Oscar Dweebing in June?

Academy invites 112 to join ranks
The film Academy said Friday that it has invited 112 notables within the film community to join the organization in 2005.

That number, down from 150 in past years, represents the Academy's new goal of selectivity to slow its growth, said spokesman John Pavlik.

This year's crop spans the gamut from "Bewitched" comedian Will Ferrell to Jamie Foxx of "Ray" to Mexico's Gael Garcia Bernal ("The Motorcycle Diaries").

Thirty-three Oscar nominees were asked, including actors Clive Owen ("Closer") and Thomas Haden Church ("Sideways"), actresses Sophie Okonedo ("Hotel Rwanda") and Catalina Sandino Moreno ("Maria Full of Grace"), and screenwriter Paul Haggis ("Million Dollar Baby").

EDITOR'S NOTE: ANOTHER REPORT ABOUT THIS, WITH A BIT MORE INFO -----

Academy Invites 112 to Membership
Beverly Hills, CA — The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has extended membership invitations to 112 artists and executives who have distinguished themselves in the field of theatrical motion pictures. The group will be the only new voting members invited to join the organization in 2005.

“Our decision to slow the growth of the Academy, and to become even more selective in our membership process, is working,” said Academy President Frank Pierson. "The branch membership committees understand what the Academy is trying to do and have begun searching for the top exemplars in their respective areas, presenting to the board only their most impressive candidates." EDITOR'S NOTE: WILL FERRELL?

The membership procedures instituted last year allow the organization to grow — after filling vacancies resulting from deaths and members opting for retired (non-voting) status — by a maximum of thirty new members annually. Pierson said that even if all the 2005 invitees accept their invitations, the Academy's number of voting members will actually shrink slightly compared to the roster of voting members at the same time period in 2004. "We're in the early stages of a slow but deliberate refining process, " he said. EDITOR'S NOTE: IF I WERE ONE OF THE PEOPLE BEING 'REFINED', I THINK I MIGHT TAKE OFFENSE AT THIS.

Candidates for Academy membership are normally proposed by members and then considered by committees made up of prominent representatives of each of the organization’s fourteen branches — art directors, executives, film editors, etc. In addition, individuals nominated for Academy Awards, if not already members of the organization, are automatically considered by the appropriate committees, though not necessarily invited to membership.

Though the great majority of AMPAS members are based in the U.S., membership is open to qualified filmmakers around the world. The Academy roster currently includes theatrical motion picture makers from 36 countries.

New members will be welcomed into the organization at an invitation-only reception on Wednesday, September 21, at the Academy's Fairbanks Center for Motion Picture Study in Beverly Hills. EDITOR'S NOTE: IT'S A WONDER THEY STAY SO THIN, WITH ALL THE RUBBER-CHICKEN DINNERS THEY HAVE TO ATTEND OUT THERE!

The 2005 invitees, listed by membership subcategories where appropriate rather than by branch, are: EDITOR'S NOTE: IT SURE IS AN INTERESTING MIX. WONDER IF THE WINNING CHOICES ARE GOING TO GET LESS PREDICTABLE AND MORE DARING?

Actors
Gael Garcia Bernal
Thomas Haden Church
Jennifer Coolidge
Will Ferrell
Jamie Foxx
Paul Giamatti
Catalina Sandino Moreno
Sophie Okonedo
Clive Owen
Charlotte Rampling
Jean Reno
Stellan Skarsgard
Imelda Staunton
Mykelti Williamson
Ziyi Zhang

At Large
Ian Bryce
Fred Chandler
Charles Newirth

Cinematographers
Curtis Clark
Jim Denault
Robert Fraisse
Dick Pope
Tami Reiker
Lisa Rinzler
Jerry Zielinski

Animators
Andrew Adamson
Kathy Altieri
Signe Baumane
Baker Bloodworth
John Hughes
Scott F. Johnston
Chris Landreth
Tim Miller

Directors
Alejandro Amenábar
Marc Forster
Oliver Hirschbiegel
Andy Tennant
Joel Zwick

Documentary
Nick Broomfield
Peter Davis
Kirby Dick
Kathleen Glynn
Robert Greenwald
Stacy Peralta

Music
Bruno Coulais
Jan A.P. Kaczmarek
Mark Mothersbaugh
Edward Shearmur

Producers
Avi Arad
Elizabeth Avellán
Ross Katz
Michael London
Scott Mosier
Denise Robert

Production Designers
John Dexter
Jim Dultz
Andrew McRae Hennah
Gemma Jackson
Anthony Pratt

Public Relations
Breena Camden
Laura Carrillo
Susan J. Kroll
Michael Moses
Dennis Rice
Steven Mark Siskind

Scientific and Technical
Glenn Kennel

Set Decorators
John Bush
Jim Erickson
Debra Schutt

Writers
Paul Haggis
David Magee
Keir Pearson
Jose Rivera
David N. Weiss
Mike White

Executives
Paul G. Allen
Doug Belgrad
Robert Berney
Ann Daly
Daniel Ferleger
Camela Galano
Brad Grey
Steven Jobs
Michael Lynton
Kevin McCormick
Bruce Tobey
Matt Tolmach

Film Editors
Jim Miller
Julie Monroe
Debra Neil-Fisher
Nancy Richardson
Kevin Tent

Live Action Short Films
Andrea Arnold
Andrew J. Sacks
Nacho Vigalondo

Makeup/Hairstylists
John Blake
J. Roy Helland

Sound
David Arnold
Steve Cantamessa
Andrew Koyama
Hugh Waddell
Michael Wilhoit
David Mark Young

Visual Effects
Joseph B. Bauer
Nicholas Brooks
Blair Clark
Mark Forker
Robert Grasmere
Matthew R. Gratzner
Roger John Guyett
Christophe Hery
David S. Williams, Jr.

