Best Supporting Actress

Penelope Cruz	Nine	GG, SAG	2,1
Vera Farmiga	Up in the Air	CC, GG, SAG	0,0
Anna Kedrick	Up in the Air	*NBR, CC, GG, SAG	0,0
Diane Kruger	Inglourious Basterds	SAG	0,0
Mo’Nique	Precious	*NYFC, *LAFC, *NSFC, *CC, *GG, *SAG	0,0
Julianne Moore	A Single Man	CC, GG	4,0
Samantha Morton	The Messenger	CC	2,0

Not to be outdone by Christoph Waltz, Mo’Nique is also winning every award in the business as another horrifying character, the abusive mother of Precious. She gave an amazingly clear-eyed performance and deserves the recognition, but my inner English schoolteacher is very cranky about having an Academy Award nominee with such a typographically ridiculous name. The ladies from Up in the Air are next in line, both Anna Kendrick as the chipper corporate-climber and Vera Farmiga as a seductive frequent flyer.

Then the possibilities are more liquid. There’s reigning winner Penelope Cruz, vamping up the sex appeal in Nine. If Nine gets any nods in the top categories at all it will be for her, though the musical could fizzle out altogether. There’s Julianne Moore, who still hasn’t won the big prize, but her one-scene performance didn’t pick up a SAG nomination, making an Oscar win impossible, and will voters really want to send her to bat a fifth time just so she can lose again? There’s Diane Kruger, as a German actress spying for the allies, who picked up a surprise SAG nod, but I think if Inglourious Basterds cracks this category, it will be with the devastating turn by Melanie Laurant, the heart and soul of the film’s [fictional] revenge upon the Nazis. Finally there’s Samantha Morton, the war widow of The Messenger.

It’s a crap-shoot; I’ll say Penelope Cruz and Julianne Moore, and hope for a Melanie Laurant upset.