At first, I was in Denial.  Sure, I'd never been in lock-step with the Academy Awards and their annual choices, but you could always find one or two of the year's very best movies among their nominees, and sometimes (Titanic, Lord of the Rings:  The Return of the King) one of them would even take home the statue.  For good or ill, I knew what the Academy stood for, and when they went with The English Patient or Braveheart, I could at least say, well, that's their kind of thing and I can respect that.  But sometime in the 12 months following King's victory, something changed.  I loved the performances in Million Dollar Baby, and could even accept the hackneyed story it told to a degree.  But it was the first Best Picture winner of an entirely new Academy that, the following year, selected the utterly dreadful and oh, so un-Academy-like Crash.  I felt Anger.  But I clung to the notion that it was an aberration, that when great movies like Stranger Than Fiction and United 93 hung around throughout the 2007 awards season, they might retake the Oscars for me.  But I was only Bargaining.  Instead, the mediocre crime saga The Departed was named Best Picture, followed by No Country for Old Men, which I was told was elevated to the level of art by the fact that its plot was so bad.  I was nowhere near through Bargaining yet, because 2008 brought the most critically acclaimed blockbuster in a decade, a superhero saga in crime epic clothing that captured many 2009 critics circle awards and was my favorite movie of the year.  Surely, The Dark Knight would bring about a reconciliation between Oscar and myself.  Not to be.  Not even a nomination, while a wildly mediocre field led by Orphan Porn Slumdog Millionaire took center stage.  Depression set in.  But now, as I look over the 2010 Oscar field mutated by an expansion to 10 Best Picture nominees in hopes that the next Dark Knight is at least nominated, I find that I have achieved Acceptance.  The Academy Awards I once loved are no more, but what remains in their place still carried a certain fascination as The Movies Biggest Night, and the ritual of analyzing and predicting the winners remains interesting.  So allow me to indulge in the Palace's first anger-free Oscar preview.  Can't promise the same for the recap, mind you.  Relapses are always possible.
 

BEST PICTURE
Who's Nominated:  Avatar, The Blind Side, District 9, An Education, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Precious:  Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, A Serious Man, Up, Up in the Air
Who Got Snubbed:  (500) Days of Summer-TEN nominees, and somehow there was no room for this fantastically innovative, emotionally resonant, bitterly hilarious anti-romcom about the rise and fall of a relationship that was never meant to be.
My Preference:  I'd be very happy if the wonderfully emotional fable UP could somehow pull out a Best Picture win, but we all know it's not even one of the "real" five nominees.  But its nomination is appropriate as the highlight of the best year of cinematic animation ever.
My Prediction: The headlines have been all about the David-Goliath showdown between the highest grossing movie of all-time and the indie that would be the lowest-grossing Best Picture in modern memory, and they are the only two movies with much of a shot (although keep the Academy's love of WWII subject matter in the back of your mind:  pulping Hitler's face with a machine gun makes Basterds the only other movie with even a 1% shot in my mind).  You read what I said above about recent Oscar trends, right?  Avatar peaked at the Golden Globes, this award goes to THE HURT LOCKER, with the caveat that the new 10-movie ballot also comes with a radically different scoring system than in years past.  If it changes Oscar physics (a similarly complicated voting system is often credited with the National Society of Film Critics' tendency to pick things like Out of Sight and Waltz with Bashir as Best Picture), all bets are off.

BEST DIRECTOR
Who's Nominated:  Kathryn Bigalow for The Hurt Locker, James Cameron for Avatar, Lee Daniels for Precious:  Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, Jason Reitman for Up in the Air, Quentin Tarantino for Inglourious Basterds.
Who Got Snubbed:  Marc Webb for (500) Days of Summer-Oh, yeah, I'm gonna keep beating this drum.  Webb's feature debut took a technically challenging screenplay (oh, yeah, I'm gonna get to that) and brought it to remarkable life by paying attention to details both big (his stars have never been better) and small (the little nuances of scenes that play over and over keep shifting their meanings while playing totally fair). 
My Preference:  Cameron reinvented the wheel on a technical level and Bigalow reminded us that she really, really knows how to deliver a body blow with an image, but QUENTIN TARANTINO found a way to make 20-minute sequences of people talking around tables impossibly tense and still delivered the year's best musical montage and The Revenge of the Giant Face.
My Prediction:  Tough one, because to believe the Oscar will go the same way as almost all other awards, including the almost-always right Directors Guild trophy, is to believe the Academy will put aside its defining chauvinism to select its first-ever female Best Director.  I think they will, and KATHRYN BIGALOW will own the night.  But if not, her ex-husband and Golden Globe winner Cameron lurks in the wings.

