A brotherly pat on the back to all those on Oscarwatch.com’s Final Oscar Prediction Chart who are predicting Alan Arkin to take the Best Supporting Actor Oscar — The Envelope‘s Tom O’Neil, Award Speculation, Buzzmeter, Spencer Shannon, Toronto Star‘s Peter Howell, Indiewire‘s Eugene Hernandez, N.Y. Daily News critic Jack Matthews and Trailer Spy‘s Julie Stone. Hollywood Wiretap‘s Pete Hammond (who didn’t send his picks into Oscarwatch, but he’s standing by Arkin in his latest Hollywood Wiretap column)

Almost everyone else is sticking with Eddie Murphy, and two or three stragglers are picking Jackie Earl Haley.

Good things occasionally happen to bad people, and you just have to roll with this when it happens. If Murphy wins, it will be because the anti-Murphy contingent didn’t rally around an alternative with enough uniformity. If you were to conduct an instant e-mail poll of all Academy members right now, Arkin would be the victor…but he only began to really surge over the last two or three weeks. The Movie Gods are, of course, foursquare against Murphy, but they were also pulling for Brokeback Mountain winning the Best Picture Oscar last year.