The Envelope, Please

TIME's critics pick who will win (and who should win) this year's Academy Awards

By Richard Corliss and Mary Pols Monday, Feb. 28, 2011

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    Natalie Portman, Black Swan

    Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine

    Richard

    Will Win

    Should Win

    I'd happily pack all five of these for my desert-isle life, but this would be the one I'd watch first.

    Props to Franco for his film-long monologue and to Eisenberg for playing the genius as Martian invader, but Firth gets my vote as the pent-up prince, furious George; the actor displays a delicacy and power the rest of the movie only aims at.

    Creating what he called "the Citizen Kane of John Hughes movies," Aaron Sorkin turned a series of courthouse depositions into a Mensa comedy-thriller.

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