BEST PICTURE
At this point, you can put money on The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Slumdog Millionaire, Milk, and Frost/Nixon to make the cut. The fifth slot, leaving out dark horses like Revolutionary Road (too depressing), The Reader (too controversial), and WALL-E (too...cartoony), is looking like a race between two very different contenders: Doubt and The Dark Knight. The intimate, powerful Doubt racked up the most Screen Actors Guild nominations — but then again, so did Oscar also-ran Into the Wild last year. If Doubt fails to excite the non-acting majority of the Academy, a certain commercial and critical smash might just end up with a Best Picture nod to add to its half-billion dollar gross.