God, do I love these two categories. Among these ten are six—count 'em, six!-- of my top ten films of the year, and one that just missed the cut (sorry, The Savages, but Superbad just demanded my attention). We've got some of the most original stories you've ever seen on the screen, from the wisecracking pregnant teen to the foodie rat, the lawyer in a moral crisis and a man in love with a doll. Then there's adaptations of powerful, beloved novels, from 1930s England to sun-parched Texas, and adaptations of novels that no one thought could be filmed, like a turn-of-the-century polemic or a novel written, blink by blink, by a paralyzed man. In short, damn it feels good to love movies when you're looking at titles like these.

The Nominees: Original Screenplay
Diablo Cody, Juno
Nancy Oliver, Lars and the Real Girl
Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton
Brad Bird, Ratatouille
Tamara Jenkins, The Savages
The most exciting part about this category is that there are three women on that list! One of them the famed stripper-turned-screenwriter, one a former Six Feet Under writer who created an entirely imaginative story about a man in love with a doll, and one a writer-director who only makes her own films, and only makes them about every 10 years. These three ladies, quite frankly, rule. In their company is Gilroy, who made a directorial debut that was so good it got nominated for an Oscar, and hey, he wrote the screenplay to boot. And then there's Brad Bird, who wrote what is probably the actual best picture of the year, the luminous Ratatouille. But in the end this is Cody's awards to lose-- she's been promoting herself too aggressively ,and has too good a story, to lose the Oscar at this point. Especially since Juno is looking unlikely to win any of its other categories, this will be the way for the Academy to reward the movie, hamburger phone and all.
Will win: Diablo Cody
Dark horse: Brad Bird

The Nominees: Best Adapted Screenplay
Christopher Hampton, Atonement Sarah Polley, Away from Her Ronald Harwood, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood
Some of the rumor-mongers in the last week have been trying to rattle the sabres and say someone besides the Coens can win this award. This is, frankly, silly. Sarah Polley's little, reportedly lovely movie is lucky to be noticed enough to be in this category at all. Christopher Hampton's adaptation of Atonement is pretty universally regarded as far less insightful than the novel. And Paul Thomas Anderson diverged so much from his source material, Upton Sinclair's Oil!, that it barely qualifies for the category. That leaves The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which is, granted, a remarkable adaptation of a memoir that seems, on the surface, unfilmable. Still, the damn thing is in French, and this is a category about words. Get used to seeing those irascible Coens up on stage.
Will win: Joel & Ethan Coen
Dark horse: Ronald Harwood

Wow, can you believe it's actually almost Oscar weekend? Tomorrow we start getting into categories with people you actually see on screen! We'll talk supporting actor and supporting actress-- one category that's been locked up for months, and one that I still can't make up my mind about. Fair warning: I may make a prediction there tomorrow and change my mind for the office Oscar pool. Sorry guys. This ain't exactly a science.