Peter Travers' Oscar picks continues today with the contest for Best Actor. Daniel Day-Lewis seems like a lock for his stunning performance in There Will Be Blood, but will George Clooney, Johnny Depp, Tommy Lee Jones or Viggo Mortensen pull off the upset? Click above to hear the Rolling Stone film critic's take, and be sure to tune in tomorrow for his thoughts on the race for Best Actress.

Watch every episode of our weekly Peter Travers video podcast by subscribing via iTunes (when prompted, click “Launch application”). Every Friday, a new episode will be delivered to your iTunes. [If you don’t have iTunes, download it here.]

[Video: Jennifer Hsu]

It's in the air, people. As Oscar Sunday approaches, rumors are flying that No Country for Old Men is no longer a lock as Best Picture. Academy voters hate that damn ending and the fact that we never see the Josh Brolin character get his. Colossal stupidity, of course, but idiot thinking is part of the Oscar process. The hot skinny has it that Juno, the populist candidate, and Michael Clayton, the throwback to the 1970s when Academy voters were last comfortable with movies, are gaining ground. Suddenly, the Coen brothers are Hillary Clinton and Juno and Michael Clayton are on the Obama ticket for change. The Crash upset over Brokeback Mountain two years ago is being cited as precedent. But homophobia was the force that brought down Brokeback—no cornholing cowpokes for Oscar's old-guard, thank you very much. Before weighing in yourselves, take a look at the platforms each movie is running on:

Juno promises you a movie you'll take to heart, an Oscar nominated performance by new star Ellen Page and the only Oscar nominated screenplay ever written by a former stripper and phone sex operator. And Juno is raking in big bucks—$125 million so far. On the downside, the teen pregnancy issue is glibly sidestepped and the character of Juno is irritating the shit out of some people with her smartass patter set to a Kimya Dawson soundtrack.

Michael Clayton promises a movie with a moral center, a leading actor (George Clooney) who was just dubbed by Time magazine as "The Last Movie Star," Oscar nominated supporting performances by Tom Wilkinson and Tilda Swinton, a solid first-time director in Tony Gilroy, who also wrote the script, and—crucial point here—no bloody violence. On the downside, the movie is barely hitting $50 million at the box-office and, well, it actually delivers as a movie with a moral center.

I'd like to try an experiment on this blog and ask you to cast your vote for either Juno or Michael Clayton as a possible Best Picture winner. Let's see if an upset really is in the wind.

We're one day closer to this Sunday's Oscars, which means Peter Travers is engaging another close race. Today, he looks at the Best Supporting Actress category. Will it be Cate Blanchett in I'm Not There, Ruby Dee in American Gangster, Saoirse Ronan in Atonement or Tilda Swinton in Michael Clayton? Click about to hear the Rolling Stone film critic's arguments, and be sure to tune in later today for his thoughts on who should win the Oscar for Best Actor.

Watch every episode of our weekly Peter Travers video podcast by subscribing via iTunes (when prompted, click “Launch application”). Every Friday, a new episode will be delivered to your iTunes. [If you don’t have iTunes, download it here.]

[Video: Jennifer Hsu]

If the Oscars are making you nuts with their Hollywood bias—though there's less glitz among this year's nominees than ever—you can detox with the Independent Spirit Awards. Taking place this Saturday, and broadcast on the Independent Film Channel (IFC), the 23rd Independent Spirit Awards celebrate what you can do with film talent, working fast and on the cheap. Hosted by Rainn Wilson, of The Office and Juno, the ceremony takes place in front of an audience that gathers inside a beachfront tent in Santa Monica. On the Red Carpet, the Spirits are to cargo pants what the Oscars are to Dolce and Gabbana. The crowd is low-key and by my own witness not adverse to maverick behavior and controlled substances. Mostly, though, it's a chance for the indies get a little cred. Here are a few of the nominees:

BEST FEATURE

The Diving Bell And The Butterfly

I'm Not There

Juno

A Mighty Heart

Paranoid Park

Only Juno is also on Oscar's Best Picture list. But I think this award will go to Todd Haynes' I'm Not There (see photo) or Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which both represent rule-busting experimentation pushed to the max. You can't say that about Juno.

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All this week, Peter Travers will be discussing this year's biggest Oscar races, making his picks and probably starting some arguments along the way. First up is the contest for Best Supporting Actor. Who will walk away with the little gold man? Click above to check out Travers' thoughts, and be sure to check back tomorrow for his pick for Best Supporting Actress.

