82nd Academy Awards Nomination Preview
Avatar, The Hurt Locker and Inglourious Basterds Battle for Supremacy

After two months of speculation and debate, with the nominations for the 82^nd Academy Awards to be announced on Tuesday morning it’s fair to say conversations about 2009’s best motion pictures are in the wind-down stage. It’s every cineaste’s favorite annual guessing game, picking the nominees almost as much fun as trying to figure out the eventual winners.

Photos copyright The Weinstein Company, 20th Century Fox and Summit Entertainment

But with the expansion of the Best Picture category from five to ten it’s anyone’s guess what those nominees are going to be in Oscar’s top category. While it’s a given that Avatar, The Hurt Locker and Inglourious Basterds will be the three favorites, the other seven are – to steal the title from one of the potentials – up in the air. Will Up be the first animated film to be nominated since 1991’s Beauty and the Beast? Can a re-imagined Star Trek boldly go where none of the other entries in the long-running franchise have gone before? Or does The Blind Side tackle a spot in the final ten scoring the picture one final touchdown?

These are only a few of the questions sure to be answered Tuesday when actress Anne Hathaway joins Academy president Tom Sherak to reveal the major category nominations. Here are some of my thoughts and predictions as to the titles and names the duo are likely announce.

BEST PICTURE

As stated above, thanks to The Golden Globes, various critics groups and the Screen Actor’s Guild (SAG), we now know for sure that James Cameron’s Avatar, Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker and Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds are going to be nominated for Best Picture. For those making bets with friends, you can probably be secure in adding Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air and Lee Daniels’ Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire to that list as well. Without a doubt, these are the five frontrunners, and had the Academy not chosen to return to the era of Casablanca (1943, the last time there were ten potential nominees) I’d hazard a guess these would be the titles up for discussion.

But with this expansion the possibilities are endless. I think you can pencil in Clint Eastwood’s Invictus and Lone Scherfig’s An Education without too much worry, while Andrew Stanton’s Up seems like a pretty safe bet for inclusion.

But what about the other two? Star Trek? The Blind Side? The Road? Bright Star? Where the Wild Things Are? They’ve all got plenty of heat. Or what about the Coen’s A Serious Man? The Academy has certainly celebrated the brothers on numerous occasions. Yet we cannot forget about Crazy Heart with Jeff Bridges, the celebrated romantic comedy (500) Days of Summer, foodie sensation Julie & Julia or the sci-fi racism epic District 9 as they’ve all got their supporters, too. As for the always powerful Harvey Weinstein, not only does he have the Tarantino in the mix he’s also got the star-studded musical Nine and the Colin Firth drama A Single Man, and while neither has generated the type of box office usually required considering this is the man who got The Reader a Best Picture nomination I don’t think you can count either out.

MY PREDICTIONS: Avatar, The Blind Side, An Education, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Invictus, Precious, A Serious Man, Up, Up in the Air

FILM THAT SHOULD BE NOMINATED BUT WON’T BE: Bright Star

BEST ACTOR

There’s not much to talk about here as four of the five spots have been wrapped up for months. Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart), Morgan Freeman (Invictus), Colin Firth (A Serious Man) and George Clooney (Up in the Air) are going to be nominated; you can take that to the bank. Heck, after the SAG awards you can pretty much pencil in Bridges as the Oscar winner, this four-person battle looking more and more like it’s the perennial also-ran’s to lose.

So who gets that last nomination? Well, if The Hurt Locker does as well as I think it will than Jeremy Renner is the obvious choice to get the final spot in the top five, but as he’s not exactly a household name and Iraq War movies aren’t exceedingly popular so this isn’t a forgone conclusion.

Other serious contenders include Sam Rockwell’s dual work in Moon, Matt Damon in The Informant!, Ben Foster in The Messenger and Viggo Mortensen in The Road. On the outside looking in are Hal Holbrook in That Evening Sun, Tobey Maguire in Brothers, Ben Whishaw in Bright Star and, somewhat surprisingly, Oscar heavyweight Daniel-Day Lewis in Nine. One thing I do know is that this category always seems to offer up at least one surprise and I don’t think this year will be an exception.

MY PREDICTIONS: Jeff Bridges, George Clooney, Colin Firth, Morgan Freeman, Sam Rockwell

PERSON WHO SHOULD BE NOMINATED BUT WON’T BE: Matt Damon

BEST ACTRESS

Again, like for the actors the top four contenders in this category are all written in stone. Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side), Carey Mulligan (An Education), Gabourey Sidibe (Precious) and Meryl Streep (Julie & Julia) can start making gown arrangements now, designers lining up around the block in hopes they get the opportunity to make each woman look absolutely fabulous.

