I wouldn’t normally predict the National Board of Review‘s picks, which will be revealed sometime around 2 or 3 pm this afternoon, but since I’ll be in a Sweeney Todd screening that will start at 2 pm I may as well take a shot. I’m doing so knowing that the NBR has become an even worse joke than before due to the reported ouster of Annette Insdorf from the executive photoplay committee. The NBR picks will be old news by tonight and all-but-forgotten by tomorrow so I don’t know why anything bothers.

I’m not disputing the ghost-of-Klaus Kinski‘s prediction that The Kite Runner will take Best Picture, but a voice is telling me that it’s a 50-5O teeter-totter between this and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. (They may go even further and give their Best Director award to Julian Schnabel.) It would be right and fitting to start the ball rolling for No Country for Old Men with a Best Picture win…

I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I really can’t do this. Whatever they choose, they choose. The groups that matter are the L.A. Film Critics (who will vote, I think, this coming Saturday), the Boston Film Critics (who’ll vote Sunday) and the New York Film Critics Circle (who will powwow early next week).