Download Ben Schott's Oscar Almanac

People think it's difficult to win an Academy Award, but that's a myth perpetuated by Hollywood insiders - it's a private club and they want to keep out the foreigners. Here are ten easy tips to help you to take home the Little Gold Man:

1 BE A WORLD-CLASS SCHMOOZER

Getting people to see your film is much less important than getting them to talk about it - and it all starts with you. When people say “Have you seen ..?” nobody wants to seem stupid or out of the loop. Shame people into thinking that they're backing the right horse even though they've never seen it run - it's worked in politics for decades. This is how a buzz grows to a roar on a film nobody will ever see, but will all smile knowingly when it wins the award.

2 HAVE GOOD HAIR

Everyone loves good-looking people. Whether they're in front of the camera or behind the scenes, people want the lookers up there on stage. Manicures, pedicures, waxing, Botox - you need the full human carwash to compete with the big boys. In this age of YouTube, hi-def TV and a hundred glossy magazines, one bad look lives forever and can cause untold damage. So show some cleavage (ladies only, please) and flash those pearly whites - there's nothing worse than an ugly winner. There's a very logical reason they don't have an Oscar for Best Transportation Guy.

3 CAST A HAS-BEEN

There's a group of actors that everybody admires, often referring to them as “actor's actors”. This is a nice way of saying that nobody wants to cast them in anything decent since they're either way past their prime, still addicted to something (such as their own former glory) or have appeared in too much crap that pays their mortgages and exes. The Academy loves a comeback. Of course, they may be has-beens for a reason, which you'll discover on your first day of shooting, if they bother to show up at all.

4 DO SOMETHING SCANDALOUS

Commit a crime. Plunder your own company. Use dodgy tax loopholes to finance your film. Anything involving sexual allegations gets you particular brownie points. Most of the voters have spent their lives doing horrible, illicit things - a huge part of their motivation for working in Hollywood in the first place. Otherwise they'd be dentists. Nobody wants to be reminded of how normal people act; they want to know that you're one of their kind, complete with complex perversions and deep, deep moral flaws.

5 LIVE IN LOS ANGELES

This may sound obvious, but you gotta be in it to win it. If you've made the unfortunate choice to base your career in either New York or London (nowhere else remotely counts), the odds are stacked against you. In LA, where the bulk of the voters reside, daily routines are as precise as the expensive timepieces strapped to their slender wrists. They share adjectives that apply only to Hollywood - they dine, valet, copulate, vacation, litigate and rehab together. If you're doing these things in the wrong place, you're doing it for naught.

6 SHOW UP EVERYWHERE

This is a corollary to living in Los Angeles. If any award is given to your film by any organisation, show up personally, give a self-congratulatory speech and move on to the next event. Bob and weave, bob and weave - it's like one long heavyweight title fight. The awards season has a rhythm all its own, and voters get caught up in the hype like any other group. The fact that your film was runner-up at the Cuban Alzheimer Film Festival for the Blind isn't important - you're a winner (almost) and people love winners.

7 DON'T BE AFRAID TO GET DIRTY

You have to play both sides of the ball, offence and defence. While loudly talking up your own film you should be quietly disparaging everyone else's. Nothing should be traced back to you, of course, but seeds should be firmly planted at every opportunity. That nominated film based on an amazing true story? I heard there's an elderly but still vital eyewitness in Bolivia who says the film-makers made up half the story. That heart-wrenching adaptation of the bestselling book? Sure it was beautiful to watch, but wasn't the novel much better? And don't stop with the movies - feel free to slander the film-makers too; all's fair in Hollywood and the Oscars.

8 HIRE THE PROFESSIONAL GOONS

Behind the scenes of every nominated film is a team of cold-blooded assassins known as “publicists” or “Academy consultants”; these lovely ladies make Mossad look like Girl Scouts. Since every vote counts here is a sample of how these professionals operate: they show up at a retirement home in Zurich where two ancient Academy members happen to be clinging to life. Armed with a portable DVD player, your film, fairly sturdy duct tape and a proxy ballot, they emerge 100 minutes later with two more crucial votes in the bank. You want them on your side - and you don't want them on the competition's side.

9 TAKE CREDIT FOR EVERYTHING

Even if 20 other people helped to produce the movie, be firm and clear that you did everything single-handedly. That $50 million budget? Came out of your own pocket. The tear-jerking scene whose clip seems to run on a loop at every award show? Youridea, not the writer's, director's or actors'. The concept of marrying sound to picture to create a “movie”? All you. This is not the time or place to be modest. Luckily you're not anyway, but, more importantly, there's an award to be won.

10 MAKE AN AMAZING MOVIE

Produce an acclaimed film that is universally hailed by critics; top your achievement by delivering a worldwide commercial success. Create a work of art that resonates with audiences everywhere, guaranteeing it a place in cinematic history that will be remembered for generations to come as a seminal, significant Film.

Or not. That last one isn't really that important.

James Christopher's Oscar predictions

BEST PICTURE

Will win No Country for Old Men.

Should win There Will be Blood. The Coens are 1980s style merchants - that's when most voters last woke up.

BEST DIRECTOR

Will win Julian Schnabel for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

Should win The Coens for No Country ... Schnabel's eye-blinker will embarrass the Academy into voting for it.

BEST ACTOR

Will win Daniel Day-Lewis for There Will be Blood.

Should win Daniel Day-Lewis

BEST ACTRESS

Will win Julie Christie.

Should win Julie Christie.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Will win Javier Bardem for No Country ...

Should win Casey Affleck for Jesse James.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Will win Cate Blanchett for I'm Not There.

Should win Tilda Swinton for Michael Clayton. This is the hardest to call. I love both of these performances.

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