The 2012 Academy Awards Nominations: Our Educated Guesses

Davidlohr Bueso, Flickr

​In these very serious and not at all snarky Oscar nominations predictions, I wanted to begin by criticizing AMPAS for being conservative, self-serving and too politically correct, singling out members that double as nominees. I also wanted to discuss how demanding it is to watch an absurdly long and lackluster televised Oscars ceremony, and how E! has made bastardly portmanteaus like "amazeballs" synonymous with actresses who dress like aquatic birds. I even figured if I discussed wanting to discuss it, I'd be all meta and hip, unlike the Academy, who, well, is not.

But I'm a film buff, and although my YouTube attention span can only handle the last hour or so of the broadcast, I'll still tune in and catch awkward celebrity presenters give away more Oscars than Swedish adoption agencies. And like every movie junkie this side of Tinseltown, I fancy myself an expert worthy of forecasting nominees based on a number of scholarly sources -- namely, Rotten Tomatoes, /Film, and my Facebook news feed.

In addition, since the new Oscar balloting system is more puzzling than federal income tax rate schedules, I finalized my picks by consulting Hialeah santeros, shaking magic eight balls and pinning-the-tail-on-the-shortlists in categories where Nielsen actually quantifies viewers - or Animated Feature up through Best Movie to be exact. I'll keep my fingers crossed until tomorrow to see if the results below hold up.

Best Picture



If the Academy goes with ten noms again, we'll likely see most of the following titles:
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
The Artist
The Descendants
Hugo
The Help
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Midnight in Paris
The Tree of Life
Moneyball
Bridesmaids or The Ides of March

Although the last slot will likely go to War Horse, Spielberg's melodramatic Family Channel fare reminds me of a trip to dinner/horseback attraction Arabian Nights in Orlando where I went home with gastroenteritis, and so I'm picketing against it.

Favorite: The Artist. Director Michel Hazanavicius could admit to selling advanced missile systems to Iran and still nab the trophy.