Best Picture? Pick a Film, Any Film . . .

Sometime between Feb. 13, when the 1995 Oscar nominations were announced, and Tuesday, when the polls closed, the 5,260 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences met secretly somewhere in Southern California, maybe at Michael Eisner’s house, and decided how they were going to vote.

They must have. How else could so many analysts have figured out what they, as a group, were thinking?

You’ve heard the reports. “Babe” is going to win best picture tonight because “Apollo 13,” “Braveheart,” and “Sense and Sensibility” are splitting the traditional vote, and “The Postman (Il Postino)’s” strength is with the older voters, a dwindling number of Jurassic bookworms who, when they heard Steven Spielberg’s famous “television is the literature of our generation” speech, correctly assumed that the end of Western civilization was at hand.

“Babe,” with its daring anti-carnivore theme, is said to be the hip choice of the academy’s rebellious, 60-and-under youth.

Or maybe you’ve heard that “Sense and Sensibility” is going to pull it out because so many members of the huge liberal block, who often eat at Mr. Chow’s, are furious at the directors branch for its ethnocentric snub of Taiwanese director Ang Lee. Or that “Apollo 13,” the only nominee made in the USA, gets the Oscar because the movers and shakers, fearing more election-year broadsides from headline-hunting politicians, would rather raise the American flag than wave a white one.

I actually had a studio executive explain to me the other day that best actor favorite Nicolas Cage was going to lose to the late Massimo Troisi because the academy has to give “The Postman” something, and Troisi is the logical compromise. Similarly, “Sense and Sensibility” won’t win best picture because Emma Thompson’s adapted screenplay gives them such a handy consolation prize. Ditto “Braveheart,” which gets the director award for Mel Gibson.

*

There are academy members reading this, fess up. Did you meet? Did you sneak into the Hollywood Bowl under the cover of night, separate into voting blocs and decide how to divide the goods? And if so, how did you get members of the Older Faction to identify themselves? I wouldn’t want to be checking IDs when some of those $20,000 face lifts showed up.

Those who attempt to handicap the Oscars every year have some justification for gathering academy voters into collective lumps of “they.” In previous years, the patterns haven’t exactly been confounding. As soon as the most reasonable honoree is identified, the one that says to the world Hollywood cares, they vote the slate and go back to sleep. The night of the awards, “Gandhi” gets eight statuettes and its infinitely superior rivals, “E.T.,” “Tootsie,” and “The Verdict,” get the shaft.

This year, it must have been as confusing to the voters as to everyone else. Whether it’s bad planning, bad execution or bad karma, 1995 did not produce many traditional Oscar movies--films with political heft, critical acclaim or box-office magic. “Apollo 13,” with its gung-ho moon race Americana, comes closest, but the directors short-sheeted Opie and cast doubt on the whole process.

If you’re a slate bettor, you have to go with “Braveheart,” “Babe,” and “The Postman,” each of which has best picture, director and screenplay nominations. And if you’re an odds bettor, you have to forget “Braveheart.” The actors branch is three times larger than any other voting block, and the last time a movie won without receiving an acting nomination was 1958. Eisenhower was president.

So, it’s between the pig and the postman? Who knows?

Think of the academy as Gertrude Stein’s Oakland; there’s no they there. At least not this year. No simple analytical formula for picking winners in the office pool. This is the year to treat yourself like a member and fill the ballot out with your own favorites.

But remember, this is not the People’s Choice Awards. If you’ve only seen one movie and it’s “Waterworld” or “Batman Forever,” you’re in trouble. On the other hand, don’t disqualify yourself if you have missed one or two of the big ones. That will not stop the academy members, or the friends, relatives and nannies who fill out some of their ballots.

What are you thinking about as a member of the academy filling out a ballot? Do you vote for what you really believe represents the best work in each category, even if it’s an Australian or Italian movie and, as such, a blunt indictment of Hollywood’s--your employer’s--creative ennui? And how about that image problem? It wouldn’t hurt to throw the weight of Oscar behind a G-rated movie like “Babe,” make it the first children’s movie ever to win the best picture award. Shut Bob Dole up good.

*

If your favorite movie was “The Postman,” do you risk wasting your vote picking an Italian-language film? No foreign-language movie has won before, and probably won’t this year. One vote may be the difference in a close race between another picture you like and the one you cannot believe was even nominated. “Braveheart,” say.

The best actor ballot does seem to come down to two choices. You know that when the actors’ branch is sold on one performance, as it probably is in the case of Cage, it’s not likely the others will countermand it, but you won’t be alone in voting for Troisi, who died after seeing “The Postman” to completion. Now that you think of it, the last posthumous award, to Peter Finch 19 years ago, was a great Oscar moment.

As for best actress, you know most of the voters are going to correct the record for Susan Sarandon, give her the Oscar on her fourth try. “Dead Man Walking,” good movie. She plays a nun against capital punishment, good ethics. Vote for whomever you like, but she’s going to win.

The supporting actor ballots are kind of interesting. You loved Tim Roth in “Rob Roy” and you’re a great admirer of Kevin Spacey, who’s up for “The Usual Suspects.” And James Cromwell was a hoot as the farmer in “Babe.” But Ed Harris, the NASA operations boss in “Apollo 13” represents an entire ensemble of great performances. You can say a lot with that vote.

If you’re like most people, the supporting actress choice is between Mira Sorvino, the cheerful hooker in “Mighty Aphrodite,” and Joan Allen, who portrayed the first lady in “Nixon.” I leave you with this thought, which I’m sure has occurred to many of your colleagues. Which performance presented the biggest challenge, faking sexual pleasure with total strangers or pretending to be in love with Richard Nixon?

They should all be this easy.