Why Juno Will Win Best Picture

1. It's the biggest moneymaker of all the Best Picture nominees, at $119 million and counting. It's brought in twice as much as its nearest rival, No Country for Old Men.

2. A lot of people really love this movie. Cal of Ultimate Addict pointed out that in addition to Ebert, it has Oprah. Oprah.

3. The love people experience for it is largely emotional (with many intellectual, well-thought-out exceptions).

3a. Viewers respect and admire There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men, but they want to take Juno home with them. Plus,

3b. There Will Be Blood is just too weird and eccentric for Oscar, and

3c. No Country for Old Men is too dark and too, um, what should I call it? Nontraditional in its story structure and almost unfinished when it ends. This makes voters say "wow, that was really avant-garde," but it won't make them vote for it.

3d. Of the other options, Michael Clayton feels like prestige filler, and

3e. Atonement is the kind of serious literary adaptation that would have won in 1985, had Mr. McEwan written his novel back then.

4. Last year, a high-style crime thriller, The Departed, won. It was an anomaly then; would Oscar really do it twice in a row?

5. Oprah.

6. It was the year of "should I keep/have a baby?"—4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days; Knocked Up; Starting Out in the Evening; Waitress; Bella; Lake of Fire—and Juno is that trend's cutest little poster child.

As you can see from these succinct points, no other film could possibly win Best Picture except for Juno, the 96-minute comedy about teen pregnancy. Did I just type that?