Oscars are coming up, don’t forget. Shall we take another stab at looking at the trends in this year’s nominations and discussing what folks can expect at the ceremony? Arnab started us with a few ideas. He’s under the assumption that because Scorsese has never won he’s bound to win this year. Is he using projection data? That is, is there something built into this whole process that makes it more or less predictable? Or is this a guessing game? Take, for instance, the documentary short nominee “Autism is a World.” Although I have not seen the film, I am quite confident it will win because autism has been in the news a lot lately. A cause celbre. Another example: I think Thomas Haden Church will win for best supporting actor. Although I saw “Sideways” and liked his performance very much, I am instead basing my prediction on the fact that Paul Giamatti didn’t get the nomination for best actor. The Academy likes to try and clean up after itself as much as possible by offering “concession” awards, so the nod will go to Church. Does the Academy try to distinguish itself from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association? If that’s what you think, you probably expect that Hilary Swank will not win Best Actress, and that Jamie Foxx will not win Best Actor. Any thoughts? Any timeless trends worth pointing out? Joan Rivers scares me.