Oscar frontrunners

In theaters Friday: Hereafter, Paranormal Activity 2

New on DVD/Blu-ray: Please Give, Predators

What a dangerous game this is, but having seen some fantastic films and performances—and more than a few disappointments— this year and researched the many promising pictures that lie ahead for the final 70 days of cinema in 2010, here are my super early Oscar predictions for several major categories.

Best Picture

Forget popularity—though this film has that too—if relevance counts for anything, David Fincher’s Facebook expose The Social Network should take top honors. This is likely to prove, overall, the most accomplished and well-rounded film this year. Rarely have depositions been so gripping and fun on screen, and the Academy loves a film with a message, even if it’s delivered to their inboxes.

Best Director

Fincher did a fine job with The Social Network, but from a visual standpoint, it is not really his strongest effort. Giving him the Oscar for this would be like admitting Paul McCartney into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for his work with Wings. Look for Darren Aronofsky to be a strong dark horse with Black Swan, but that film is too much of a horror movie to win this big. Instead, guts should get Christopher Nolan the win for his stunning vision, mind-bending narrative and masterful weaving of deep psychological themes, a tragic love story and a thrilling heist with Inception. Those Kubrick comparisons may be silly, but they’re not that far off.

Best Actor

He’ll get some stiff competition from The Social Network’s Jesse Eisenberg and True Grit’s Jeff Bridges, but James Franco is my surprise pick for Best Actor for his brutal portrayal of real-life mountain climber Aron Ralston who, literally stuck between a rock and a hard place, is forced to cut off his own arm to save his life in Danny Boyle’s riveting 127 Hours.

Best Actress

Horror movie or tense psychological thriller, it doesn’t matter with Black Swan. Long-heralded as an amazing talent, now is Natalie Portman’s time to rise to that promise, to be taken seriously as an adult and, without a doubt, ascend to become one of her generations most revered actors. Hilary Swank plays right down the Oscar wheelhouse in Conviction, but her two previous statues will keep her company in her grief.

Best Supporting Actor

Ed Harris has been to this dance before. Four times in fact, but he’s come up empty-handed on each one. But here’s the thing—he has an amazing role coming up in Peter Weir’s little indie drama The Way Back. The film itself checks several of Oscar’s favorite boxes: based on a true-life memoir, set circa WWII, and directed by a veteran “period” director.

Best Supporting Actress

Already an Academy Award-winner for her turn as Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose, Marion Cotillard is my frontrunner in what is typically the toughest category to predict. Equal parts danger and beauty, her haunting, dark lover in Inception lends all the weight, tension and heartache to an elastic film that conjured firearms, shifting architecture and a city folding over on itself cannot.

Best Original Screenplay

Christopher Nolan says he worked on writing Inception for 10 years. That means he was thinking about kicks, totems, altered dreamscapes and Edith Piaf songs long before he even cast Cotillard, before he released his breakout film Memento, even. It’s ironic, because Inception is a film that will be talked about for at least another 10 years and likely much longer.

Best Adapted Screenplay

After flops like Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and Charlie Wilson’s War, Aaron Sorkin stormed back into the spotlight with his blistering adaptation of Ben Mezrich’s The Accidental Billionaires for The Social Network, a film that reached for giant themes like betrayal, ambition, class warfare and social connection when it could have easily felt more like a TV movie of the week about the founding of a successful dot com. Look for Sorkin’s Moneyball to be another critical darling next year.