Golden Globes Showdown

Hollywood's biggest stars will gather Sunday night for the 58th Annual Golden Globe Awards. While the awards presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association are highly coveted in their own right, many observers also view them as a fair indicator of who'll get Oscar's attention.

For some predictions, CBS News Early Show Anchor Bryant Gumbel talked with Mitchell Fink, gossip columnist of New York's Daily News.

The Golden Globes, according to Fink are "a wonderful popularity contest and it's a chance for people like me to get more bang for my buck. There are so many stars there."

Fink predicts Gladiator will win for Best Drama.

"It was a sweeping epic. It was a clearly terrific movie. It took people by surprise. They had no idea it was this good. I think it's a winner," says Fink. "It was compared to Spartacus. Some people said it was obviously not as good but the kind of movie that can win."

Unlike the Oscars, the Golden Globes splits the movies into two categories, "Best Drama" and "Best Musical or Comedy." For the latter category, Fink thinks Chocolatand Almost Famousare the leading contenders.

"I think Almost Famous was a good movie. It caught on with baby boomers. " He describes Chocolat as "exquisite."

The Best Actor in a drama category is a "matchup between Russell Crowe and Tom Hanks" says Fink, describing Hanks' performance in Cast Away as "incredible."

"Russell Crowe will get a lot of attention because of Gladiator," he says, but, "for my money, I would pick Hanks."

For the Best Actress in a Drama category, Fink says the winner will be Julia Roberts.

"She is the clear favorite. Laura Linney will probably give her a little competition," says Fink. "Linney was just so fantastic in You Can Count On Me." But "this is Julia's year," he said, noting that the race between the actresses isn't fair because "Julia has a tremendous [publicity] machine behind her."

Mel Gibson will win for Best Actor in a comedy, predicts Fink, noting that it's a weak field this year. And he thinks Juliette Binoche will win as Best Actress in a comedy.

For Best Supporting Actor (which doesn't distinguish between best comedy or drama), Fink says the ace is between Joaquin Phoenix and Benicio del Toro. And, pointing out that the field for best supporting actress is weak, Fink predicts that Kate Hudson will win for her performance in Almost Famous.

Who will win for best director? Fink says although Steven Soderbergh is nominated in this category for two films, Traffic and Erin Brokovich, the award is likely to go to Ang Lee for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or possibly Ridley Scott for Gladiator.

As for pure gossip, Fink says "it will be interesting to see in Jim Carrey and Renee Zellweger come because they're both nominated in the musical and comedy categories and they broke up."

For more on the Golden Globes, visit Hollywood.com

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