I miss the times when movies that won Best Picture, went home with 7 or more Oscars. I mean look at the Best Picture winners of recent years:

The Departed - 4 wins
Crash - 3 wins
Million Dollar Baby - 4 wins
Return of the King - 11 wins
Chicago - 6 wins
A Beautiful Mind - 4 wins
Gladiator - 5 Oscars

Only ROTK and Chicago stick out of the bunch. Especially in the last three years, it has been bad. Sadly, this year doesn't look different. With NCFOM being the frontrunner and the likely winner, it still probably won't win more than 4-5 Oscars (Picture/Director/Screenplay/Editing/Sup. Actor). It has a chance to win Sound, but I assume it'll go to Transformers (hey, it's the dude's what, 19th or 20th nom?!). Cinematography is possible too, but if Jesse James is nominated, it'll split votes and TWBB is a very strong contender there as well.

Am I the only one who doesn't like when one film sweeps?

I like a little diversity in the winners.

Would movies sweep very often, yeah, I wouldn't like that too. But the constant 3 or 4 Oscars-winners are just boring

Though, of course, it is more important that the ones win the Oscars that deserve them. But that rarely happens anyway, so...

Winning three Oscars is simply too few for a BP winner, but winning five or more is pretty much fine with me. I mean, honestly, what could Crash have won in the tech categories? It simply didn't have much of a chance outside Picture, Director, Screenplay, and Editing.

Right now, I have No Country winning five- Picture, Director, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Film Editing. So yeah, it looks like another one of those years unless it also wins Cinematography (which is possible given the double love for Deakins's 2007 work- also including Assassination of Jesse James- that could arise) and Sound (which it could if it stays the frontrunner, seeing as the sound work is damned impressive).

If a film wins Picture, Director, Screenplay, and an acting award, I'd say it would be hard to doubt that's what "should be" the best picture of the year.

I also think No Country will win five. Same five as webslinger's.

But I don't see any other film winning any more than 3

Do you see any other film actually winning three?

Into the Wild won't win Score. Not against Atonement and, especially, There Wil Be Blood. Editing is gonna be a tough one too, I see NCFOM and TWBB ahead there.

Transformers could happen, but I have a feeling that it'll win only one sound award with the other going to NCFOM.

I think There Will Be Blood is the only film that has a chance of winning 3 like you mentioned in the other thread. I can't see any other films winning 3 except maybe Pirates/Transformers but I don't think either will walk away with more than 2.

Juno will at most win 2.
Into the Wild, Michael Clayton, and Diving Bell could very well walk away empty handed. Wild has the best shot at winning one out of them all.

Atonement has stumped me. Maybe it will win Art Direction or something. I also think it still has a fighting chance for Score but 3 is out of the question.

Funniest year was when Crash won because 4 films went home with 3 Oscars a piece. Brokeback, Crash, Memoirs of a Geisha, and King Kong.

Edit: I hadn't thought about Sweeney till I just saw loyal's post. I don't think it will happen but it's a possibility.

Eh, the academy's been shying away from tech films (Atonement, Dreamgirls, etc.). It's hard to win 8 Oscars when you only have 5 nominations. I'll take the trade if we can get ballsy films like No Country, Blood, Diving Bell in.

Yeah, Blood seems tech-heavy (I haven't seen it), I could see it getting around 9 noms actually.

I think Blood should be guaranteed 8 nominations.

Picture, Director, Screenplay, Actor, Score, Cinematography, Editing and one Sound nom?

Yeah, I'd take that and add Art Direction.

Give Magnus the award for sanity!

Too many awards in one movie's hand really isn't anything to applaud unless they really deserved all of those awards. In a great year like 2007, why have one film take all of the glory when there are other great films out there being ingored just so some guys on the internet can get all giddy about some film getting a lot of awards.

For me, it's not really about the number of categories one won, but what categories it won. If a film only wins four, but the four are Picture, Director, Screenplay, and either a performance or Editing, then I consider that a sweep. The Silence of the Lambs, American Beauty, and Gladiator all won 5, but the first two are much more of a sweep than Gladiator was. Same for Chicago; even though it won 6, I felt The Pianist was the bigger winner of the night, and the ending was almost anti-climatic.

I agree. I was kind of saying the same things. You said it better.

But all that is moot if the Oscars get buttraped by the strike

The year we get the strike is the year that would be otherwise catostrophic casual viewer-wise. HMM, I smell a conspiracy! (or just a really lucky coincidence in the academy's sake).