Because the public wants them...

I will post my Oscar predictions for next week, even though I won't be watching them and have seen exactly ZERO of the nominated films (and please don't tell me that I can't say something's bad if I've never seen it. I've never been bitten by a snake, either, but I know that's not something I'd want to have happen). So here we go...

best Picture : The Gay Cowboy Movie (GCM), aka Brokeback Mountain . Absolutely no contest, what with Hollywood slobbering all over it. None.

Best Director : Ang Lee for the GCM. He went from the sublime Sense and Sensibility to....well, whatever. George Clooney's a dark horse here for Good Night and Good Luck but I'm 99% sure it'll be Lee.

Best Actor : Phillip Seymore Hoffman, Capote . Russell Crowe should have been nominated for Cinderella Man .....sigh.

Best Actress: Reese Witherspoon, Walk the Line . Good for her. And what was the Academy thinking when they nominated Keira Knightley? They honestly couldn't find a better fifth person? Sheesh. How about Renee Zellwegger for -oh!- Cinderella Man ???

Best Supporting Actor : Better go to Paul Giamatti for Cinderella Man . Again, Clooney could be a contender here for Syriana . But I think it'll go to Paul, especially since he got snubbed last year and Morgan Freeman won instead ( Million Dollar Baby , and he did deserve that one, man).

Best Supporting Actrees : Honestly, I have no idea. Probably either Catherine Keener for Capote where she plays Harper Lee, or Amy Adams for Junebug . But really, anybody's race. If they want to stick with the 'political' theme, it'll be France McDormand for North Country . But who knows?

So who do I think should have been nominated? A quick list---

Movies: Narnia, Batman Begins, Cinderella Man, Walk the Line
Actors: Christian Bale (Batman), Russell Crowe (Cinderella Man), Liam Neeson (Batman), Michael Caine (Batman), Luke Wilson (The Family Stone)
Actress: Tilda Swinton (Narnia), Renee Zellwegger (Cinderella Man), Dakota Fanning (War of the Worlds), Rachel McAdams, Sarah Jessica Parker, Diane Keaton (the Family Stone), Zizi Zhang (Memoirs of a Geisha). If they had a category for kids, the Narnia kids should get something, as well as Emma Watson for Harry Potter.

And, in a just world, Joaquin Phoenix would win for Best Actor. The man sang for cryin' out loud!!

Those are just some of my picks...if I think I'm missing something I'll update later.