Oscars you can bet on

American Hustle: The movie itself is a hustle. The plotline is all over the place – at one point, we take a ten-minute break to watch the home life of an FBI agent (Bradley Cooper) just so we can see Brad in hair curlers as he is calling a grifter played by Amy Adams who is also in curlers. I laughed. In fact, I laughed a lot. I loved it. I also love potato chips. Watching Jennifer Lawrence clean-dance to Paul McCartney’s Live and Let Die is the best music video I have seen in years. Has a shot to win Best Picture. Better chance to win Best Original Screenplay and J-Law winning Best Supporting Actress.

A side note: Bradley Cooper is nominated as Best Supporting Actor. This is a hustle in its own right. Cooper plays one of the leading characters in the movie. The studios designate what category an actor will compete in, and this is just a blatant attempt to steal an Oscar. The producers of Osage did the same thing by nominating Julia Roberts in the same category. There oughta be a law.

Gravity: This movie is a roller coaster ride while reading Kahlil Gibran. The visual effects are truly spectacular, and the story is first-rate. George Clooney turns in his usual excellent, effortless performance, while Sandra Bullock gives her best performance ever. It’s got a good chance to win Best Picture if voters want a safe bet and a better chance to win Best Director. Unfortuntely, there’s no chance for Bullock to win Best Actress since Cate Blanchett is a virtual lock.

Dallas Buyers Club: This is a good movie that could have been better with a little judicious editing. Matthew McConaughey gives a career-changing performance as a sex-addled druggie who finds his soul only after losing his health. The excellent original screenplay — 20 years in the making — by Philadelphian Craig Borten and Melisa Wallack will probably lose to writer-director David O. Russell’s script for American Hustle. For many years, the Best Actor award has gone to actors playing men with diseases or disabilities. This year will keep up the trend — McConaughey is the favorite to win Best Actor, and Jared Leto is a lock for Best Supporting Actor.

12 Years A Slave: This fine movie about the reality of slavery in the American South has all the earmarks of an Oscar winner: it’s a serious drama with serious subject matter treated seriously. Seriously, that’s the formula. That’s why this movie is the favorite to win Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. Chiwetel Ejiofor for Best Actor and Lupita Nyong'o for Best Supporting Actress have very good shots, too. It could be a sweep for all the categories in which it is nominated, but the Academy voters don’t like to put all their statuettes in one basket.

August: Osage County: Plays with colons in their titles do not fare very well. Obviously, Osage was the exception. An extraordinary play (which I saw with Estelle Parsons in the lead), but Tracy Letts adapted his own play, and the results are far from satisfactory. Meryl Streep gives an unusually undisciplined performance — maybe a career first — and Julia Roberts gives her most controlled and subtle performance ever, so it is worth the price of admission just to see these two divas switch acting styles. No Oscars here.

Her: This is the movie about a guy who falls in love with his phone’s operating system. Joaquin Phoenix plays a nerdy Romeo to Scarlett Johansson’s aural Juliet. Check out Amy Adams playing a role so different from her American Hustle role that she doesn’t have even one button unbuttoned, let alone all of them. No Oscars here, but I bet the new Siri or other such systems will offer celeb voices. Who would you pick? It will sure make those crazy directions sound a whole lot more interesting.

Captain Philips: In this high seas adventure film, a tanker gets kidnapped by a rowboat. All the tanker needed was one Uzi or even one bow and arrow, and it could have avoided the whole problem. I liked Tom Hanks’s nuanced performance as the captive captain (he didn’t even get nominated) – and Barkhad Abdi’s screen debut performance as the pirate with a heart (he did, for Supporting Actor). No Oscars here, but worth a snowy afternoon, especially seated on your own Barcalounger — it’s out on DVD already.

Finally, I want to go out on a limb and make a prediction that may shake your confidence in my Oscar-picking skills: Disney’s Frozen will win Best Animated Feature and Best Song for "Let It Go." Hey, I like to live dangerously.

Did I forget anything? 12 Years, McConaughey, Blanchett, Cuarón. Nope.

Now you can save yourself a tough morning wake up on March 3 by getting to bed at a reasonable time the night before.

You’re welcome.