8. Don't Close Your Eyes and Point
I've never been much of a gambling man, but one thing I've learned is that you either play the odds or don't play the game. You never rely on luck. And in this case, we just don't want to play the game. Don't point and choose randomly. Even if there was an array of Oscar nominated films before you and you had to throw a dart at one of them, you better pray that it doesn't land on "The Blind Side," "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close," or "War Horse." Ever since the Academy felt the need to expand the Best Film category to include more than five films, the standards have gone down incredibly to accommodate this "need." And to be quite frank, when people think of Academy Award nominated films they yawn at the thought of watching them. So don't choose randomly. Consider the bad movie to good movie ratio every year and you'll see that even if you play the odds, you're better off doing your research.