Some movies are opening this weekend, but does anyone care? It’s time for that exquisitely bizarre end-of-winter exercise in pensioners formerly in the movie business fawning over the bright young things currently in the movie business. Everybody knows the Oscars are a hideous compromise between box office gold and retrograde tastes, which is both explains why United 93 wasn’t nominated for best picture and why nobody will ever let Sacha Baron Cohen within ten feet of a podium mic.

In Seattle, the Oscars air on KOMO 4 starting at 5:30 pm. Brace yourselves for the following excruciating results:

BEST PICTURE: This is a long shot, but everybody was wrong last year, and I’m guessing that the conventional wisdom is wrong this year. We’re in the middle of a long, drawn-out war, and Oscar voters are not in the mood for depressing. Babel is deeply depressing, and judging by my mail, at least half the people who saw it didn’t even like it. The Departed is casually violent, and Academy members tend to like their violence with a creamy moral center. I’m going to go with David Schmader here and call it for Little Miss Sunshine. (Which nominee deserves it? None of the above.)

BEST DIRECTOR: It’s a lock, especially if voters pass over The Departed in droves. Martin Scorsese. (Paul Greengrass deserves it.)

BEST ACTRESS: Helen Mirren. (Deserves it: Anybody but Meryl Streep.)

BEST ACTOR: Forest Whitaker.

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Jennifer Hudson.

SUPPORTING ACTOR: Eddie Murphy. (Maybe Alan Arkin, but I doubt it.)

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: The Queen (though if Little Miss Sunshine doesn’t win Best Picture, it’ll scoot down here).

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: The Departed.

ANIMATED FEATURE: Happy Feet. (Cars is the favorite, but I don’t care if most Academy members live in the automobile capital of the world. They’ll feel guilty after watching An Inconvenient Truth, and give it to the penguins. Deserves it: Monster House.)

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: An Inconvenient Truth. (Deserves it: Hands down, Iraq in Fragments, but it’s too experimental and Academy voters won’t be willing to give up Al Gore’s teaching moment at the podium.)

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: You know what? I think David Carr is, sadly, right. The Lives of Others has the edge over Pan’s Labyrinth. No way do I want to see Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck gloating in the press room about all the “second-rate” critics who maligned his film (especially after the distributor called the regional publicist and had her ask me to take down the more arrogant portions of the interview), but I think the cool-headed tone of The Lives of Others, with its buoyant ending, will win over voters. (Pan’s Labyrinth deserves it, by a hair.)

CINEMATOGRAPHY: Children of Men.

FILM EDITING: Babel. (Deserves it: I actually love the editing in Babel, but I think United 93’s is more complex, interesting, and effective.)

SHORT (ANIMATED): The Little Matchgirl. (Thanks, Brad!)

SHORT (LIVE ACTION): Binta and the Great Idea.

SHORT (DOC): Recycled Life.

Check back here on Sunday evening as David Schmader liveslogs the Academy Awards.

If you actually want to see a movie this weekend, here are your brand-new options: Reno 911!: Miami (Schmader says noooooooooooo!), Becket (In Color!, Brendan says), and in On Screen this week, Amazing Grace (boring people may be good, but they’re still boring, say I), The Astronaut Farmer (Bradley Steinbacher says nooooooooooo!), and Our Daily Bread (cabbage racks and dead pigs, say I).

Complete Movie Times and Film Shorts are available at Get Out. Happy Oscar weekend, and good, long luck to James Longley and John Sinno.