Oscar Predictions 2010: Best Original Screenplay

• (500) Days of Summer, Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber
• The Hurt Locker, Mark Boal
• Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino
• A Serious Man, Joel and Ethan Coen
• Up, Pete Docter and Bob Petersen

James Cameron, who failed to get a nomination for Titanic back in early 1998, may take the place of either the Coen brothers or the (500) Days of Summer screenwriters. It's true that Avatar's screenplay hasn't been considered its strongest point and that many have accused it of being shamelessly derivative, but the Academy's Writers Branch have often gone for material that some critics deemed of questionable value, e.g., Ghost, Braveheart, Gladiator, Hotel Rwanda, Lars and the Real Girl. In fact, for every "highbrow" choice, there's invariably one (or two or three) lowbrow match(es).

Other possibilities: Michael Haneke, The White Ribbon (one of us is ardently hoping that Haneke's film will get a nomination; we already have him for best director); Pedro Almodóvar, Broken Embraces; Nancy Meyers, It's Complicated; Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, The Hangover; Alessandro Camon and Oren Moverman, The Messenger.

If The Hangover gets a nomination, members of the Academy's Writers Branch will be turned into squids.

Photo: Diane Kruger in Inglourious Basterds (François Duhamel / The Weinstein Co.)