BEST ACTOR
Who's Nominated:  Jeff Bridges for Crazy Heart, George Clooney for Up in the Air, Colin Firth for A Single Man, Morgan Freeman for Invictus, Jeremy Renner for The Hurt Locker
Who Got Snubbed:  Tobey Maguire for Brothers-A Golden Globe nomination had fanned hopes that Maguire's searing, horrifyingly sympathetic work in Jim Sheridan's criminally underrated PTSD drama would be recognized by the Academy.  No such luck.  But it's great to see him reconnect with the potential he'd frittered away in a decade spent in Spider-Man's tights.
My Preference:  Third year in a row, one nominee towers over all others, although last year, that guy (Mickey Rourke) didn't win.  JEFF BRIDGES is gloriously pitiful throughout most of Crazy Heart's running time, but watching how he changes in the third act shows just how great the rest of the performance has been.
My Prediction:  It's not every year (or even decade) that the "it's time" sentiment for a long-snubbed star coincides with a role for which they actually deserve the award.  This is one of those years:  hard to imaging anyone other than JEFF BRIDGES getting the call.

BEST ACTRESS
WHO'S NOMINATED:  Sandra Bullock for The Blind Side, Helen Mirren for The Last Station, Carey Mulligan for An Education, Gabourey Sidibe for Precious:  Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, Meryl Streep for Julie and Julia
Who Got Snubbed:  Zooey Deschanel for (500) Days of Summer-Once again, my ax gets a little grinding:  a bold, perfectly-pitched performance that suggests, without actually confirming, that the delightfully charming lead in a romantic comedy is a bad person without whom the hero is better off. 
My Preference:  I wanted her to win last year for Doubt, but she didn't, and I fear MERYL STREEP will be passed over this year as well.  Pity, too, because her summoning of Julia Child isn't just a flawless impersonation, but that rare movie performance that radiates pure joy.
My Prediction:  I love SANDRA BULLOCK, don't get me wrong, but it's been a bizarre sight to watch exaggerated rumors of her career's demise fanned into runaway Oscar campaign behind a solid but by no means exceptional performance.  But that's exactly what's happened, and I'll do my best to be happy for her.  Streep could make me even happier by proving me wrong, but the momentum totally shifted here sometime around the SAG awards, and the inexplicable Best Picture nomination The Blind Side snagged tells me it's only been picking up steam.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Who's Nominated:  Matt Damon for Invictus, Woody Harrelson for The Messenger, Christopher Plummer for The Last Station, Stanley Tucci for The Lovely Bones, Christoph Waltz for Inglourious Basterds
Who Got Snubbed:  Christian McKay for Me and Orson Welles-Perhaps not a perfect impression (although pretty darn good), but a perfect summoning of the energy and mad genius that made the Citizen Kane director the most fascinating artistic figure of the first half of the 20th Century.  A fixture of the early part of the awards season, this is the kind of performance that always seems to earn a nod when it's not coming from a Freestyle Releasing production.
My Preference:  From the first icy moment when he politely turns up at a Frenchman's door to compliment his daughters and murder the Jews under his floorboards, CHRISTOPH WALTZ takes a tour de force role and rides it for everything it's worth.  There are some other good performances in the category, but nothing in his league.
My Prediction: CHRISTOPH WALTZ has gone from an unknown to a man who needs to build an extension onto his house just to hold all his plaques and trophies, having dominated the awards season like no one else.  It won't stop here.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Who's Nominated:  Penelope Cruz for Nine, Vera Farmiga for Up in the Air, Maggie Gyllenhaal for Crazy Heart, Anna Kendrick for Up in the Air, Mo'Nique for Precious:  Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
Who Got Snubbed:  Melanie Laurent for Inglourious Basterds-Highway robbery:  Laurent sets the screen on fire (literally as well as figuratively) as Basterds' vengeful theater owner.  Given that two of the four performances I've seen in the category are merely adequate, I can't believe they couldn't find room for her.
My Preference:  Gyllenhaal is doing something special just to not seem out of place next to Jeff Bridges' tremendous work, but it's a rarer sight to watch VERA FARMIGA match George Clooney's famous star power watt for watt.  Her Up in the Air character is complex, sexy and surprising in very adult ways women rarely get to be in the movies, and she's totally up to the challenge.
