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This film image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Bryan Cranston, left, as Jack O Donnell and Ben Affleck as Tony Mendez in "Argo," a rescue thriller about the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis.

Recently, I passed one of those adopt-a-puppy events, and inside an ad-hoc wire enclosure were five of cutest little dogs imaginable, adorned with bows and doodads, presumably for each to stand out.

"Oh, isn't the one in the little red tutu just adorable," you think. Yes, there was actually one in a little red tutu.

While I'll admit that this mini-circus did tug at my heart strings, it also reminded me of the annual spectacle they call the Academy Awards race. Oscar campaigns have been in full overkill since last fall. "Pick me, pick me" each film seems to implore: "Look, I have a red tutu."

All of this will come to end at the 85th Academy Awards on Feb. 24 when one of nine movies will win the coveted award for best picture of the year.

Quvenzhane Wallis, nominated for best actress in a leading role for &quot;Beasts of the Southern Wild,&quot; arrives at the 85th Academy Awards Nominees
Quvenzhane Wallis, nominated for best actress in a leading role for "Beasts of the Southern Wild," arrives at the 85th Academy Awards Nominees Luncheon at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Monday, Feb. 4, 2013, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)
(Final voting ends at 5 p.m. Tuesday.) Since "Argo" is the presumptive winner, it may be an anti-climatic end like one of those blowout Super Bowl games.

But in a decade or two, how many of the nine will be considered a really good film or a dog in a red tutu? Remember, the Motion Picture Academy is supposedly voting on the BEST picture of the year, but except for some technical specifications, it offers no real criteria on what that means.

Over the years, the academy's record has been mostly so-so, some would say abysmal, when it comes to picking the BEST. Type in a search for "worst Oscar winners" and you will find dozens of sites weighing in on the matter.

Often, the Academy is remembered for what it didn't even nominate. Martin Scorsese was left out of the directing category for his classic "Taxi Driver," which at least got a best-picture nod. So, Ben Affleck, you have something in common with one of the greatest directors in history. The only difference is that your film - "Argo" - is now surprisingly considered the favorite to win best picture.

By the way, "Taxi Driver" along with "All the President's Men," "Network" and "Bound for Glory" lost to the decidedly inferior "Rocky," whose director, John Avildsen beat nominated cinema giants Ingmar Bergman and Sidney Lumet for the Oscar.

This publicity film image released by DreamWorks and Twentieth Century Fox shows Daniel Day-Lewis portraying Abraham Lincoln in the film "Lincoln." (AP Photo/DreamWorks and Twentieth Century Fox, David James) (David James)

"Rocky's" legacy? A collection of god-awful movies about supposedly lovable losers who improbably succeed at the end - usually by beating the stuffing out of someone. By the way, Avildsen's next biggest contribution to film was "The Karate Kid" trilogy, in which its teen hero beats the stuffing out of someone at the end.

Unfortunately, Academy winners often don't reflect much about the art of cinema. It is, for all intents and purposes, a popularity contest with deciding factors as disparate as the age of the Oscar voters, the zeitgeist of the time, middle-brow tastes, makeup calls, if they have a working screener, and, who knows, the weather. What's interesting about those worst-Oscar sites is that there is more consensus about what should have won or been nominated than what was really a bad choice. ("Rocky," however, does show up in a lot of the bad lists.)

So one thing the Oscars have proven is that they are no measuring stick for what is a great film or performance. What the awards do is help boost the box office, give movie fans something to talk about and allow glamorous stars a chance to dress up, which is why the biggest question on the red carpet to a celeb is "What are you wearing?" Interviewers barely, if at all, mention the movies the stars were in. "You look fabulous tonight. Now tell me about that scene you were covered in vomit." Tough segue.

Winners do have something beyond getting a statuette to look forward to, however. A recent study found that that actors who have won an Academy Award live almost four years longer than those who haven't won the coveted Oscar. Daniel Day-Lewis, you may live forever!

When two-time winner Day-Lewis takes home his third naked man for his role as the 16th president in Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln," that would be the one Oscar choice I will wholeheartedly agree with. However, that might be the only one. History makes the ultimate decision, but if Academy voters choose "Argo," I believe film historians will again look back and wonder.

Unlike "Rocky" - which was somewhat likable but crassly manipulative - "Argo" is a smart, entertaining and well-executed piece of cinema.

