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"    Photo: Karen Cattan  The year that Forrest Gump swept the Oscars, I realized why I&amp;#039;m single. It&amp;#039;s because I would marry the worst man in the world, one who would make me laugh my head off fairly frequently and give me a sexy thrill from time to time, but between the jokes he&amp;#039;d bore me blind, and worse, he&amp;#039;d get my hopes up for something real and true and wonderful, even tossing me a consolation prize or two before poking my eye out with a sharp stick. In short, a man just like the Oscars. I mean really\u2014Forrest boxachocklits Gump? Where the heroine had to die of AIDS because she did drugs and slept with guys she didn&amp;#039;t love? Arrgh. That was the last time I watched alone. Now friends gather to share the laughs and the pain, and one of them makes ballots, and there&amp;#039;s a serve-yourself buffet and prizes, a good one for the person who gets the most answers right and a slightly better one for the person who gets the least (it&amp;#039;s hard to outdumb the Oscars).  This year, the pain is starting early because these Oscars could be a game-changer and my hopes are already going through the roof. Or I should say the ceiling, which I seriously crave to see shatter in a thousand glittering pieces just before midnight on March 7. Everyone agrees, and guild voting confirms, that it&amp;#039;s a horse race between Kathryn Bigelow&amp;#039;s wrenching war movie The Hurt Locker and James Cameron&amp;#039;s towering fabulation Avatar. Bonus fact: Bigelow and Cameron used to be married and remain pals. Big bonus fact: Her movie is an indie that cost an estimated $11-to-$15 million and earned $16 million worldwide; his cost an estimated $400-$500 million and has made $2 billion worldwide and is still going strong. David and Goliath, anyone?  The Hurt Locker nails the new and terrible face of modern warfare, with its lethal hand-made IEDs and relentlessly intimate friend-or-foe paranoia, just as Apocalypse Now nailed it in 1979, with those malevolent-looking, insectoid black helicopters taking the place of WWII&amp;#039;s sturdy fighter planes. But Bigelow also embeds an acute and continually surprising psychological portrait into The Hurt Locker of what war does to the warriors and just how addictive its terrifying highs can become. I would love this tense, beautiful stunner of a movie no matter who made it, but I love it a little more because it&amp;#039;s the work not just of a woman\u2014although there&amp;#039;s that\u2014but of a director who&amp;#039;s been making my jaw drop ever since Near Dark, her 1987 rural American vampire drama (typical Bigelow to make a cool vampire movie before vampires were cool).  I watched Avatar on IMAX and got totally giddy on those floating mountains; Cameron&amp;#039;s new, improved 3-D is literally sensational, and the story is at once touching and scary, pure entertainment from start to finish. But the movies that matter most take me to places that are deeper and more revelatory. It&amp;#039;s like that artists&amp;#039; exhortation: Make it new. Avatar does that, technically at least. But The Hurt Locker does, too, no qualifiers necessary.  Most of my guests play the Oscar game in earnest, doing their best to mind-read the academy&amp;#039;s often baffling choices. But a few romantics vote their hearts, marking their ballots with what they want to win. In the spirit of those alt.Oscars, what follows is my dubious attempt to predict what will win in the major categories compared with what I think should. At the end is a shortlist of that Oscar staple, the usual infuriating snubs.  Best Picture \u2022 Avatar James Cameron and Jon Landau, Producers  \u2022 The Blind Side Gil Netter, Andrew Kosove, and Broderick Johnson \u2022 District 9 Peter Jackson and Carolynne Cunningham, Producers  \u2022 An Education Finola Dwyer and Amanda Posey, Producers  \u2022 The Hurt Locker Greg Shapiro, Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Boal, and Nicolas Chartier \u2022 Inglourious Basterds Lawrence Bender, Producer  \u2022 Precious: Based on the Novel &amp;#039;Push&amp;#039; by Sapphire Lee Daniels, Sarah Siegel-Magness and Gary Magness, Producers  \u2022 A Serious Man Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, Producers  \u2022 Up Jonas Rivera, Producer  \u2022 Up in the Air Daniel Dubiecki, Ivan Reitman and Jason Reitman, Producers  Conceivably, Academy voters could split the difference and give Avatar best picture and Bigelow best director or vice versa. But I&amp;#039;m going for broke.           