List of nominees here.
Best Picture:
My pick is Inception. They will go with The King's Speech.
Best Director:
Since they criminally ignored Mr. Nolan here, I will pick Aronofsky for Black Swan. They will go with, um, Fincher for The Social Network.
Best Actor:
My friends who saw it say James Franco for 127 Hours, so I will go with them. Sadly, the Academy might go with Colin Firth for The King's Speech. Who was good.
Best Actress:
Natalie Portman for Black Swan. I said it and I am sticking by it. She was that good. Academy will likely agree, unless it's Annette Bening's turn to take one home.
Best Supporting Actor:
John Hawkes for Winter's Bone, who I didn't realize was Sol from Deadwood until just now. But they will give it to Bale or Rush. Either of which is fine.
Best Supporting Actress:
Hailee Steinfeld for True Grit gets my vote. She was a treat. They might go with Melissa Leo for The Fighter, and she was good too.
Best Cinematography:
Inception deserves it, but they could go with Black Swan or True Grit. Or The Social Network. Nevermind, I have no idea.
Inception I have discussed before. Pound for pound, quality cinema.
True Grit was damned good, a new favorite western. It's just up in a tough year. Jeff Bridges is a treat.
Winter's Bone is the kind of movie I would never have gotten around to watching otherwise, but ended up having a lot of depth and interest. The first half has this building sense of dread that really shines.
I'd been meaning to see Black Swan since it came out, and man, not disappointed. There's a couple changes that I'd make, but it's still good stuff.
The Social Network was better than I thought it would be, but still, not really Best Picture material. Sorkin really did a number on the script, though.
Toy Story 3 was really good. And I am glad it wasn't relegated to the Best Animated ghetto. Nonetheless, it was just outmatched in this field.
The King's Speech turned out to be the exact kind of feel-good, triumph-over-personal-adversity movie that I expected it to be, and that I consider highly formulaic. Not my thing. But the Academy seems to like it. Throw in some World War 2, and you got yourself a golden statue.
Interestingly, I expected The Fighter to be in the same vein, but it really surprised me at a couple points, and did a little more with the format. It helped that I didn't know the backstory going in. Well worth seeing.
Oh, and in case you missed it: yes, that set from The King's Speech was previously used to shoot gay porn. (Courtesy
warmaster.) That cropped pic cracks me up.* - I missed The Kids Are All Right and 127 Hours. The latter looks like a good shot for Best Actor for Franco, but also sounds a little gory for my tastes.