Crosses fingers, hopes for the best

It's almost 1 AM and the Academy Award nominations are about 6 1/2 hours away. For some reason, I felt like an 11th hour post to make some predictions. Here's what I think you can expect in the Best Picture and Best Director categories.

Best Picture: Avatar, District 9, An Education, The Hangover, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Precious, Star Trek, Up, & Up in the Air. Possible dark horse(s): Invictus and maybe even The Blind Side.

Best Director: James Cameron, Kathryn Bigelow, Quentin Tarantino, Lee Daniels, & Jason Reitman. You can bet money on those picks.

I think there's a definite possibility Zoe Saldana (Avatar) might get the very first acting nomination for a character created entirely using VFX. Here's hoping that Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air) gets a nod too.

Now, let's see what happens . . .