Final answer on the Oscars? 'Slumdog'

For six kajillion rupees, here's the final question: What movie will win the Best Picture Oscar at Sunday night's 81st Academy Awards show? Is it:

A) "Slumdog Millionaire"

B) "Slumdog Millionaire"

C) A and B

D) All of the above

You won't need to use your lifeline to call a local movie critic for help on this one.

Danny Boyle's India-set "Slumdog Millionaire" has emerged from relative obscurity to become a surprise commercial success and the odds-on favorite to win the world's highest motion-picture honor.

Let's check the "wrap" sheet. So far, "Slumdog Millionaire" has snagged:

• seven BAFTAs from the British Academy, including best picture

• four Golden Globes (best picture, director, score, screenplay)

• the Screen Actors Guild Award for best ensemble cast

• the Producers Guild Award for best picture

• the Writers Guild Award for best adapted screenplay

• the Directors Guild Award for best director

• the American Society of Cinematographers' feature film prize

• the Art Director's Guild's Best Contemporary Film award

• best picture honors from critics groups in London, Florida, Dallas, Phoenix, San Diego and Washington, D.C.

"Slumdog Millionaire" doesn't have the universal critics momentum that "L.A. Confidential" enjoyed in 1998 (all six major film critics organizations voted it No. 1), but these awards are compelling evidence to suggest that "Slumdog" has become a steamroller on its way to winning most, if not all, of its 10 Oscar nominations.

Only one nominee has greater odds of winning an Oscar, and he's the late Heath Ledger, whose ultra-creepy performance as the Joker in "The Dark Knight" became the stuff of Hollywood legend even before the Chicago-shot comic book thriller was released.

"The Dark Knight," a bona fide runaway box-office hit, has earned $533 million to a relatively paltry $80 million for "Slumdog Millionaire." Yet, "Knight" is not nominated for best picture as "Slumdog" is.

This has some misguided critics worried that the ratings for ABC-TV's 7 p.m. telecast with host Hugh Jackman will be in the basement because there's no huge box-office champion in contention for the big prize. (Best film nominee "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is a modest hit with more than $120 million and tops out at 13 nominations.)

Wisely, Academy voters haven't yet allowed TV ratings to dictate their selections for what they consider to be the best film work of the year.

What will win the big prizes at the Oscars on Sunday? Only one rule applies here: The old rules don't apply anymore.

Academy voters no longer cut any slack to longtime Hollywood veterans by giving them Oscars in lieu of a "lifetime achievement" award. No longer does the movie with the highest number of nominations automatically win Best Picture. Not this year, anyway.

So, here we go with the Daily Herald's fearless Oscar predictions.

Best Picture - "Slumdog Millionaire"

This engaging tale of a Mumbai ghetto orphan (Dev Patel) winning money on an Indian version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" has an epic story arc (voters love that!), an international scope, a touch of O. Henry, cinematically stunning sequences and, most important for voters, a conventional Hollywood happy ending.

Best Director - Danny Boyle

Loveleen Tandan, who started out as a casting director, proved to be so indispensable to Boyle on his India shoots that he named her co-director for "Slumdog Millionaire." But only Boyle is nominated, and he will handily take the Oscar for creating a visually bold, universally appealing motion picture that affirms goodness can survive in a corrupt world.

Actor - Sean Penn

It all boils down to a clash of titans - Penn as assassinated gay activist Harvey Milk in "Milk" and Mickey Rourke as an over-the-hill sports performer in "The Wrestler." Both are juggernaut performances, but I'm betting Oscar voters will go with Penn, whose whimsical, likable character deviates miles from his real personality, whereas Rourke pretty much is the banged-up, wretched soul we see.

Actress - Kate Winslet

On the 2005 British TV series "Extras," the five-time Oscar-losing Winslet made a cameo appearance as herself and snarkily said that if actors really want to win Oscars, they should star in a World War II Nazi drama.

Guess what?

Although Winslet's disgruntled suburban wife in "Revolutionary Road" was more subtle and complex, Stephen Daldry's "The Reader" cast her as a hottie ticket-taker in postwar Germany who winds up being charged as a Nazi war criminal - after having an intense, lengthy affair with an underage teenage boy.

Was it the flashier, fleshier character that made Oscar voters sit up and take notice of Winslet? Or that she finally took her own advice and starred in a Nazi drama?

Supporting Actor - Heath Ledger

To suggest that Ledger's nomination was simply a sympathy vote after his death from an accidental drug overdose is an affront to both acting and the actor's memory.

Ledger's performance - his raspy voice like an insect, the constant licking of his scars, the droll, underplayed menace - is the essence of performance excellence that will be studied and marveled at for years to come.

Supporting Actress - Viola Davis

I know, I know. Oddsmakers say that Academy favorite Penelope Cruz will win for her hotblooded Spanish artist in Woody Allen's romantic comedy "Vicky Cristina Barcelona." Maybe.

But I'm going on a longshot with Viola Davis as the mother of a possibly priest-abused son in the drama "Doubt." Her two scenes are brief (11 minutes or so), but Davis is a bolt of lightning, a corporeal mass of concentrated energy who pulls off a miracle: She holds her own with the great Meryl Streep.

If Judi Dench can win for her brief role as Queen Elizabeth in "Shakespeare in Love," Davis can do it here.

No doubt.

Animated Feature - "Wall•E"

Not only did "Wall•E" prove to be the most ambitious, imaginative animated film of 2008, it stands on its own as a solid piece of science fiction, too. ("Wall•E" was my pick for best movie of 2008.)

The Academy Awards

Facts: 7 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 22 on ABC 7, www.oscar.com

Red carpet coverage begins at 5 p.m. on E! and the TV Guide channel, 6 p.m. on ABC 7

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