Misplaced ballots. Stolen trophies. Plunging necklines. Billy Crystal. You don't have to be an Access Hollywood fanatic to recognize these as this year's Oscar talking points. Not that it's unusual for the movies to be overshadowed by the spectacle at an Academy Awards ceremony. In fact, for the audience, who's wearing what is probably more interesting than who takes what home. But in case you actually find the films more compelling than the runway, here's my take on this year's Oscars.

Best Picture
Who Should Win: American Beauty
Who Will Win: American Beauty
I've already wasted more than my fair share of bandwidth on the five movies nominated (Beauty, Cider House Rules, Insider, Green Mile, Sixth Sense), so I'll restrict my comments to a couple thoughts. The oversight of Magnolia, Paul Thomas Anderson's brilliant Altman-esque trip through modern-day L.A., and Topsy Turvy, Mike Leigh's fabulous bio-pic of Gilbert and Sullivan, is the real story here. I know that audiences loved running the Green Mile (a marathon if you ask me) and that Cider House Rules is a beautiful, well-told story; but the Academy should know better. As it turns out, though, that just makes it even clearer that the best movie of last year will take home its rightful prize.

Best Actress
Who Should Win: Hilary Swank, Boys Don't Cry
Who Will Win: Annette Bening, American Beauty
Hilary Swank's mind-blowing depiction of Brandon Teena, a real-life girl who passed as a boy in Nebraska, is something to see. It's a portrayal so convincing that you can actually understand why his friends didn't even think twice about his gender. That Swank won't win is an unfortunate testimony to the Academy's well-documented squeamishness about difficult movies (and Boys Don't Cry is that). Which leaves us with Julianne Moore in End of the Affair and Bening (the other two nominees--British stage actress Janet McTeer and Oscar obsession Meryl Streep--will be on hand just because there have to be five). Moore is clearly the most deserving, even if her part is really a supporting role. Not only has she had a fantastic year (with great spins in both Ideal Husband and Magnolia), but her portrayal of a woman struggling with an answer from God is compelling. But Bening is likely to win.

Best Actor
Who Should Win: Russell Crowe, The Insider
Who Will Win: Either Kevin Spacey, American Beauty, or Denzel Washington,
The Hurricane
This is the strongest category in the field and, unfortunately, the most political. Crowe, Spacey, Washington and Sean Penn (in Woody Allen's Sweet and Lowdown) are all deserving of Oscar's shine. And that doesn't even
include other great performances from this year--including Peter Mullan in My Name is Joe and Jim Broadbent in Topsy Turvy. But it's the other issues that seem more compelling: How much will the backlash against the Hurricane hurt Denzel? How much will his skin color help or hurt him? Will the Academy try to make up for overlooking Malcolm X? Those questions are, to some folk, more interesting than these fantastic performances. Who's going to win? I don't know, but it'll be fun, even more if Sean Penn actually shows up.

Best Supporting Actress
Who Should Win: Chloe Sevigny, Boys Don't Cry
Who Will Win: Angelina Jolie, Girl, Interrupted
This category fields five first-timers so, if nothing else, the fashion choices and general state of nervousness should make for interesting viewing. I'm not a huge fan of any of these nominees. They're all fine, but none stand out. The real winner should be Lara Belmont for The War Zone, but no one saw that. And where's Natalie Portman for Anywhere But Here? Oh well, no one ever said Oscar was perfect.

Best Supporting Actor
Who Should Win: Haley Joel Osment, Sixth Sense
Who Will Win: Either Michael Caine, Cider House Rules, or Tom Cruise, Magnolia
Excuse me while I vent. Phillip Seymour Hoffman was perhaps the finest actor of this year, giving two brilliant performances in Talented Mr.Ripley and Magnolia. In the first, he played a wonderfully despicable expatriate with a slithering voice. In the second, he plays an angelic male hospice worker who never crosses over into sentimentality. But instead, the Academy chooses two lesser talents from the same movies. Didn't the voters notice that Hoffman was twice as good as Cruise and at least ten times better than Jude Law? And that doesn't even include the oversights of Christopher Plummer in The Insider or Liev Schreiber in last spring's A Walk on the Moon. Ok, must move on.

Foreign Language Film
Who Should Win: Movies that aren't nominated
Who Will Win: All About My Mother
More venting. I should point out that I haven't yet seen three of the nominees, but Pedro Almodovar's All About My Mother left me cold, and East-West is a Francophile's dream with big production values. The real contenders should be Erick Zonca's compelling Dreamlife of Angels and Run Lola Run, the German blockbuster that's been playing in Chicago forever it seems. Both of those films are innovative, interesting looks at the lives of struggling young women. Lola goes for a catchy, hyper-kinetic feel, while Dreamlife uses a pseudo-documentary approach. But both are wonderful and much more deserving than the mediocrity we're left with.