My Prediction:  The women from Up in the Air made some early noise at the time when it was the early front-runner, but since MO'NIQUE started winning awards, she just hasn't stopped.  No reason to think she will now:  the supporting categories seem as locked up as in any year I can remember.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Who's Nominated: The Hurt Locker by Mark Boal, Inglourious Basterds by Quentin Tarantino, The Messenger by Alessandro Camon & Oren Moverman, A Serious Man by Joel & Ethan Coen, Up by Bob Peterson & Pete Docter, story by Peterson, Docter & Thomas McCarthy
Who Got Snubbed: (500) Days of Summer by Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber:  The pick of 4 different critics circles and nominated for the Independent Spirit and Writers Guild honors, Neustadter & Weber may be the most unjust of all the Summer slights because everything I've demanded people be recognized for executing in these various categories was their idea.  And there wasn't a more creative movie last year. 
My Preference:  This is a strong category even without (500) Days, and there are good cases to be made for the window Camon & Moverman gave us into a world we'd never given a moment's thought and to the extraordinary work Peterson, Docter & McCarthy did creating a Pixar tale with a beating human heart.  But I've got to go with QUENTIN TARANTINO, whose script is wildly imaginative and chock full of great, great dialog.
My Prediction:  I don't discount a Tarantino upset, but the Writers Guild went with MARK BOAL, and so will I, particularly since the voters can't know if this is a consolation prize after an Avatar Best Picture win or not.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Who's Nominated: District 9 by Neil Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell, An Education by Nick Hornsby, In the Loop by Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci and Tony Roche, Precious:  Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire by Geoffrey Fletcher, Up in the Air by Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner
Who Got Snubbed:  Fantastic Mr. Fox by Wes Anderson & Noah Baumbach:  A remarkably unique work fusing the spirit of old-school Looney Toons mayhem, a serious fascination with the natural world and deep thought about the nature of life and death.  The choice of three different critics circles, including the Online Critics, it seemed like a serious contender, but was pushed aside in favor of less daring choices.
My Preference:  I can't support a screenplay nomination for a movie that can't decide if it's a mockumentary or not, meaning the only nominee I've seen AND loved was Up in the Air.  Since the movie's somewhat irksome over-reliance on footage of real fired workers occurred in post-production, JASON REITMAN & SHELDON TURNER can take full credit for a fascinatingly complex look at the eternal quest for happiness in a society that always seems to be selling us something we can't have.
My Prediction:  Beware actors and famous novelists in the writing categories, so Hornsby can't be discounted.  But JASON REITMAN & SHELDON TURNER have been the most honored writers of the awards season and this is the highly regarded Reitman's best shot yet to take an Oscar home. 

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Who's Nominated: Coraline, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Princess & The Frog, The Secret of Kells, Up
Who Got Snubbed:  Monsters vs. Aliens-Dreamworks splendid spring monster mash was the best of the year's "just for fun" animated flicks:  who wouldn't have wanted to see Dr. Cockroach and BOB at the ceremony? 
My Preference:  For me, this is the real Best Picture race, including not only three films from my Top 10 list, but the one I picked as last year's best movie:  CORALINE.
My Prediction:  Pixar always has the upper hand in this category to start with and UP has a Best Picture nomination that seems to assure its victory here.  A Mr. Fox upset is conceivable, albeit highly unlikely, and the little-seen Secret of Kells is so far off the radar I have to view it with a certain stealthy suspicion.

We'll watch all this unfold in a ceremony I expect to have a certain train wreck chic, with an unusually hard push to get the show finished early and the odd choice to pair proven Oscar host Steve Martin with Alec Baldwin, who'll presumably be "playing" the host rather than hosting, a risky move likely to put off most people other than his 30 Rock fans (many of whom will be in attendance, making him a better choice were the ceremony not being televised).  But I'm at peace with whatever nonsense they plan to spring on us.  Ain't acceptance grand?