Oscar: Deserving Vs. Winning

With the 75th annual Oscar awards just six days away, the eyes of the movie world are focused on who will be taking home those famous gold statuettes.

So The Early Show contributors Laurie Hibberd and Jess Cagle offered their picks and predicted who the winners will be.

"Chicago" was their favorite pick, deserving to win the Best Picture award. Hibberd said, "It's a picture everybody loves. The critics love it. The fans love it. People who don't even like musicals love this movie." And Cagle added, "It's a fantastic accomplishment in that it has really revived the movie musical more than 'Moulin Rouge' did."

For Best Actor, both Hibberd and Cagle think Daniel Day-Lewis will win for "Gangs of New York," though Cagle says Jack Nicholson for "About Schmidt" should be the one taking home the statuette.

"There's been a backlash against that performance. But it was one of the best of his career. He played a real character. I thought it was very rich," Cagle said.

Hibberd disagrees. Adrien Brody in "The Pianist," gave the best performance, she said. "He really dug deep for that role, more than any other name on that role."

In the Best Actress category, Hibberd said tongue in cheek that the winner will be "Nicole Kidman by a nose.

"It's the kind of performance the academy loves, it's very prestigious, showy, great movie," she said.

Cagle said Renee Zellweger will get the award for "Chicago" since she recently won the Screen Actors Guild award. But encouraged by Hibbered to go by what he thinks and not by what other actors are saying, Cagle said "the one who really deserves Best Actress is Diane Lane. That was a great performance. It was really out there. But, it came out too long ago. The movie wasn't all that popular."

In the Best Supporting Actress category, Hibberd said the winner should be Catherine Zeta-Jones.

"If you're going to go for the flashier role, do it in the supporting category. She did the splits in that open opening number, and she gave birth to a baby six months earlier. On that alone you have to give it to her," Hibberd said.

Cagle also thinks Zeta-Jones will win, but his favorite is Meryl Streep, saying she offered an "amazing performance" in "Adaptation" as a woman reexamining her values and life, then turning broadly comic in the second half of the film. But "Adaptation" is just not a very popular movie with the Academy and that will cost her, he noted.

The Best Supporting Actor should be Ed Harris, said Hibberd. "Not just for the performance he had in "The Hours" but for body of work. And for the fact he's been nominated three other times and has never won. I think the academy feels like he's due. And it was a fantastic performance."

Cagle said Christopher Walken is going to win "because he has sentiment on his side. He's very, very well-liked. Sometime along the way, this guy who has played weirdoes his entire career became this institution within Hollywood. So I think that he's going to win. But Chris Cooper from "Adaptation" is the one who should get it," he said.

For Best Director, Hibberd and Cagle agree, Rob Mashall should win.

"Got to give it to him. He went out on a limb. He cast these people that nobody would think would be in a musical. He put it together and he made it work," Hibberd said.

Marshall won the Director's Guild of America awards and almost without fail, the winner of the DGA award wins the directing Oscar. Only this year, the DGA also gave a lifetime achievement award to Scorsese.

"I think there's still a chance that Scorsese could get it because he hasn't ever won," Cagle said.

But you never know, Cagle and Hibbered pointed out they are usually not right when it comes to picking the winners. "We never win the office pool," Hibberd joked.