My Predictions for the 2007 Academy Awards Nominations to Be Announced Tuesday, Jan. 23

Let me start off by saying that my wife and I always have an Academy Awards wager. We write down our choices for the eventual winners in the six major categories at the interminable beginning of each Oscar telecast. (The bet? Well, I can't say in public. ) I always like to toss in left field candidate and one year I made what appeared on the surface to be an outrageous choice.

Yes, I actually did predict Marisa Tomei's Oscar win for My Cousin Vinnie, believe it or not!

So, you know, I've some cred when it comes to Academy Awards predictions. Unfortunately, my ratio of correct to incorrect predictions has gone down significantly from my all time highs of getting all six categories right. This is because unlike in those days where I might have seen as many as 90% of the nominated movies in those categories, these days I rarely seen as much as 20%. In other words, I wouldn't be surprised if I get only half of these Oscar predictions right, but I do believe I will do better than that. This year, however, I want to go global. So I am making these Academy Awards predictions for the upcoming Oscar nominations to be announced on Tuesday. I also want to issue an unofficial Associated Content-not affiliated or sponsored by Associated Content in any way-to all those who enjoy playing games like this. C'mon, join me, published your own Academy Awards nominations predictions before Tuesday morning and let's see who gets the most right. I tossed in a few longshots or unlikely nominees so there is room for you to do better if the Academy decides not to do a straight, predictable kind of nominating this year around.

And the Oscar nominations predictions go to:

Best Picture:

United 93

The Departed

Dreamgirls

The Queen

Babel

Best Director

Martin Scorsese, The Departed

Paul Greengrass, United 93

Stephen Frears, The Queen

Clint Eastwood, Letters from Iwo Jima

Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu, Babel

Best Actor

Forrest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland

Sascha Baron Cohen, Borat

Leonardo DiCaprio, The Departed

Peter O'Toole, Venus

Will Smith, The Pursuit of Happyness

Best Actress

Helen Mirren, The Queen

Maggie Gyllenhaal, Sherrybaby