This morning I watched Roger Federer win the Australian Open for the fourth time, his sixteenth Grand Slam title overall. And it made me think of the Oscars.

Specifically, it made me think of a yearly wager I’ve been participating in for around twenty years. The radio show The Reel Thing began on 90FM-WWSP in the fall of 1990. It was a movie news and review program, and this time of the year a remarkable amount of time was devoted to the Academy Awards, including attempts on the part of both myself and my on-air colleague to predict the films, directors and performers that would be represented in the top six categories. Considering we were far away from Hollywood and had no access to any Academy voters, no one feeding us tips or gossip, we both did pretty well at this exercise. But my esteemed colleague, now the proprietor of an award-winning blog that will simultaneously knock your socks off while scaring the pants off of you (basically, you’ll have no clothing on the lower half of your body after reading it), did better. Each and every year, with two minor exceptions, he did better. In the long span we have known each other and exchanged lists mere hours before the Oscar nominations are announced, he has best me eighteen times in this friendly competition. Twice we have tied, correctly guessing the same number of nominees.

I have never done better than him. That’s right, my record is 0-18-2.

And here we go again, and I fully expect that I will not chance the number in that first column this year. In part, because I feel less prepared to do this than ever before. I once agonized over this, keeping ever-evolving lists, scratching off names as they were snubbed in some precursor, and adding actors who’d made themselves especially visible at key events. I didn’t have it down to a science, but I did practice the awards show variant of laboratory trial and error as I edged ever closer to the moment when I would have to finalize my picks and wait anxiously for the early morning announcement. This year, the names I type up as my final prediction will also be my first draft. I’ve watched the run-up as closely as ever, but I’ve absorbed more than I’ve transcribed.

Then there’s another factor: the need to figure out what the ten Best Picture nominees are. In the past, Best Picture has often been one of my strongest categories, and there were many years in which I drew some sad satisfaction in defeat over the fact that I went five-for-five on the biggest category of them all. As this is the first year in decades that there will be ten nominees in the Best Picture race, it’s nearly impossible to get a sense as to how that will shake out.

With my hand-wringing and preemptive excuses taken care of, let’s move on to the actual predictions. And the nominees will be…

Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air
Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air
Diane Kruger, Inglorious Basterds
Julianne Moore, A Single Man
Mo’Nique, Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire

I nearly put Maggie Gyllenhaal for Crazy Heart on this list in place of Julianne Moore, but I’m sure that my cohort and competitor will have Moore on his list. So I cowardly backed off because I could feel myself falling behind one category in, and this is a competition. I’m not here to make friends. Moore got a Golden Globe nomination, but was ignored by the SAG Awards, which might indicate that she’s lost some momentum. Still, I think she’s enough of an Academy favorite to slip in. Kruger is a bit of a reach, except for the fact that did make the SAG cut, and she’s reportedly been working the town hard. Besides, her film is one the actors clearly love. Up in the Air has also faded from prominence enough that I wouldn’t be all that surprised to see one of the two supporting actresses snubbed. Penelope Cruz was nominated for every significant precursor for her work in Nine, but that film has crashed so disastrously that it’s hard to imagine it factoring in any major categories, despite having the Weinstein machine behind it. In a way, four of the slots are borderline irrelevant. Anyone in this category who isn’t Mo’Nique is being invited to the show to do little more than sit and clap.

Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Woody Harrelson, The Messenger
Anthony Mackie, The Hurt Locker
Christopher Plummer, The Last Station
Stanley Tucci, Julie & Julia
Christoph Waltz, Inglorious Basterds

Similarly, this category is Christoph Waltz and four gentlemen who will spend the next few weeks trying to make the phrase “I’m just happy to be nominated” sound convincing. Tucci has been cited for The Lovely Bones in prior awards shows, but I’m betting that Peter Jackson’s film had enough of the odor of failure about it when ballots were being filled out that voters will shift to his other significant performance of the year. That could be wishful thinking on my part. I’m also wagering that enough different people, in enough different places, lamented the lack of attention given to Anthony Mackie’s work in The Hurt Locker up to this point, that he’ll slip in, which will further be another indicator that Kathryn Bigelow’s film will be the one to beat in the Best Picture race.

Best Actress in a Leading Role
Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side
Helen Mirren, The Last Station
Carey Mulligan, An Education
Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia
Gabourey Sidibe, Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire

Those are the five names that probably everyone has, the Best Actress race often the one that locks onto its five competitors the earliest. There’s a part of me that thinks Mirren might yet slip out of the race–her film is just too small; you never see anyone talking about it in any other context than its actors filling out a couple of these categories–but I can’t figure out who else would take her place.

Best Actor in a Leading Role
Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
George Clooney, Up in the Air
Colin Firth, A Serious Man
Morgan Freeman, Invictus
Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker

I also can envision this list of five without Morgan Freeman’s name, but I can’t figure out who steals the spot. Maybe Matt Damon for The Informant!? It would’ve have helped if he’d won the Golden Globe for it. As I go through these categories, I keep trying to figure out where the surprises might come from, and I keep coming up blank.

Best Directing
Avatar, James Cameron
The Hurt Locker, Kathryn Bigelow
Inglorious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, Lee Daniels
Up in the Air, Jason Reitman

Here’s another instance where it’s hard to figure out what surprise contender could emerge. These five are the same that were nominated for the DGA award, and it’s rare that the entire quintet is similarly honored in the Oscar nominations. Certainly, Daniels has his detractors, and Reitman’s film has lost so much momentum, that a scenario that omits one or both of them is entirely plausible. I can’t even mentally sketch out reasons why James Cameron doesn’t make the cut. But who goes in instead? The Academy has a tendency to honor foreign directors in this category, which might give Michael Haneke an in, but The White Ribbon doesn’t seem to have the same prominence of something like City of God or Talk to Her, which got their respective directors nominations. The directors also like to honor those who take on particularly tricky films–Paul Greengrass getting nominated for the otherwise largely ignored United 93 being a prime recent example–but that already describes a couple of the helmers that are already part of the conventional wisdom here.

Best Picture
Avatar
Crazy Heart
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Inglorious Basterds
Invictus
Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
A Serious Man
Up
Up in the Air

Aw who the hell knows. Julie & Julia could get in there. Or Star Trek. Or The Blind Side. Once the main six or seven likely nominees are put in the list, the rest is like grabbing confetti out of the air: it’s hard to develop a strategy for it. The two biggest stretches I include are Crazy Heart, which I think will be there out of affection for the likely Best Actor nominee, and A Serious Man, which I include because it’s a damn good film and deserves to be there. That, by the way, is a great approach to ensure that your list is full of inaccurate predictions.

So that’s my crack at it. The nominations will be announced bright and early Tuesday morning, to be followed in relatively short order by a fresh post in this space conceding defeat once again. That’s okay. It’s a honor just to be nominated.

(Posted simultaneously to “Jelly-Town!”)