Academy gets strict on credits
In an effort to raise the bar for Oscar nominees, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has adopted new rules affecting which producers will be eligible for best picture consideration as well as the number of lyricists and composers who can qualify in the original song category.

Under the new rules governing the 2005 race, the producers branch of the Academy will vet the producing credits on all submitted films with multiple producers to determine which producers contributed substantially to each film.

Under the previous rules, the Academy allowed no more than three producers to be submitted for a given picture, but it only arbitrated producing credits when more than four names were submitted.

Although the Academy will still stick to its no-more-than-three producers rule, it could decide even when only three producers' names are submitted that only one or two of them deserve the honor of a nomination."What we're doing," said Academy president Frank Pierson, "is further reducing the possibility of someone receiving one of our highest awards without really having done the job of a producer." EDITOR'S NOTE: WHICH IS WHAT, EXACTLY? SLEEPING WITH THE STUDIO HEAD? SELLING DRUGS TO FINANCE THE FILM?

To vet producers' credits, the Academy's producers branch will rely on the arbitration process that the Producers Guild of America already has in place.

"Just as we have long relied on the decisions of the WGA in determining the appropriate screenwriting credits on nominated films, we'll now be relying on the PGA's decisions on producer credits," said executive director Bruce Davis.

To counteract the proliferation of producing credits on some films, the PGA has been campaigning to reserve the title for those producers who perform substantial work on a film -- rather than those, such as financiers and managers, who are in a position to negotiate producing credits whether they actually work on a movie.

Said PGA president Kathleen Kennedy, "The Academy's decision to use our guidelines of what criteria must be met to earn a 'produced by' credit is the ultimate validation of our members' work."

Hawk Koch, vp motion pictures at the PGA and a member of the Academy's producers branch executive committee, said that over the past four years, the PGA has developed a list of more than 80 criteria, involving development, preproduction, production, postproduction and marketing and distribution. Only producers who perform a majority of those functions qualify for awards consideration.

"We only want the producers who did the majority of work on a film to be nominated for an Academy Award," Koch said.

This year, for the first time, rather than arbitrate only those films where the producing credits are in question, the PGA has set up a mechanism to review all films vying for awards consideration.

Because the Academy will follow its recommendations, the Academy will be able to announce the names of nominated producers at the same time it unveils its Oscar nominations.

In the past, when producers' credits have been in dispute, the Academy has been forced to announce a nominated film but withhold producers' names pending arbitration. That occurred in January with the producing credits on three best picture nominees: "The Aviator," "Million Dollar Baby" and "Ray," which were not decided until after nominations were announced.

In its original song category, the Academy is capping at three the number of writers who can receive a statuette, though the new rule stipulates that "no more than two statuettes will normally be given." There is a provision for a third statuette "when there are three essentially equal contributors to a song."

The rule was adopted in response to the situation this year when seven composers and lyricists were nominated for the Counting Crows tune "Accidentally in Love," from "Shrek 2."The Academy also is instituting a new practice -- similar to the "bake-offs" in several of the technical categories -- where film clips containing the eligible songs will be shown at special screenings before the nomination balloting takes place.

The Academy also is raising the number of qualifying submissions necessary to trigger any of the music categories from four to nine. If fewer than nine scores are submitted, the music branch's executive committee will decide whether to award an Oscar that year in that category.

Last year, there was a controversy when the Academy decided that though five films were submitted as original musicals, they did not merit triggering that category.

In another revision of existing rules, language was added in the best animated feature film category that stipulates that the animation must be done on a "frame-by-frame basis." The stipulation isn't aimed at traditional animation or CG animation but was inserted in response to an argument that took place over the puppet movie "Team America: World Police."

Because the puppets were filmed like actors in a live-action film, the Academy decreed it was not eligible in the animation category.

The rules revisions were voted Tuesday night during a regular meeting of the Academy's board of governors. EDITOR'S NOTE: SOUNDS LIKE A RIP-ROARIN GOOD TIME WAS HAD BY ALL.

Oscar won't be doing any stunt work
Rejecting a request from a coalition of Hollywood's stunt performers, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said Wednesday that it will not create an Academy Award category to honor stunt performers. EDITOR'S NOTE: WELL POO ON THEM! (PUSH A FEW OF THOSE CODGERS OUT OF A MOVING TRAIN OR BLOW THEM UP, AND SEE WHAT THE VOTE IS THEN!)

The Academy's board of governors voted Tuesday night to reject the proposal submitted by Stunts Unlimited to create a new category. "At a time when the Academy is trying to find ways to reduce the numbers of statuettes given out and looks at categories with an eye more focused on reduction than addition," Academy president Frank Pierson said, "the board is simply not prepared to institute any new annual awards categories."

The last time a new category was voted by the board was in 2000, when the best animated feature film award was created