Photo: Courtesy of Summit Entertainment What will win:The Hurt Locker What should win:The Hurt Locker Directing \u2022 Avatar  James Cameron  \u2022 The Hurt Locker  Kathryn Bigelow  \u2022 Inglourious Basterds  Quentin Tarantino  \u2022 Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire  Lee Daniels  \u2022 Up in the Air  Jason Reitman  Still going for broke\u2026          Photo: Ed Araquel Who will win:  Kathryn Bigelow Who should win:  Kathryn Bigelow. Actress in a Leading Role \u2022 Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side  \u2022 Helen Mirren  in The Last Station  \u2022 Carey Mulligan in An Education  \u2022 Gabourey Sidibe in Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire  \u2022 Meryl Streep  in Julie &amp;amp;amp; Julia  The horse race here is Bullock v. Streep. I love Sandra Bullock. I love the way she snort-laughed in Miss Congeniality and launched into that incredibly annoying singsong while hanging off Benjamin Bratt and braying, &amp;quot;I think you like me. You wanna kiss me.&amp;quot; Her high-powered career woman in The Proposal could be annoying too, but instead of playing her like a queen bitch who must be humbled, Bullock always let us see how much of that A-type behavior was vaulting ambition and how much was armor protecting the too soft center of someone scared of love&amp;#039;s risk and pain. Bullock is good in The Blind Side, too; she keeps her potentially saccharine Lady Bountiful salty enough to be likable. But there&amp;#039;s no getting past it: the role itself is, like the movie, echt Hollywood served straight from the can.  As for Streep, academy voters have shortchanged her for years, which is the only reason I bitterly think they&amp;#039;ll do it again even though in Julie &amp;amp;amp; Julia she gives one of her best performances. Like Mirren, she&amp;#039;s a national treasure, with an outsize talent that she plumbs and hones with the same commitment now as she had when she was a hungry beginner. Her last Oscar\u2014she has two, a supporting for Kramer vs. Kramer and a leading for Sophie&amp;#039;s Choice\u2014was 27 years ago. Instead, endless nominations (14 total) despite Oscar-worthy work in Silkwood, Postcards from the Edge, Bridges of Madison County, Adaptation, The Devil Wears Prada, Doubt, and now Julie &amp;amp;amp; Julia. How grudging can the Academy get? Enough with those mingy little sorbets\u2014give her the goddamn banana split.           Photo: Ralph Nelson Who will win:  Sandra Bullock           Photo: Jonathan Wenk Who should win:  Meryl Streep Actor in a Leading Role \u2022 Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart \u2022 George Clooney in Up in the Air  \u2022 Colin Firth in A Single Man  \u2022 Morgan Freeman in Invictus  \u2022 Jeremy Renner in The Hurt Locker  Jeff Bridges is very good as the alcoholic country singer in Crazy Heart. But that he wasn&amp;#039;t even nominated for The Big Lebowski or The Door in the Floor, two roles that really stretched him, is shameful. Which is why make-up Oscars are a bad Academy habit. So, despite his excellence in A Single Man, Firth doesn&amp;#039;t have a chance. Nor does Renner, even though his performance in The Hurt Locker is the gift that keeps on giving as the film gradually discloses one facet of his character after another, so that instead of the hot dog he shows us at the start of the movie, at the end we have the whole, tragic man.           