Meryl Streep, Kate Winslet Oscar front-runners

By Ray Richmond

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - In a year when "Slumdog" is heading locomotive-like to the top of the Oscars (unless a recent controversy about its child performers derails it), the two actress categories remain wide open. So who will win and why?

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE

If justice has anything to do with it, this should be Kate Winslet's year. After all, Winslet is among the most admired actresses on the planet and is currently running zero for five in her previous shots at the Oscar.

But justice and the Academy have a long history of going their separate ways, as Glenn Close, Alfred Hitchcock and Barbara Stanwyck could attest. Plus, would it be all that just to reward a career rather than an individual performance?

If that's the way the Academy thinks, it could go for any of the five nominees, who this year include Anne Hathaway ("Rachel Getting Married"), Angelina Jolie ("Changeling"), Melissa Leo ("Frozen River") and Meryl Streep ("Doubt"), along with Winslet herself ("The Reader").

Previous wins would indicate that Streep and Winslet are the front-runners.

Winslet has already scooped up a mantleful of baubles for both "The Reader" and "Revolutionary Road," and her failure to get an Oscar nomination for the latter -- almost certainly because the Academy doesn't allow an actress to receive two nominations within the same category in the same year -- means that she'll have a lot of sympathy on her side. But there's a snag: Winslet's previous wins for "Reader" came in the supporting category. For reasons known only to its acting branch, the Academy decided to give her more votes in the lead category. Winslet is untested here. While the odds still favor her, don't rule out the chance of a loss.

As for Streep, true, she won the leading-lady nod at the SAG Awards, but she lost at the Globes when Winslet edged her out for "Road." And Streep has lost before: She's only won two Oscars in 14 previous nominations.

Is there any chance Streep or Winslet will stumble? Unlikely, but there's an argument to be made that the other nominees might be in the running. Hathaway stunned audiences when she proved that she wasn't just the frothy star of popcorn fare like 2001's "The Princess Diaries" or 2006's "The Devil Wears Prada" -- and she did it without an accent, without make-up and without looking ugly, the usual ingredients that help an actress win a nomination.

Angelina Jolie is no mean actress -- she's already won an Oscar for 1999's "Girl, Interrupted," and many people thought she deserved another for 2007's "A Mighty Heart." Plus, the double whammy of Jolie and Eastwood working together on "Changeling" has Oscar written all over it. Or at least, had Oscar written all over it until Eastwood's "Gran Torino" stole all the fire.

That leaves Melissa Leo. She's a near-unknown who doesn't bring star wattage to the table. Which means if ever an underdog stood a chance, it's her. Problem is, there are too many other underdogs competing in the supporting category.

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE

Five lucky thespians are breathing a collective sigh of relief that Winslet wasn't nominated in the supporting category; otherwise, they'd be betting against themselves.

Now that she's gone, there's little to indicate who the favorite is between Amy Adams ("Doubt"), Penelope Cruz ("Vicky Cristina Barcelona"), Viola Davis ("Doubt"), Taraji P. Henson ("The Curious Case of Benjamin Button") and Marisa Tomei ("The Wrestler").

What's odd is how easy it is to make a case against each one's chances. Adams and Davis have a strike against them in both being nominated for the same film. Davis and Henson have a strike against them in both being African-American, which may split any support that might come their way in the Year of Obama. Cruz has a strike against her in being the only person to get nominated for "Vicky Cristina Barcelona": The fact that not even Woody Allen got a nomination hints that the Academy is indifferent to the film. And Marisa Tomei could be hurt, given that many Academy members felt "The Wrestler" was second only in pain to being head-butted by Hulk Hogan.