The Oscars are a few hours away, and I’m giddy about the fact that I’ve seen all five nominated films, and a lot of the others. It’s been a really interesting crop of relatively smaller films this year, and here’s what I think:

The Films: In descending order, my rating for the films this year are: Brokeback Mountain, Good Night, And Good Luck, Crash, Munich and Capote. Brokeback is the odds on favourite, and deservedly so.

The Directors: While Ang Lee is primed to pick up the trophy because of Brokeback, I fear Spielberg might upset the applecart with his very Oscaric Munich. Honestly, though, in terms of sheer directorial excellence, my personal vote would be for George Clooney for Good Night. Magical.

Best Actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman will pick up the trophy for Capote, unless something bizarre happens — like the Academy giving Crash the top prize and handing Best Actor to Ledger to make up for Brokeback’s loss! I thought Hoffman was terrific, but noone was in quite the same league as David Strathairn in Good Night.

Best Actress: The Academy, the bookies, and I all seem in agreement: Reese Witherspoon for Walk The Line. The actress, now the highest paid in the world, was unbelievable in the movie, and deserves the statuette ahead of both Judi and Felicity.

But its all speculation, isn’t it? No matter how informed and analysed, its one chance in five. For all we know, it could be Munich-Paul Haggis-Keira-Joaquin. And then we can all have a field day griping about it all.

You excited yet?

— Raja Sen

After Ray, I never thought I would watch another musician /singer /guitarist/ drummer /whatever-biopic. Reasons?

A: There is never much of a tight plot. It’s a thing about biographies.

B: Stuff is predictable. Humble beginnings, good souls, sudden and well deserved recognition, fame, corruption, drugs, adultery, broken families, decline, fall, and then a possible redemption or two (don’t forget the forgiving of the family).

Walk The Line was the same. But I’d say it was tighter than Ray was. And what really impressed was the fact that Jacquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon did the singing themselves (so did Fox in Ray actually, But I could tell then). A fact I realised when someone told it to me hours after watching the movie.

Good bet, I’ll say. But then again… I’m not the one handing out the Oscars

Vijayendra Mohanty

I watched Syriana yesterday, and was pretty much blown away by it.

Stephen Gaghan’s extremely intelligent film, while presenting an interesting perspective on the Mid-East, coasts perfectly as a well paced thriller, and the characters are very well-written. Those with a keen grasp on international affairs will have much to say about the film, while the rest of us will have to watch it one more time (a rather pleasurable prospect) after we’ve googled our way through the data and read up some stuff.

Now, Syriana’s being hailed in Oscar circs, and is one of the few categories this year that can be called a ‘lock’ — ie, George Clooney is overwhelmingly the odds-on favourite to win Best Supporting Actor for the film.

This seems a bit rummy to me. I really like George, but his performance isn’t the highlight of Syriana. It is a solid job, sure, but nothing spectacular. For me, in the same film, Alexander Siddig’s portrayal of Prince Nasir really took the film forward.

Don’t get me wrong, Clooney’s job was good and restrained, and he has really matured as an actor — a sort of Conneryesque edge to it (the greybeard isn’t all coincidence) but I’ve seen him perform far better in the past.

Then again, it seems typically Oscar: Morgan Freeman just admitted that he didn’t deserve the award for Million Dollar Baby, and that it was making up for Oscar misses in the past. So Clooney’s Oscar-lock could just be commmiseration for the fact that his Good Night And Good Luck, possibly the finest film in contention this year, won’t get the big prize. Tragic.

— Raja Sen

Oscar acceptance speeches are usually melodramatic and unimaginative, but every year a couple of winners steal the show with razor-sharp wit.

A particularly fine example was Michael Caine, when he won Best Supporting Actor in 2000 for The Cider House Rules, beating out, among others, Tom Cruise for Magnolia.

[continued] And to Tom Cruise, for if you had won this, your asking price would have gone down so fast. Do you have any idea what supporting actors get paid? We get only one trailer, a small one, in the back …

While the Oscars are admittedly the biggest award in showbiz, they often goof up.

And the gaffes have been huge. Alfred Hitchcock and Martin Scorsese never won a directing trophy; Titanic picked up 11 awards.

What do you think is Oscar’s biggest mistake ever?

The one that personally gets me the most riled was in 1994. When the groundbreaking Pulp Fiction lost out to Forrest Gump. Grrrrr. Still gets me furious.

- Raja Sen

To keep the Oscars in check, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences constantly updates its rules and regulations.

An interesting audio interview online at npr right now with Oscar Analyst Pete Hammond about the new rules and why they keep changing constantly.

Check it out.

The big night is just about three weeks away, and while we aren’t all giddy about the nominations, Time has come up with an interesting article about award categories that should have been.

Among others, the list includes a So Those Acting Lessons Finally Paid Off Award for Pierce Brosnan and Matt Damon, and a Best Job Staying in Character Off Screen Award for Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix.

Truly hilarious stuff.