If It Ain't Brokeback... Who Will Win?

Pssst! Hey you, with the Oscar- pool ballot in your hand! Before you automatically check off those boxes for Ang, Philip, and Reese (okay, well, maybe check those off), take a look through EW's annual, we-analyzed-it-so-you-don't-have-to guide to the Oscar race. From sound mixing to makeup, we've agonized over every category and pondered all the permutations so that you can look as golden as possible on March 5.

THE OTHER RACES
Where Geisha will turn heads and Kong will be king

BEST ART DIRECTION
It may have been snubbed in all the major categories, but Memoirs of a Geisha didn't score six craft nominations for nothing. Its dazzling Technicolor sets should have no problem trumping the black-and-white (and therefore tougher to appreciate) Good Night, and Good Luck.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Geisha is a decent bet for runner-up, but Rodrigo Prieto's soaring camera work marks the strongest chance for Brokeback Mountain to pick up a below-the-line win.

BEST FILM EDITING
With Brokeback not in the running, voters will likely use this opportunity to acknowledge Crash's many powerfully interwoven plotlines by recognizing first-time nominee Hughes Winborne.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Gustavo Santaolalla's jangly Brokeback Mountain music would be an unorthodox choice, but John Williams, who earned two nods this year (the 44th and 45th of his almost 50-year film career), will win his sixth trophy for his authentic work on Memoirs of a Geisha.

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
Eminem's 2003 win for ''Lose Yourself'' certainly paved the way for another rap victory, but since the Hustle & Flow number ''It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp'' lacks star power, Kathleen ''Bird'' York and Michael Becker's stirring Crash theme ''In the Deep'' will likely drive away with the statue.

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
We're still freaked out by those exterminating aliens in War of the Worlds, but it's King Kong that truly redefined the word eye- popping this year.

BEST SOUND EDITING
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe may have won the holiday-season box office battle, but with its mammoth scope, King Kong should even the score by stomping all over its competition.

BEST SOUND MIXING
Kong is also a front-runner here, but since the song-heavy Ray picked up this prize last year, we're going with the rollicking musical numbers of Walk the Line.

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
With exotic clothing stretching across multiple class lines, the work of six-time nominee Colleen Atwood (who won this category for Chicago) in Memoirs of a Geisha seems unbeatable.

BEST MAKEUP
It's the only shot at Oscar for Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith, but the Force should be with those whimsical Chronicles of Narnia creatures.

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Paradise Now, the Palestinian portrait of two suicide bombers, is a stunner, but perhaps not for the Academy. Germany's Sophie Scholl, about a Christian university student executed for her anti-Hitler resistance work in the Reich's last days, comes closest to the token ''Holocaust film'' slot. But we think the prize will go to Tsotsi, in which a South African thug finds a measure of redemption after kidnapping a middle-class black baby.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Claymation guru Nick Park has three Oscars on his mantel, one for each year he's been nominated. Expect him to add a fourth for Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

BEST ANIMATED SHORT
While Pixar's One Man Band is a charming CGI short about two musicians vying for a young girl's gold coin, our pick is Shane Acker's 9, an homage-filled suspense yarn about a doll-like figure outwitting a mechanical beast. (Tim Burton is producing a feature-length version.)

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Murderball has its advocates, but it'll be hard to refuse the stars of the doc phenom March of the Penguins. Besides, they're already donning formal attire for the occasion.

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
The edge likely goes to The Death of Kevin Carter, about a South African war photographer who committed suicide shortly after winning the 1994 Pulitzer for a shot of an emaciated Sudanese child with a vulture nearby. Possible spoilers: The Mushroom Club, a look at Hiroshima 60 years after the bomb by '91 Oscar winner Steven Okazaki, or God Sleeps in Rwanda, depicting the surprisingly upbeat lives of women in that African nation post-genocide.

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT
Our Time Is Up, about a shrink (Kevin Pollak) who unloads on his patients, induces plenty of chuckles. Irish playwright Martin McDonagh's Six Shooter, starring a widower (Brendan Gleeson) who meets a possibly psychotic young man on a train, is outrageously Tarantino-esque. But we'll go with Ausreisser (The Runaway), a heady German mind trip featuring a cute/creepy boy in the Sixth Sense tradition. (EW's Oscar oddsmakers: Thom Geier and Dave Karger.)