Two Days. Two Rotten Days.

It isn’t quite the day before the Oscar nominations but it feels like it. The race often seems wide open to possibilities until it doesn’t. How do I know the nominations are about to drop? The adrenalin tells me so.

Every year around this time my palms start to sweat and they don’t stop until the Oscars have ended. But they peak around the time of the nominations. With a whole year’s worth of blogging on the hits and misses this year it all seems to come down to Thursday morning and what 6,000 people think of the year’s offerings and how well or badly we here at Awards Daily kept track. Most of you have been with us every step of the way.

I’ve made my charts and I’ve looked at the history. I have my certainty but it is shakable. Nobody knows how this thing will ultimately turn out. Will the old guard rule once again? Will Hollywood embrace the one film that has been an out and out success at the box office and with critics? Or will the Oscars be about smaller dramas?

There are a few names that would really rock my world if they turned up. You probably can guess them by now: Melissa Leo, Leonardo DiCaprio in Revolutionary Road, but of course, The Dark Knight and Wall-E. Some things change. Some things stay the same. If the lineup is to be the DGA five, no one is going to complain. If one of those five gets bumped, serious backlash will ensue and who knows how the thing will turn out.

Two films seem poised right now to squeeze into a spot. When Dreamgirls seemed like a sure bet for Best Picture, with many predicting it not just to be nominated (that seemed as sure anything) but to win, the way it got bumped was that voters wanted to honor Clint Eastwood more and when Flags of Our Fathers got no awards love and neither did Letters it became clear that Clint was splitting his own vote. Voters rallied inwardly and Letters came out on top. It is still a weird scenario to me but the only conclusion I can draw from it is that most voters figured Dreamgirls was guaranteed a spot, thus they felt they had to vote for something that needed their support.

This scenario could play out this year but probably not with The Dark Knight. More likely, a film everyone is assuming will be in, so much so that no one feels they have to fight for it. Frost/Nixon and Milk both seem vulnerable to this should another movie push in. And the only reason for this is that everyone assumes they are guaranteed a spot. Ditto for Benjamin Button. The Dark Knight is a number one vote getter, one that will need people to fight for it to find a place. The Brits, who helped usher Atonement in last year, will likely split their vote between Changeling and The Reader, not putting their might behind one film.

Nonetheless, there is no logical reason to assume the DGA five will not have their way with the Best Picture race. There could be a surprise in there but let’s pretend, for the moment, that there won’t be and let’s get on with the predictions, shall we?

Best Picture
Slumdog Millionaire
The Dark Knight
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Milk
Frost/Nixon
Alt: The Reader, Gran Torino

Best Actor
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
Sean Penn, Milk
Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
Brad Pitt, Benjamin Button
Clint Eastwood, Gran Torino
Alt: Leonardo DiCaprio, Revolutionary Road

Best Actress
Kate Winslet, Revolutionary Road
Meryl Streep, Doubt
Angelina Jolie, Changeling
Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
Melissa Leo, Frozen River
Alt: Cate Blanchett, Benjamin Button

Best Supporting Actor
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Josh Brolin, Milk
Dev Patel, Slumdog Millionaire
Robert Downey, Jr. Tropic Thunder
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt

Best Supporting Actress
Kate Winslet, The Reader
Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis, Doubt
Amy Adams, Doubt
Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler
Alt: Tilda Swinton for Benjamin Button

Best Director
Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight
Gus Van Sant, Milk
Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon
Alt: Clint Eastwood, Gran Torino

Best Original Screenplay
Andrew Stanton, Wall-E
Dustin Lance Black, Milk
Robert D. Siegel, The Wrestler
Joel and Ethan Coen, Burn After Reading
Woody Allen Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Alt: Tom McCarthy, The Visitor

Best Adapted Screenplay
Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire
Eric Roth, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Peter Morgan, Frost/Nixon
John Patrick Shanley, Doubt
Jonathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan, The Dark Knight
Alt: David Hare, The Reader

Best Editing
Slumdog Millionaire
The Dark Knight
Frost/Nixon
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Wall-E

Best Cinematography
Claudio Miranda, Benjamin Button
Anthony Dod Mantle, Slumdog Millionaire
Roger Deakins, Revolutionary Road, Doubt
Wally Pfister, The Dark Knight
Mandy Walker, Australia

Best Art Direction
Benjamin Button
Changeling
The Duchess
Australia
The Dark Knight

Best Sound Mixing
The Dark Knight
Slumdog Millionaire
Iron Man
Wall-E
Benjamin Button

Best Sound Editing
The Dark Knight
Iron Man
Wall-E
Benjamin Button
Slumdog Millionaire

Best Costume Design
Benjamin Button
Changeling
Revolutionary Road
The Duchess
The Other Boleyn Girl
Alt: Australia

Best Original Score
Thomas Newman, Wall-E
A.R. Rahman, Slumdog Millionaire
Alexandre Desplat, Benjamin Button
Zimmer and Howard, The Dark Knight
Thomas Newman, Revolutionary Road

Best Foreign Language Film
Waltz with Bashir (Israel)
The Class (France)
The Baader Meinhof Complex (Germany)
The Necessities of Life (Canada)
Everlasting Moments(Sweden)

Best Documentary Feature
Man on Wire
Standard Operating Procedure
Trouble the Water
Encounters at the End of the World
I.O.U.S.A.

Best Animated Feature
Wall-E
Kung Fu Panda
Waltz with Bashir

Best Visual Effects
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Iron Man

Best Makeup
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Tropic Thunder
The Reader
Alt. The Dark Knight

Best Song
The Wrestler, Bruce Springsteen, The Wrestler
Jaiho, Slumdog Millionaire
“Down to Earth” by Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman, Wall-E
Gran Torino, by Clint Eastwood, Gran Torino
Once in a Lifetime, Cadillac Record

One thing to note. When I built a chart of the guild award nominations, Slumdog Millionaire was nominated for every one. Next was Benjamin Button, then Frost/Nixon, then Milk, then The Dark Knight. With one or two exceptions, these early nominations can help in deciding at least two of the nominees.