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The supporting categories are often very complicated to predict early on; you know who a lead in a film is, but when someone isn't considered the lead, that could mean anything from being the second most important character in the film to making a glorified cameo.

Back in 2004 people were predicting Jude Law to get nominated for his role in The Aviator, but then when we saw the film we realized he was in basically one scene and all he did was rearrange Leonardo DiCaprio's peas. On top of that there are “Wonder Bras,” a term I made up to describe characters who are designated supporting, but are so “supportive” that they are really the leads. Ethan Hawke and Jamie Foxx were clearly the main characters in Training Day and Collateral, but they were so upstaged by their costars that they were relegated to the Supporting categories to boost their chances of a nomination (Foxx was also placed in Supporting to avoid competition with himself, as he was also in Ray that year).

Between the veterans and the people (usually the women) we've never heard of before, until you actually see the movie it is very difficult to know who has the best shot at getting a Supporting nomination. So what is an Oscar prognosticator who has not seen The Descendants, The Artist, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Young Adult, Coriolanus, or Albert Nobbs to do? Make stuff up, of course. That being said, here is my blind stab at breaking down Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress.

Best Supporting Actor:

The Overdue:

Christopher Plummer

Considering that he is one of the greatest actors of the last 60 years, it is baffling that Plummer has only one nomination to his name, which he got two years ago for The Last Station. This year he looks like he could score his second, and seems to be the favorite for the win. Beginners was largely overlooked by audiences, but critics championed Plummer's supporting turn as Ewan McGregor's father who comes out of the closet very late in life. If there's two things the Academy loves to nominate, it's legendary older actors and men who play homosexuals. Of course, very often the early frontrunner in the supporting races falls out of contention quickly (anyone remember Diane Keaton in The Family Stone? No?) but if, as expected, Plummer gets nominations from the Globes and the SAG, he is a shoe-in.

Max von Sydow

Plummer is not the only, how do I put this delicately... really old dude competing in this category this year. Like Plummer, von Sydow has only been nominated once, in 1989, for the Danish film Pelle the Conqueror, and he hasn't been a player since then, taking mostly small parts as scary old guys (I'm pretty sure he's been really old for at least 40 years). But von Sydow has the most Oscar-friendly part of anyone in this category right now, in the 9/11-set film Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. As an old curmudgeon who presumably learns to love again, von Sydow is perfectly set to take on Plummer in this race. If Extremely Loud is also nominated for Best Picture, he will likely be seen as the favorite.

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