Oscars: Who Will Win 10 Big Categories -- and Who SHOULD

Dave Karger predicts who'll go home with statues in biggest categories on Sunday -- and who he'd vote for
By Dave Karger
March 03, 2010 at 01:00 PM EST

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BEST ANIMATED FILM

Pixar/Disney

Will win AND should win: Up

In a fabulous year for animation (how great was Fantastic Mr. Fox?), Up raised the bar with that ridiculously moving first act.

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BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Wuttke: Francois Duhamel

Will win: Hurt Locker; should win: Inglourious Basterds

One of the toughest races to call, this category pits the Best Picture front-runner (The Hurt Locker) against an ingeniously talky script by Quentin Tarantino. Both screenplays are deserving. But it would be nice to see Basterds get some love.

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BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

Dale Robinette

Will win AND should win: Up in the Air

Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner may not have worked together, but they crafted perhaps the funniest and most touching screenplay of the year.

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BEST SONG

Bridges: Lorey Sebastian

Will win AND should win: ”The Weary Kind” from Crazy Heart

You won’t hear me complaining that there won’t be any Best Song performances this year. But Ryan Bingham and T-Bone Burnett’s Crazy Heart theme is far and away the best of the bunch.

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BEST DIRECTOR

Jonathan Olley

Will win AND should win: Kathryn Bigelow

Even if Avatar steals Best Picture, Bigelow will make Oscar history as the first female filmmaker to take the Best Director prize. And she did it by making the best ”guy movie” of last year.

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BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Anne Marie Fox

Will win AND should win: Mo’Nique

Here we have a fascinatingly tight race between…oh, who are we kidding? Mo’Nique is the mother of all locks this year. And deservedly so.

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BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Francois Duhamel

Will win AND should win: Christoph Waltz

Another race with absolutely no suspense. How could anyone top Waltz’s showboating turn as the world’s most charming SS colonel?

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BEST ACTRESS

Bullock: Ralph Nelson; Mulligan: Kerry Brown

Will win: Sandra Bullock; should win: Carey Mulligan

Bullock and Meryl Streep are locked in a super-tight race, but my heart’s with An Education‘s Mulligan, so unforgettable in her first-ever lead film role.

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BEST ACTOR

Bridges: Lorey Sebastian; Firth: Eduard Grau

Will win: Jeff Bridges; should win: Colin Firth

Bridges’ sweep of the three big U.S. pre-Oscar awards (SAG, Broadcast Critics, and Golden Globe) means he’s a lock. But the British Academy also showed they have impeccable taste by recognizing Firth for his emotional turn in A Single Man.

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BEST PICTURE

Will win AND should win: The Hurt Locker

The Hurt Locker, Avatar, and Inglourious Basterds may all get a similar number of No. 1 votes from the Academy. But in the all-important second and third rounds of voting, the more polarizing films stand to lose out to Locker, which has the most overall support.

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