• Javier Bardem -- Biutiful (Roadside Attractions)
• Jeff Bridges -- True Grit (Paramount)
• Jesse Eisenberg -- The Social Network (Sony Pictures Releasing)
• Colin Firth -- The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company)
• James Franco -- 127 Hours (Fox Searchlight)

He's cute, cuddly, British and speechifying with a speech impediment. Firth's only competition is Spanish-speaking Bardem, who stars in some emotive porn not many voters will have seen, but would've really loved if they had.

Cinematography

• Matthew Libatique -- Black Swan (Fox Searchlight)
• Wally Pfister -- Inception (Warner Bros.)
• Danny Cohen -- The King's Speech (The Weinstein Company)
• Jeff Cronenweth -- The Social Network (Sony Pictures Releasing)
• Roger Deakins -- True Grit (Paramount) 
   

With very few exceptions, Best Cinematography goes to period pieces. That suggests two rivals: The King's Speech and True Grit. This is Deakins' ninth nomination, but he's never won. Cohen is a first-timer, but for the kind of film that's always been more respected by the Academy. Based on a cursory search of the web, everyone's predicting anyone but Cohen. The King's Speech is a classically beautiful film, set in the past, and I don't think voters care much if this is Deakins' ninth nod, since repeatedly losing didn't make much of a difference on his eighth. Besides actors and directors, do the voters really pay much attention to how long someone's been shafted? The American Society of Cinematographers gave it to Pfister, but they're not the only ones voting now.

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I love film, all kinds, and I see a lot of movies in a year . . . but still, I probably won’t watch the Oscars. Why not? I sort of just don’t feel invited.

Look at this year’s Best Picture Nominees:

Black Swan
The Fighter
Inception
The Kids Are All Right
The King's Speech
127 Hours
The Social Network
Toy Story 3
True Grit
Winter's Bone

58% Correct

The results were worse than I had predicted (Avatar for cinematography! Precious for best adapted screenplay!). Blue is for my predictions, red for what I got wrong:

Leading Actor

Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart

Cinematography

Barry Ackroyd, The Hurt Locker  

Mauro Fiore, Avatar

Foreign Language Film

Ajami (Israel)

El Secreto de Sus Ojos (Argentina)

Sound Editing

Christopher Boyes and Gwendolyn Yates Whittle, Avatar    

Using the most advanced heuristic available to me, namely my own cynical reasoning about the Academy, here are my predictions:

Leading Actor

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

Both Bridges and Firth are exceptional in not particularly good movies that play to Academy tastes, addiction and identity politics. Clooney is in the best movie here, but he'll lose to Bridges for the same reason Firth will: Bridges has been around for nearly 40 years and has always been excellent. Call this his "should've won for The Big Lebowski" win. Renner is competent in a stereotypical hot shot role -- big deal. Freeman plays the Freeman role once again -- this time they call him "Nelson Mandela."

Jeff Bridges

Cinematography

Mauro Fiore, Avatar  
Bruno Delbonnel, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Barry Ackroyd, The Hurt Locker  
Robert Richardson, Inglourious Basterds  
Christian Berger, The White Ribbon 

My friend Will said Avatar looks like a moving Yes cover. And was it all the shadows in Half-Blood Prince that got it nominated? No quibbles with the other three, though. I'm going with the master of the down-and-dirty-shaky-cam, Ackroyd, because this is Bigelow's year (on which, I'll have more to say anon). I'm more infatuated with Richardson's colors, though.