So Vulture's safe and consensus-following Oscar predictions Friday were more or less on target: Of the ten nominees for Best Picture, we correctly guessed nine of them, with only The Blind Side's inclusion over Invictus coming as a minor surprise (we guess the Academy only had space for one drama in which racism is fixed by sports).

The lead-acting categories looked exactly as everyone expected them to (Bridges, Clooney Firth, Freeman, and Renner; Bullock, Mirren, Mulligan, Sidibe, and Streep), so the snubs of long-shot hopefuls Nine's Daniel Day-Lewis, A Serious Man's Michael Stuhlbarg, Brothers' Tobey Maguire, The Road's Viggo Mortensen, and The Informant!'s Matt Damon for Best Actor, and Bright Star's Abbie Cornish, The Young Victoria's Emily Blunt, and The Lovely Bones' Saoirse Ronan for Best Actress had been pretty much anticipated for months.

There's some slight drama in the supporting categories, though: Matt Damon's Best Supporting Actor nomination for Invictus came at the expense of either Me and Orson Welles's Christian McKay, An Education's Alfred Molina, or The Hurt Locker's Anthony Mackie (we'd predicted the nod would go to McKay). For Best Supporting Actress, Crazy Heart's Maggie Gyllenhaal was the surprise, taking the spot that most figured would go to A Single Man's Julianne Moore (and some speculated might go to Nine's Marion Cotillard, The Messenger's Samantha Morton, or Inglourious Basterds' Melanie Laurent or Diane Kruger). None of this really matters, though, since those supporting Oscars will definitely go to Basterds' Christoph Waltz and Precious' Mo'Nique.

Also, while Avatar's snub in the Best Original Screenplay category is no surprise to anybody, it is still funny.

Update: One more pleasant surprise: Leona Lewis's "I See You" from Avatar was not nominated for Best Original Song.