Critics Predict Oscar's Big Winners

Feb. 20, 2009 — -- The Oscars are approaching and, for movie fans, suspense is mounting.

Can Mickey Rourke body-slam Sean Penn? Will never-won-an-Oscar Kate Winslet shut out veteran actress Meryl Streep? ABC News Radio convened three of the nation's top film critics -- Rolling Stone's Peter Travers, People Magazine's Leah Rozen and Alison Bailes of the syndicated movie review show "Lyons and Bailes Reel Talk" -- to talk about who will win, and who should win, at the 81st Annual Academy Awards. Read on: It's not too late to change your picks for the office pool.

Some skeptics still contest Marisa Tomei's "My Cousin Vinny" win back in 1992, saying an aging Jack Palance called out her name simply because it was listed last on the teleprompter. Seventeen years later, the critics are rooting for Brooklyn-born Tomei, who plays a stripper-with-a-heart-of-gold and Mickey Rourke's sort-of girlfriend in "The Wrestler."

Bailes called her performance "phenomenal" and, according to Rozen, a second win would prove the naysayers wrong, adding, "This time, it would be completely deserved."

The honorable mention goes to Taraji P. Henson, who plays Brad Pitt's adoptive mother in "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." Travers said Henson gives the movie much-needed heart, but he joked, "I think she can't win because we still don't know what the 'P' stands for." (P.S.: Her middle name is Penda.)

"The conversation should be who would have won if Heath Ledger wasn't in the category," Travers said.

In that case, the Oscar might have gone to the most unlikely nominee of the bunch, Robert Downey Jr., who bagged a nomination for, of all things, a comedy ("Tropic Thunder") in which he appeared in blackface.

The reality is that Downey and the rest will almost certainly lose to Ledger, who has earned more than a dozen awards worldwide for his psychopathic turn as the Joker in "The Dark Knight." Despite his tragic death, Ledger, Bailes believes, isn't tallying sympathy votes.