With Boston out of the way, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association will be announcing their winners next -- probably later in the afternoon.

Sasha Stone has a list of predictions from various Oscar pundits up over at Awards Daily.  Tom O'Neil has some thoughts up on what to expect as well.  I never got around to sending off my picks, but I'm banking on a second major win for "No Country."

The LA critics went with "Letters from Iwo Jima" last year, solidifying its Best Picture hopes after the National Board of Review win for the film.  The only three films to win Best Picture win the group and fail to match it up with the Academy were "American Splendor" in 2003, "About Schmidt" in 2002 and "Leaving Las Vegas" in 1995.  They tend to be a pretty safe precursor.

On the other hand, the group didn't give a single award to the eventual Oscar dominator, "The Departed."  Go figure.

The LA critics were the first to go for William Hurt and his 5 minutes of glory in 2005's "A History of Violence."  And in year's without definitive frontrunners, they like to annoint performers that wouldn't usually be singled out.  Vera Farmiga's win for 20045's "Down to the Bone" comes to mind.  Ditto Bill Nighy's four-square win for supporting actor in 2003.

I'm not going to bother predicting this thing.  With the above in mind, maybe they'll plant a flag in the ground for something like "Control" or "I'm Not There," maybe "The Band's Visit."  But at this point it would be foolhardy to look in direction other than the Coens'.