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A VOTER REGISTRATION DRIVE TO GET EXCITED ABOUT: Finally, we've taken a tiny step toward solving one of life's great mysteries: Who are those often-clueless people who vote for the Academy Awards?
This year, for the first time, the notoriously secretive Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has publicly named the industry types who have been invited to join, and thereby get Oscar voting privileges.
Granted, we still don't know who to blame specifically for Shakespeare in Love as best picture over Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line. But it's a start.
Among the 127 invitees are 2004 Oscar winners Sean Penn and Sofia Coppola; '04 acting nominees Keisha Castle-Hughes , Shohreh Aghdashloo , Ken Watanabe and Patricia Clarkson; and actors Scarlett Johansson , Maggie Gyllenhaal , Paul Bettany , Audrey Tautou , Viggo Mortensen and Treat Williams.
Each academy branch - acting, directing, public relations, etc. - nominates its own for admission. Academy president Frank Pierson tells Daily Variety the number of invitees is smaller than usual, and the academy is cutting back from two sets of invites a year to one, to be "even more selective" in membership.
HE CAN ALWAYS SAY NO. BUT HE DID KEEP THE TROPHY: Until this year, at least, Penn has had a widely known disdain for the academy. In a 1997 interview with E! Online, he said its members don't "even know how to find their (rear ends) with their hands. So, what does their opinion mean? It don't mean anything."
OH (SOB), OUR HEARTS (SNIFFLE) JUST BREAK (WAAIIILLLL) FOR HER: Nicole Kidman - tall, thin, beautiful, rich, smart, talented, funny - says she can't get a man because she has kids.
"I don't want to sound like a woman from a lonely hearts club, and I don't want to advertise," says Kidman, advertising in Britain's Now magazine. "The children are my priority. I take them around with me ... and that's not so appealing for any new man on the scene, is it?"
Kidman also addressed concerns that she has been looking too thin. She says she has been wearing her long hair up a lot and that makes her look thinner.
"I've had this long, lean body shape since my teens. I can't do anything about it," she says. "If I had my way, I'd be smaller, more shapely, have straight hair and bigger breasts. But I have to carry on with what I've been given."
Yes, Nicole. Be brave. Carry on.
- Sharon Fink can be reached at 727 893-8525 or fink@sptimes.com