You have to love the Oscars. A select group of Hollywood insiders vote on the year that was in cinema, and all of the stars and major studio players gather for a celebratory night on which their professional rivalries are put aside and the greater cause of cinema is benevolently celebrated.

Oh yeah, and maybe Elvis Presley and Andy Kaufman can jointly present Best Picture honors this year. Truth be told, the Academy Awards are an annual sporting event on par with French figure skating.

The first key illusion to dispel is that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, more commonly referenced as “The Academy” or “AMPAS,” is some sort of a highly selective body of Hollywood insiders. At last count, membership was in the ballpark of 5,000 strong. Of course, that count is difficult to make, because the membership roster is more closely guarded than the vault in “Ocean’s 11.”

The Voters

So just who belongs to this massive group? Just about every actor you’ve ever heard of and every film technician — from makeup artists to cinematographers — that you may ever hear of. Hollywood insiders like to look at the annual Screen Actors Guild awards as indicators of the Oscars because a majority of the Academy members vote first in those awards.

The second and more important key illusion to dispel is that the Oscars are some sort of unbiased indicator of the year’s finest achievements in cinema. Oscars, like so much in Hollywood, can be bought. Depending on the race in question and the competition, they can cost as much as tens of millions of dollars. They are frequently more expensive than the film they end up honoring.

Just how does this all work? Well, the Academy Awards are more of an auction than a retail event. And the way a film becomes the high bidder is by making more of a mark on the minds of voters than any other. Ever wonder why all of the good films open in December or only open in Los Angeles in December and then open everywhere else in January? The answer is very simple: so that they will be current in the minds of voters.

But the madness doesn’t nearly stop there.

There might not be an exact roster of who is and who isn’t an Academy voter, but given that just about everyone in Hollywood is, the film studios have some pretty good lists. Now the bribery begins.

First, to ensure that members of the Academy see every remotely decent film, video and DVD copies are sent out to voters in late November. Even if the movie doesn’t open until after Christmas, Academy voters will have it for their home viewing pleasure around Thanksgiving. And these videos and DVDs aren’t simply duped copies of the film. No, they come in well-designed cases (sometimes box sets with all of one studio’s contending films packaged together) and on the back will almost always appear the magic words “For Your Consideration.”

These words are the common denominator of every aspect of an Oscar auction. And everywhere they appear there will be a very simple list below them consisting of every conceivable award that the film could be nominated for and who would be nominated.

In other words, Academy members don’t have to look names up when they fill out their ballots. More importantly, though, this technique makes voters presuppose extraordinary feats in the film before they even watch it.

The Contenders

So just how many films get this treatment? Almost every remotely decent film gets sent to voters and tagged with a “For Your Consideration” — even such hopeless duds as “The General’s Daughter” and “What Dreams May Come” have gotten pitched.

Some Academy members, true fans of cinema, believe that a film must be seen on the big screen in order to be appreciated. So they just go out to the local multiplex and pay $9 for a ticket, right? Of course not. The studios gladly rent out screening rooms in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and other key cities with voting members and host special “Academy Screenings.” Yep, those voters who show up to these actually get finessed in person by studio executives.

Then there are the advertisements. Most members of the Academy read Variety or The Hollywood Reporter, so for months studios will take out ads consisting of nothing more than a particularly memorable image from whatever the film may be.

Sometimes these ads are aimed at one award in general; there might be an image of Tom Hanks in “The Road to Perdition” and it will read “For Your Consideration: BEST ACTOR: Tom Hanks.” And if the film has won any of the precursor awards, those will be advertised as well. This is a subliminal assurance to voters that the film already has been honored as the best this or that, so they will be doing their duty by honoring it again. These ads run regularly and cost millions of dollars overall.

Of course, in order for these advertisements to have as many kudos listed as possible, the movie first has to win the precursor awards. So members of groups like the National Society of Film Critics, The New York Film Critics Circle, The Online Film Critics Society, The Directors Guild of America, The Hollywood Foreign Press Association and, of course, The Screen Actors Guild, also get plenty of attention from the studios. They, too, get the videos and DVDs and are invited to the screenings.

But with critics, the bribery can be even greater — there are fewer of them, so things are cheaper overall. Bound coffee-table books consisting of nothing but images and quotes from films have been sent to critics in the past. Not enough? How about a box of Cheesy Poofs to bring “South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut” back into minds? Don’t think it could work? “South Park” got a Best Song nomination.

What does it all mean?

So why all of the money and effort? An honor is just an honor, after all. The Oscars are the greatest form of advertising a film can ever receive. If a studio plays its cards right by opening the movie as late as possible, it will still be showing in theaters when the awards roll around in March.

Even if it isn’t still out, studios can and will re-release pictures around Oscar time. The Academy Awards are the second-most-watched event of the year, sometimes called the “Female Super Bowl.” Audiences worldwide see the names of these films and know the films nominated must represent the finest there is.

Of this year’s five Best Picture nominees, two of them are property of Miramax. This is the studio that practically wrote the book on how to win an Oscar auction. Over the past several years, the studio has taken mediocre films and found ways to portray them to Academy voters as the year’s best.

When “Shakespeare in Love” upset “Saving Private Ryan,” Miramax was behind it. When “Good Will Hunting” came out of nowhere to nearly topple “Titanic,” Miramax was behind it. And this year, when “Chicago” and “Gangs of New York” make their Academy appearances, Miramax will be behind it. Why Miramax? Because this supposedly “independent” studio annually pours more money into the Oscar race than just about anyone else; Miramax understands that the Academy Awards are really just a very lucrative auction.