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Golden Globes: We predict Sunday’s film winners

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The envelopes are in! No, no … not the ones with the round-trip airplane tickets to Italy along with directions to George Clooney’s villa on Lake Como or the ones containing passes to Super Bowl XLVI. (Thanks, Madonna! We can’t wait for the halftime show!)

We’ll leave it Ricky Gervais to make the jokes about the ins and outs of the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn.’s rigorous selection process. We’re interested only in the envelopes containing the winners of the 69th annual Golden Globes awards. Who will be beaming from the podium and who will be pretending to smile while being insulted by Mr. Gervais? We’ll predict the movie categories today and return tomorrow with a look at the Globes’ television slate.

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MOTION PICTURE DRAMA

The nominees: “The Descendants,” “The Help,” “Hugo,” “The Ides of March,” “Moneyball,” “War Horse”

The winner is … : Intimate, intricate family dramas aren’t really the HFPA’s thing, which makes us think they might go with favorite son Martin Scorsese’s theatrical, Franco-friendly “Hugo.”

Unless … : HFPA members have decided to test Clooney with a challenge far greater than anything he dealt with in “The Descendants” or “Ides” -- namely, how many times can he convincingly look thrilled, overjoyed and Just Plain Happy to Be Here in a three-hour period? Current over/under line in Vegas: Six.

LEAD ACTOR DRAMA

The nominees: George Clooney, “The Descendants”; Leonardo DiCaprio, “J. Edgar”; Michael Fassbender, “Shame”; Ryan Gosling, “The Ides of March”; Brad Pitt, “Moneyball”

The winner is …: Clooney. C’mon. They gave him four nominations, and this is the most logical place to honor him. (And, yes, we realize logic doesn’t always come into play with this nutty group. But since we don’t know which movie star posed for the most photos with HFPA members, humor us, OK?)

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Unless …: Pitt posed for more photos.

LEAD ACTRESS DRAMA

The nominees: Glenn Close, “Albert Nobbs”; Viola Davis, “The Help”; Rooney Mara, “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”; Meryl Streep, “The Iron Lady”; Tilda Swinton, “We Need to Talk About Kevin”

The winner is …: Davis. It’s her year.

Unless …: HFPA voters got a warm, fuzzy feeling in their heads … er, um … hearts while watching Streep do her darnedest to humanize Margaret Thatcher. But since even Streep is out stumping for her “Doubt” costar, we think she’ll be applauding Davis from her table.

MOTION PICTURE COMEDY OR MUSICAL

The nominees: “50/50,” “The Artist,” “Bridesmaids,” “Midnight in Paris,” “My Week With Marilyn”

The winner is …: “The Artist.”

Unless …: Its writer-director Michel Hazanavicius suddenly publishes a heartfelt remembrance of all the grand times and delightful conversations he enjoyed over the years with Kim Jong Il.

LEAD ACTOR COMEDY OR MUSICAL

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The nominees: Jean Dujardin, “The Artist”; Brendan Gleeson, “The Guard”; Joseph Gordon-Levitt, “50/50”; Ryan Gosling, “Crazy, Stupid, Love.”; Owen Wilson, “Midnight in Paris”

The winner is …: Dujardin. It’s going to be the first of many big nights for “The Artist.”

Unless …: Gosling’s two nominations indicate that, after two previous nods, the HFPA is ready to reward him for an undeniably great year.

LEAD ACTRESS COMEDY OR MUSICAL

The nominees: Jodie Foster, “Carnage”; Charlize Theron, “Young Adult”; Kristin Wiig, “Bridesmaids”; Michelle Williams, “My Week With Marilyn”; Kate Winslet, “Carnage”

The winner is …: Williams. You have to understand: What’s funny to you and me doesn’t necessarily make HFPA double over with laughter. Winners in this category tend to come mostly from musicals or romantic-comedies that are heavy on the drama. That would exclude the deserving Wiig, whose movie, remarkably, represented the first-ever Globe nomination for producer Judd Apatow.

Unless …: They go with Theron, as they have rewarded actresses in black comedies in the recent past (Nicole Kidman in “To Die For” and Renee Zellweger in “Nurse Betty”).

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-- Glenn Whipp

Whipp writes the Gold Standard awards column for The Envelope.

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