With the Oscars less than a week away, a lot of talk has centered around who will win best supporting actor. Giamatti was the early favorite but recently Clooney has been gaining steam. I thought that it would be interesting to look at both who has won the most precursor awards and the reviews for the movies that they were in. From looking at the graph, we can see that while Paul Giamatti has won the most precursor awards, William Hurt was in the better reviewed film. Yet, Giamatti won four precursor awards while Hunt only won two. Clooney and Dillon have also won two precursor awards, while Jake Gyllenhaal has won three. Clooney’s Syriana was the lowest rated film, followed by Dillon’s Crash.

The graphic above is good for visualizing how Clooney’s movie and performance stack up. A win by Clooney would be a big upset. He was both in the lowest rated film and has the fewest number of precursor award wins. If he takes home the Oscar, a lot of people will be left wondering if he was the most deserving nominee.

Out of the five films nominated for best foreign language film, Tsotsi and the Final Days were released in the past week. Don’t Tell, Joyeux Noël, will not be released until March and Paradise Now is already out of theatres. This bodes well for Tsotsi, the Final Days and Paradise Now. Best foreign language films released in the U.S. before final balloting is complete have won 77.78 percent of the time (FilmJerk).

Paradise Now and Tsotsi are the two films that have been the most talked about this Oscar season. Paradise Now, from Palestine, tells the story of two suicide bombers. Tsotsi, from South Africa, tells the story of a rutheless gang leader who grows to care for a baby he kidnapped. Tsotsi is ultimately a story of redemption. Paradise Now also tells a humanizing story, but will Oscar voters want to vote for a film that makes them sympathize with suicide bombers? I say no. As a result, I predict that Tsotsi will win best foreign language film.

As of now, here are the biggest questions on Oscar night.

1. Will Brokeback Mountain win Best Picture, or can Crash pull off a monumental upset?

2. Will George Clooney walk away empty-handed?

3. Will it be Clooney, Giamatti, or possibly upstart Matt Dillon in the tight supporting actor contest?

4. Will Jon Stewart be better than Chris Rock? (well…that one shoudn’t be too hard to answer)

This brings me to ask - whatever happened to the intense Best Actor/Best Actress races? This year there’s very little suspense. Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Reese Witherspoon will be making trips to the podium. You can bank on it. But the disturbing thing is that it’s not only this year, but the last few years have been interestingly devoid of a real exciting race. Last year Jamie Foxx and Hilary Swank cleaned up. The year before, it was Sean Penn and Charlize Theron. Whatever happened to the great Russell Crowe/Denzel Washington or Nicole Kidman/Renee Zellweger showdowns? Have the acting categories just become THAT predictable? The shortened awards season can be blamed for some of this recent trend. There just isn’t enough time for upstart contenders to build enough momentum. It also doesn’t help that bona fide contenders like Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix do virtually no campaigning at all. Oh well. It’s the Oscars and there will be surely be some drama somewhere. Let’s hope at least that Hoffman and Witherspoon have some mildly entertaining speeches prepared.