On AOL IM they have a link to Entertainment Weekly's Oscar predictions, giving horse race type odds for the major categories. They show PJ and Ian McKellan as slight favorites, and ABM nosing out LOTR for Best Picture (3-2 for ABM and 2-1 for LOTR). They give reasons for and against each contender in each contest, in all cases the reason against LOTR is that it is a fantasy and 'fantasies don't win'. As an example of this they cite Star Wars not winning, which makes me think that they haven't seen the movie.
They do suggest that voters may wait until the trilogy is finished to give awards. The idea that PJ is more likely to beat Opie than LOTR is to defeat ABM seems to go against most other commentary I have heard. Oh well, about thirteen and a half hours to go!
But Hollywood is also a sucker for movies made from great novels so the truisms cancel each other out.
I continue to hope for the best because the Academy does like to reward moviemakers who gamble and win, both financially and creatively. In another close year, Hollywood surprised the heck out of me by doing just that when they honored the very non-PC Braveheart with Best Picture and Best Director in 1995.
Like LOTR, Braveheart with its epic battle of good against evil was a major creative and financial gamble that paid off for its makers. Who would have thought you could make a hit out of a three hour movie about some obscure historical figure who had died almost 700 years ago?