You might want to consider this article from the Los Angeles Times when you make your own Oscar picks:
Barely any A-list stars showed up at the Four Seasons Hotel for the “Maria Full of Grace” reception, just one of countless Oscar get-out-the-vote efforts that surface during awards season each year. A handful of people made cocktail party chatter with director Joshua Marston and star Catalina Sandino Moreno, sampled a few drab appetizers, then quickly went on their way, most with a modest parting gift: a copy of the film’s DVD.
The “Sideways” blowout a few weeks later stood at the opposite end of the spectrum. Hundreds of top show business talent and Oscar voters jammed the restaurant Vibrato, where they drank expensive Hitching Post Pinot Noir by the gallon. On stage, the film’s composer, Rolfe Kent, jammed with a jazz band.
Maybe only the naive consider the Academy Awards to be an evenhanded referendum on the best films, but rarely has it devolved into such a marked battle between the haves and the have-nots as it has with this year’s motley crop of large and small contenders.
Desperate to adorn their films with the valuable Oscar seal of approval, well-heeled studios now spend as much as $15 million promoting the award chances for such movies as “The Aviator” and “Million Dollar Baby.” Other films, such as “Finding Neverland” and “Hotel Rwanda,” try to stay in the race with a fraction of that.