Photo: Lorey Sebastian Who will win:  Jeff Bridges           Photo: Courtesy of Summit Entertainment Who should win:  Jeremy Renner Actress in a Supporting Role \u2022 Pen\u00E9lope Cruz in Nine  \u2022 Vera Farmiga  in Up in the Air  \u2022 Maggie Gyllenhaal in Crazy Heart  \u2022 Anna Kendrick  in Up in the Air  \u2022 Mo&amp;#039;Nique  in Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire  Smart of the voters to nominate Penelope Cruz for Nine; surprisingly, it&amp;#039;s a more fully nuanced role than the one in Pedro Almodovar&amp;#039;s Broken Embraces, and she makes the most of it. And Up in the Air gives Vera Farmiga a chance to shine as never before. Enough with the horror movies\u2014she&amp;#039;s an A-list female star and should be treated like one. All the nominees are standouts, but Mo&amp;#039;Nique is an astonishment. She makes the mother from hell in Precious a wounded creature, yet she never ceases to be repellant. Her Mary is infantile, stunted, full of rage and wretched self-doubt. There&amp;#039;s something worse in her, too, something hopelessly mangled and mangling that we glimpse but never see the roots of except to know that she wasn&amp;#039;t born that way because no one is. Her final terrible encounter with Precious and the social worker makes Mo&amp;#039;Nique&amp;#039;s performance nothing less than a landmark.           Photo: Courtesy of Lionsgate Who will win:  Mo&amp;#039;Nique  Who should win:  Mo&amp;#039;Nique. Actor in a Supporting Role \u2022 Matt Damon in Invictus  \u2022 Woody Harrelson  in The Messenger  \u2022 Christopher Plummer  in The Last Station  \u2022 Stanley Tucci in The Lovely Bones  \u2022 Christoph Waltz  in Inglourious Basterds Again, these are all fine performances, but the only possible competition for Waltz is Tucci because they both play monsters. In the question and answer session following a SAG screening of The Lovely Bones, Tucci said he insisted on the glasses, slightly bucked teeth and blond hair because once he was in that horrific character he didn&amp;#039;t want to look in the mirror and see his own face. He&amp;#039;s terrific, but the role itself lacks the complexity of Waltz&amp;#039;s charming, ruthless bon vivant Nazi, and it can&amp;#039;t help that Peter Jackson&amp;#039;s bonehead decision to woo the tween market by sugarcoating Alice Sebold&amp;#039;s clear-eyed novel has turned what could have been a megahit into a flop.          Photo: Fran\u00E7ois Duhamel Who will win:  Christoph Waltz  Who should win:  Christoph Waltz Writing (Adapted Screenplay)  \u2022 District 9  Written by Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell  \u2022 An Education Screenplay by Nick Hornby  \u2022 In the Loop Screenplay by Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche  \u2022 Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire Screenplay by Geoffrey Fletcher  \u2022 Up in the Air  Screenplay by Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner  No duds here, although I wish Hornby had been able to give An Education an ending as original as the rest of the movie. But the contest will surely come down to Up in The Air and Precious. I like Up in the Air a lot, but the script alternates between surprise and predictability and tough-mindedness and sentimentality. By contrast Precious, like its source novel, is full of surprises and never loses its sharp edge. What will win: Up in the Air What should win: Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire Writing (Original Screenplay)  \u2022 The Hurt Locker  Written by Mark Boal  \u2022 Inglourious Basterds Written by Quentin Tarantino  \u2022 The Messenger Written by Alessandro Camon &amp;amp;amp; Oren Moverman  \u2022 A Serious Man  Written by Joel Coen &amp;amp;amp; Ethan Coen  \u2022 Up  Screenplay by Bob Peterson, Pete Docter, Story by Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, Tom McCarthy  I have absolutely no idea what will win in this category, but along with Precious, Inglourious Basterds is one of the most audacious movies of the year as well as one of the best. And while I pretty much hated the scalping business, all those fierce warrior Jews, female as well as male, feel like an antidote to the perp walk of Jewish grotesques in the Coen brothers&amp;#039; adolescent revenge movie. So forget about the putzes and the schmucks, let&amp;#039;s hear it for the basterds! What will win: Inglourious Basterds What should win: Inglourious Basterds  Cinematography \u2022 Avatar  Mauro Fiore  \u2022 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince  Bruno Delbonnel  \u2022 The Hurt Locker Barry Ackroyd  \u2022 Inglourious Basterds Robert Richardson  \u2022 The White Ribbon  Christian Berger  The Hurt Locker is so nervewracking the first time out, you have to watch it again to see what a visual work of art it is\u2014not painterly, it&amp;#039;s too fiercely alive for that, but dazzlingly beautiful and, of course, horrific. As for the Academy, I&amp;#039;m betting they&amp;#039;ll go with the more obvious choice.  