Click to play videoDismiss it as an excuse to get all dressed up and party, or describe it as a vulgar exercise in excess, an unhealthy competition that pits actors against each other like racehorses. Point is, you can't ignore the Oscars. It's the biggest awards show of the year and all said and done, it's the ultimate recognition, the biggest honour for feature films.
In the Oscar special on the show e360, CNN-IBN Entertainment Editor Rajeev Masand will try to sift through all the glamour and glitz and focus on what the Oscars are really about - the films.
We'll salute the finest pictures, the bravest performances and the best technical achievements. We'll revisit those celluloid moments that made our jaws drop in 2006.
Lowdown on the Oscar favourites
But straight up and first things first, here’s a look at Oscar night's most coveted honour, the Best Picture award.
Clearly this is going to be a very difficult award to predict with no front-runners so to speak.
Each year, there are at least one or two favourites or front-runners in the Best Picture category, the films that have an edge over the other nominees.
With eight nominations in all, Brokeback Mountain was undoubtedly the Academy favourite last year, and I can safely say nobody had predicted that Crash would turn out to be the dark horse of the day.
This year, the five Best Picture candidates are fighting on a more even playing field than we've ever seen before, because there is no single dominant film.
The first of the five Best Picture nominees this year is Mexican director Alejandro Gonsalez Inarritu's Babel, a thought-provoking and deeply moving drama about one single incident that connects four disparate groups of people in three different parts of the world.
The story unfolds in Morocco, Mexico and Tokyo, and basically the film is about the emotion of feeling lost. Babel features an ensemble cast of Hollywood stars Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, Mexican actors Gael Garcia Bernal and Adriana Barazza, and Japanese actor Rinku Kikuchi.
It's grim, yes, and that doesn't help with a jury that looks out for uplifting, inspiring stories, but don't forget Babel won Best Motion Picture Drama at the Golden Globes and that's often a good indication of what's to come at the Oscars.
Martin Scorsese's cat-and-mouse chase film, The Departed is the second nominee in the Best Picture category this year.
It's a blood-splattered, profanity-soaked remake of the Hong Kong action film Infernal Affairs. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Mark Wahlberg and Jack Nicholson in this Boston police-vs-Boston mafia drama, The Departed is easily one of the year's best reviewed films, it's also Scorcese's most successful picture.
It's chances in this category are very good because it's a film that has a huge following and because it's been directed by a very deserving filmmaker who's been unfairly overlooked by the Academy.
Of course its biggest disadvantage is that it's extremely violent and it's pretty much an out-and-out imitation of the original Asian film.
The third nominee in the Best Picture category this year is director Clint Eastwood's Letters From Iwo Jima, a thoughtful portrait of the Japanese forces who held the island for 36 days in the battle of Iwo Jima.
Filmed in Japanese with a primarily Japanese cast including The Last Samurai's Ken Watanabe, this picture was shot in tandem with Eastwood's other film Flags of Our Fathers which brought to the screen the same story but from the perspective of the American soldiers who fought the same war.
If previous awards provide any indication to what's going to happen at the Oscars, then the chances for this film are very slim as it's won absolutely nothing yet.
However, it's a haunting and heartfelt picture and that's exactly the kind of thing that the Academy tends to doff its hat to.
The heartwarming film about a dysfunctional family taking a roadtrip across America to exorcise their demons, Little Miss Sunshine is the fourth of our Best Picture nominees.
It's a delightful little independent gem that was discovered at the Sundance Film Festival last year, a film that went on to touch the hearts of millions. Starring an ensemble cast of talented actors including Greg Kinnear, Toni Colette, Steve Carell, Alan Arkin and Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine has already snagged the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in A Motion Picture.
In fact, there's a good chance this film may turn out to be this year's Crash, the unexpected indie to steal the show.
My favourite of the five Best Picture nominees, The Queen, directed by Stephen Frears is a film about Queen Elizabeth the second's reaction to the death of Princess Diana in 1997.
Starring Helen Mirren as the British monarch, the film also deals with the clash of ideologies between the Queen and the newly elected Prime Minister Tony Blair.
It's a remarkable film because it's a fictional account of real events and because it's a revealing, witty portrait of the British royal family.
Will it win Best Picture? Well, it was last year's best reviewed film, and Helen Mirren has won every single award - the BAFTA, the Golden Globe, the Screen Actor's Guild Award.
But let's also not forget that all along they've looked at The Queen as a small little British TV movie and the picture itself has only picked up one award, the BAFTA for Best Film.
Five films, unique and remarkable in their own way, who will win? Babel, The Departed, Letters From Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine or The Queen?