From left, David O. Russell, nominated for best director and best adapted screenplay for &quot;Silver Linings Playbook,&quot; Jessica Chastain, nominated
From left, David O. Russell, nominated for best director and best adapted screenplay for "Silver Linings Playbook," Jessica Chastain, nominated for actress in a leading role for "Zero Dark Thirty," and Bradley Cooper, nominated for actor in a leading role for "Silver Linings Playbook," attend the 85th Academy Awards Nominees Luncheon at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Monday, Feb. 4, 2013, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by John Shearer/Invision/AP)
 It's not a bad choice for picture of the year. In fact, I thought it was very underestimated when it first came out last October, not a key time for Oscar films. Its box office was modest, reviews positive but not necessarily effusive.

Apparently, though, the story about how a fake Hollywood movie helped a group of Americans escape during the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis has struck a note with - spoiler alert - the Hollywood crowd, who may think all delicate international maneuvering should be done this way.

After all, no one in "Argo" was tortured to get information. So, unlike "Zero Dark Thirty," no one has to get upset that the U.S. government may have done something unsavory to find Osama Bin Laden.

Unlike "Lincoln," no one in "Argo" has to explain anything as complicated as, say, the cultural and historic importance of the 14th Amendment in "Lincoln."

And unlike "Amour," it isn't a profound mediation about an octogenarian couple facing end of life choices, an issue of greater and greater consequence with our aging population.

Give Affleck and his team credit for creating a thriller, but to do so, "Argo" had to fudge facts enough to make it seem more dramatic at the end.

Not unusual for Hollywood. Spielberg said at a speech last November at Gettysburg about "Lincoln": "It is the job of the filmmaker to use creative imagination to recover what is lost to memory." But while there are indeed a few historic slips in "Lincoln," it is on the whole far more accurate than "Argo," which is only one of the reasons it is more impressive of a film.

Assuming that an Oscar-worthy best picture means that it excels in all the key components of filmmaking - directing, acting, script and production - then "Lincoln" wins hands down. Spielberg superbly navigated a tricky but powerful story, bringing both drama, excitement and pathos to it. When needed, he pulled back on his sometimes excessive cinematic flourishes to give the audience a profound experience of American history.

The production values - from the cinematography by Janusz Kaminski to the costumes by Joanna Johnston - were impeccable, and Tony Kushner's script is simply amazing, giving what is often a parliamentary drama fire and brimstone. Finally, what film has better actors who are asked to do so much? Day-Lewis brought humanity and wit to the role of Lincoln while seeming to carry the weight of a divided nation. Sally Field was extraordinary as Mary Todd Lincoln, as was Tommy Lee Jones as fiery abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens. Both, in my mind, deserve the best-supporting actor awards.

(And while we're at it, Jessica Chastain should be named best-actress for "Zero Dark Thirty." Besides being a subtle and brilliant performance, she more than any of those in her category had to carry her film.)

"Argo," on the other hand, only got one nominee in the best acting categories, and that was Alan Arkin for playing a curmudgeonly Hollywood producer, a role, I suspect, more than a few Tinseltown voters identified with. (What is the old expression: people often look like their dogs?)

This is not to take anything away from Ben Affleck's formidable accomplishment.

He has made three excellent films as a director, and if "Argo" wins, you can make an argument for it. But we are talking about Oscar voters - and puppies. As cute as they are, you never know how they will grow up. Will they pee on your couch, bite the mailman, eat your favorite shoes?

Cecil B. DeMille's circus drama "The Greatest Show on Earth" was named best picture of 1952. Its spectacle must have appealed to Oscar voters at the time. But it beat the classic Western "High Noon" and John Ford's beautiful "The Quiet Man." Meanwhile, Vincente Minnelli's sinister Hollywood tale "The Bad and the Beautiful" and Charlie Chaplin's lovely "Limelight" didn't even make the top five, overlooked for a clunker like "Ivanhoe."

And worst, "Singing in the Rain," considered by many the greatest musical ever made, wasn't even nominated. Yet today, millions of people still watch it and treasure it. Meanwhile, "The Greatest Show on Earth," which the iconic film critic Pauline Kael described as a "huge, mawkish, trite circus movie," has pretty much become a time-capsule curiosity at best. As a film buff, I tried to sit through it once, but can't remember if I made it through or much about it. (There was a trapeze - or was it a dog in a red tutu?)

So have fun watching the Oscars on Sunday, Feb. 24 on ABC, but quick: What won best picture last year, two years ago? How about the Super Bowl? It doesn't matter, does it? You'll still tune in.