There are only a few days left before we find out if the gorgeous Kate Winslet will be going home with Oscar (for The Reader) or if Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler) can bodyslam Sean Penn (Milk) and Brad Pitt (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) for the Best Actor gold.

In another post I’ll offer up my predictions and preferences. But if you want to discover exactly how you can secure one of those shiny statuettes for yourself? Follow me after the jump.

To get your hands around an Oscar of your very own, don’t bother searching eBay; Academy folk frown on winners selling their awards. In fact, Oscar-accepting recipients must agree to give the AMPAS (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) thirty days to buy it back for $1.00 before they can sell it to anyone else. The Academy always buys the statues back. So, if you want an Oscar of your own, you’ll just have to obtain it the old-fashioned way—by winning it.

Pretend that you, John Doe Dreamer, played the lead in DRIVEN: The Movie. For you to get the Academy Award you so clearly deserve this year, the following process must play out:

First, members of the ticket-buying public must be able to see your epic in a movie theater somewhere in Los Angeles County (for at least seven days) between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2008. In November of that year, DRIVENWORKS GB (the studio behind DRIVEN: The Movie) would embark on a do-or-die mission to ensure that each of the Academy’s 5,000-plus voting members see your dazzling tour-de-force performance in D:TM. That means special screenings in L.A. and New York for Academy members, free admission to multiplexes showing DRIVEN: The Movie and the mailing of DVDs and Blu-Rays of the blockbuster to homes and offices of AMPAS members.

After the Academy sends out its annual “Reminder List of Eligible Films” (with additions/changes made by Dec. 1), things really heat-up. On December 26, AMPAS mails out nomination ballots to the Academy’s “active and life” members. These members have about two weeks (until 5:00 pm, Jan. 12, 2009) to mail in secret ballots to PricewaterhouseCoopers, who guard them like the hounds of Hell. According to Academy doctrine: “Not more than five nominations shall be made for each award, with balloting for these nominations restricted to members of the Academy branch concerned.” In simple English, that means actors can only nominate other actors.

Two weeks later, on Jan. 22, you (and four other lucky fellas) discover you’re in the running for Best Actor when the results of nomination balloting are revealed at the ungodly hour of 5:30 am PST at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Hollywood. A week later (Jan. 28), the final ballots are mailed and members have until 5:00 pm on February 17 to return them. (Here’s a tip: Best Picture nominations and final winners in most categories are determined by vote of the entire membership. So kiss up and/or offer your first born to all the Academy members you can find.)

After ballots are tabulated, only two partners of PricewaterhouseCoopers know the results. Until Sunday, February 22…

…when, most likely, Marion Cotillard (last year’s Best Actress winner for La Vie en Rose) opens the envelope for Best Actor during the 81st Academy Awards presentation and proclaims, “And the award goes to… John Doe Dreamer for DRIVEN: The Movie.”

Congratulations, kid, it’s time to thank yourself, your grandma, and every last member of your entourage. You got your Academy Award.

Image: official poster for the 81st Academy Awards.