Oscar Night draws nigh, and I can’t help but feel pumped about it. I know most people don’t care all that much, or only tune in for the dresses or pageantry or whatever, but I really love the Academy Awards. It’s like my own geeky version of the Super Bowl – fun to watch even if my team isn’t in the game. And I have a feeling this particular ceremony is gonna be pretty epic. I’ve seen all of the Best Picture nominees, and they’re all genuinely good movies. 4 of my top 5 movies of 2010 made the cut, and the other got a pair of nods of its own, including Best Animated Feature! Of course, there are some obvious frontrunners, and most of them aren’t who I’d pick to win. But it’s been a strong year for movies, and all of the nominees earned it!

Here are my predictions as to who will win, and for fun, my picks for who should win in my opinion. A quick warning: I do every category, and I have a lot of thoughts on almost all of them.

Costume Design

My Prediction: Colleen Atwood for Alice in Wonderland. She’s previously won for Chicago and Memoirs of a Geisha, and she won the BAFTA this year. Not a sure thing, but the elaborate combination of period and fantasy does make her a formidable contender.

My Pick: Colleen Atwood.

Makeup

My Prediction: Rick Baker and Dave Elsey for The Wolfman. Fantasy and science fiction always fare well here, and Baker’s work is practically legendary.

My Pick: Rick Baker and Dave Elsey. I was actually hoping Alice in Wonderland would get recognition for so perfectly recreating the look of John Tenniel’s original illustrations, but snubs happen and you deal.

Art Direction

My Prediction: Guy Hendrix Dyas, Larry Dias and Doug Mowat for Inception.

My Pick: Stuart Craig and Stephenie McMillan for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1. The least likely of all the nominees, but there’s so much perfectly precise detail in all the HP films. It’d be nice to see that recognized. Maybe they’ll have a better chance next year, when the award could be a kind of hats off to the series as a whole. …Wait, is my fangirlism showing?

Visual Effects

My Prediction: Paul Franklin, Chris Corbould, Andrew Lockley and Peter Bebb for Inception. Seamless work, and the high number of nods in other fields does boost their chance.

My Pick: Ken Ralston, David Schaub, Carey Villegas and Sean Phillips for Alice in Wonderland.

Film Editing

My Prediction: Tariq Anwar for The King’s Speech. Sweep-potential gives it the edge.

My Pick: Jon Harris for 127 Hours. Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter (The Social Network) are very close at second.

Sound Editing

My Prediction: Richard King for Inception. I’ll admit I don’t know too much about this category, but action films seem to do well here (recent winners include The Dark Knight, The Bourne Ultimatum and The Matrix) and the only one with any Oscar hope this year is Inception.

My Pick: Skip Lievsay and Craig Berkey for True Grit. Nice work between the somber silence, the loud gunfights, and Jeff Bridges’ drunken slurring.

Sound Mixing

My Prediction: Paul Hamblin, Martin Jensen and John Midgley for The King’s Speech. Like I said before, I’m anticipating a TKS sweep, and it definitely helps that it’s such a dialogue-heavy film.

My Pick: Ren Klyce, David Parker, Michael Semanick and Mark Weingarten for The Social Network. Another dialogue-heavy nominee, but one with a much quicker pace. Extra points for mixing what may be the most true-to-life depiction of a conversation in a crowded club.

Original Score

My Prediction: Alexandre Desplat for The King’s Speech. The most traditional of all the nominees, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention how perfect the score was under the titular speech, like it was boosting it along.

My Pick: A tossup between John Powell (How to Train Your Dragon) and Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (The Social Network.)

Random Note: It irks me that composers Clint Mansell and Carter Burwell (Black Swan and True Grit, respectively) were disqualified because their work was deemed too reliant on preexisting music. However, Inception still made the cut, despite composer Hans Zimmer openly admitting that large portions of it are directly lifted from Edith Piaf’s “Non, je ne regrette rien” with the tempo slowed down. If you’re going to make up silly qualification rules, Academy, then that’s just fine. But please be consistent with them.

Original Song

My Prediction: “We Belong Together” by Randy Newman from Toy Story 3. Because people just love that one song Newman’s been writing over and over and over again for the last 20 years.

My Pick: “If I Rise” by A.R. Rahman (music), Dido and Rollo Armstrong (lyrics) from 127 Hours.

Short – Documentary

My Prediction: I haven’t seen a single one of these, nor do I know much about them. But Roger Ebert predicted Killing in the Name, so that’s good enough for me.

Short – Animated

My Prediction: Day & Night. Pixar = edge.

Short – Live Action

My Prediction: Who has 2 thumbs and doesn’t know anything about these nominees either? This gal. I’ll go with The Confession. It’s first on the list, and I’m lazy.

Foreign Film

My Prediction: Another category in which I am shamefully ignorant of the nominees. I’m leaning towards Mexico’s Biutiful since it’s the only one with another major nomination (Javier Bardem as Leading Actor.)

Documentary

My Prediction: I’ve only seen 1 of these, but knowing the subject of each, I’ll make an educated guess: Inside Job, a relevant piece about the economy.

My Pick: Exit through the Gift Shop. The one I saw, and let me tell you something: it’s pretty freakin’ awesome.

Animated Film

My Prediction: Toy Story 3. Its Best Picture nomination seals the deal.

My Pick: How to Train Your Dragon. Best. Animated. Movie. Ever.

