Monkey Suits Are Always Funny

Yes, it's that time of year again, when we gather 'round the tube to watch impossibly self-important people, some dressed in tuxes, give impossibly self-important speeches while accepting statues of little nude men.

The Oscars air Sunday night at 8 on ABC - though the very bored among us can tune in a few hours early to watch pre-show arrivals with Joan Rivers (TV Guide Channel) or Star Jones (E! Channel). There's really nothing like watching Joan Rivers struggle to come up with the names of nominees while she's interviewing them, as if she woke up in the morning having no idea she'd be hosting an Oscar pre- show that night. Honestly, just imagining the types of questions Joan and Star might come up with to ask Felicity Huffman, a woman who scored an Best Actress nomination by playing a man in the process of becoming a woman in Transamerica, is enough to make your head spin. And if we're lucky, the pre-shows might offer a transcendent pop culture moment like the one that happened at the Golden Globes, when Isaac Mizrahi grabbed a hold of a few golden globes of his own while interviewing Scarlett Johansson.

Without further ado, here are the picks for this year's Oscars. As always, these are for entertainment purposes only. And there's room for your own picks in the Comments section. Winner gets a night on the town with this guy:

Best Supporting Actress:
Amy Adams in Junebug
Catherine Keener in Capote
Frances McDormand in North Country
Rachel Weisz in The Constant Gardener
Michelle Williams in Brokeback Mountain

WINNER: Adams. Surprise winners pop up so often in this category (Marisa Tomei and Jennifer Tilly, anyone?) they shouldn't even really be called surprise winners. This time last year, no one had ever heard of Adams, which would make her this year's surprise winner. In other words, she's a shoo-in.

Best Supporting Actor:
George Clooney in Syriana
Matt Dillon in Crash
Paul Giamatti in Cinderella Man
Jake Gyllenhaal in Brokeback Mountain
William Hurt in A History of Violence

WINNER: Clooney, who also scored nominations in directing and writing categories, has the potential to go from the biggest pre-Oscar winner to the biggest post-Oscar loser. Of course, the fact that he has millions of dollars and can pretty much sleep with any woman on the planet should offer him some consolation. So, too, could a win here, and I think his popularity out in Tinseltown will carry him to the win. Too bad for the others in a very strong category, particularly Giamatti, who was shafted by the Academy the last two years for his roles in American Splendor and Sideways, respectively.

Best Director:
Ang Lee, Brokeback Mountain
Bennett Miller, Capote
Paul Haggis, Crash
George Clooney, Good Night, and Good Luck.
Steven Spielberg, Munich

WINNER: The easiest way to pick this one is to go with the winner of the Directors Guild award, which is almost always a reliable barometer as to how the Academy will vote. Lee took the DGA prize for Brokeback, and he's a safe bet here. I suppose he deserves something for the sleight of hand required to make Brokeback Mountain seem like an "important" movie, when in reality it was little more than a boring love story about two uninteresting people who happened to be cowboys. Miller made a stunning debut with Capote, but was overshadowed by his star. Haggis juggled the storylines in Crash with aplomb, but will likely be rewarded for his writing. The strongest case, to my mind, can be made for Spielberg, whose near-masterpiece has been inexplicably ignored by audiences.

Best Actress:
Judi Dench in Mrs. Henderson Presents
Felicity Huffman in Transamerica
Keira Knightley in Pride & Prejudice
Charlize Theron in North Country
Reese Witherspoon in Walk the Line

WINNER: Witherspoon, and not because hers is the only movie among those nominated that anyone actually saw. The actress sparkled as June Carter Cash in the Johnny Cash biopic, and proved that her talent extends well beyond the standard rom-coms in which she long specialized. Huffman will get consideration, too, but Transamerica has barely broken a million bucks at the box office, signalling a total lack of support. And had Theron - who is magnificent in North Country - not won a few years back for Monster, she'd be in the hunt as well.

Best Actor:
Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote
Terrence Howard in Hustle & Flow
Heath Ledger in Brokeback Mountain
Joaquin Phoenix in Walk the Line
David Strathairn in Good Night, and Good Luck.

