Let’s start the run toward this year’s Oscars with a look at a few behind the scenes categories:

Best Adapted Screenplay

• Who I Want to Win: Don’t really have a dog in this fight, I think they were all pretty well written.
• Who Should Win: I’ll lean toward ‘Moneyball’ here as the least cinematic idea (building a baseball team with statistics) and turning it into a good film.
• Who Will Win: I think this is the first of many awards that the Descendants will be taking home.

Best Original Screenplay

• Who I Want to Win: ‘Bridesmaids’.  Hard for comedies to get props with this group as it is. Kind of surprised it got a nomination to be honest.
• Who Should Win: The most purely original idea to be honest was ‘the Artist’, but I’d defer to one of my screenwriting friends to tell me if the screenplay was up to snuff.
• Who Will Win: I think Woody gets some love here…

Best Direction

• Who I Want to Win: The hardest film (in my opinion) to direct was ‘Hugo’ by a landslide, so I’d say Scorsese.
• Who Should Win: I’ve said it before but this is as strong a top five as I can remember.  Now if we’re talking personal preference, don’t get me started on ‘Tree of Life’…
• Who Will Win: Probably the director of ‘the Artist’. Probably…

Tomorrow we’ll cover the Actress categories…