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I generally don't care for the acting categories, as least when it comes to predictions. Because the actors have higher profiles than any other nominees, people pay more attention to them, which means that winners can often be called months before they are even nominated. They are more likely than any other category to be extremely predictable, which makes them boring. But when they are not predictable they are stressful, because, as an Oscar tracker, I'm supposed to be able to divine which of the frontrunners is going to win. If I incorrectly predict a win for The Artist in Best Film Editing this year, it won't be that big a deal, but if I incorrectly predict it to win Best Actor, then I'm looked at as the fool who doesn't even know what's going to win one of the most important categories of the year (even though I would argue that Best Film Editing is a more important category than Best Actor).

The acting categories have by far the most precursors, which is partially what can make them so predictable. When No Country for Old Men won the Cinema Audio Society award for Best Sound Mixing, you could still make the argument that it wasn't going to win the Oscar. But when Javier Bardem won the Globe, the SAG, the BFCA, the BAFTA, and the Central Ohio Film Critics Association award (that's right, he even won the COFCA) nobody was going to predict Casey Affleck to win the Oscar. So we are presented with a mountain of information through which to sift, in addition to the buzz and popularity contest that doesn't have much of an affect on Best Film Editing (although Michael Kahn is notorious for his smear campaigns), and we are supposed to figure out which actors will end up hugging their naked gold man on Sunday night.

Best Supporting Actor

It is rare to have an actor come into the Oscar race as the clear favorite and then maintain their momentum all the way through the race. Most of the time there is an ebb and flow, as a strong contender fades, or a group of two or three heavyweights fight it out for momentum all the way through the race. But the category in which we are most likely to see domination by one actor is in this category. The past four years there was one performance that everybody pointed to as being the best of the year, and there was never really a question that they would lose. Christian Bale, Christoph Waltz, Heath Ledger and Javier Bardem all cruised to their Oscar, while in the three years before that Alan Arkin upset Eddie Murphy, George Clooney barely beat Paul Giamatti, and Morgan Freeman built up late momentum to beat Clive Owen.

So the question is, this late in the race, can anybody beat Christopher Plummer? Beginners came out in the spring, and as soon as everybody saw it the word was “if people haven't forgotten about his performance by the fall, he's going to win the Oscar.” Well he's ridden that momentum for almost a year, and now it looks like he is going to capitalize on it. Could fellow veterans Max von Sydow, Nick Nolte, or Kenneth Branagh pull off an upset? It seems all but impossible. When an actor wins the Globe and the SAG, they are essentially a lock to win the Oscar. Eddie Murphy went home Oscar-less despite Globe and SAG wins, but there was quite a bit of bad blood in the industry towards him, while Plummer is beloved, and is not starring in a fat suit comedy. He seems safe.

Will Win: Christopher Plummer - Beginners
Might Win: Max von Sydow - Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Dark Horse: Nick Nolte - Warrior

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