UrbanWire

The famous 24-karat gold-plated statuette of a knight holding a sword on a reel of film is ready to be given out in honour of the best films in 2003 and the people behind and in them. This time the 76th Academy Awards will be hosted by Billy Crystal, his 8th time entertaining the Who's Who in Hollywood.

Incidentally, it may be the night of firsts for some. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (LOTR), leads the pack with 13 nominations and may be the 1st fantasy film in Oscar history to win Best Picture. 13-year-old Keisha Castle-Hughes (Whale Rider) for Best Actress is the youngest person to be nominated in her category. It's also the 1st time that an African and a South African are nominated in Oscar history, see Djimon Hounsou (In America) and Charlize Theron (Monster) respectively.

With the recent results of the 61st Golden Globes, many would expect similar winners for the Academy Awards but there may be more than a few surprises come Mar 1 (Singapore Time). Die-hard movie fan Kee Soon picks his favourites to win but thinks that there are some that are already a forgone conclusion. Anyway, here are our predictions:

Since director Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather: Part III was nominated for Best Picture, it's been 14 years since the last successful trilogy was nominated. On the night that the 3rd installment of LOTR is nominated for Best Picture, Coppola's daughter Sofia is fighting for honours in the same category that her dad is a familiar figure.

Director Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation is the dark horse in this category, not Seabiscuit (no pun intended!), despite recently picking up 3 Golden Globes including Best Motion Picture for a Comedy/Musical. Albeit being the critics' choice throughout its release, both Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World and Mystic River would probably sink next to a bigger flick.

LOTR is the heavyweight here, picking up a massive total of 32 Oscar nominations between the 3 installments. Despite mesmerising audiences worldwide, Peter Jackson's storytelling hasn't gripped the Academy in the previous 2 episodes (The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers) losing out to last year's winner Chicago and the year before, A Beautiful Mind. But there'll be a different story this year, as LOTR is most likely to be rewarded with Best Picture for The Return of the King but more symbolically for the megabucks-making trilogy that Jackson spent 8 years working on.

In what seems like the tightest list of actors contending for an Oscar in years, it's naturally difficult to pinpoint the triumphant.

Johnny Depp gave us the laughs in his Keith Richards-inspired pirate Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl; Bill Murray made us smirk as aging celebrity Bob 'lip my stocking' Harris in Lost in Translation; Jude Law showed us courage and determination as wounded soldier Inman in Cold Mountain; Sir Ben Kingsley gave us a stirring and powerful performance as money-obsessed Iranian Behrani in House of Sand and Fog, and Sean Penn scared the living daylights out of us with his performance as erratic tough man Jimmy Markum in Mystic River.

When the Oscar nominations were announced, Depp's inclusion drew the biggest surprise from the Hollywood community but then again they have Arnold Schwarzenegger as the governor of California, so who knows? Past winners such as Adrien Brody (The Pianist), Denzel Washington (Training Day), and Russell Crowe (Gladiator) won for their dramatic roles and history has always favored dramas. This is bad news for Depp but this being his 1st Oscar nomination, not winning shouldn't disappoint him at all.

A 3-horse race between Penn, Murray and Kingsley makes this the category to look out for. Like Depp history might well play against Murray, as only 6 actors in the last 20 Oscars had won this award in a comedic role.

Though Law's role in Cold Mountain is heartfelt, it's forgettable when placed alongside 2 Oscar veterans, Kingsley and Penn. Both have a current total of 4 Oscar nominations each, with Kingsley the only one in this category who actually won for Gandhi.

My guess is the Academy will lighten up this year and award Bill Murray with his 1st Oscar win in his 1st attempt as they'll never know when he'll be back again with another good movie. This is also confirmed by his recent Best Actor wins at the Golden Globes and at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards (BAFTA) beating out Depp, Law and Penn. I'll be rooting for Kingsley as his acting in House of Sand and Fog reminds me of why he's a former winner in this category.

Keisha Castle-Hughes - Whale Rider
Diane Keaton - Something's Gotta Give
Samantha Morton - In America
Charlize Theron - Monster [Winner]
Naomi Watts - 21 Grams

The shock of this category is not of the nomination of 13-year-old Keisha Castle-Hughes but the huge recognition of independent films. Something's Gotta Give is the only mainstream nomination in this category.

The past winners Hilary Swank (Boys Don't Cry), Halle Berry (Monster's Ball) and Nicole Kidman (The Hours) were almost unrecognisable in their characters. If making a complete physical transformation helps your chances in winning an Oscar, then Charlize Theron has the edge. She put on weight to play a lesbian serial killer Aileen Wuornos in crime drama Monster, looking nothing like herself with shaved eyebrows and prosthetic teeth. Her Golden Globe victory for Best Actress won't harm her chances either.

Diane Keaton and Naomi Watts won't just let Theron win without a fight. Keaton, a former winner in this category in 1978 for Annie Hall and recently a Golden Globe winner for Something's Gotta Give, has garnered strong reviews recently for her latter movie. As for Watts, her best friend Nicole Kidman is so confident of her victory that she's already planned a victory party. Playing a mourning widow in 21 Grams is Watts' edgiest role to date, which also has an uncanny similarity to Halle Berry's character Leticia in Monster's Ball. This could be the kind of performance that the Academy is looking out for.

I'll be siding with Kidman on a victory for Watts but Theron might just kill the competition.

Alec Baldwin - The Cooler
Benicio Del Toro - 21 Grams [Winner]
Djimon Hounsou - In America
Tim Robbins - Mystic River
Ken Watanabe - The Last Samurai

In a recent interview on the Late Show with David Letterman, Alec Baldwin jokingly mentioned that he did some research on his chances of winning the Oscar. He suggested that there's a clause in the Academy's regulations that foreign-born actors can't win an Oscar and that rules out both Japanese Ken Watanabe and African Djimon Hounsou.

Though Baldwin's aforementioned "clause" doesn't exist, history does indeed favour the Americans. In the last 20 Oscars, 14 Best Supporting Actor awards went to Americans with the exceptions of English Michael Caine who had won it twice (The Cider House Rules and Hannah and Her Sisters), Jim Broadbent (Iris), Puerto Rican Benicio Del Toro (Traffic), Scottish Sir Sean Connery (The Untouchables) and Cambodian Haing S. Ngor (The Killing Fields).

With Baldwin as the dark horse in this category, former winner Del Toro and Tim Robbins are the favorites to win. It's Robbins' first Oscar nomination as an actor as he was nominated before in 1996 for directing the Sean Penn drama, Dead Man Walking. Robbins recently won a Golden Globe in the same category but Del Toro was surprisingly excluded. With such a powerful performance from Del Toro in 21 Grams, it's difficult for the Academy to not give him his 2nd Oscar in only his 2nd attempt. But that might also be his shortcoming, which would be lucky for Robbins.

Shohreh Aghdashloo - House of Sand and Fog
Patricia Clarkson - Pieces of April
Marcia Gay Harden - Mystic River
Holly Hunter - Thirteen
Renée Zellweger - Cold Mountain [Winner]

This category possesses a strong lineup of actresses who've garnered important acting accolades. Marcia Gay Harden (Pollock) and Holly Hunter (The Piano) are former Oscar winners. Renée Zellweger has won 3 Golden Globes in the last 4 years including her recent win for Cold Mountain. Iranian Shohreh Aghdashloo also recently won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards and the New York Film Critics Circle Awards for her role in House of Sand and Fog. Not to be left out, Patricia Clarkson has also won 6 other critic awards and a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival for her performances in Pieces of April and the yet-to-be-released The Station Agent.

Awards aside, Zellweger's role in Cold Mountain as an eccentric Southern feminist is probably the biggest standout among the nominees and that's to her advantage. The other roles are of wives who are depressed and are at the losing end of society supported by a loser husband or in Hunter's situation, a boyfriend.

In this case, Zellweger is going to steamroller her way through to win her 1st Oscar. There's no point even talking about a dark horse in this category.

Sofia Coppola - Lost in Translation
Clint Eastwood - Mystic River
Peter Jackson - The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King [Winner]
Fernando Meirelles - Cidade de Deus (City of God)
Peter Weir - Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Though City of God was released internationally in 2002 and was re-released in 2003, it benefited from the recent rule change that allows the film for Academy selection. And it benefitted with 4 Oscar nominations including one for director Fernando Meirelles. Though he shouldn't be keeping his hopes up high as no director of a foreign film has ever won this category since 1960.

Surprisingly, Clint Eastwood is the only nominee in this category with wins in Best Director and Best Picture for Unforgiven in 1992. Even Peter Weir (Dead Poets Society) hasn't got a win with 4 Best Director nominations to his name. A novice compared to the others, Sofia Coppola will probably be proud to sit through this knowing that she's continuing her father's (Francis Ford Coppola) legacy.

This year we've a feeling that the big double win is at hand for director Peter Jackson with his trilogy LOTR. It's also common for the winner of Best Picture to also pick up the Best Director prize. In the last 20 Oscars, 16 movies have completed such a double. There's no stopping LOTR from walking away with the big awards come Oscar night.