KEY POINTS:
A dame playing a queen. An African dictator declaring himself a kilted king. A quintessential American director-actor making a film in Japanese. Another great American director remaking a film from Hong Kong. A Mexican director delivering a film in all sorts of languages.
Some guy from Kazakhstan who doesn't stick to the script, getting himself a screenplay nomination.
And once again, handsome white male actors are pretty much left out in the cold. Such is the mixture of predictability and strangeness which marks the Oscars.
Some of this year's categories don't really require envelopes as the winners have been largely foretold by their earlier events in the awards season.
But it will be hard for one flick to dominate and it's possible the statuette for best picture might be standing on its maker's mantelpiece all alone, having figured little in the other categories.
So with all that in mind, here are our best-guess picks of who will take the major categories as well as the ones we think should win.
BEST FILM NOMINEES
Babel, The Departed, Letters From Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine, The Queen.
What will win: Too hard to call. Babel and The Departed had a mixed reception Stateside. Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima might be seen as a worthy B-side to its companion piece Flags of Our Fathers. The Queen seems so dominated by Dame Helen Mirren's performance which leaves us with ...
My choice: Little Miss Sunshine because of the all the films here, it passes the simple test - would you like to see it again soon?
Rudely ignored: United 93. Director Paul Greengrass is up for best director, but his harrowing film about the only 9/11 flight which didn't reach its target isn't up for the big prize.
DIRECTOR NOMINEES
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Babel; Martin Scorsese, The Departed , Clint Eastwood, Letters From Iwo Jima; Stephen Frears, The Queen; Paul Greengrass, United 93 .
Who will win: Martin Scorsese for The Departed because it seems to be finally the turn of the director long-ignored by the Academy, even if the Hong Kong remake starring an OTT Jack Nicholson is hardly his best work. Still, he's doing his bit for handsome white male actors.
My choice: Paul Greengrass for United 93. Seemingly pulling off the impossible feat of a 9/11 depiction without hokey sentimentality (see Oliver Stone's World Trade Center), the British docudrama master took us aboard the ill-fated flight in an unforgettable film.
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.
Who will win: Forest Whitaker, who, like Helen Mirren, has swept all before him at warm-up pre-Oscar awards. Funnily, like Denzel Washington's Oscar win for Training Day, all it took for the African-American character actor to get noticed was to play a very bad dude, Ugandan despot Idi Amin.
My choice: Whitaker. Always liked him. Dude doesn't look too bad in a tartan skirt either.
Rudely ignored: Sacha Baron Cohen for Borat. Acting with other actors is one thing. Acting with real people while dressed like that, that's fearless. Oh, and Daniel Craig for Casino Royale, but, as we were saying about the handsome white guy backlash ...
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.
Who will win: Helen Mirren.
My choice: Helen Mirren. Talk about being right on the money. Well, who she plays is.
Rudely ignored: Ellen Page for Hard Candy. Her avenging angel in the left-field thriller about a 14-year-old girl taking on a paedophile was disturbing and dazzling.
SUPPORTING ACTOR NOMINEES
Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine; Jackie Earle Haley, Little Children; Djimon Hounsou, Blood Diamond ; Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls; Mark Wahlberg, The Departed .
Who will win: The Academy has always liked Hollywood funnymen playing it straight. Eddie Murphy seems a goer given he won the Golden Globe for his James Brown turn in Dreamgirls, though it would appear that no Globe voters have ever been subjected to any of Murphy's musical albums.
My choice: Djimon Hounsou for Blood Diamond. No, the film wasn't great but Hounsou's role was something more than as a supporting player to the white folk. Hollywood veteran Arkin was really something as the drug-and-porn-fiend granddad in Little Miss Sunshine.
SUPPORTING ACTRESS NOMINEES
Adriana Barraza, Babel; Cate Blanchett, Notes on a Scandal; Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine; Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls; Rinko Kikuchi, Babel.
Who will win: Jennifer Hudson for Dreamgirls. The adapted Broadway musical has eight nominations, mostly in the technical categories. But its most likely success would be this one, completing the Hollywood fairytale for the scene-stealing former American Idol contestant.
My choice: Abigail Breslin for Little Miss Sunshine. No, there's not much chance of wee Abigail pipping the grown-ups in what after all is bit of a beauty contest. But given the film she's in, we like the poetic possibility.
