This may be the biggest year for the Academy Awards, as some major Hollywood players are going up against some fresh newcomers. Eyeballs everywhere will be glued to ABC on Sunday, February 27th at 8PM E/5PM P when the awards show goes live. But before that, we decided to do some picking of our own with the staff’s predictions for each award.

For a full list of the nominees, check out our previous article on the subject. Now, on to the predictions.

Best Picture

Shannon Hood-The Social Network. It had early and consistent momentum all year, and the Academy appears to be trying to shake up their stodgy image. This would be the perfect film to put their money where their mouth is.

Matt Raub – True Grit. Not only are the Coens a regular in the “I Have an Oscar” club, but this testament to classic western films is definitely one for record books, between its all-star cast and gritty (no pun intended) visual style, this one definitely deserves the golden statue.

Chris Ullrich – True Grit. Even though this was a pretty great year for movies and there are many excellent choices in this category, True Grit stands on its own as my pick. As an example of pure movie storytelling, this Coen Brothers masterpiece excels on every level and delivers a pure entertainment experience you will want to revisit many more times in the future.

Cortney Zamm – The Social Network. There’s a lot of great films in this category, some of them from my favorite directors and starring my favorite people. But the one that combined all of the essential elements of filmmaking into a truly gorgeous, compelling, and memorable film was The Social Network.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the  nominees for the 83rd annual award ceremony this morning. The King’s Speech was the front-runner with 12 nominations. Overall, there weren’t too many surprises.

Many were disappointed  that Christopher Nolan did not receive a best director nod, but as a consolation prize, Inception was nominated as a contender for best picture.
True Grit did quite well, with Hailee Steinfeld nabbing a best supporting actress nod, and nominations for best picture, best director(s), best actor, and best adapted screenplay. Winter’s Bone was recognized for best actress, best picture, and best adapted screenplay. Dogtooth, Jackie Weaver, and Javier Bardem were nice surprises.

Here are the nominees in the order that they were announced.

Best Supporting Actress

Amy Adams The Fighter
Helena Bonham Carter The King’s Speech
Melissa Leo The Fighter
Hailee Steinfeld True Grit
Jackie Weaver Animal Kingdom

Best Supporting Actor

Christian Bale The Fighter
John Hawkes Winter’s Bone
Jeremy Renner The Town
Mark Ruffalo The Kids Are All Right
Jeffrey Rush The King’s Speech

So yesterday, we ran part one of this post.  In case you missed it, here were my picks:

• Waiting for Superman
• Winter’s Bone
• The Company Men
• Rabbit Hole/Blue Valentine (tie)
• The Fighter

Now, without further ado, are the rest of my picks for best movies of the year.

5. The Kids Are All Right

This quirky drama won me over in no time. Annette Bening and Julianne Moore play a lesbian couple raising two children who were the product of an anonymous sperm donor. When the kids are old enough, they seek out and find their donor, who is played by Mark Ruffalo.

His character Paul is a perpetually laid-back restaurateur who drives a motorcycle and lives a bohemian lifestyle. The kids are instantly captivated, and develop a relationship with the guy, much to the chagrin of their uptight mom Nic (Bening).

I admire writer/director Lisa Cholodenko for her sensitive handling of the subject matter. A lesser director could have turned this into a slapstick farce, but ultimately the film is funny, touching, and wholly original.  It is also universally relatable.  Bening is a standout in the film for her performance.

I was surprised at how much trouble I had narrowing down my top ten movies this year.  My top 20 were all very close, but here are the movies that I ultimately enjoyed the most. I readily admit that I did not see near as many foreign films as I would have liked, but by the time I cover most of the mainstream fare, there is simply no time left.

Honorable Mentions: Fair Game, Tiny Furniture, Greenberg, Cyrus, The Tillman Story, The American, Mother and Child, Scott Pilgrim.

10. Waiting for Superman
This Documentary was equal parts frustrating, inspirational, and heartbreaking. Director Davis Guggenheim (No End in Sight) sheds light on the dismal state of our public school system. He follows the plight of several children who live in various geographic regions who are placing all of their hope for an decent education into lottery systems for charter or private schools. Guggenheim relies on their compelling stories for a narrative, while interspersing lots of graphics and cartoons illuminating some pretty harrowing statistics.

