What do a time-traveling neurotic, an innovative baseball GM, a silent movie star, and a horse have in common? They are all the stars of the flicks up for best picture at this year’s Academy Awards.

The year 2011, despite not being the greatest movie year in recent memory, certainly provided us with an eclectic variety of films. On February 26^th, the best films will be honored during the Academy Awards.

The films currently up for the esteemed Best Picture Award include the comedy-drama The Artist, the quintessential Woody Allen comedy Midnight In Paris, Moneyball, which stars Brad Pitt as Oakland A’s GM Billy Beane (Pitt is also up for the Best Actor award for his performance), and Steven Spielberg’s box office hit War Horse. Other films up for Best Film are George Clooney’s The Descendent, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, The Help, The Tree of Life, and Marty Scorsese’s Hugo.

The Artist, which follows a silent film star’s fall from glory after the advent of the talkie, is currently heavily favored to win this award. The other awards, however, are still anyone’s guess.

The Best Actress Award is anyone’s to win.  Those nominated include Viola Davis, who was phenomenal as Aibileen Clark in The Help, Meryl Streep, Rooney Mara (Girl With The Dragon Tattoo), Michelle Williams, and Glenn Close.

Another interesting category to watch this year is the coveted Best Director award. Prospectively, French director Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist) is favored to win, but he will have some fierce competition from Academy Award winning directors Woody Allen (Midnight In Paris) and Martin Scorsese (Hugo).

We’ll have to wait and see which nominees come out on top on February 26^th. With many more tightly contested categories out there this will certainly be an interesting Academy Awards night.

My Projections:

Best Picture
The Artist

Best Director

Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist)

Best Actor

George Clooney (The Descendants)

Best Actress

Meryl Streep (The Iron Lady)

Best Supporting Actor

Christopher Plummer (Beginners)

Best Supporting Actress

Octavia Spencer (The Help)

Best Original Screenplay

Woody Allen (Midnight In Paris)

Best Cinematography

The Artist

Best Animated Film

Rango