The Academy Awards are just a few weeks away (February 25, 2007) and the anticipation is brewing to see who will have the longest acceptance speech, who will get jipped, what celebrity will wear a dress that looks like they assaulted a polar bear, goose and a hooker on the way to the awards, as well as how will Ellen DeGeneres do as Jon Stewart’s replacement as host.

Make no mistake folks, for film lovers, this is the Super Bowl. Here are my picks for the main categories, i.e. the ones you won’t sleep through.

BEST ACTOR

Leonardo DiCaprio (“Blood Diamond”), Ryan Gosling (“Half Nelson”), Peter O’Toole (“Venus”), Will Smith (“The Pursuit of Happyness”) and Forest Whitaker (“The Last King of Scotland”) round out the nominees for best actor.

Who Will Win

Leonardo DiCaprio will take home the Oscar for best actor because his performance in “Blood Diamond” is the best of his career. He plays a South African mercenary and his passion and perfect grasp of the local dialect and accent makes Edward Zwick’s film one of the best of the year.

Who Should Win

I would be surprised if DiCaprio didn’t take this award home on February 25^th, but if anyone else could snag the trophy, that would be Forest Whitaker for his role as Idi Amin in “The Last King of Scotland.”

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Alan Arkin (“Little Miss Sunshine”), Jackie Earl Haley (“Little Children”), Djimon Hounsou (“Blood Diamond”), Eddie Murphy (“Dreamgirls”) and Mark Wahlberg (“The Departed”) compose the 2007 nominees for best supporting actor.

Who Will Win

Eddie Murphy will walk away with the best supporting actor Oscar statue for his role in “Dreamgirls.” Consider this more of a lifetime achievement award for Murphy because, like Jim Carrey, even though he picks different roles, he still, at heart, is Eddie Murphy.

Who Should Win

Djimon Hounsou should win for his role as a father searching for his kidnapped son in “Blood Diamond.” The knock against Hounsou is he generally uses the same emotion and personality in films such as “In America,” “Gladiator,” and “The Island,” but the same label cannot be applied to “Blood Diamond,” where his heartache, loss and fear is completely palpable.

BEST ACTRESS

The nominees in this category are Penelope Cruz (“Volver”), Judi Dench (“Notes on a Scandal”), Helen Mirren (“The Queen”), Meryl Streep (“The Devil Wears Prada”), and Kate Winslet (“Little Children”).

Who Will Win

Helen Mirren’s portrayl of Queen Elizabeth II is the finest of her career and the clear standout female performance of 2006. She’s been nominated twice before by the Academy both for supporting actress roles in “Gosford Park” and “The Madness of King George.” She won the Golden Globe this year for “The Queen;” she’ll win the Oscar, as well.

Who Should Win

Helen Mirren should win, but don’t be surprised if Meryl Streep nabs the statue at the buzzer.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Adriana Barraza (“Babel”), Cate Blanchett (“Notes on a Scandal”), Abigail Breslin (“Little Miss Sunshine”), Jennifer Hudson (“Dreamgirls”), and Rinko Kikuchi (“Babel”) are the nominees for the best supporting actress category for 2007.

Who Will Win

Jennifer Hudson will win simply because of the blindside she gave to filmgoers with her performance in “Dreamgirls.” Nobody saw it coming, especially since the film is headlined by Jamie Foxx (“Ray”) and Beyonce (“Austin Powers in Goldmember”) and Hudson is best known as a once hopeful American Idol contestant.

Who Should Win

Either Adriana Barraza or Rinko Kikuchi should win for their performances in “Babel.” Each is powerful, heartbreaking and full of honest emotion. Especially Barraza as the Hispanic housekeeper/nanny in “Babel.” When she loses the children she cares for in the desert and then later is deported by the immigration folks, her raw emotion is moved-to-tears powerful.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

Only three nominees in “Cars,” “Monster House” and “Happy Feet.”

Who Will Win

“Cars” will win because the folks at Pixar, while skirting the edges of banality with “Cars,” are still geniuses who do animation better than anyone else in Hollywood.

Who Should Win

One word: “Cars.” But I do have a question? Where is “Flushed Away?” I thought the DreamWorks down-the-toilet rat adventure was clever and had great voice talent. Still, even if it had been nominated, “Cars” would take the cake.

BEST FOREGIN LANGUAGE FILM

“After the Wedding,” “Days of Glory (INDIGENES),” “The Lives of Others,” “Pan’s Labyrinth,” and “Water” round out the nominees in this category.

Who Will Win

“Pan’s Labyrinth,” directed by Guillermo del Toro (“Hellboy”) is an unbelievable film in story, grandeur and spectacle and it’s unfortunate it has to compete in this modest category because, quite frankly, it belongs in the best picture category. This is a must-see film and is expanding to more theaters this month.

Who Should Win

“Pan’s Labyrinth” has no competition in this category. It will win in a landslide.

BEST DOCUMENTARY

And the nominees for best documentary are “Deliver us from Evil,” “An Inconvenient Truth,” “Iraq in Fragments,” “Jesus Camp” and “My Country, My Country.”

Who Will Win

“An Inconvenient Truth” will win because of the glowing reviews and immense popularity of the Al Gore Fights Global Warming documentary. Plus, science or other views be damned, global warming is the cool thing to embrace right now. Tip your hat to the “the end is near” media for that one.

Who Should Win

“Iraq in Fragments” is by far the most powerful and moving documentary of the bunch. Sadly, people are tired of Iraq and don’t much care about the individual stories amongst the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.

BEST DIRECTOR

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (“Babel”), Martin Scorsese (“The Departed”), Clint Eastwood (“Letters from Iwo Jima”), “Stephen Frears (“The Queen”) and Paul Greengrass (“United 93”) round out the nominees for best director.

Who Will Win

Martin Scorsese will win this award not because “The Departed” is the best picture or his best work, but because poor Marty has been nominated for an Oscar eight previous times, five of which are best director nominations. This looks to be an early lifetime achievement Oscar for Martin Scorsese.

Who Should Win

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, whose hauntingly frantic “21 Grams” earned Naomi Watts and Benicio Del Toro acting nominations at the 2004 Academy Awards, should get the nod from voters for his “Crash”-like diatribe on the current state-of-affairs of the world.

BEST PICTURE

And the nominees are “Babel,” “The Departed,” “The Queen,” “Little Miss Sunshine” and “Letters from Iwo Jima.”

Who Will Win

“Babel” is easily the best film out of the five nominees. Inarritu, the film’s director, is able to paint a strikingly vivid morality play on the state-of-affairs in the world without stepping on any toes or planting a flag on either side of the political poles. His characters are deep, yet we don’t spend incredible amounts of time with each. And if you can get Brad Pitt to give his best performance ever, well, that’s accomplishing something. This isn’t an easy film to watch, but it is the best.

Who Should Win

“Babel,” but with nods of appreciation to “Letters from Iwo Jima” and “The Departed.” Why “Little Miss Sunshine” is on the list is beyond me. The film is good, but probably one of the most overrated best picture nominees of all-time.