Watch every episode of our weekly Peter Travers video podcast by subscribing via iTunes (when prompted, click “Launch application”). Every Friday, a new episode will be delivered to your iTunes. [If you don’t have iTunes, download it here.]

[Video: Jennifer Hsu]

Today's DVD releases feature three major Academy Award contenders. Don't make any bets or stupid guesses about who'll win this Sunday before checking them out:

PICK OF THE WEEK: AMERICAN GANGSTER

The scene in which Ruby Dee (see photo) gives holy hell to her murdering, Machiavellian, drug-smuggling movie son (Denzel Washington) may just win the eighty-three-year-old actress her first Oscar. Who wants to argue with that, even if Dee—the widow of her longtime acting partner Ossie Davis—is in the movie for less than ten minutes? She hits sonny boy with a slap —director Ridley Scott did three takes and Dee hauled off and whooped him every time—that invests the movie with genuine moral force.

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Before Daniel Day Lewis wins his Oscar on Sunday for There Will Be Blood—he's as close to a lock as anyone in the race—he'll have to drink up a sour milkshake: Of the five films nominated for Best Picture, Blood has amassed the lowest box-office take so far: around $31 million since it debuted in December. That's $3 million less than the jumbled Jumper just finished taking in on its opening weekend. Since Blood is brilliant and Jumper is, well, junk—you get my point.

Since it's Oscar week, I don't want to concentrate on the parade of puke that made a killing between Valentine's and President's Day.

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Is Eddie Murphy, decked out in drag and a fatsuit (see photo), the year's worst actor in Norbit?

Is Lindsay Lohan, playing the dual roles of amnesiac and skeevy stripper (see photo), a lock for Worst Actress in I Know Who Killed Me?

Welcome to the Razzies, an organization founded in 1980 by John Wilson to mete out punishment to the movies that punished us. On Feb. 23rd, the day before the Oscars, the Golden Raspberry Award Foundation will once again stick it big time to Hollywood’s most egregious suckfests. The Razzie trophy aptly features a cluster of balls. As you know, the wussy Oscar statuette has no balls. Razzie winners rarely show up to accept their trophy, except for Tom Green who admirably appeared in 2002—with five feet of his own red carpet—to accept his due for Freddy Got Fingered.

What I admire most about the Razzies—I’m a long time voting member—is that the award only goes to the gloriously godawful. A movie is only Razzie worthy when its intrinsic worthlessness sinks to levels so low that the pain of watching it turns to pleasure.

You know what I’m saying. Webster’s defines the slang for raspberry as “a sound of derision or contempt, made by expelling air forcibly so as to vibrate the tongue between the lips.” So put your lips together and blow as we eyeball a few of this year’s nominees. By all means, feel free to add some of your own if you think a genuine baddie got away.

WORST PICTURE

Bratz

Daddy Day Camp

I Know Who Killed Me

I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry

Norbit

Norbit easily takes the racist, sexist cake for comedy. But I'd like to see a few of Hollywood's pompous Iraq war movies take a hit, especially Rendition.

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This week's video review takes a look at the sci-fi action thriller Jumper and George Romero's latest socially-conscious zombie flick Diary of the Dead. Click above for the Rolling Stone film critic's take on this week's new options at the multiplex. Plus: Read Travers' reviews of Diary of the Dead here and Jumper here.

Watch every episode of our weekly Peter Travers video podcast by subscribing via iTunes (when prompted, click “Launch application”). Every Friday, a new episode will be delivered to your iTunes. [If you don’t have iTunes, download it here.]

[Video: Jennifer Hsu]

Down with Valentine’s Day. Actually, I don’t mean that. What I do mean is down with Valentine’s Day films. Whenever someone asks me what movie they should watch on V-Day, I always feel I’m expected to come up with titles that, in the words of Oscar Wilde, reek of “more than usually revolting sentimentality.”

Come on, a date movie doesn’t have to be Beaches or The Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood. And guys, a double feature of Hostel movies won’t cut it either.

If you’re looking to go out to a new movie , take a chance on the at least bearable Definitely, Maybe, and not the wretched Fool’s Gold, which only a fool would suffer gladly. With Maybe you get the definite pleasure of watching Ryan Reynolds hit on three gorgeous and intelligent women—Elizabeth Banks, Isla Fisher and—my fave— Rachel Weisz (see photo).

As a lead in to next week’s Oscars, you might want to catch up with one of the five nominees for Best Picture. You’ll get the sweet in Juno and the hot in Atonement. From No Country for Old Men, Michael Clayton and There Will Be Blood you’ll gets bubkas in terms of romance.

If you’re looking for a DVD, you could go with Blockbuster’s list of the most popular choices:

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