Oscar Night

Predictions are always tricky and none are trickier than figuring out who's going home with the golden statue.
Nominations are all over the place, and the picture with the most nominations, Dreamgirls, didn't even get a best picture nod.
Here are my predictions, though slightly ill-informed since I didn't see all of the movies nominated this year.
Some, of course, are easy. Helen Mirren is going to win best actress. Jennifer Hudson is going to win best supporting actress. And hardly anyone would argue that they don't deserve the accolades they've gotten.
I haven't seen The Queen but I have seen Helen Mirren's work in other movies and she is good. She embodies completely every role she takes on, and from I have heard, she does no different in The Queen.
Hudson was great as Effie White in Dreamgirls. She not only tackles that gut-busting anthem "And I Am Telling You," with the same power that Jennifer Holiday had when she sang it more than 20 years ago on Broadway. Hudson brings both a sassiness and vulnerablility to White's downward turn over the course of the movie.
Eddie Murphy will get best supporting actor. I wasn't blown away by his performance but he did bring a pathos to James "Thunder" Early that went beyond a simplistic James Brown impersonation. He dug deep. Let's hope Oscar voters forgive him for the literally bloated Norbit that just came out.
As for best actor, some say Peter O'Toole, giving him the award he should have gotten years ago. But I'll say Forest Whitaker. He captured all the complexities of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. Whitaker was able to create a full-drawn character and make him breathe and seem real. Any other actor might have played over the top and turned Amin into a caricature. Whitaker makes him human.
The best picture and best director are harder to call this year. I love The Departed. Gritty with a twisted sense of humor. It was Martin Scorsese at his best and he deserves to win best director.
I'm predicting Babel will win best picture. Sad to say that I haven't seen Babel nor Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima. But I'd bet on Babel -- essentially this year's Crash.
And Mr. Dirty Harry, a fine director, has certainly by this time won enough awards, as grand achievement as his two movies about World War II was.
Well, there you go. Love 'em or leave 'em, those are my picks.