Cinematography

My Prediction: Roger Deakins for True Grit. He’s 9-time nominee without a statuette of his own. This guy is the Susan Lucci of DP’s, and he’s seriously due.

My Pick: Jeff Cronenweth for The Social Network. I believe TSN was the only nominee captured digitally in its entirety, so if it does win (and it has a chance) it’ll be the third year in a row that digital wins (after Slumdog Millionaire and Avatar.) Very interesting considering the digital vs. film debate is hot right now.

Adapted Screenplay

My Prediction: Aaron Sorkin for The Social Network. His screenplay is exceptionally actor-friendly, which counts for a lot as the voting body is largely made up of actors. It also has the benefit of a clean pre-Oscar sweep.

My Pick: Aaron Sorkin. He had me at “I’m 6’ 5”, 220 pounds, and there are 2 of me!” The dialogue is witty and original, but the story and plotting (which don’t get mentioned as much) are similarly refreshing. It plays with familiar themes without hitting cliché plot points, and the Rashomon-style narration is played out with nice subtlety. Plus, you just gotta love a screenplay that calls itself out for being mainly based in exaggeration and fabrication (something that clearly flew over the detractors’ heads.)

Original Screenplay

My Prediction: David Seidler for The King’s Speech. Christopher Nolan’s Inception is intricate and has a more original plot (if you count regurgitated philosophy and obvious allusions toother films as “original” [oh yes, I went there,]) but it lacked character development and the dialogue was far too expositive. TKS is focused on its characters and conversational dialogue, giving it the edge with the actor-dominated Academy.

My Pick: I’ll take a third option and choose Lisa Cholodenko and Stuart Blumberg’s The Kids Are All Right. It has fully developed characters and an original story.

Male Actor in a Supporting Role

My Prediction: Christian Bale for The Fighter is the frontrunner, but TKS’s Geoffrey Rush is extremely close behind (especially since the British Academy, usually eager to reward their own, honored the Australian over the Brit.)

My Pick: John Hawkes for Winter’s Bone. I’m a fan of nuanced, subtle performances rather than big showy ones like Bale’s and Rush’s. Hawkes managed to play meth-addict Teardrop as simultaneously menacing and supportive, and he did it without getting loud. But I don’t mind either Bale or Rush winning in the slightest.

Female Actor in a Supporting Role

My Prediction: Hailee Steinfeld for True Grit. It was looking like Melissa Leo (The Fighter) would be the frontrunner, but her shameless-even-by-Hollywood’s-standards self-promotion has been rubbing a lot of people the wrong way, and she might end up splitting with Amy Adams (also for The Fighter.) The gravity and weight with which Steinfeld played her role, the 14-year-old’s first, will probably win over a lot of voters. (And yes, she was totally the lead; blame the misplacement on Paramount, who lobbied hard for a supporting nod for her.)

My Pick: Hailee Steinfeld. Although it would be totally awesome to see Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom) swoop in from outta nowhere to win the golden dude…

Male Actor in a Leading Role

My Prediction: Colin Firth for The King’s Speech. He was nominated but lost last year (to Jeff Bridges, also nominated again.) General consensus maintains that his performace in A Single Man was superior to this one, but his King George VI was good enough that the Academy can “remedy” his loss by honoring him this year.

My Pick: James Franco for 127 Hours. The entire movie rested squarely on his shoulders. He carried it beautifully, and someday he may win an Oscar as consolation for this year (much like Firth is going to win now as consolation for losing last year.) But you know what? That hosting gig ain’t too shabby.

Female Actor in a Leading Role

My Prediction: Natalie Portman for Black Swan, unless Annette Bening’s previous losses are “rectified” with a statuette for The Kids Are All Right.

My Pick: Jennifer Lawrence for Winter’s Bone. Her performance was far more complex and layered than either Portman’s or Bening’s, and, like Steinfeld, she showed a maturity far beyond her own years.

Director

My Prediction: David Fincher for The Social Network. TKS director Tom Hooper did win the DGA award, but Fincher has swept all the other pre-Oscar prizes. That includes the BAFTA, which was always expected to go to the British Hooper. Huge win for the American dude, and all but confirms a victory on Oscar Night.

My Pick: David Fincher. No contest. Not even close.

Picture

My Prediction: The King’s Speech. In case my evident anticipation of a sweep wasn’t telling, I would be highly surprised if TKS didn’t bring home the gold this year. The Social Network did it seem to be the clear frontrunner after cleaning up the critics’ awards and the Golden Globes (although you can never trust the HFPA these days.) But TKS managed to get big wins from the PGA, DGA and SAG, and the table turned. (It also won the BAFTA, but being a very British film, that was a foregone conclusion.) Six films have won all 3 major guild awards in the past, and only one didn’t win the Oscar (Apollo 13, which lost to Braveheart.) There’s only a sliver of hope for TSN now.

My Pick: The Social Network. I honestly don’t have a problem with TKS. It’s a good film. It’s funny and uplifting, and a solid period piece. But it just doesn’t hold a candle to TSN. TSN blows everything else this year out of the water, technically and creatively, and it’s a darn shame that it probably won’t be recognized by the Academy. But plenty of classic films have lost Best Pictureike Citizen Kane, The Graduate and Pulp Fiction, each of which has a lot in common with TSN. They’re all excellent and generally more beloved today than those they lost to. I’m actually content with TSN losing. It might be too good for the Oscar.

(By the way, 127 Hours is my personal favorite of the nominees, but objectively, TSN is the superior film and definitely going to be remembered better over time.)