WINNER: Hoffman. It's useless to resist his powers in Capote, in which the burly actor utterly transforms himself into the fey, pipsqueak-voiced author of In Cold Blood. Hoffman is operating at an entirely different level than his peers here, the movie equivalent of Tiger Woods lapping the field at Pebble Beach a few years back. The other nominees here are very good - Ledger, who had never shown any previous signs of having much acting ability, was a revelation as the monosyllabic, confused cowboy at the center of Brokeback Mountain; Howard capped an incredible breakout year with his nomination as the pimp-turned-rapper in Hustle & Flow; Strathairn has always been an overlooked talent; and Phoenix absolutely channeled Cash's singing voice in Walk The Line. But for Capote, Hoffman rules.

Best Picture:
Brokeback Mountain
Capote
Crash
Good Night, and Good Luck.
Munich

WINNER: Crash. If there's any justice, the awards season tide has turned against Brokeback Mountain, which remains the betting favorite after taking most (but not all - Crash won the Screen Actors Guild ensemble award) of the Oscar precursors for Best Picture. It's not that I have a problem with a gay cowboy movie. It's that I have a problem with a boring gay cowboy movie with essentially zero character development that gets ridiculously overpraised simply because it's a gay cowboy movie. Crash isn't a perfect movie, but it's pretty darn good, full of fine acting performances that make up for its plot contrivances. If I had a vote, I'd be torn between Crash, Capote and Munich. But I think, given its L.A. setting and aspirations of importance, the Academy will pick Crash.

Best Adapted Screenplay:
Brokeback Mountain
Capote
The Constant Gardener
A History of Violence
Munich

WINNER: The Brokeback scribes deserve credit for taking a 10-page short story and expanding it to feature length, but Munich showcased the most complex, nuanced and skillful script among the nominees here.

Best Original Screenplay:
Crash, written by Paul Haggis
Good Night, and Good Luck. written by George Clooney & Grant Heslov
Match Point, written by Woody Allen
The Squid and the Whale, written by Noah Baumbach
Syriana, written by Stephen Gaghan

WINNER: It would be nice to see the Wood-Man win again, but though Match Point was his best writing in years, that's really not saying much. Haggis gets the hardware here for his intricate weaving of Crash's multiple storylines.

Best Animated Feature:
Howls Moving Castle
Tim Burtons Corpse Bride
Wallace & Gromit in the Curse of the Were-Rabbit

WINNER: For Tim Burton, Corpse Bride was a worthy follow-up to The Nightmare Before Christmas. But Wallace & Gromit featured my favorite screen couple of 2005 - the dimwitted British inventor and his day-saving mutt - and was one of the best movies of the year - animated or not.

Best Cinematography:
Batman Begins
Brokeback Mountain
Good Night, and Good Luck.
Memoirs of a Geisha
The New World

WINNER: The New World was a gorgeous imagining of how America must have looked to the Jamestown settlers, and Batman Begins conjured a whole new vision of Gotham. But Brokeback Mountain put its stunning scenes of nature and the openness of the West to great metaphorical effect.

Best Documentary Feature:
Darwin's Nightmare
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
March of the Penguins
Murderball
Street Fight

WINNER: Those Penguins kicked ass, dude. And was it just me, or did one of them sound exactly like Morgan Freeman?

Best Score:
Brokeback Mountain
The Constant Gardener
Memoirs of a Geisha
Munich
Pride & Prejudice

WINNER: I am convinced that one of the bylaws of the Academy requires that John Williams be nominated at least once a year in this categoy. I swear the man could hum in the bathtub and he would get a nomination. This year, he's up for Memoirs of a Geisha and Munich. But he's going to lose to Brokeback Mountain's sparse, very un-Williams melodies.

Best Original Song
"In the Deep" from Crash Music by Kathleen "Bird" York and Michael Becker Lyric by Kathleen "Bird" York
"It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" from Hustle & Flow Music and Lyric by Jordan Houston, Cedric Coleman and Paul Beauregard
"Travelin' Thru" from Transamerica Music and Lyric by Dolly Parton.

WINNER: Parton's jiggle, er I mean jingle, should be entertaining during the telecast, as should the performance of the expletive filled "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp", which may have the phones ringing off the hook at the FCC. But York's ethereal ballad gave the perfect coda to Crash, perfectly matching the movie's mood and providing the year's best moviegoing moment.