Internet a treasure trove for the Oscar obsessed

PALO ALTO, California - For die-hard fans, the Oscar ceremony is not just an awards show but an obsession in which all topics from red-carpet fashion to teary acceptance speeches are debated weeks ahead of time and critiqued for days after.

And oh, the ways that modern technology and the Internet can indulge them!

It is now possible to log onto the Net and view clips from past Oscar's ceremonies, get a bit of Oscar trivia delivered to your cell phone daily, or even visit an interactive plastic surgery lab to mix and match different features from the best looking stars.

And that is just the start of it.

"For us, it is absolutely the biggest night of the year," said Eleonore Snow, senior editor of Mr. Showbiz (www.mrshowbiz.com), which is going full throttle for this year's Oscar ceremony.

Seeking to extend the Oscar season for as long as possible, Mr. Showbiz started running a "fashion face-off" three weeks before Oscars night, in which two outfits from past ceremonies are posted for visitors to the site to vote on. (There has already been a big upset, Snow said, with voters selecting the deep green gown worn by a curvaceous Kate Winslet over a sleek gold number sported by Nicole Kidman.)

Mr. Showbiz, in fact, has a whole section of its site devoted to Oscar predictions, and they usually don't concern pedestrian questions like what film will win the Best Picture award.

Rather, visitors are hazarding guesses on who will wear the lowest-cut dress, who "Almost Famous" star Kate Hudson, the daughter of actress Goldie Hawn, will thank first (assuming she wins for Best Supporting Actress), and how many presenters will crack tired jokes left over from the US presidential election last year about recounts.

An astrologer on the site is even forecasting the likelihood of different films winning the top award, based on the date of birth, not of the film's producer, director or main star, but of the film itself.

That is good news for "Gladiator," whose May 5 release date came in the middle of a magical week when seven planets were lined up in its sign of Taurus, a conjunction, which astrologer Susan Miller says "always indicates prominence."

Oscar.com (www.oscar.com), the official web site of the awards show is enhancing its usual Oscar photos and Oscar history with its first ever interactive telecast, which it says will provide more intimate shots from the red carpet.

Of course, you don't have to even like the movies to participate in all this online Oscar excess. On the official Web site of the infamous Golden Raspberry awards (www.razzies.com), you can peruse lists of the worst films from past years.

Another site, www.movie-mistakes.com, has a running contest over the film containing the most mistakes. Current leader: 1997's "Titanic," which weighs in with 187.

"In the scene where Jack and his friend are standing on the bow looking at the dolphins swimming ahead of the ship, the dolphins are clearly Pacific white-sides, not any Atlantic species," one visitor to the site writes. Another claims to have spotted Arnold Schwarzenegger in a crowd scene.

The Internet portal Yahoo!, which has been offering online chats about the Oscars as well as a trove of photos, news and gossip, says it doesn't expect to be able to compete with the television once the show begins.

But Jed Rosenzweig, senior producer for Yahoo movies, said his team is looking out for "all those folks who can't find their way to a TV, who want to follow along with the show but are trapped in the office." The Yahoo movies page will be refreshed every single minute during the ceremony.

Others hoping that Oscars night will translate into a huge burst in online traffic insist you should never overestimate the saturation point of the hard core star-gazers and celebrity-obsessed.

Mr. Showbiz, for instance, is betting the best of them will stay logged on right through the show - remote control in one hand, mouse in the other.

"We are really asking our users to come to our site during the ceremony," says senior editor Snow.

"That might seem an odd thing to do ... but they can weigh in during the commercials, and during all those boring musical numbers.


- REUTERS