Here is a list of those I’m aware of. If you have your own link, please feel free to drop it down.
Roger Ebert
Steve Pond, The Wrap
Kris Tapley, In Contention
Katey Rich, Cinemablend
Tom O’Neil and Pete Hammond, The Envelope
Erik Childress, Cinematical
Scott Feinberg, And the Winner Is
Way to Oscar
Yankee from Mississippi
And a few I got sent to me that aren’t yet published, after the cut.
Hollywood-Elsewhere‘s Moises Chiullan – the top ten Best Pics only:
The Hurt Locker
Avatar
Up in the Air
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
An Education
The No-Brainers above are exactly the movies people would be most surprised to see not nominated.
Star Trek
Avatar is the leader of what I consider a Sci-Fi Gang of Three. Huge popular support of the reboot gave Trek the goodwill that carried it to a PGA nomination and set it firmly as one of the first movies that comes to most minds when asked “what movies did you see last year that you liked?”
District 9
“They made this for $40 million? How do we make something that looks this good for 40 mill?” A Best Pic nomination is as much support for D9 as a business model as it is for artistic merit.
The Blind Side
Bullock’s likability and the solid chops of the movie could deliver this as the most “populist” choice among the Big Ten. I’m totally fine with this one being among the Best Pic nominees. Its absence would indicate to some that the “effete snob” mentality is alive and well. The headline buzz about the noms will revolve primarily around what a surprise this one is (if it happens).
A Serious Man*
This is the least likely and the biggest longshot of the bunch. Two things are built into that asterisk: A) this only happens if UP doesn’t cross the Rio Grande and make it in, and B) this choice represents my emotions and not my sense. I loved the craft that went into it, the storytelling, and Michael Stuhlbarg’s stout, unmannered performance. This next bit will likely be taken out of context and then get me in trouble, but it’s true. A Serious Man is the counter-Holocaust Oscar Movie, where Jews are human beings and not the saintly oppressed. There’s been a social backlash against it since its release for this reason, as my Jewish friends and their mothers have told me, and I assume that’s why it’s long been considered out of the running.