Oscar outlook

The Golden Globes, trade unions, film critics and just about everyone else in Hollywood have weighed in on 2006’s best film achievements, helping to solidify the Academy Awards picture – and muddy it up a bit, too. With Oscar nominations due out Tuesday, a few clear front-runners and some intriguing wild cards have emerged, along with an unusually open race for the top prize. Still to come are awards by the Directors Guild of America and Screen Actors Guild, whose nominations came out earlier this month. Those should help sort out much of the Oscar outlook, but unlike most years, when a solid favorite often emerges, the best-picture category could remain up for grabs right up to Academy Awards night Feb. 25. A look at how Oscar season is shaping up:

The sure things: Golden Globe winners Helen Mirren and Forest Whitaker seemingly sewed up the best-actress and actor categories from the minute their films debuted last fall.

A grand dame of British drama, Mirren looks unbeatable for her turn as prim Elizabeth II in “The Queen.” If there’s a best-actress dark horse, it’s Penelope Cruz, who delivers a career performance full of heart and humor in “Volver,” playing a woman coping with bizarre – and possibly supernatural – crises in her domestic life.

The quiet, even-keeled Whitaker, known more for hushed menace or gentle humor, explodes on screen as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in “The Last King of Scotland,” presenting a figure of towering passion and depraved cruelty.

The lion in winter: The only actor with an outside chance at usurping Whitaker’s Oscar crown is Peter O’Toole. All the hard, hedonistic mileage of O’Toole’s life – and that of his character, a frail but still lecherous old actor – shows clearly on his face in “Venus,” a portrait of a man whose libido still functions, even if his body doesn’t.

O’Toole, 74, is tied with Richard Burton (his co-star in 1964’s “Becket,” which earned them both best-actor nominations) for the Oscar-futility record among actors, each nominated seven times but never winning.

With other best-actor nominations for such films as “Lawrence of Arabia,” “My Favorite Year” and “The Lion in Winter,” O’Toole was given an honorary Oscar four years ago – a prize he almost turned down, saying he felt he still had a chance to win the award outright.

The precedent is there: A year after the academy gave Henry Fonda an honorary award, the 76-year-old Hollywood legend finally won the best-actor Oscar, for “On Golden Pond.”

The best-picture puzzle: The rousing Motown-era musical? The sweeping mob epic? The globe-trotting ensemble drama? The beloved road-trip romp? The sly, caustic palace tale?

Most years, a front-runner or two has emerged by now, but no clear favorite has stepped forward from this season’s far-flung group of best-picture wannabes.

Almost certain to grab nominations are the musical “Dreamgirls,” the crime saga “The Departed” and the monarchy chronicle “The Queen.”

The international drama “Babel” also looks like a safe bet, and the road tale “Little Miss Sunshine” has a strong shot to become a rare comedy that sneaks into the best-picture mix.

Clint Eastwood’s World War II companion films, “Letters From Iwo Jima” and “Flags of Our Fathers,” have outside chances, though neither has caught much fire with earlier awards or audiences. The suburban comic drama “Little Children” also has a shot.

“Dreamgirls” was the big winner at the Golden Globes with three prizes, including best musical or comedy. “Babel” came in leading the field with seven nominations but left with just one, for best drama.

Despite crafting such modern classics as “Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull” and “Goodfellas,” “The Departed” director Martin Scorsese never has delivered a best-picture winner – or won the directing Oscar.

The deserving directors: Like O’Toole, Scorsese could go down in the books as one of the all-time biggest failures at the Oscars. With five nominations and no wins, he’s tied with four other directors for biggest loser.

The Golden Globe winner’s prospects look good this time – though the same was true two years ago, when he lost to Clint Eastwood, whose “Million Dollar Baby” beat Scorsese’s “The Aviator” for best picture.

Eastwood scored two directing nominations for the Golden Globes with “Flags of Our Fathers” and “Letters From Iwo Jima,” though his Oscar star faded after he was shut out for a Directors Guild nomination. Oscar nominees generally line up close to the guild picks.

The deserving veteran: Since his early 20s, Eddie Murphy has weathered broad career swings.

His infectious grin and manic temperament have won over audiences in “Beverly Hills Cop,” “48 Hrs.” and the “Doctor Dolittle” and “Nutty Professor” flicks, but he’s tanked when straying too far from his likable, tried-and-true persona with such duds as “Holy Man,” “Vampire in Brooklyn” and “The Adventures of Pluto Nash.”

As a James Brown-like soul wailer in “Dreamgirls,” Murphy finally has found an ideal fit for his in-your-face attitude, his edgier dark side and his innate talent to take the stage and blow the roof off the joint.

With a Golden Globe now on his shelf, Murphy heads toward the Oscars looking like a solid supporting-actor front-runner.

The deserving newcomers: In barely two years, Jennifer Hudson has gone from talent-show hopeful as a finalist on “American Idol” to Golden Globe winner and likely Oscar front-runner as supporting actress for her show-stopping role in “Dreamgirls.”

In her first acting role, as a saucy vocal powerhouse forced to take a backseat to her more mainstream and photogenic band mate, Hudson steals scene after scene opposite Oscar winner Jamie Foxx and pop superstar Beyonce Knowles.

While Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett were the marquee names in “Babel,” the most memorable performances came from two faces relatively new to the Hollywood crowd.

Mexican actress Adriana Barraza is heartbreaking as nanny to two American children whose life takes a terrible turn because of tragic events half a world away. Japanese newcomer Rinko Kikuchi proves mesmerizing with a silent, wrenching, introspective performance as a teen whose family is struck by the same events overseas.

The deserving longshots: On rare occasions when academy voters go for comic roles, it’s usually with a respected dramatic actor who’s gone slumming in a comedy, such as Kevin Kline, a supporting-actor winner for “A Fish Called Wanda.”

Sacha Baron Cohen’s turn as a crass and clueless observer of the United States in “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” won him the Golden Globe for best actor in a musical or comedy. But the role almost certainly is too outrageous to earn him a best-actor nomination.

Two little-seen films about people coping with drug problems brought acting nominations at earlier awards for actors every bit as good as the likely Oscar nominees, but who probably will not be among the five finalists.

Maggie Gyllenhaal earned a Golden Globe nomination as an ex-con fighting her drug addiction and trying to work her way back into her young daughter’s life in “Sherrybaby.”

Ryan Gosling was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award as an inspiring teacher, struggling with a drug habit, who becomes both mentor and reclamation project for a bright inner-city student in “Half Nelson.”

But it’s tough for such smaller performances to break into a roster crowded with such Oscar heavyweights as Mirren, O’Toole, Leonardo DiCaprio (“The Departed,” “Blood Diamond”), Judi Dench (“Notes on a Scandal”), Kate Winslet (“Little Children”) and Will Smith (“The Pursuit of Happyness”).