AFTER ALL THAT WHINING about how difficult it was to have ten nominees for Best Picture, the Academy changed the rules this year, giving them the freedom to scale that number back to five, if they saw fit. The result? They chose nine. There will be much anger that a certain popcorn film (“Potter”) didn’t make the cut, but let’s ourselves cut to the chase and pick the favorites. You can count out “The Tree of Life,” which is simply too bizarre and highbrow to gain traction, and surely was the ninth film to make the cut. Then there’s a tight pack of competitors who all suffer some fatal flaw. “Hugo” was wonderful, but a kids film. “Midnight in Paris” was equally wonderful, but too trite. We loved “Moneyball,” but – yeah – it’s a film about statistics and baseball. The fine “Incredibly Loud and Extremely Close” isn’t catching on with mainstream audiences – while the lucrative “War Horse” didn’t wow the critics as much as it should. Lastly “The Artist” was just too cute of an experiment to win the big prize. So, after all that, we are where we thought we’d be: It’s “The Help” versus “The Descendants” in a battle to the death. And when you put it that way, we see our clear winner: George is cute, but socially relevant “The Help” was funny, powerful, and made oodles. Emma Stone company will run away from the pack in the most lopsided race in recent memory.