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You can't love the Oscars without loving the tech categories. The actors and directors might get all the glory, but if you want to have a lot of fun following the Oscar races, look at the artistic and technical awards. They're what give the Oscars a level of creativity and respect that other award shows don't have: these are the people who know movies, love movies, and want to award every aspect of what make movies great. Personally, my favorite category is Best Sound Mixing, with Best Art Direction a close second. And of course there's the category everybody loves to hate: Best Makeup. This is the category that is responsible for both Click and Norbit being forever known as Oscar nominees.

So when I want to take a break from analyzing Best Picture, I love to look at these other categories, and one of the most fun to look at pre-nominations is Best Visual Effects. Visual Effects is fun because the contenders here are the ones that rarely show up in the more “respected” categories, giving a chance for the blockbusters to get some love. In addition, the Oscars announce a short list for Best Visual Effects (which has expanded to 15 potential nominees since the category has grown to include five nominees) which means that we have a very small pool of films from which to draw in making our predictions.

This year's short list is quite diverse, and there will likely be some crossover between Best Picture and Best Visual Effects when the nominations are announced. There are the usual summer blockbusters that will only be recognized for their extraordinary effects, but a handful of more prestigious films could potentially be nominated in the major categories as well. Then there are the films that either you don't associate with visual effects, even if they are big action movies, or you just don't think of at all. It makes for quite an eclectic mix of early and late releases, loved and loathed films, magic, monsters, and machines.

Captain America: The First Avenger

This film will definitely benefit from having only the visual effects branch of the category voting on the nominees. The effects during the action scenes are no more impressive than any other action movie this year (and far less than something like Transformers or X-Men) but what will really blow away fellow visual effects artists is the way Chris Evans' body is transformed via CGI during the first half hour. It is so realistic looking that it doesn't jump out as being CGI, which will certainly impress the guys who do this for a living. It will be hard for Captain America to find a place in the category, but it could definitely pull an upset.

Cowboys vs. Aliens

I assumed everybody had forgotten about this film since it sank quickly during its summer release. But with an expanded category there will always be room for a couple of films to serve as filler. The visual effects branch tends to like films that effectively blend the real world with what the CGI while looking as realistic as possible. Camp is not something they value particularly highly. Yes, Favreau got both Iron Man films into this category, but of the team of four that worked on Iron Man 2, only one worked on this film. I would put the odds of this film being nominated as next to zero, but hey, it's here, so you can't count it out completely.

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