The Kids Are All Right opens with shots of 18-year-old Joni (a wonderful Mia Wasikowska) playing scrabble with friends and 15-year-old Laser (Josh Hutcherson) sniffing a crushed Sudafed with his skateboarding buddy Clay, all to Vampire Weekend’s “Cousins.” Joni and Laser are gorgeous, smart and nice. Despite the minor drug use and usual teenager angsts, they are, for the most part, very much all right.

But this movie is really about their parents—their mother Nic, a perfectionist, workaholic OB-Gyn (played by Annette Bening, who has made a career specialty out of wound-tight women), and their other mother, easy-going, nurturing earth girl Jules (a very fine Julianne Moore), who has maybe let her life slide past her. A long-married couple, Nic and Jules have, as parents do, put their kids first for so long that they have lost touch with themselves and each other.

And yet they remain very self-aware and caring people. When they question Clay’s rightness as a friend, it comes couched in a language of earnest self-actualization and higher consciousness that is both insightful and ridiculous: “It’s just that he seems… untended.” And “Is he the kind of friend who will help you grow?”

Untended Joni and Laser certainly are not. Nic and Jules are extremely conscientious parents, and a great deal of the humor in the early part of this film comes from the overmothering Joni and Laser endure. Nevertheless, Laser feels the lack of a male role model and it is at his urging that Joni, having recently turned eighteen, the age at which she can legally request contact, learns the identity of their sperm donor and gets in touch with him.

The sperm donor is Paul, played by the miraculous Mark Ruffalo, who can shade a dozen layers of feeling and thought into a single moment. I’ve sometimes found that his extraordinary openness can come off as ambivalence, but his characterization of Paul is founded on a bedrock of emotion. Paul is not only open to contact with Joni and Laser, he welcomes it.

Cerebral movie lovers can rejoice.  Christopher Nolan’s Inception handily won at the box office over the weekend, raking in over $60 Million. The film made over $3 Million on midnight showings Thursday night, and netted $20 Million on Friday, a true testament of the loyalty of Nolan’s fans.  Marketing a cryptic plot is no easy task, so Warner Brothers has to be happy about the opening weekend.

On the other hand, it might be a long climb to recoup the $160 Million budget.  The film will have to rely on repeat business from fans to maintain box office legs.  Everyone I know who really liked the movie has said they want to see it again, but it remains to be seen whether people actually follow through with those intentions. At any rate, it is nice to see an original film have a good opening weekend.

Despicable Me came in at number two, dropping about 42% from its opening weekend, which was a little higher than I would have anticipated.  It still earned a healthy $32 Million, and has grossed $118 Million in ten days. Disney’s wide release The Sorcerer’s Apprentice earned a paltry $17 Million, far below most industry expectations. The film opened last Wednesday, so its cumulative stands at $24 Million.  The film had a budget of $150 Million, so unless it performs well overseas, it stands little chance of recouping its budget.

Twilight: Eclipse dropped off 57% from last weekend, which is a fairly significant drop.  It managed $13 Million, and has made almost $265 Million in three weeks. Toy Story 3 is still doing well after five weeks, earning $11 Million over the weekend.  Its cumulative now stands at $362 Million.

Animated films are having a pretty stellar summer. This weekend, Toy Story 3 just became the highest grossing Pixar film of all time (surpassing Finding Nemo.)   Illumination Entertainment just released their first film, Despicable Me, and cleaned up at the box office.  Despicable made over $60 Million during its opening weekend, earning the distinction of being the highest opening weekend for an animated film not made by Pixar or Dreamworks.  Just like that, we have some serious competition for the animation studios.   Not too bad for a movie with no built in audience.

Illumination spent about $69 Million for the animation in Despicable Me, which is well beneath the average for a Dreamworks or Pixar film.  The film enjoyed a healthy “A” cinemascore rating by exiting audience members, which typically indicates long legs and good word of mouth.  Despite the fact that the movie played in 3D, it was limited in its amount of theaters, because Toy Story and The Last Airbender are both still playing in quite a few 3D venues.  There is no doubt that Despicable take would have been higher had it been able to capitalize on more 3D screens.

Twilight: Eclipse was bumped down to the number two spot this week.  It had about a 48% drop from opening weekend, typical of the franchise that is historically heavily front-loaded.   It still managed to make about $33 Million, hardly a number to scoff at.  This brings the 12 day total to $237 Million, which is pretty astounding, and topped the total for New Moon in the same time period ($235 Million.)

Predators scared up a decent $25 Million over the weekend.  With a modest budget of $40 Million, this bodes well for the film. Toy Story 3 nabbed the fourth spot with $22 Million.  Its four week total is $340 Million.