As the eve of the 82nd Academy Awards draws near, we would like to thank the Academy for an outstanding — and overwhelmingly dark — list of nominees for Best Picture.

Ten of them, in fact — the most since 1943, when “Casablanca” won.

But we’re not particularly concerned with the outcome of the Best Picture category. This year, we’re setting our sights on the nominees for Best Sound Mixing.

Why this category? It’s the showdown of the year: “Avatar” versus “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.”

Judging by total movie gross for 2009, this may be of interest to you, too. “Avatar,” after all, not taking inflation into account, is the highest grossing movie of all time.

And what is the number 10 movie on that list? You guessed it — “Revenge of the Fallen.”

Those poor Autobots couldn’t quite make it to nine.

But movie gross aside, it’s up in the air which movie will win. Way “Up,” just like that house in the sky. You know, the one with the — SQUIRREL!

We can’t say for certain which movie will take the Oscar. But we can give you an education in how to deduce the outcome, Sherlock Holmes-style.

Each movie featured a bright star. One transfixed Sam Witwicky with her cut-off blue jeans, while the other was just blue.

The chemistry between Megan Fox and Shia LaBeouf was fantastic. We can’t help but wonder if he’ll be the future Mr. Fox.

On the other hand, Zoe Saldana and Sam Worthington blindsided us with the crazy connection between human and Na’vi hearts.

We’ll make no bones about it, Jake Sully’s transformation from human to avatar to Na’vi was lovely.

Precious few of us can deny the appeal of a love story between a princess and a frog, and both movies delivered in that category.

It takes a serious man to put someone in a hurt locker the way Jake did at the end of Avatar. In fact, the scene where he fought the robo-army looked like “Transformers.”

Maybe James Cameron and Michael Bay would benefit from a joint venture. It seems they both love to spend extreme sums of money on special effects.

But Avatar has found its place in the sun in the district of films that have earned nine nominations, along with “The Last Emperor” and “Gigi.”

And, we hope, in the category of Sound Mixing, the messenger will deliver good news for “Avatar.”

Why?

It’s simple. “Avatar” has Zoe Saldana. Zoe Saldana is in “Star Trek.” “Star Trek” has Captain James T. Kirk.

Captain Kirk is from Iowa. Iowa always wins.

By the supertransitive property, Iowa equals “Avatar.”

“Avatar” wins.

The losers might feel inglourious, like we did when Megatron killed Optimus Prime. Oh my god, you killed Optimus Prime — you bastard!

But just like Prime comes back to life, Michael Bay will always have Paris. Or “Transformers 3.”