This is a hard category to call: With the exception of The Great Debaters — a scrupulously well-intentioned, handsomely produced inspirational drama that should be better than it is — these are all good, and sometimes great, movies. Professional oddsmakers favor Atonement and No Country for Old Men, and my gut says that No Country for Old Men is going to take the prize. Not only is it riding in on a wave of great reviews, but it features popular Spanish actor Javier Bardem as a stone-cold sociopath, a performance that seems to have impressed the hell out of everyone who missed him in Alex Cox's scabrously brilliant Perdita Durango (1999). I personally think No Country for Old Men is way overrated: It's thoroughly watchable, but — as is the case with so many Coen Brothers' movies — when you look beneath the dusty existential surface, there's no there there.

From this list, I think Atonement should take top honors: It's a brilliant adaptation of Ian McEwan's lacerating literary novel about youthful recklessness and mature regret, and even the awkward coda doesn't diminish screenwriter Christopher Hampton and director Joe Wright's overall achievement — Vanessa Redgrave goes a long way to smoothing over a less-than-perfect attempt to rethink the stinger in the novel's tail.

No one is ever happy with anyone else's best-picture nominations, but where are Into the Wild, The Wind that Shakes the Barley, Zodiac, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Gone Baby Gone, let alone smaller films like Once and Great World of Sound and The Savages (no, not a comedy, despite star Philip Seymour Hoffman's actor nomination)?

Should Win: Atonement
Will Win: No Country for Old Men

I admit it: I'm immune to Hairspray's charms. Loved the John Waters version, find the musical perfectly cute and pleasant but utterly forgettable. I know other people love it and I respect that, but to my ear the songs are all insipid and the sight of John Travolta in a rubbery fat suit does nothing for me. And what kind of idiots hire Christopher Walken — a serious hoofer from way back whose instinctive grace and physical phrasing remain intact — and don't let him dance? But I think it's a shoo-in for best comedy or musical, despite the fact that Juno is funnier, sharper and 100 percent fake-nostalgia free.

And not to be snippy, but how were Superbad and Knocked Up ignored? They're the kind of movies that never get Oscar nominations because they're mainstream comedies, but that's why the Globes have a Best Comedy or Musical category: So pictures dedicated to making audiences laugh don't have to compete head to head with deeply serious, difficult and thought-provoking films. Oh, and who told the Hollywood Foreign Press Association that Charlie Wilson's War was a comedy? Shame, shame! And where's Hot Fuzz, the funniest film of the year?

Should Win: Juno
Will Win: Hairspray

I see the best-director category following in line with best picture: Atonement director Joe Wright will lose out to Joel and Ethan Cohen for No Country for Old Men. I always find it odd when a director is nominated and his film isn't — so Julian Schnabel's achievement in directing was among the year's most noteworthy, but the movie he made wasn't? Even in a year of seven nominees rather than the usual five?

And not to quibble, but Sean Penn for Into the Wild, anybody? How about Sidney Lumet for Before the Devil Knows You're Dead? Any 83-year-old who makes a lean, pitiless movie like that gets my kudos, let alone the director of Serpico (1973), Network (1976) and Dog Day Afternoon (1975).

Should Win: Joe Wright
Will Win: Ethan and Joel Coen

What's with the nominations for Jodie Foster and Cate Blanchett? The Brave One and Elizabeth: The Golden Age were undistinguished movies and neither actress needs a pity vote: Both have awesome bodies of work behind them and will continue to make great movies for years to come because they're ferociously talented and generally discriminating about their work. I can't see Angelina Jolie winning, because A Mighty Heart sank like a stone, so I think it will be an age-before-beauty year, with Away from Her's 66-year-old Julie Christie — who is, in fact, still stunningly beautiful — beating out Atonement's 22-year-old Keira Knightley. Christie was often underrated throughout her lengthy career because she was just too stunning to take seriously, but she's always had the chops: It just took a film like Away from Her, in which she plays a vital, brilliant woman losing herself to Alzheimer's, to make everyone realize it.

Should Win: Julie Christie
Will Win: Julie Christie

I loved Ellen Page in Juno, and I've had my eye on her ever since Marion Bridge (2002): It takes a hell of a talented 15-year-old just to stand up to Deadwood's Molly Parker, let alone hold her own. But in this lineup I really can't see not honoring French actress Marion Cotillard for her ferocious performance as Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose/La Mome, and if anyone's going to give her her due, surely it's the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. I'm glad Amy Adams was nominated, but I don't think Enchanted is her ticket to awardsville, even if she nails the floating, weightless way animated Disney heroines glide across the screen in their billowing princess gowns.

And I'm sorry, but Hairspray's Nikki Blonsky is the novelty nomination, and when she's playing her umpteenth chubby-friend role she should be grateful she got it. But she can't hold a candle to the unnominated Keri Russell (Waitress) or Laura Linney in The Savages, which Globes voters apparently think is a comedy.

Should Win: Marion Cotillard
Will Win: Marion Cotillard

Daniel Day-Lewis is the odds-on favorite in this category, and his bravura, exhausting performance in There Will Be Blood epitomizes the kind of spittle-flecked spectacle that impresses the hell out of nonactors and actors alike — he got a SAG nomination as well. I think Clooney delivers the more subtly impressive turn in Michael Clayton, but subtlety gets you nowhere in this world; I even prefer Viggo Mortensen's chilling performance as a Russian thug in Eastern Promises. But that's just me.

A moment, please, for Emile Hirsch (Into the Wild), Russell Crowe (3:10 to Yuma, American Gangster), Tommy Lee Jones (No Country for Old Men, In the Valley of Elah), Christian Bale (Rescue Dawn, 3:10 to Yuma) and Don Cheadle (Talk to Me), none of whom the HFPA chose to cite.

Should Win: George Clooney
Will Win: Daniel Day-Lewis

By all accounts, Johnny Depp is the overwhelming favorite in this category. And yet I have real trouble seeing it. The HFPA is notorious for loving big musicals, but Steven Sondheim's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is such a despairing cri de coeur, and the show's catchiest number, "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd," was excised from the movie. Even though Charlie Wilson's War isn't a comedy — it's witty, which isn't the same thing — I think the award will go to perennial favorite Tom Hanks, who's been nominated in the best-actor category (either dramatic or comedy/musical) seven times and has won four. And I think that's too bad, because veteran character actor John C. Reilly's no-holds-barred starring turn in music-bio parody Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story is nothing short of astonishing: He's funny, he's fearless, and he can sing! The movie is uneven, but without Reilly it would be dead in the water.

Should Win: John C. Reilly
Will Win: Tom Hanks