The Satellites! Try to Contain Yourselves.

Some thoughts on the Golden Satellite nominations (thanks to Oscarwatch for the link):

In terms of Oscar predicting, these don't matter much. Usually I just tend to enjoy the instances where they nominate someone awesome who doesn't have a chance anywhere else. Last year, they nommed Mark Wahlberg for I Heart Huckabees, and that's all I needed. This year, they win my heart over with a Kristen Bell nomination for Veronica Mars. Love!

But, really, these are hardly influential precursors. They're generally the awards you go to after the entire season is over and go "Oh, look, they nominated so-and-so. Glad to see they got something."

The beauty of the Satellites is that they nominate roughly seven hundred thousand actors and actresses – separate drama and comedy designations; six-plus noms per category -- so the law of averages says you can find more than half of your eventual Oscar nominees contained therein, if you're just patient enough to sift through all the names. It's like the $7 DVD bin at Wal-Mart, except way fewer copies of The Italian Job.

So, in the Oscarwatching equivalent of getting blood from a stone, I will try and glean some predictive insights from this year's crop of Satellite noms. First some tendencies: Going by the wholly unscientific data of the past three years, the Satellites average 3/5 (that is, 3 out of the 5 eventual Oscar nominees get a Satellite nom first) in every acting category, except for Best Actress, in which they average close to 5/5 (understandable given the usual dearth of baity actress performances).

So, if the averages were to hold, which names are the most likely to hold up?

Best Actor: Phillip Seymour Hoffman, David Strathairn, Heath Ledger, and Joaquin Phoenix look like the best bets. Viggo Mortenson, Terrence Howard, Tommy Lee Jones, and Jake Gyllenhaal are the dark horses. If we had to pick three, you'd figure: Hoffman, Ledger, and Phoenix. But right now I'll bet Strathairn gets in, too.

Best Actress: Again, this category usually rounds up all five, so: Charlize Theron, Felicity Huffman, Ziyi Zhang, Judi Dench, Joan Allen, Reese Witherspoon, and Kiera Knightley could be called our finalists. To paraphrase Heidi Klum, five will be in, and two are out. (Right now, I'll wager Zhang and Allen are out. As is Daniel Franco … again.)

Best Supporting Actor: Here's where it gets odd, because among the Satellites' twelve nominees, I only see Jake Gyllenhaal, Craig T. Nelson, and Peter Sarsgaard as remotely nominatable. And Nelson and Sarsgaard would be pushing it, I think. This is the weirdest category I've seen in a long time. [Side note: how cool is it that Edward Norton got a nod for Kingdom of Heaven here? He was the best part of the movie, and you never saw his face.]

Best Supporting Actress: This category is looking fuller by the minute: Frances McDormand, Maria Bello, Laura Linney, Gong Li, Amy Adams, Diane Keaton, Rosario Dawson. [Loved the Rosario Dawson nod. I just saw Rent and she was stunning. They also nommed Rachel McAdams for The Family Stone, which I approve of, sight unseen.] Out of those seven, you'd figure Keaton, Bello, McDormand, and Li would be the heavy hitters. But Amy Adams' name keeps popping up, which is very, very good for her. If I have to pick only three: Keaton, Bello, and Li.

I won't get into Best Picture, though suffice it to say that Satellite noms for Brokeback Mountain, Walk the Line, Capote, Memoirs of a Geisha, and (*sigh*) Cinderella Man all bode well. Also: A History of Violence. Don't give up on that until the critics have had their say.