Original Screenplay
Who Should Win: Paul Thomas Anderson, Magnolia
Who Will Win: Alan Ball, American Beauty
The crime of Ball's all-but-certain victory is that director Sam Mendes cut out both Ball's beginning and ending, either of which would've sunk this film. The original script of American Beauty actually called for the teenagers to be framed for the crime, with an extensive courtroom scene. Can you imagine anything worse? Unfortunately, that's going to beat out four scripts that are all well-deserving: Being John Malkovich, Sixth Sense, Topsy Turvy, and Anderson's opus. In a year in which extraordinary ideas burst out from Hollywood's hills, the winner will be a sitcom writer who was luckily paired up with a great director and cast. Sounds like a movie.

Adapted Screenplay
Who Should Win: John Irving, Cider House Rules
Who Will Win: John Irving, Cider House Rules
Another category where most of the nominees are worthy. I suspect this is a category that Cider House Rules will actually win, though The Insider might catch it.

Best Director
Who Should Win: Sam Mendes, American Beauty
Who Will Win: Sam Mendes, American Beauty
The director's prize almost always overlaps with the picture winner, so this category doesn't need much space. I will say, though, that we'll be seeing all of these nominees again.

Cinematography
Who Should Win: Conrad Hall, American Beauty
Who Will Win: Conrad Hall, American Beauty
The technical categories are almost always filled with the right choices, since only members of those associations can actually vote. But the whole Academy votes for who actually wins, so usually one popular movie sweeps these awards (Saving Private Ryan last year, Titanic the year before). This year, however, American Beauty, the obvious juggernaut, is nominated in only a few (Score, Editing and Cinematography). Look for it to be beat out four other worthy contenders, though in this case I don't have any problem with that. Conrad Hall is the real reason American Beauty is the great movie that it is.

Original Score
Who Should Win: John Williams, Angela's Ashes
Who Will Win: Rachel Portman, Cider House Rules
Did you know that John Williams has been nominated 36 times in 32 years? To be honest, I don't know who's going to win. In fact, the American Beauty sweep might include the music. All I do know is that the most effective score of 1999--the Dust Brothers industrial onslaught in Fight Club--never had a chance.

Original Song
Who Should Win: "You'll Be in My Heart," Tarzan
Who Will Win: "You'll Be in My Heart," Tarzan
On a critical level, Aimee Mann should win for Magnolia (the music really amplifies the story), and I have a twisted hope that South Park might actually steal the show. In the end, though, I like Tarzan. No apologies.

Art Direction
Who Should Win: A tough call
Who Will Win: Probably David Gropman and Beth Rubino, Cider House Rules
Anna and the King, Sleepy Hollow, Topsy Turvy, and Rules are all worthy nominees. Anna and the King's oriental palace was spectacularly beautiful; Sleepy Hollow's gray, foggy fictional New England was the perfect backdrop for its nightmarish story; Topsy Turvy wonderfully captured backstage England; and Cider House Rules created a lush Oscar-worthy Maine.

Costume Design
Who Should Win: Milena Canonero, Titus
Who Will Win: Ann Roth and Gary Jones, Talented Mr. Ripley

Makeup
Who Should Win: Christine Blundell and Trefor Proud, Topsy Turvy
Who Will Win: Michele Burke and Mike Smithson, Austin Powers 2

Sound
Who Should Win: The Matrix
Who Will Win: The Matrix

Sound Effect Editing
Who Should Win: Fight Club
Who Will Win: The Matrix

Visual Effects
Who Should Win: Phantom Menace
Who Will Win: Phantom Menace

I'm not familiar enough with the other categories to even hazard a guess. If you're picking for your office pool, pick the movie that sounds the most congenial and you won't be far off.

The Oscar telecast begins at 7:00 p.m. central time this Sunday (Mar. 26) on ABC with a half-hour pre-show. The actual award ceremony begins at 7:30 p.m.

And the winners are....

Best Picture - American Beauty
Directing - Sam Mendes, American Beauty
Actor in a Leading Role - Kevin Spacey for American Beauty
Actor in a Supporting Role - Michael Caine for The Cider House Rules
Actress in a Leading Role - Hilary Swank for Boys Don't Cry
Actress in a Supporting Role -  Angelina Jolie for Girl, Interrupted
Foreign Language Film - Todo sobre mi madre from Spain
Original Score - John Corigliano for The Red Violin
Original Song - Tarzan - "You'll Be in My Heart" - Phil Collins
Screenplay - Original - Alan Ball for American Beauty
Screenplay - Adaptation - John Irving for The Cider House Rules
Art Direction - Rick Heinrichs; Peter Young for Sleepy Hollow
Cinematography- Conrad L. Hall for American Beauty
Costume Design - Lindy Hemming for Topsy-Turvy
Documentary Feature - Kevin MacDonald for One Day in September
Documentary Short Subject - William A. Whiteford for King Gimp
Film Editing - Zach Staenberg for The Matrix
Makeup - Christine Blundell and Trefor Proud for Topsy Turvy
Short Film - Animated - Aleksandr Petrov for The Old Man and the Sea
Short Film - Live Action - Barbara Schock for My Mother Dreams the Satan's Disciples in New York
Sound - The Matrix
Sound Effects Editing - The Matrix
Visual Effects - The Matrix