As soon as the Academy Award nominations were announced last month, avid movie fans like me started feeling the usual suspense over who would take home this year’s coveted Oscar® statuettes. Our anxiety will peak Sunday night, February 22, while watching the televised 81st Annual Academy Awards Ceremony on ABC. However, I suspect moviegoers who can’t get enough of Hugh Jackman probably won’t care who wins or loses. They’ll simply be happy to see this extraordinary actor/entertainer strut his stuff during his first stint as host of the Academy Awards show

Predicting the Oscar® winners this year presented more problems than usual for me. So many of my favorite movies and performances failed to make the final lists, and I’m disappointed about that – as well as about the way the Academy seems bent on honoring “downer” films at the expense of high quality lighter fare. Still, I can’t let the Oscars® go by without sharing my predictions and preferences in the six key categories below.    

BEST PICTURE

Nominees: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Milk, The Reader, Slumdog Millionaire

My Prediction:  Slumdog Millionaire

My Preference:  Slumdog Millionaire

Comments:  Because I desperately want Slumdog Millionaire to be honored with a Best Picture Oscar®, I’m sending all the positive energy I can muster to help make that happen. Frankly, it’s even hard for me to mention the other nominees here. They’re such downers. Benjamin Button earned 13 nominations, so it’s the front-runner. Many viewers adore this “living backwards” film, but I get gloomy just thinking about it. (Thanks to Stephen Colbert for making me smile when he insisted, “All those Button nominations prove Americans favor torture.”) Although I’m rooting for Slumdog, I can’t help feeling  disappointed about Mamma Mia! being snubbed completely by the Academy. To me, it offered the most fun at the movies during 2008.  Nevertheless, compared to the other Best Picture nominees, Slumdog deserves to win. It boasts a “triumph of the underdog” story with characters we care about as well as adventure, suspense and romance, plus a rousing Bollywood dance number at the end. What more can we ask for in a movie?    

Winner: Slumdog Millionaire   

BEST DIRECTOR

Nominees: David Fincher for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Ron Howard for Frost/Nixon, Gus Van Sant for Milk, Stephen Daldry for The Reader, Danny Boyle for Slumdog Millionaire

My Prediction:  Danny Boyle

My Preference:  Danny Boyle

Comments:  It’s good to see all the directors of the Best Picture nominations earning a spot in the Best Director race. That doesn’t always happen for some reason or other (which I don’t understand). Among this year’s nominees, I believe Boyle is the most deserving. He did a masterful job with Slumdog Millionaire in terms of blending  cinematography, acting, editing, music and pacing to tell the riveting story of how an orphan growing up on the streets of Mumbai, India, used his wits to survive horrifying situations. Note to Hollywood moguls:  Please give us more movies like this. We want entertainment as well as substance.     

Winner: Danny Boyle

BEST ACTOR

Nominees: Richard Jenkins for The Visitor, Frank Langella for Frost/Nixon, Sean Penn for Milk, Brad Pitt for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler

My Prediction: Sean Penn and Mickey Rourke (tie)

My Preference:  Richard Jenkins

Comments:  With their brilliant nominated performances, Jenkins, Penn and Rourke transformed themselves into the characters they played. Jenkins did the most low-key and more nuanced acting as a lonely man who befriends strangers from another culture, but Penn and Rourke convinced me they were gay politician Harvey Milk and a worn-out professional wrestler, respectively. I always predict a tie each year – so wouldn’t it be fun to see Penn and Rourke duke it out on stage tonight? (Still, I don’t think Katharine Hepburn and Barbra Streisand expressed any animosity toward each other back in 1968 when they both won Best Actress.) In the world of what-might-have-been, Clint Eastwood should have been recognized this year for his terrific work in Gran Torino. He made my day as an angry, bigoted old man who ends up caring about his neighbors and wanting justice for them despite the cultural differences he started out hating.

Winner: Sean Penn       

BEST ACTRESS

Nominees: Anne Hathaway for Rachel Getting Married, Angelina Jolie for Changeling, Melissa Leo for Frozen River, Meryl Streep for Doubt, Kate Winslet for The Reader

My Prediction:  Kate Winslet

My Preference:  Angelina Jolie or Kate Winslet

Comments:  All the nominated actresses are strong contenders, but what about Michelle Williams in Wendy and Lucy? Academy voters must not have seen her incredible performance, one that stretched my heartstrings almost to the breaking point. Fortunately, Jolie and Winslet also merit as many awards as they can get for their amazing acting in the films mentioned. Both are well-known movie stars, but I forgot about that while watching them. Jolie simply became a distraught mother searching for her missing son, and Winslet totally changed herself into a former German concentration camp guard with serious problems. I realize Streep, who already owns two Oscars® (for Sophie’s Choice and Kramer vs. Kramer) and holds the record for most acting nominations (15), can’t be counted out, but I felt she was “acting” the role of a dictatorial nun rather than “being” one in Doubt. As drama coach Tony Ron says, “Acting is the one art you cannot be caught doing.” I think Streep should have been nominated for Mamma Mia! instead. Unfortunately, I haven't seen Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting Married, so she could be the spoiler here.        

Winner: Kate Winslet   

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Nominees:  Josh Brolin for Milk, Robert Downey Jr. for Tropic Thunder, Philip Seymour Hoffman for Doubt, Heath Ledger for The Dark Knight, Michael Shannon for Revolutionary Road

My Prediction:  Heath Ledger

My Preference:  Heath Ledger

Comments:  No comments necessary. I’m sure all the candidates in this category realize Ledger deserves -- and will receive -- a posthumous Oscar® for his wildly bizarre and thoroughly entertaining performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight. One other actor, Peter Finch (for Network), won an Academy Award after he died, and six other actors received posthumous nominations, including James Dean for his work in Giant and East of Eden.

Winner: Heath Ledger     

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Nominees: Amy Adams for Doubt, Penelope Cruz for Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Viola Davis for Doubt, Taraji P. Henson for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Marisa Tomei for The Wrestler

My Prediction:  Taraji P. Henson

My Preference:  Viola Davis

Comments:  Davis, only on screen for a brief time in Doubt, brought an intensity to her performance that’s tough to match. Playing a mother whose son might be being abused by a priest, she appeared in a crucial scene that seemed farfetched in my opinion, yet she convinced me the woman believed in what she was saying and doing. Henson, of all the Best Supporting Actress nominees, had the most screen time as the woman who takes in the curious Benjamin Button and cares for him as best she can. Her performance includes some touching moments. Cruz, however, could surprise me by earning the Oscar® for her acclaimed turn as a tempestuous and troubled ex-wife who returns to live with her former husband and his lover.       

Winner: Penelope Cruz

No matter who wins or loses, the 81st Annual Academy Awards Ceremony is an important event for movie fans. For full coverage of the Awards show, be sure to check the TV schedule in your area on February 22.

(For the list of nominees in all categories, please go to www.oscar.com.)