Best Actor: who might be nominated and the sure-bet who will win

While Best Picture and Director is anyone's guess following the Golden Globe awards last week, guessing the Best Actor category is a bit easier. In fact, it four of the following five actors are not nominated for their work, I would be stunned.

As with the actual selection of years, the selection of award-worthy performances for lead actors and actresses in 2009 were somewhat slim. Sure, there was a lot of good work from actors up on the big screen, but very few were good enough to make viewers go "wow, now THAT is acting!". A prime example would be anyone from the cast of one of my favorite films of 2009, J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek". Everyone turned in fine performances across the board, but were any of them nomination-worthy? No. I guess if I had to pick one (underline 'had'), it would Karl Urban's take on 'Bones' McCoy. But that was more of a satisfying embodiment of actor DeForrest Kelley than anything else.

Fortunately, there were enough to fill the category without any real embarassment choices by the Academy. In fact, all they have to do is mimic the Screen Actors Guild and they have their category, a nice mix of the old and the new in Hollywood (well, that and it won't make my predictions look ridiculous). George Clooney will score his second lead actor nomination for his great work in "Up in the Air", while Colin Firth will score his first nomination in a lead for the arthouse flick "A Single Man" (not to be confused with the wildly overrated Coen Brothers film "A Serious Man"). Jeremy Renner will also score his first nomination for his great performance in Kathryn Bigelow's "The Hurt Locker", while Morgan Freeman will score a nod for his turn as Nelson Mandella in Clint Eastwood's sports drama "Invictus".

This leaves spot number five, the only clear-cut favorite for this year's Best Actor award: Jeff Bridges, for his role as an alcoholic country-western singer making a comeback in "Crazy Heart". While I have yet to see the film, who can argue the fact that Bridges is alarmingly long overdue for some Oscar recognition, and that he probably does deserve the award for his work in the Fox Searchlight indie drama. Bridges is a great actor, period. He would have to have sleepwalked through this film for me to think that this is a sympathy vote. Bridges has been winning award ceremonies left and right for his work in "Crazy Heart", and his win last night at the Screen Actors Guild awards all but seals the deal (great speech, by the way).

The Dude will win, and I am sure we will all abide.