Meanwhile, Deepa Mehta's Water, is a film very close to our hearts even though it still hasn't been released theatrically in India.
It's the third and final part of Mehta's elements trilogy, her troubled pet project that she was determined to bring to screen, no matter what.
Masand’s Oscar bets
Predicting Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director and Best Picture, let's put our money where our mouth is.
Of all the bravest performances, of all the engaging films of 2006, only a few will go home rewarded. So here's my predictions on who will the Oscar race:
Starting with Best Actor, vying for this award, there's Leonardo DiCaprio playing a South African smuggler in Blood Diamond, Ryan Gosling as a teacher who confronts his drug addiction with the help of a student in Half Nelson.
Also nominated Peter O'Toole as the elderly thespian smitten by a much younger girl in Venus, Will Smith as a struggling father in The Pursuit of Happyness and Forest Whitaker as the notorious Ugandan director Idi Amin in The Last King Of Scotland.
My money's on Forest Whitaker who's picked up all the top awards already - the BAFTA, the Golden Globe and the Screen Actors Guild Award - can an Oscar be far behind?
It's really a careful performance, a very modulated performance actually, because Idi Amin was a charismatic personality but remember he was responsible for all those savage, brutal acts and Whitaker brings out that dichotomy of personality so correctly.
The Best Actress category this year is easily the tougher one with all five truly exceptional performances to choose from.
There is of course, Penelope Cruz in Volver playing a young troubled woman with all these exceptional responsibilities.
There's also Judi Dench as the repressed lesbian school-marm in Notes On A Scandal, there's Helen Mirren playing the British monarch caught between tradition and modernity in The Queen.
Also nominated for best actress, Meryl Streep as the demanding and difficult fashion editor boss in The Devil Wears Prada, and finally Kate Winslet for her performance as the adultress suburban housewife in Little Children.
Like I said, this is the tough one, how do you decide? My three favourites are Penelope Cruz, Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep, but since I can choose only one, I'm going to go with Helen Mirren, she's clearly the hot favourite, and deservedly so for the manner in which she humanizes a personality we have only heard and read about all our lives. My money's on Helen Mirren for The Queen.
Now let's look at Best Director, also a very hotly contested category this year. As you can see, there are some big names here, Alejandro Gonsalez Inarritu, Martin Scorsese, Clint Eastwood, Stephen Frears and Paul Greengrass.
I think I'm going to put my vote on Martin Scorsese for The Departed, not so much because I think he deserves it for this film, but because I think they're going to give it to him this time since they've just passed him over so many times before.
You know, you have to admit The Departed is hardly his finest work, especially since it's such a blatant remake.
But having said that, it's still such a magnificent cinematic achievement. Mr Scorsese, you've got my vote.
For Best Picture, like I've been saying all along, it's really wide open, there are no clear favourites, no sure-shot choices.
It's going to be the most difficult category to predict, but it's a job and I've got to do it, so let's just get on with it.
There's Babel, The Departed, Letters From Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine and The Queen and if it has to be one, I think it's going to be Babel.
I pick Babel because I think the Academy will be swayed by the sweeping nature of the film, the fact that it transcends geographical boundaries and for the manner in which it makes its point - that pain needs no language, that it's when you're pushed towards confusion and fear, that you find love. So that's my money on Babel for Best Picture.
And finally, Best Foreign Language Film. Who will win? There is ample competition - There's After The Wedding from Denmark, Days Of Glory from Algeria, The Lives of Others from Germany, Pan's Labyrinth from Mexico, and of course Water from Canada.
Most are wondering whether Water will win? Well, I'm going to say it's got a good chance because it's a film that performed very well in North America when it was released there theatrically, and it's got big studio backing.
But, I still think the winner in this category will be Mexico's Pan's Labyrinth, the fantasy fairy tale of the dreamy child and her make-believe world.
It's a film that's been nominated in eight categories, a film that's clearly a favourite with the Academy.
Glamour and glitz at the Oscars
On Oscar night, also expect to cheer for the breathtaking musical Dreamgirls which is sure to pick up a few trophies including Best Supporting Actress for Jennifer Hudson.
Also, expect to see technical awards divided up between Pan's Labyrinth and Mel Gibson's ApocalyptoM.
Oscar regrets
If you ask me if I have any regrets, I'd have liked to see United 93 nominated for Best Picture, it was a powerful and masterful stroke by Paul Greengrass, I also might have liked to see Sacha Baron Cohen nominated for Borat, it was one of the year's most sinful pleasures.
Masand thinks Babel has best for Best Picture award because of the sweeping nature of the film.
Masand puts his vote on Martin Scorsese for Best Director award for The Departed
Masand says Water has a good chance because it's performed very well in North America.
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