Best Original Screenplay

To vote in this category, it helps to speak both Spanish and Japanese. Mexico’s Pan’s Labyrinth is the only nominee here not up for Best Picture; the Foreign Film award and a few visual prizes will be enough. Letters From Iwo Jima is unlikely, because love for the film is centered around Clint Eastwood putting out two WWII epics in one year. If the film wins anything, it won’t be for the script.

Spanish AND Japanese are spoken throughout Babel, which feels like this year’s Crash: the over-populated and relentlessly bleak melodrama entirely too proud of its own forced diversity and its sophomoric “everybody is connected” theme. This make me a tad frightened Babel could win here, but the remaining two films have shown stronger clout in the race.

The Queen swept all four critics’ awards and the Golden Globe just for fun; here is the “prestige” choice. However, I think the love for Little Miss Sunshine, most notably in its Writers’ Guild win will take it the distance in this category, the easiest to validate of LMS’s four bids.

Prediction: Little Miss Sunshine Personal Pick: I suppose I’ll be alright with that, but Labyrinth is a much better film. (But note I didn’t see Letters.)