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Oscars 2008 Betting Update: No place for old softies, Coen brothers to win Best Picture

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ChickenDinner reckons Hollywood's reputation for hard-nosed cynicism is well earned, and can provide the savvy punter with clues to help them find the bargains in the Oscar winner markets.

A wave of sensitivity appears to have swept Hollywood in light of the ongoing writers' strike, so the usual bout of frenzied Oscars promotion has been somewhat muted this year - but a few strong impressions are emerging from the gloom.

For Best Picture, No Country For Old Men is still the favourite ([1.42]) with massive backing from Hollywood glamour bible Variety (it is the main ad on their website). Having already scored the top prize at the Producers Guild Awards, the Directors Guild Awards and the Screen Actors Guild Awards, how can the Academy voters ignore it?

Scott Rudin - a big fat cigar-smoking producer - was the man with the purse hurling funds at the Coen brothers' No Country... and second favourite There Will Be Blood ([5.8]) as well. He is absolutely resolute that sweeping romantic epics like Atonement ([9.2]) no longer have a place in this World. The British rom/dram may yet have a happy night out at the Baftas, but the Academy still rues the day it ignored Fargo in favour of The English Patient (1996). The Coens should get the nod.

Sneaking up on the inside could be Juno ([23.0]). In the last twenty years, only once has the Best Picture not been one of the two highest box-office earners of the five nominees. That was American Beauty in 1999. This year, Juno has made the most money, followed by No Country for Old Men.

If Juno doesn't take Best Picture, the movie's young lead Ellen Page could prove a good speculative punt for Best Actress ([11.0]). Currently gracing the covers of Vanity Fair and Entertainment Weekly, she looks set to be the new Hollywood darling, in a similar mould to Scarlett Johansson post-Lost in Translation. The hipper members of the Academy (should such people exist) might have thrown caution to the wind.

Don't forget, of course, Juno writer Diablo Cody should be picking up Best Original Screenplay ([1.31]). The only possible spanner in the works could be caused by a recent smear campaign about her not just being a former stripper (as is widely known), but a former prostitute too. How this could possibly affect her standing in an industry brimming with disrepute (of one kind or another) is anyone's guess, but she should, lady of the night or not, be heading home with a heavy statuette in her bag.

Another lady facing the possibility of an extravagant paper-weight is Marion Cotillard ([4.1]), who could well be nipping in for the Best Actress award. She ticks so many of the boxes that voters love to see ticked: she uglied up for the role by playing over thirty years of Edith Piaf's life, much like Nicole Kidman (The Hours, 2002) and Charlize Theron (Monster, 2003); she was playing a real person (Helen Mirren, The Queen, last year), and the film is a biopic about a singer (Reese Witherspoon, Walk The Line, 2005). Damn it, it should have Oscar written all over it. Unfortunately, she's up against Julie Christie [1.51] playing the disability card (Dustin Hoffman, Rain Man, 1988; Daniel Day-Lewis, My Left Foot, 1989).