this award to Woody Allen actresses. Tomei's stripper is the most heartbreakingly nuanced performance in the movie, while DeWitt was criminally overlooked as the exhausted "normal" sister of "Rachel."
BEST DIRECTOR
Will win: Danny Boyle, "Slumdog Millionaire"
Should win: Danny Boyle, "Slumdog Millionaire"
Was robbed: Christopher Nolan, "The Dark Knight"
Shouldn't be here: Stephen Daldry, "The Reader"
BURR: Boyle will continue his victory march, and that's fine, but remember that "Slumdog Millionaire" depends for much of its impact on the crafts of cinematography, editing, and music. (And what about "codirector" Loveleen Tandan? Where was she packed off to?) "Milk," by contrast, is a standard Great Man biopic revitalized by a gifted filmmaker at the top of his game.
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Will win: Simon Beaufoy, "Slumdog Millionaire"
Should win: Simon Beaufoy, "Slumdog Millionaire"
"Slumdog" gets a slam-dunk here over two stagebound play adaptations, a movie inflation of a slim Holocaust novel, and the wholesale transformation of an F. Scott Fitzgerald story into "Run, Benjamin, Run!"
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Will win: Dustin Lance Black, "Milk"
Should win: Andrew Stanton, "WALL-E"
Black's "Milk" script - fine work but the most conventional aspect of the movie - is an easier choice than the writerly eccentricities of "In Bruges," the collaborative script of "Happy-Go-Lucky," and the dour heartland realism of "Frozen River." "WALL-E"? Brilliant, but never bet on the Toon.
ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
Will win: "WALL-E"
Should win: "WALL-E"
In a just world, the
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Will win: "Waltz With Bashir"
Should win: "Waltz With Bashir"
But it's fine that "Bashir" is here, too, where its heavy load of guilt and clever but devastating use of rudimentary animation techniques should propel it to a win. I'd be just as happy to see "The Class" take the statue, though.
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Will win: "Man on Wire"
Should win: "Man on Wire"
"The Garden," about a Los Angeles community garden under threat, may hit Academy voters where they live, and cinematographer Ellen Kuras, director of "The Betrayal," is known and respected in the industry. "Man on Wire" works as both celebration and elegy, though, and it has the suspense of a great drama.
ORIGINAL SONG
Will win: "Jai Ho," from "Slumdog Millionaire"
Should win: "Down to Earth," from "WALL-E"
Maybe the Bollywood dance finale of "Slumdog" does deserve Oscar enshrinement, but when Peter Gabriel's voice came up over the end credits of "WALL-E" like a wise, sympathetic god overseeing the rebirth of man, I just about cried in my popcorn.
ORIGINAL SCORE
Will win: A.R. Rahman, "Slumdog Millionaire"
Should win: Thomas Newman, "WALL-E"
Rahman, the "Mozart of Madras" to his fans, deserves recognition for his body of work and not just this film. That said, Newman never fails to deliver - ever - and he mixes electronics and orchestral sweep in wholly enchanting ways in "WALL-E." (Download "72 Degrees and Sunny" for proof.)
FILM EDITING
Will win: Chris Dickens, "Slumdog Millionaire"
Should win: Chris Dickens, "Slumdog Millionaire"
Sometimes Oscar translates "best editing" as "most editing," and sometimes that's a problem. Not this year. Dickens's marshalling of sensory overload into coherent narrative takes the prize.
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Will win: Anthony Dod Mantle, "Slumdog Millionaire"
Should win: Anthony Dod Mantle, "Slumdog Millionaire"
See "Film Editing" above.
MAKEUP
Will win: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
Should win: "Hellboy II: The Golden Army"
The Academy will probably go for the artful mix of digital and latex in "Button," but I prefer the splendid freak-show mutations of Guillermo del Toro's B-movie team.
ART DIRECTION
Will win: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
Should win: "The Dark Knight"
The look of "Button" is subtle and rich, but "Knight" created an entire fallen world.
COSTUME DESIGN
Will win: "The Duchess"
Should win: "Milk"
Voters like finery, so look for a win for the bodices and stomachers (look it up) of "The Duchess," or, in a pinch, the swank outback '40s look of "Australia." "Milk" nailed the '70s, though, big lapels, polyester shirts, and all.
ANIMATED SHORT FILM
Will win: "Presto"
Should win: "La Maison en Petit Cubes"
Everyone's seen the rabbit-vs.-magician hilarity of "Presto," since Pixar put it in front of every "WALL-E" print. The moody nostalgic surrealism of Japan's "Maison" makes it the more artful nominee.
LIVE-ACTION SHORT FILM
Will win: "Toyland"
Should win: "Manon on the Asphalt"
Can voters resist the small-scale kiddie Holocaust fable "Toyland"? Here's hoping. Germany's "On the Line" is good, but France's "Manon" is great, an oddly exhilarating tour through a dying young woman's final thoughts of friends and missed chances.
DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
Will win: "The Conscience of Nhem En"
Should win: N/A
I haven't seen the four nominated documentary shorts this year and you probably haven't either. But "Nhem En" director Stephen Okazaki has been nominated four times (and won once), and his film about survivors of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge has earned much praise.
SOUND MIXING
Will win: "The Dark Knight"
Should win: "WALL-E"
Oscar voters often go for sound and fury in this category, and "Dark Knight" has to get something, but the subtle aural palette of "WALL-E" deserves the statue.
SOUND EDITING
Will win: "The Dark Knight"
Should win: "Slumdog Millionaire"
The dazzlingly crafted quilt of sensation that is "Slumdog" owes a lot to Tom Sayer's placement of the right sound in the right place.
VISUAL EFFECTS
Will win: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
Should win: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
For turning Brad Pitt into a shockingly believable wrinkled potato.
