HOLLYWOOD Boulevard is cordoned off from traffic, with buses diverted down La Brea and Highland. Barriers hold back the curious along the Walk of Fame sidewalk, which is studded with pink-coral stars engraved with legendary names. Floodlights illuminate the facade of the Kodak theatre with criss-crossing beams.

It could be Oscar night but it isn't. No limousines pull up and disgorge designer-clad celebrities onto a red carpet to be greeted by fawning TV reporters. This is a dry-run last week for tonight's 79th Academy Awards which will be watched by a global audience of over one billion TV and internet viewers.

Nothing is left to chance by the Academy. Even the speeches to be made by the winners have been rehearsed over and over again with stand-in actors doubling for the nominees. The only surprises are the names to be plucked from the gold envelopes by celebrity comperes. Hollywood being Hollywood . . . a place where spin is apt to become self-fulfilling reality . . .much of this has already been anticipated too, with odds-on favourites established in most of the major categories. Helen Mirren is 1/25 for best actress in The Queen. Forest Whitaker 1/5 for best actor in The Last King Of Scotland. Best Picture is slightly tighter with The Departed ahead at 11/10 and Little Miss Sunshine 9/4, while The Departed's Martin Scorsese is 2/9 for best director ahead of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu at 7/1 for Babel and Paul Greengrass at 8/1 for United 93.

While the nominees are chosen by members representing each category . . . for instance, the 1,251 actor members chose the acting nominees, while director members vote for directors, and writer members for the screenplay nominees . . . the vote for the winners in each category is by all 5,830 active members of the Academy. This means the rash of awards made by the various screen actors, producers, directors and writers guilds in the run-up to the Oscars may not automatically correspond with the final winners, although they often do. Similarly, early favourites established by triumphs in the many critics' awards and the Golden Globes often run out of steam or blot their copybooks, as Russell Crowe famously did in 2002 when his misbehaviour at the Baftas allowed Denzel Washington to edge him out with a late surge of support.

There was little sign of anything like that happening at the annual Academy Awards nominees luncheon at the International Ballroom at the Beverly Hilton, before which the traditional class picture was shot and each of the 141 nominees who turned up . . . a record attendance, there were only 36 absentees . . . was called onstage to receive a plaque. "It's like a high school graduation, " says Will Smith, a nominee for best actor. If it is, Laura Ziskin, who is producing this year's Oscar broadcast, is the headmistress keeping everyone in order. Stars used to having their every whim humoured watched meekly while she played them a clip reel illustrating the dos and don'ts of Oscar "speechifying". As an inducement to ensure that no one exceeds the 45-second limit she has set up a Thank You Cam on the renovated Oscar. com official site through which winners can name anyone they couldn't offer gratitude to from the stage.

She told the cowed nominees sternly that anyone who felt the need to prattle off a list of names from a piece of paper probably wasn't thanking the right people.

They better get used to this treatment. On the actual night they'll be shuffled around backstage like mere extras waiting to be told what to do.

The Academy's beefed-up website is a calculated attempt to draw in the YouTube audience. It includes a blog from host Ellen DeGeneres in which she posts a diary of her preparations and a page for each nominee which includes an on-camera interview by documentary director Errol Morris. Over the past few years the upsurge of unofficial sites like Oscarwatch. com and blogger sites, such as Jeffrey Wells's Hollywood-Elsewhere. com and David Poland's MovieCityNews. com, has added a whole new dimension to the chatter that generates Oscar speculation, hyping up the boxoffice and feeding through to Academy voters. Studio publicists play the bloggers the same way as they play the trade papers, feeding them lavish "For Your Consideration" ads plugging Oscar contenders, the difference being that bloggers tend blatantly to plug mainly movies for which they get ads. Nobody underestimates the power of bloggers. Having loved Jim Sheridan's In America at the Toronto Festival in 2002, David Poland generated a buzz that eventually won Djimon Hounsou a best supporting actor nomination.

Los Angeles is so parochial that there's no escaping the Oscars.

Turn on CNN's Larry King and you'll find him pushing The Departed for best picture. "Scorsese at the top of his game, " he 9enthuses. "I didn't want it to end."

He's probably about the only person here not to succumb to Helen Mirren's The Queen, which he hasn't even seen. "I've done so many royalty shows that I guess I'm tired of the subject, " he told the Los Angeles Times.

Drop into the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills and the talk is all about Oscar. "I'm very excited about the Oscars this year because my very good friend Forest Whitaker is going to win, " John Travolta tells me. "I put him in Phenomenon and in Battlefield Earth, you know. I'm certain he's going to take the Oscar home. I'm going to sit beside him or right near to him when he does."

Ray Liotta, whose performance in Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas helped win it a Best Picture nomination in 1990 only to lose out to Kevin Costner's Dances With Wolves, is naturally rooting for Scorsese. "I don't think there's anybody there to beat him for best director, " he tells me.

"I think they already gave Clint what he deserved and I don't think there's anybody else who's standing out. I don't see how Marty could have lost for Raging Bull or for Goodfellas. I just hope he finally wins this time, he's such a good guy and so deserving for The Departed and for everything else he's done." Liotta doesn't plan to attend the awards. "I'll probably just go to the big party after it's over."

So who'll win? Although Hollywood . . . or The Industry, as everyone who isn't a tourist refers to it . . .has shown a growing tendency to embrace the wider world of cinema (no doubt prompted by the fact that the international boxoffice for American movies now exceeds their domestic box-office), the Oscar odds are still heavily against foreign pictures, which are segregated into a category of their own.

