Best Picture

Avatar	CC, *GG, PGA
District 9	PGA
An Education	CC, PGA
500 Days of Summer	GG
The Hangover	*GG
The Hurt Locker	*NYFC, *LAFC, *NSFC, *CC, GG, *PGA
Inglourious Basterds	CC, GG, PGA
Invictus	CC, PGA
It’s Complicated	GG
Julie and Julia	GG
Nine	CC, GG
Precious	CC, GG, PGA
A Serious Man	CC
Star Trek	PGA
Up	CC, PGA
Up in the Air	*NBR, CC, GG, PGA

If this were a normal year, my predictions would simply be The Hurt Locker, Up in the Air, Precious, Inglourious Basterds, and Avatar, but it’s a whole new ballgame with these five extra nominees. And they will be “extra”; that’s another flaw in the Academy’s stupid plan. Whichever five Best Picture nominees are also up for Best Director will be considered the “real” nominees and the remaining five will be considered the extras. So how will those be distributed? Will they go to the rest of the screenplay nominees which, in previous years, have made up the Academy’s unofficial top ten? Will they go to the bigger box office hits like the bean-counters want them to? With no years of precedent to look to, it’s all guessing, so here goes.

Up becomes the second animated film nominated for Best Picture (after Beauty and the Beast), appeasing all the critics of the Animated Feature category, who claim it is a “ghetto” that guarantees animated films will never compete for the top prize. Let’s say Invictus is too Oscar-y to be left out. They always need something British, so welcome aboard to An Education. Voters like to feel socially conscious, and with Up in the Air and The Hurt Locker addressing two of our nation’s biggest contemporary issues, maybe that will extend to The Messenger.

Is that ten yet? Damn, only nine.

A Serious Man is too nerdy, 500 Days of Summer too lightweight, Nine too disappointing, The Hangover too awful. I’ll go out on a limb and say the underground fan base for District 9 will sneak it just under the wire.

The nominations will be announced Tuesday, February 2 at 5:38 a.m. (Pacific Time) by AMPAS President Tom Sherak and last year’s Best Actress nominee Anne Hathaway. Lately the telecast itself has been the last Sunday in February, but with the Winter Olympics taking up the entire month, Oscar will avoid the ratings competition and hold the show on March 7^th, which means more time for me to catch up on all the films I haven’t seen yet. (Sweet!)