The Oscar contenders:
–Cate Blanchett, "Blue Jasmine"
–Judi Dench, "Philomena"
–Meryl Streep, "August: Osage County"
The Envelope, Please: This race is as close to a sure thing as the Oscars will see this year. While Sandra Bullock, a winner in this category for the 2009 film "The Blind Side," has received a lot of praise for her portrayal of an astronaut adrift in space, Blanchett took the Golden Globe, the Screen Actors Guild Award, and the British Academy of Film and Television Award as well as practically every other prize for which she's been nominated for this role. "Jasmine" finds the actress portraying a formerly wealthy woman who loses everything when her husband commits fraud and this portrayal will surely earn her the Best Actress prize. Blanchett took home the Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 2005 for her role as Katharine Hepburn in "The Aviator" and was nominated for Best Actress in 1999 and 2008 for playing Elizabeth I in "Elizabeth" and "Elizabeth: The Golden Age," respectively. She was also nominated for Best Supporting Actress in 2007 for the film "Notes on a Scandal" and in 2008 for portraying Bob Dylan in "I'm Not There."
