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Best Animated Feature

This is a two horse race, although really it's more like a one lizard, one French kid with a dog race. Rango has gotten pretty much every accolade available for animated films this year, but with Spielberg in the race, Gore Verbinski's film is not the sure thing it would otherwise be. Will nostalgia be a factor in picking The Adventures of Tintin over Rango? I could certainly see an upset happen here, but I'm sticking with the lizard as my pick.

Best Original Song

This is one category where history is very much on our side, as there is such a painfully obvious trend here that it is impossible to ignore. Of the last 20 winners for Best Song, 18 of them were heartfelt, emotional ballads. The only two that weren't were by Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger. Elton John might be able to pull off a win here, but I believe it comes down to The Help vs. Albert Nobbs. When in doubt, go with the Best Picture nominee, so I think The Help will win here.

Best Original Score

It is rare for there to be any category in any awards show where I wouldn't be surprised by any of the nominees being announced as the winner. Okay, so I would do a double take if the score for W.E. won, but beyond that there are four very strong contenders. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross won here last year for The Social Network, so clearly there is love for them, but might winning so recently turn voters off to awarding them again? Also, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo does not have the support that The Social Network does, which will make it hard, but not impossible, for them to win again.

That leaves two revered composers working for revered directors and one guy nobody's ever heard of. Howard Shore and John Williams are both multiple-time winners, Shore reteaming with Scorsese, who directed Shore's last Globe-winning film, The Aviator, and Williams of course working with Spielberg, who produced Memoirs of a Geisha, which won Williams his last Globe. But Ludovic Bource, who is such an unknown that he doesn't have an English Wikipedia page (he has one in French, though) produced one of the most memorable, diverse scores of last year, for the silent film The Artist. This is a category where the HFPA gets creative, awarding more eclectic work from films like The Up, Slumdog Millionaire, Frida and Moulin Rouge!, which makes it seem like The Artist is the favorite here. Still, if they decide to go for something more sweeping and epic, Hugo could very easily take this award.

Best Screenplay

This is the easiest category to predict if you're going solely from the history of the Golden Globes. When Alexander Payne makes a movie, he wins a Golden Globe for his screenplay. He got one for About Schmidt, he got one for Sideways, and there's no reason to think he won't get one for The Descendants. Could Moneyball or Midnight in Paris steal it from him? Of course they could, and I wouldn't blame you if you picked the latter to win the award. But why pick against Payne when you don't have to?

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