Oscar Nominee Picks: The End of an Era

So if I haven't bemoaned how I used to wake at the crack of dawn to watch the Oscar nominations gets announced live, I'll end it there and just say I'll probably sleep in tomorrow. Like I did last year.

I will be interested to see how the nominees are presented, however, now that there will be 10 films in the Best Picture category. Does that mean there will be 10 screens behind the presenters tomorrow morning? Or will it be the traditional five and too bad if you wanted to see all 10 listed at once?

All of this is rather insignificant stuff, of course, because as best I can tell, the race is already more or less between two films (Avatar and The Hurt Locker). But I think the decision to expand the number of films nominated for Best Picture ultimately stands to take away from what it meant to be a nominee when there were only five. Of course, I'm probably the guy who's always anti-expansion about many things (I still like to romanticize the days when only four teams made baseball's post-season), but I mean, really, we're talking about films like The Hangover and Star Trek as factoring into the Best Picture race. Um ... what? Is that a sign of a slow year? Sure, both amusing, entertaining films—and oh, those box office results don't hurt either—but my guess is that when some chick is trying to get me to see any new release after 2010 and uses the "it was nominated for Best Picture" on me, I'll probably just respond with something along the lines of, "Isn't everything nowaday?"

Call me a snob. Who knows, maybe I'll be back here next month making a case for Hangover or Star Trek, but from what I've seen so far, my vote actually at this point would be Inglourious Basterds.

Anyway, I've been doing a little studying for the past couple days and I'm sure my picks for the traditional "Big Eight" won't be all that different than what everybody else has (it's usually just one spot in each category):

BEST PICTURE
Avatar
District 9
An Education
The Hangover
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
Star Trek
Up
Up in the Air

Like I said, Avatar and The Hurt Locker are front-runners right now, although Inglorious Basterds, Up in the Air and Precious also seem like the natural nominees. I wonder if the inclusion of Up ultimately spells the end for the Best Animated Feature category as the winner will presumably be nominated for Best Picture every year ... but I'm getting ahead of myself. An Education boasts strength from a SAG award and the largest block of the Academy.

District 9 boasts a strong following as well, and my final two spots go to the two aforementioned films, The Hangover and Star Trek, which are actually have probably the longest odds of any of the 10 films I'm guessing.

A Serious Man seemed to get too much of a love it/hate it reaction, and Nine seems to have been widely panned. The film that will come back to haunt me will be Invictus, although The Messenger or A Single Man could be spoilers too.

BEST DIRECTOR
Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
James Cameron, Avatar
Lee Daniels, Precious
Jason Reitman, Up in the Air
Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds

As Tom O'Neil put it, "These seem to be set in stone." The spoiler would be District 9's Neill Blomkamp with Daniels presumably most at risk.

BEST ACTOR
Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
George Clooney, Up in the Air
Colin Firth, A Single Man
Morgan Freeman, Invictus
Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker

Again, basically the same five everybody else has although I'm more worried about Ben Foster bumping out Renner than Viggo Mortensen.

BEST ACTRESS
Emily Blunt, The Young Victoria
Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side
Carey Mulligan, An Education
Gaborey Sibide, Precious
Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia

Helen Mirren is the safer bet, I suppose, but I think Emily Blunt nudges her out.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Woody Harrelson, The Messenger
Christian McKay, Me and Orson Welles
Christopher Plummer, The Last Station
Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones
Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

McKay is really the pick here that I'm out on a limb with, incredibly likely to be displaced by either Matt Damon, Alfred Molina, Anthony Mackie or even one of the show's hosts, Alec Baldwin.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air
Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air
Melanie Laurent, Inglourious Basterds
Mo'Nique, Precious
Samantha Morton, The Messenger

Honestly the shakiest of any category so far, thanks largely to my assumption that Laurent gets put here by the Academy instead of the lead role she was given by the SAG. Then there's her co-star Diane Kruger, who actually was nominated in this category for those SAG Awards. Julianne Moore is certainly voter-friendly, and Emma Thompson or Penelope Cruz would allow the Academy to throw in a former winner if they're in that mood.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker
Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, A Serious Man
Peter Docter & Bob Peterson, Up
Scott Neustatder & Michael H. Weber, (500) Days of Summer
Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds

(500) Days of Summer is most at risk here, depending on if the Academy wants to finally give James Cameron a screenplay nod with Avatar. The Hangover also wouldn't be a total surprise here and I actually wanted to pick that before settling on Summer.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Neill Blomkamp & Terri Tatchel, District 9
Geoffrey Fletcher, Precious
Tom Ford, A Single Man
Nick Hornby, An Education
Jason Reitman & Sheldon Turner, Up in the Air

Ford's addaptation is my dark horse pick here, with the writers behind Fantastic Mr. Fox, Julie & Julia, Invictus and The Road all being just as likely possibilities.

UPDATE: I lied. I was up early and watched the nominations live on the web. More thoughts later.