I interrupt the regularly scheduled Most-Painfully-Drawn-Out-Movie-Countdown-of-All-Time to bring you...

...my Oscar picks! I'm admittedly doing some of these at the last minute, so regrettable decisions may be made. But time's a-wasting--The Academy waits for no man.

(Quick disclaimer: Just because I include "A better choice" with most categories doesn't necessarily mean that I think my predicted winner is undeserving. For instance, Jeff Bridges' performance is terrific. Of the nominated actors, he's the cream. But his wasn't the year's best performance. That's all.)

[Winners highlighted in red.]

LEADING ACTOR

• And the winner will be: Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
• A better choice: Sam Rockwell, Moon

LEADING ACTRESS

• And the winner will be: Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side (...Don't get me started.)
• A better choice: Gabourey Sidibe, Precious

SUPPORTING ACTOR

• And the winner will be: Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds
• A better choice: Anthony Mackie, The Hurt Locker (...That Mackie wasn't even nominated is criminal.)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

• And the winner will be: Mo'Nique, Precious
• A better choice: Not possible.

ANIMATED FEATURE

• And the winner will be: Up
• A better choice: Fantastic Mr. Fox (...Let's face facts: they're both great movies.)

ART DIRECTION

• And the winner will be: Avatar

CINEMATOGRAPHY

• And the winner will be: The White Ribbon

COSTUME DESIGN

• And the winner will be: The Young Victoria
• A better choice: Guess who doesn't give a shit about costume design. This guy.

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

• And the winner will be: The Cove
• A better choice: Anvil! The Story of Anvil

DOCUMENTARY SHORT

• And the winner will be: China's Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province

FILM EDITING

• And the winner will be: The Hurt Locker
• A better choice: Precious

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

• And the winner will be: The White Ribbon
• A better choice: Hunger Sin Nombre (I'm a dummy...Hunger is in English. But it is the best movie I saw last year.)

MAKEUP

• And the winner will be: Star Trek
• A better choice: The bedsore makeup in Hunger was pretty damn convincing.

ORIGINAL SCORE

• And the winner will be: Michael Giacchino, Up
• A better choice: Clint Mansell, Moon (...Probably my favorite film score not composed by Jon Brion since Air did the Virgin Suicides score more than ten years ago.)

ORIGINAL SONG

• And the winner will be: "The Weary Kind", Crazy Heart

SHORT FILM - ANIMATED

• And the winner will be: A Matter of Loaf and Death
• A better choice: Logorama (...Probably a bit too "adult" for the Academy's taste, but most definitely the best of the bunch.)

SHORT FILM - LIVE ACTION

• And the winner will be: Kavi (...Speaking of shots in the dark.)

SOUND EDITING

• And the winner will be: Avatar

SOUND MIXING

• And the winner will be: The Hurt Locker
• A better choice: Revanche (...Best sound design in recent memory. I'm not positive that great sound design equals great sound mixing, but whatever.)

VISUAL EFFECTS

• And the winner will be: Avatar (...Duh.)

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

• And the winner will be: Up in the Air
• A better choice: Gommorah (...Having read the book after seeing the movie, I feel completely confident in this one.)

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

• And the winner will be: Inglourious Basterds
• A better choice: Moon (...A great, story-driven sci-fi movie with nary a monster or fancy, high-tech special effect in sight?! That's good writing, homey.)

DIRECTOR

• And the winner will be: Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
• A better choice: Hard to argue with Bigelow. She deserves it. But suffice it to say that there a number of directors to whom I would give this award before I'd give it to her. Too many to list, even. Ya feel me? I thought so.

BEST PICTURE

• And the winner will be: The Hurt Locker
• A better choice: See #'s 1-8.

So the Oscars have this crazy new voting system for Best Picture. Per ew.com:

"In the past, once the nominees were announced, Academy members voted only for the one film they thought should win the award, and the film with the most votes won. But with so many nominees next year, it’s feasible that a movie could have won Best Picture with only 11 percent of the vote, which seems crazy. So now, once the 10 nominees are named, voters will rank the films from 1 to 10. All the No. 1 votes will be counted, and if no film has more than 50 percent of the vote (which will certainly be the case), the last-place film will be eliminated and the voters who voted for that film will have their No. 2 votes counted instead. That process will continue until one film has a majority of the votes. As Pond points out, there is a chance that the film that ends up winning won’t actually have the most No. 1 votes, but will instead emerge the victor in the second, third, or fourth rounds."

This could wind up being a total clustercuss, of course. But I think it sounds kind of fun. So much fun that I'm doing my own fake vote! So, from 1 to 10, here is how I would vote for the Best Picture nominees:

1. Precious
2. The Hurt Locker
3. Inglourious Basterds
4. An Education
5. A Serious Man
6. Up
7. District 9
8. Avatar
9. Up in the Air
10. The Blind Side (The only one of the ten I haven't seen. I seriously doubt that it would be any higher on this list were I to give it a shot.)