Oscars / Editor / 01 March 2010 /

It's that time of year again. Expensive dresses are being adjusted, commentators are musing over whether it really is "Mo-ay" or "Mo-et" and "impromptu" victory speeches are being rehearsed. Betting.Betfair's film industry insider selects five bets for the 82nd Academy Awards.

After months of screenings, speculation and schmoozing the industry has nominated those in contention to carry off the 12-inch shiny gold men. In the top categories, there's still everything to play for, so here are five Oscars bets for 2010.

Leading Actor
This looks like a straight fight between Jeff Bridges' [1.17] musical cowboy in Crazy Heart and George Clooney's [17.5] air-bound harbinger of p45's in Up in the Air. Clooney has been nominated three times previously and won once for Syriana. Like Mickey Rourke last year, Bridges plays a faded star re-assesing life through a new doomed romance and the sensible money lies firmly at his snakeskin boots.

However, Colin Firth [17.5] is a good outside bet. Foppishness is a thing of the past after Mr Darcy got serious for A Single Man and there's a lot of warmth stateside for the Brit. Brokeback Mountain and Milk have proved that audiences respond favourably to well-acted leading gay characters. So we could see Bridges edged out as Rourke was last year.

Leading Actress
Another big British winner at BAFTA was Carey Mulligan [13.0] for her accomplished performance in An Education. She won't repeat her triumph here though and of all the major categories this is the easiest to call: Sandra Bullock [1.64] will win for her role in the Blind Side. Gridiron movies might not work on this side of the pond but in the US they do. This role is similar to Firth's in that it is about as far removed from Bullock's previous body of work as it could be and for me it will be a successful first nomination for the former Miss Congeniality.

Best Director
This will play one of three ways. Either Kathryn Bigelow [1.26] will take this award and Avatar will take Best Film with the Academy splitting film and Director, as with 2005's Ang Lee/Crash split. Or else Avatar or The Hurt Locker will complete the coveted double of Film and Directorial Awards as Slumdog Millionaire managed last time round.

As much love as the Academy appear to have for Jason Reitman [230.00] and Up in the Air, the Juno helmer won't split Bigelow and Cameron [5.3]. For making one of the most critically acclaimed, gripping, tense and unique films (let alone war films) in recent history, I think Oscar will follow BAFTA's lead in making Kathryn Bigelow the first woman in history to pick up the directing award.

Best Picture
Having picked up both director and film nods at the Golden Globe Awards, traditional thinking suggests that Avatar [2.42] will be in line for a similar double at the big show. After all, the weight given to the Globes in awards season is generally explained by their knack of predicting events at the Oscars. Personally, I think this has been more coincidence than anything else and in fact the one hundred or so members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association couldn't really be a more different body to the five-and-a-half thousand Academy voters.

The Academy recognise excellence by their peers and though there's been a lot of recent buzz around Inglorious Basterds [26.0] (Harvey Weinstein being the master of awards campaigning), the category comes down to a straight two horse race. It's too close to call with any certainty but for the way that it has invigorated the industry with 3-D innovations record box office receipts, I think the Oscar will go to Avatar.

Best adapted screenplay
To borrow from Academy Award winning screenwriter William Goldman, when it comes to picking winners in the movie biz "nobody knows anything"

But what everyone should know is that if you can get anything better than evens on Mark Boal to take the Original Screenplay Oscar for The Hurt Locker then you must get on. Boal's screenplay ticks all the boxes for Oscar with a story based on real life events. Of all of the films to come out of the post 9/11 Middle East conflicts this is the one that has captured the Academy's imagination. For that reason I think it will edge out Tarantino's excellent but arguably lightweight favourite Inglorious Basterds and the terrific Up which will have no problem in taking its own animated category.

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