by James

So the Oscars are almost here. The Grammys came and went with, and now it's time for the best cinematic achievements of the year to be recognised. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is nominated a gob-smacking 11 times (and would you have doubted it?) and will surely be the movie to beat this year. Unfortunately for most, it probably won't happen.

Rounding out the competition is Mystic River and Cold Mountain, with Lost in Translation getting a fair few nominations too. While it looks highly un-likely that any of them can halt the strangle-hold that the LOTR has, there is one possibility that Return of the King may win very few of the awards it was nominated for. Because the academy is notorious for favouring movies that have "real acting", see A Beautiful Mind and Shakespeare in Love, as opposed to movies with special effects, such as Jaws and perhaps now; Return of the King.

• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

• Mystic River

• Seabiscuit

• Lost in Translation

• Master and Commander

Who Will Win: Mystic River

WTF?: Master and Commander??

Yep, it's probably going to happen, Mystic River will walk off with the best picture award, and everyone except Clint Eastwood and Sean Penn will be thinking "How the hell did this movie beat LOTR?"

Return of the King should win, but the fact is that the academy loves to see old-fashioned acting, and not a lot of technology - which was pretty much what made the LOTR as visually appealing as it was. That having said though, there's surely no way that Mystic River was as good a movie as Return of the King though.

• Sean Penn: Mystic River

• Johnny Depp: Pirates of the Carribean

• Ben Kingsley: House of Sand and Fog

• Jude Law: Cold Mountain

• Bill Murray: Lost in Translation

Who Will Win: Jude Law: Cold Mountain

WTF?: Johnny Depp, best. Actor. Period.

This category is difficult to predict. My gut reaction would say Sean Penn will win, but in light of his choice to probably shun the awards, I'm thinking they won't give him the Oscar. And that would leave either Jude Law or Bill Murray to pick it up. I'm gonna go with Jude Law, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if it went the other way.

Bottom line though? Justice will very probably not be served, even though Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow was far and above the best performance of the year, if not of all time. Right up there in my opinion, with Pacino as Tony Montana and Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

• Benicio Del Toro: 21 Grams

• Tim Robbins: Mystic River

• Alec Baldwin: The Cooler

• Djimon Hounsou: In America

• Ken Wanatabe: The Last Samurai

Who Will Win: Benicio Del Toro

WTF?: Alec Baldwin is going to be sad :(

WTF? #2: WHERE IS SEAN ASTIN??

I hate all people with the surname 'Baldwin'. Doesn't matter if you're first name is Alex, Stephen or Hemaroid Phil, if your second name is Baldwin, I'm not going to like you. Especially if you star in the movie 'The Shadow'.

Benicio Del Toro has been in The Usual Suspects and Snatch and therefore by default is 100% pimp, and although Ken Wanatabe is bad-ass and recently got in my good books by signing on to the new Batman movie, I've still got to say that Del Toro would get my vote here.

BEST ACTRESS

• Keisha Castle-Hughes: Whale Rider

• Diane Keaton: Something's Gotta Give

• Naomi Watts: 21 Grams

• Charlize Theron: Monster

• Samantha Morton: In America

Who Will Win: Charlize Theron

WTF?: Scarlett Johansson? Scarlett Johansson? WHERE THE FUCK IS SCARLETT JOHANSSON?

Personally, I like Naomi Watts. She's real hot, and 21 Grams was a much much better movie than Monster. That said though, Charlize Theron is now officially a power-house. She was stellar in Monster, and after the buzz she's been picking up since the Golden Globes, she's got so much steam that she could probably turn up on the red carpet with an Al-Qaeda head-scarf and a dress made solely from the scalps of baby orphans and still win a celebrity popularity contest.

BEST SCARLETT JOHANSSON LOOK

• Lost in Translation

• The Perfect Score

• Girl With the Pearl Earring

• -

• -

Who Will Win: Lost in Translation

WTF?: Her ass is geometrically perfect. Thank you god, for transparent underwear.

The black hair in The Perfect Score was ok, but I'm not one for skanky looking hair, and I always think that black makes hair look like shit.

Anyway, at least sixty percent of Johansson's screen time in Lost in Translation was spent in her underwear, so that's the obvious clincher.

• The Barbarian Invasions

• Finding Nemo

• Lost in Translation

• In America

• Dirty Pretty Things

Who Will Win: Lost in Translation

WTF?: It shouldn't.

Sure, Lost in Translation was a good movie, but best Screenplay? The script that Sophie Coppola was only 60 pages long! A lot of the comedy was impromptu and done by Bill Murray, not scripted by Coppola. It's obvious that the only notable thing that Lost in Translation achieved was to show the world Scarlett Johansson. Her amazing voice and her perfect ass.

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

• Return of the King

• Master and Commander

• Pirates of the Carribean

• -

• -

Who Will Win: Return of the King

WTF?: No Matrix?

So the Wachowski's fucked themselves over with a poorly scripted ending to a once outstanding concept. But no-one can argue that Revolutions had some pretty awesome visuals. If nothing else, what about that massive Sentinel attack on Zion?

There's two slots open and they still didn't think the visuals in either Reloaded or Revolutions were good enough to be in the category.

That said though, the bullet in the Wachowskis' chances, was probably that we saw Keanu Reeves' pastey white buttocks in Reloaded, which is a definite visual NO-NO.

So there you have my take on it. Let's hope it's a good show, and thankfully I didn't put this article up late, like I did the one on the Grammys. Feel free to link this!

And for all those of you who haven't seen Lost in Translation, because I believe in spreading joy, here: