New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

For Best Actress, my predictions are that Sandra Bullock, Meryl Streep, Carey Mulligan, Gaboury Sidibe, and Helen Mirren will be the nominees, for The Blind Side, Julie & Julia, An Education, Precious, and The Last Station, respectively. As with the previous category, there are few potential surprises here. Bullock and Streep are currently duking it out for their separately crowd-pleasing films. Mulligan, Sidibe, and Mirren are by the sidelines here, watching as two performers in two seemingly insubstantial movies are getting huge praise. I can't speak about The Blind Side, as I am one of the few people who haven't seen the movie; frankly, I'm better off not seeing it, as I harbor a few unpopular opinions: one of them is that I do not like Sandra Bullock at all. I'm biased to dislike her and the movie, so my opinion is not exactly reliable.

Another sneaky opinion of mine? I really don't think much of Meryl Streep's work in the past decade, with the exception of her supporting work in Adaptation. I find her work this decade to be wildly overrated, and Julie & Julia, in which she's only slightly better than Dan Aykroyd was in his stint on Saturday Night Live (and can someone explain to me why that entire sketch is played in the film? Please?), is no exception. Streep is getting nominated for playing a real person, for doing a funny voice, and for being Meryl Streep. Is hers the best female performance of the year? No. Is Bullock's? I can't say. Of the nominees, the most impressive is Sidibe, if only for the impressive emotion she brings to the role, and for being a relative newcomer. But the winner is probably going to be Streep. Or Bullock. Flip a coin, and make your choice.

For today, I'll cover only those predictions, but I'll also throw out the likelihood that Up in the Air will win Best Adapted Screenplay, Up will win Best Original Score and Best Animated Feature, The Hurt Locker will win Best Original Screenplay, and Avatar will win a boatload of technical awards. We'll discuss the actual nominations this coming week, as I'm sure that whatever the Academy has come up with, it'll be completely different from what I just threw out there. Surprises always come to those who don't think surprises are coming, so I'll likely be proven wrong. And, once we have an initial analysis of those nominations, we'll all watch Lost, right? Right? It's only the best show on television. Seriously, though, check back here next week for a thorough analysis of the nominees. It's bound to be exciting.

Continued:       1       2       3