As for that final spot your guess is as good as mine. The Last Station star Helen Mirren was nominated by SAG but as those seldom lineup with Oscar I’m not holding my breath the 2008 winner is going to make the cut. Other contenders include fellow previous winners Marion Cotillard (Nine) and Penélope Cruz (Broken Embraces), but neither is generating a ton of heat. There’s also Bright Star ingénue Abbie Cornish and The Young Victoria starlet Emily Blunt, both highly deserving yet both probably destined to be sadly forgotten. Also with a chance are Michelle Pfeiffer for Cheri and Natalie Portman for Brothers but I’d say they’re humongous long shots at best.

The most unusual contender, and in my opinion one of the most deserving, is Avatar lead Zoe Saldana. She’s the heart and the soul of James Cameron’s 3D CGI epic, the actress pouring every ounce of her heart and soul into her blue-skinned, cat-eared character. But as this is a motion capture performance it is highly unlikely she’ll get the nomination, a sad fact of life Saldana won’t be able to overcome.

MY PREDICTIONS: Sandra Bullock, Marion Cotillard, Carey Mulligan, Gabourey Sidibe, Meryl Streep

PERSON WHO SHOULD BE NOMINATED BUT WON’T BE: Zoe Saldana

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

The bottom line here is that the race for the actual Oscar is for all intents and purposes over. Inglourious Basterds star Christoph Waltz has won pretty much everything up to this point, and the chances of anyone derailing his train are close to nil.

If anyone does it will be Hollywood favorite Woody Harrelson, his performance in The Messenger generating just enough discussion that the chance for an upset, while infinitesimal, is still there. The rest of the contenders include Julie & Julia and The Lovely Bones star Stanley Tucci, Matt Damon for Invictus, Christopher Plummer in The Last Station, An Education gentlemen Peter Sarsgaard and Alfred Molina, Christian McKay in Me and Orson Welles, The Hurt Locker soldier Anthony Mackie, Alec Baldwin for It’s Complicated and failed Bright Star poet Paul Schneider.

MY PREDICTIONS: Alec Baldwin, Woody Harrelson, Christopher Plummer, Stanley Tucci, Christoph Waltz

PERSON WHO SHOULD BE NOMINATED BUT WON’T BE: Christian McKay

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Another race that is basically over, Mo'Nique showing total ownage over all comers with her ferocious performance as the abusive and vindictive mother in Precious. She’s got this race wrapped up, the other four nominated ladies going to have to be happy to be invited to the party as their chances of winning are zero.

As for those other nominees, it’s a safe bet that Up in the Air costars Anna Kendrick and Vera Farminga are going to be walking the red carpet, while perennial also-ran Julianne Moore can count on being an Oscar bridesmaid for a fifth time thanks to her work in A Single Man. Other potentials include Samantha Morton for The Messenger, Penélope Cruz and Judi Dench for Nine, Marion Cotillard for Public Enemies, Maggie Gyllenhaal for Crazy Heart, Sigourney Weaver for Avatar and Rachel Weisz for The Lovely Bones.

MY PREDICTIONS: Penélope Cruz, Vera Farminga, Anna Kendrick, Mo'Nique, Julianne Moore

PERSON WHO SHOULD BE NOMINATED BUT WON’T BE: Marion Cotillard

BEST DIRECTOR

This category could be subtitled, “The Battle of the Exes,” as former husband and wife James Cameron (Avatar) and Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) battle it out for supremacy. Both will be nominated and one of the pair is almost certain to win, so expect an acceptance speech where the other is lovingly mentioned as the person that should have taken home the Oscar.

As for the other contenders, this is one year where I think the Directors Guild of America nominations are going to match up across the board. The other three nominated there were Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds), Lee Daniels (Precious) and Jason Reitman (Up in the Air) and I don’t foresee a single one of them not making the cut on Tuesday.

If there is an upset, expect it to be industry favorite Clint Eastwood for Invictus, his South African drama just the type of movie Oscar voters love to fawn over. But don’t count out either An Education director Lone Scherfig or Bright Star auteur Jane Campion, both women having a great shot at joining Bigelow in what is typically a boy’s only club.

MY PREDICTIONS: Kathryn Bigelow, James Cameron, Lee Daniels, Jason Reitman, Quentin Tarantino

PERSON WHO SHOULD BE NOMINATED BUT WON’T BE: Jane Campion

- Portions of this article reprinted courtesy of the SGN in Seattle