Oscars BETTING: Juno's starting to look interestment

Which one - the one about killing and money? Or the one about the guy from Superbad getting someone pregs?

Juno Betting: Original Screenplay (1.31), Best Actress (11), Best Picture (23)


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An unexpected wave of sensitivity appears to have swept Hollywood in light of the ongoing writers strike, so the usual bout of frenzied Oscars promotion has been somewhat muted this year - presumably because without any writers knocking around, no one in the whole crazy city knows what the hell to say to each other. Still, one or two outsiders have located a vocabulary of their own and are emerging from the awkward silence.

For Best Picture, No Country For Old Men is still the runaway favourite, with massive backing from America's number one Hollywood glamour bible Variety (they are the main ad on their website), and having already scored the top prize at the Producers Guild Awards, the Directors Guild Awards and the Screen Actors Guild Awards, the Academy voters will surely lack the power of independant thought to not give it the big thumbs up. If only to follow the crowd.

A crowd which includes bigshots like Scott Rudin - a fat man with a beard who looks like he spends his evening wafted in cigar smoke and the fragrant smell of numerous concubines. He's the man with the purse hurling funds at films like No Country... and the second favourite for the gong, There Will Be Blood. He is absolutely resolute that films like Atonement - sweeping romantic epics starring Keira Knightley - no longer have a place in this world. And he's right. The British rom/dram might have a happy day at the hoity-toity Baftas, but the Academy is still ruing the day it ignored Fargo in favour of The English Patient (1996), which is genuinely the worst film anyone has ever made. Even Woody Allen. The Coens should get the nod.

But, before everyone gives up thinking about it, keep a beady eye on Juno - in the last twenty years, only once has the Best Picture not been one of the two highest grossing at the box office of the five nominees (American Beauty, 1999), and this year, Juno has made the most money, followed by No Country for Old Men.

That said, it's unlikely to oust the favourite, simply because one is a dramatic tour de force, the other could be described in some circles as "goofball" or "gross out" - in a world where Juno gets Best Picture, Norbit would be up for Best Adapted Screenplay.

So not Best Picture, but Juno's Ellen Page could prove a good speculative punt for Best Actress. Currently gracing the covers of Vanity Fair and Entertainment Weekly, she looks set to be the new Hollywood darling, in a similar mould to Scarlett Johansson post Lost in Translation. The hipper members of the Academy (should such people exist) might have thrown caution to the wind. Don't count it out.

And of course, Juno writer Diablo Cody, should be picking up Best Original Screenplay. The only possible spanner in the works could be caused by a recent smear campaign about her not just being a former stripper (as is widely known), but a former prostitute too. How this could possibly effect her standing in an industry brimming with whores (of one kind or another) is anyone's guess, but she should, prozzie or not, be heading home with a heavy statuette in her bag.

Another lady facing the possibility of an extravagant paper-weight is Marion Cotillard. Her performance as toad-voiced French woman Edith Piaf ticks many an Oscar winning box: she uglied up for the role like Kidman (The Hours, 2002) and Theron (Monster, 2003), she was playing a real-life actual person (Mirren, The Queen, last year), and the film is the story of a popular singer (Reese Witherspoon, Walk The Line, 2005). Damn it, it should have Oscar written all over it. Unfortunately she's up against Julie Christie playing the disability card (Dustin Hoffman, Rain Man, 1988; Daniel Day-Lewis, My Left Foot, 1989). Gutted.