What will win:  Avatar What should win: The Hurt Locker Foreign Language Film \u2022 Ajami  Israel  \u2022 El Secreto de Sus Ojos  Argentina  \u2022 The Milk of Sorrow  Peru  \u2022 Un Proph\u00E8te  France  \u2022 The White Ribbon  Germany  I love A Prophet; it&amp;#039;s terrific and utterly gripping, an amazing mix of prison flick and bildungsroman, with a Gallic touch of The Godfather, no less. But The White Ribbon has a rigor and originality, both visual and intellectual, that feels unmatched.          Photo: \u00A9 Copyright Films du Losange, courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics What will win: The White Ribbon What should win: The White Ribbon Animated Feature Film \u2022 Coraline  Henry Selick  \u2022 Fantastic Mr. Fox  Wes Anderson  \u2022 The Princess and the Frog John Musker and Ron Clements  \u2022 The Secret of Kells  Tomm Moore  \u2022 Up  Pete Docter  Up is a pleasure and not afraid to play a bit rough at least some of the time. But with Fantastic Mr. Fox, Wes Anderson creates a unique and endlessly witty world, worth visiting again and again.           Photo: \u00A9 Disney/Pixar What will win: Up          Photo: Courtesy of 20th Century Fox What should win: Fantastic Mr. Fox Documentary (Feature)  \u2022 Burma VJ  Anders \u00D8stergaard and Lise Lense-M\u00F8ller  \u2022 The Cove  Louie Psihoyos and Fisher Stevens \u2022 Food, Inc.  Robert Kenner and Elise Pearlstein  \u2022 The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers  Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith  \u2022 Which Way Home Rebecca Cammisa  I&amp;#039;m betting on The Cove to win the Oscar, because it takes serious issues\u2014animal cruelty, secretive, government-sanctioned dolphin slaughter, and Japan&amp;#039;s unconscionable sale of high-mercury content seafood to its own people\u2014and turns them into a heart-pounding real-life thriller. But Food Inc.&amp;#039;s meticulous, powerful portrait of the brutal and increasingly dangerous degradation of the American food supply system is the larger and more urgent subject.           Photo: \u00A9 Louie Psihoyos, The Oceanic Preservation Society 2008 What will win: The Cove          Photo: Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures What should win: Food Inc. The Usual Infuriating Snubs          BEST FILM: Bright Star should have been nominated instead of The Blind Side: Not only did Jane Campion make a perfect film, she also took the all too cozy genre, the period romance, to that deeper, revelatory place I like so much.          Photo: Mark Tille BEST ACTOR:  George Clooney is fine in Up in the Air, but his performance pales beside his true Oscar-worthy turn in Michael Clayton. His slot should go to Sam Rockwell in Moon as the sine qua non of Duncan Jones&amp;#039; brilliantly grubby excursion into an all too believable dystopia.          Photo: Courtesy of Summit Entertainment BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:  Matt Damon is solid in Invictus but the role doesn&amp;#039;t call on him to do anything special besides mastering a South African accent. By contrast, without a bit of showboating, Anthony Mackie embodies nothing less than the other half of the warrior reality in The Hurt Locker.          BEST ACTRESS:  Sandra Bullock has yet to get the role that will really stretch her, whereas the prodigiously gifted Abbie Cornish strips away every sentimental cliche in Bright Star, giving her lovestruck 17-year-old a bold authority and emotional depth that shocks you with its boundless truth. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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