Spitballing Oscar’s Ten Best Picture Nominees

Since we don’t yet know how many of our wish list films are going to play out, it might be a fun practice to just write up our blind predictions of the potential ten films Oscar will recognize by year’s end.

A few things to remember – they aren’t going to award all small character dramas that made smaller bank, even if they made a modest profit. ¬†There will be a mix of money-makers, genre films, dramas and maybe even a phenom or two (like The Blind Side). ¬†Think big and small.

There are only two films right now that are sure things: Toy Story 3 and Inception.  Shutter Island will probably be eclipsed by Inception Рbut it remains one of the standouts of 2010 so far.

There are going to be wild cards. There will be some surprises.  But if you had to lay down ten, what ten would you choose?

Mine are after the cut (it will be fun to read this post later, I figure.  Or embarrassing).

Toy Story 3
Inception
Fair Game
True Grit
The Social Network
Somewhere
The Fighter
Another Year
The Kids Are All Right
Blue Valentine

And then:

Tree of Life – Just a big question mark at this point.
127 Hours — I really this has a shot, but what to swap out?
The American – Same thing!
Hereafter (Good Clint or bad Clint?)
The King’s Speech (will it be Colin or the whole film)
Shutter Island (Did Inception eclipse it?)
The Descendants (even though Alexander Payne is not the writer?)
The Town (Is Ben Affleck ready?)
Black Swan (Will it be too weird?)
Biutiful (Will it be too depressing?)
Winter’s Bone (is it just about HER?)
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (The ending is a problem)
The Way Back (Still a big unknown)

One thing to keep in mind is that the studio or publicists have much to do with whether a film gets in.  If it has the goods it also needs a hungry dog digging in the dirt. So you should always think about who is behind the film to know if they are ready to hit the dirt.

So, after I just wrote this up I realize that I didn’t include many “big money makers” in the mix. ¬†I’m sure they will present themselves as occasion arises.