Note to Hollywood luminaries: If you worked with Steven Speilberg, Jim Carrey, or Gwynnie in 1998, be sure to set your alarm for 6 a.m. on February 9th, because your name will probably be somewhere on the Academy Award nomination roll call announced at that ungodly hour of the morning.

Everybody else in town better get up early, too, because while "Saving Private Ryan," "The Truman Show" and "Shakespeare in Love" are certain to score the most Oscar nods on that crisp morning, very little is certain beyond that. A handful of important categories are too close to call, with up to 7 or 8 possible nominees neck and neck in the polls. Another bunch of categories that often have obvious winners before the nominations are even announced (like visual effects) are completely up for grabs.

Predicting the Oscar nominations this year was like throwing darts, but for better or worse, here's the way I say it will shake out, and the way I think it ought to be.

(Movies without links: reviews coming soon, I swear!)

Oh, for another "Titanic" to make handicapping the Oscars winners easy.

Last year, if an award wasn't in an acting category and the big boat movie was nominated, there was little doubt. Best Sound? Easy - "Titanic." Best Dramatic score? No contest - "Titanic." Cinematography? "Titanic," natch.

But the only sure bet for the 71st Academy Awards is that bullets and The Bard will dominate. Wildcards abound in major categories, leaving even the most experienced oddsmen scratching their heads. There is no doubt that "Saving Private Ryan" and "Shakespeare in Love" will cull the most statuettes, but they're both nominated in so many of the same categories that is some cases it's a toss-up between them.

Outside the major six catagories (Picture, Director, acting and screenplays), it will likely shake out with "Ryan" pocketing the "hard" (technical) categories and "Shakespeare" collecting the "soft" (artistic) categories.

So after Sunday night, your Oscar scorecard should look something like this: