I’m going to start by making an excuse. 

It’s going to be really tough to correctly predict the exact nominees for the best picture Academy Award this year – nominations for the Oscars are to be announced early Tuesday morning in Los Angeles – because we don’t even know how many there will be.

For many years, there were five. The last two years, there were 10 – and I correctly predicted nine of them last year.

This year, I like the idea of picking seven nominees. I doubt Oscar voters will stick to just five, but this was, in my estimation, a weaker year in film, so 10 seems a bit much. (That said, having 10 nominees is better for the overall business, so I think it’s more likely there will be 10 than five.)

As everyone knows, the Golden Globes are the best predictor of the Oscars, so my choices largely will be picked from winners and nominees of the Globes’ two film categories – best drama and best comedy or musical. 

I’m going to take four of the five nominees from the best drama category: “The Help,” “Hugo,” “The Ides of March,” “War Horse” and the winner, “The Descendants.” From the comedy or musical pool, I will take only “50/50” and the winner, “The Artist.”

For my seventh pick – my wild card, if you will – I’ll go with “J. Edgar,” if only because Oscar voters love director Clint Eastwood.

How confident am I in these picks? To be honest, not very. Truthfully, the only two I would put money on are “The Descendants” and “The Artist.” The latter – a wonderful homage to the silent film era – is likely to win the big prize, and that would be just fine with me. 

 The Weinstein Co.

Jean Dujardin stars in the sure-to-be-nominated film "The Artist."

These picks might be a bit of wishful thinking. I have “50/50” in the mix because I loved it and would like to see it get nominated. There’s a good shot it won’t. The same goes for “War Horse,” a Steven Spielberg-directed film that tugs at the heartstrings. I simply didn’t find the movie as sappy as many critics did. 

And I wouldn’t be shocked if another film from the musical or comedy category – Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris” – gets nominated, but I’ve yet to see it. (I hope to wrong that right, tonight, in fact.)

Find out how close to the mark I hit by checking www.News-Herald.com Tuesday morning for a rundown of all the nominees.

-- Mark Meszoros | Entertainment@News-Herald.com | @nhfeatures