Voters can, of course, reach beyond that category as they have by nominating Volver's Penelope Cruz for best actress, but nobody expects her to win.

Similarly, Guillermo Del Toro is up for best original screenplay for Pan's Labyrinth. But the only foreign-language nominee to also get a best picture nomination is Clint Eastwood's Letters From Iwo Jima.

So arguably the year's best movie, The Lives of Others . . . a riveting drama about the surveillance activities of the Stasi in Communist East Germany that has chilling resonances for today . . . may end up without any recognition at all, if it loses out, as expected, to Pan's Labyrinth as best foreign language picture.

The predictions

Best Picture

The betting
Babel 7/2, The Departed 11/10, Letters From Iwo Jima 10/1, Little Miss Sunshine 9/4 , The Queen 14/1 Breakdown

No clear favourite. Logic suggests (not a quality for which Academy voters are noted) that if, as expected, Martin Scorsese gets best director, The Departed should win. Babel, however, has gathered momentum and Little Miss Sunshine was the choice of the Producers Guild.

Comedies, however, rarely ever win Oscars.

Prediction

The Departed to beat Babel.

Best Director The betting Clint Eastwood (Letters From Iwo Jima) 10/1; Stephen Frears (The Queen) 20/1; Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Babel) 7/1; Paul Greengrass (United 93) 8/1; Martin Scorsese (The Departed) 2/9

Breakdown

Academy voters are unlikely to contemplate the scandal of rejecting seven-time nominated Scorsese yet again, particularly given such popular and critical support for The Departed.

Prediction Scorsese, with Gonzalez a distant second.

Best Actor The betting Leonardo DiCaprio (Blood Diamond) 14/1; Ryan Gosling (Half Nelson) 25/1; Peter O'Toole (Venus) 10/3; Will Smith (The Pursuit of Happyness) 25/1; Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland) 1/5 BreakdownMuch-liked Whitaker has made the running from the start, winning the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards, and until now has seemed unbeatable, but there's a swell of sympathy growing for 74year-old O'Toole who won an honorary award in 2003 to make up for being overlooked for Lawrence of Arabia. Other nominees just make up the numbers.

Prediction Forest Whitaker still to win.

Best Actress The betting Penelope Cruz (Volver) 33/1; Judi Dench (Notes On a Scandal) 16/1; Helen Mirren (The Queen) 1/25; Meryl Streep (The Devil Wears Prada) 12/1; Kate Winslet (Little Children) 33/1 BreakdownMeryl Streep, Helen Mirren's only conceivable rival, has already all but conceded defeat by not attending the Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Judi Dench announced she won't attend.

Cruz and five-time nominated Winslet are probably practising how to lose graciously.

Prediction Anti-royalist Mirren, regarded as a local through marriage to director Taylor Hackford, will be crowned queen of Hollywood.

Best Supporting Actor The contenders Alan Arkin (Little Miss Sunshine); Jackie Earle Haley (Little Children); Djimon Hounsou (Blood Diamond); Eddie Murphy (Dreamgirls); Mark Wahlberg (The Departed) Breakdown Voters tend to be more adventurous here, and often opt for newcomers or outsiders, which could favour Jackie Earle Haley, a former child actor who was plucked from adult obscurity in All The King's Men and succeeds in showing humanity as a paedophile in Little Children.

Eddie Murphy, the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild winner, however, is also an outsider, playing his first dramatic role in Dreamgirls. Older voters may opt for veteran Alan Arkin, while Mark Wahlberg could be helped by a groundswell for The Departed.

Prediction Haley may pull off an upset.

Best Supporting Actress The contenders Adriana Barraza (Babel) Cate Blanchett (Notes On A Scandal); Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine); Jennifer Hudson (Dreamgirls); Rinko Kikuchi (Babel) Breakdown Barraza and Kikuchi will be happy just to have been nominated.

Blanchett won in 2004 for The Aviator, too recent to win again.

Although the Academy seldom rewards children, Breslin could benefit for the great love for Little Miss Sunshine. Jennifer Hudson's standout performance in Dreamgirls seems unbeatable.

Prediction Hudson to add an Oscar to the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild trophies already on her mantelpiece.

Best Foreign-language Picture The contenders After The Wedding (Denmark); Days Of Glory (France); The Lives Of Others (Germany); Pan's Labyrinth (Mexico); Wa te r (Canada) Breakdown Even without Pedro Almodovar's surprisingly overlooked Volver, a powerful line-up. Days of Glory, Pan's Labyrinth and The Lives Of Others wouldn't be out of place as best picture nominees.

Prediction Pan's Labyrinth to win, but The Lives Of Others could pull it off.

Best Animated Picture The Contenders Cars (John Lasseter); Happy Feet (George Miller); Monster House (Gil Kenan) Breakdown Showcases the growing variety of animation, with three different styles of movie, each brilliant in its own way, but Pixar maestro John Lasseter is in pole position.

Prediction Cars to drive off with the trophy.

Other category predictions Babel's Guillermo Arriaga to edge favourite The Queen's Peter Morgan for best original screenplay; William Monahan to win best adapted screenplay with The Departed, David Guggenheim to make Al Gore a winner with An Inconvenient Truth; Gustavo Santaolalla to win best original score with Babel, and Melissa Etheridge best original song with An Inconvenient Truth's 'I Need To Wake Up'.