Movie Dearest's Fearless Oscar Predictions 2010

Mentally unstable. Out of their element. Full of themselves. In over their heads. Lacking the proper faculties to fulfill their duties. No, these aren't the subjects of this year's Academy Award nominees, these are the wannabe Oscar pundits who foolishly try to win their office pools or party contests without consulting the 2010 Edition of Movie Dearest's Fearless Oscar Predictions!

Best Picture: Bucking the recent trend of gritty contemporary fare, The King's Speech should reign over all other contenders come Sunday night.
Best Actor: The surest of bets in the acting races is Colin Firth in The King's Speech.
Best Actress: The Academy loves A) young actresses who B) take a challenging role and C) aren't afraid to get a little ugly doing it. This year, that's Natalie Portman in Black Swan.
Best Supporting Actor: Showy roles shine here of late, and there was no one showier this year than Christian Bale in The Fighter.
Best Supporting Actress: Probably the toughest call of all the major races. Looking back at recent winners in this category, the victors have been women who have "paid their dues". The Fighter's Melissa Leo fills that bill best of all.
Best Director: Expect a split between Best Picture and this award, with The Social Network's David Fincher taking this prize.
Original Screenplay and Adapted Screenplay: The writing awards are easily split between the two Best Picture heavyweights, The King's Speech and The Social Network, respectively.
Cinematography: Roger Deakins is long overdue, and his True Grit has what it takes to get the gold for him.
Art Direction: It's usually not so much "Best" as "Most" Art Direction, so that would be Alice in Wonderland.
Costume Design: Royal films have been on a roll in this race, and that would mean another for The King's Speech.
Original Score: The prolific Alexandre Desplat will finally score (ahem) for The King's Speech.
Original Song: From this lackluster batch, Randy Newman will get a "collective" award for all his work on the Toy Story films.
Film Editing: With presumed front-runner Inception out of the running, the prize should go to the slick Social Network.
Sound Mixing, Sound Editing and Visual Effects: No worries though, as Inception should sweep the rest of the tech categories.
Makeup: It's doubtful that members have even seen all three of these lone nominees... but they'll vote anyway, and for the obvious one at that: The Wolfman.
Animated Feature: Toy Story 3 all the way.

The remaining five categories are voted on only by members who have seen every nominee in each race, so they can be tricky... in other words, these are the Really Fearless Oscar Predictions:
Foreign Language Film: Mexico's Biutiful may be more well known, but Denmark's In a Better World has the buzz.
Documentary Feature: Despite the possibility of an appearance by its covert director, Exit Through the Gift Shop will likely be passed over for the more traditional (and more serious) Inside Job.
Documentary Short Subject: In a field of dourness, look for the uplifting inspirational story... especially if it's about kids. This year, that's Strangers No More.
Animated Short Subject: Pixar got the Academy to screen Day & Night in 3-D, which should help it stand out (get it?) from the crowd.
Live Action Short Subject: Dark subjects with a twist of humor have proved victorious here recently, leading me to predict a win for No Wewe.

Make your own predictions in the comments section below. Oscar winners will be announced this Sunday when ABC presents the 83rd Annual Academy Awards live from Los Angeles.