Arts and entertainment reports from The Times, national and international news services and the nation’s press.

MOVIES

Satellite Race: Make room, Golden Globes. If you haven’t already heard, there’s some new golden orbs coming to town. On Monday, the first-ever crop of International Press Academy nominations were announced, making the field of pre-Oscar awards and critics’ choices a little more crowded. According to Mirjana van Blaricom, a former president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn., who founded the IPA as a rival alternative to the veteran foreign press group’s Golden Globes, the 8-month-old organization submitted nominations for 37 awards in film, television and interactive media. Nominations for best picture, drama: “Fargo,” “Lone Star,” “Secrets & Lies,” “Shine,” “The English Patient,” “Trainspotting”; best picture, comedy or musical: “Cold Comfort Farm,” “Everybody Says I Love You,” “Evita,” “Flirting With Disaster,” “Swingers”; best actor, drama: Christopher Eccleston, “Jude”; Ralph Fiennes, “The English Patient”; William H. Macy, “Fargo”; Geoffrey Rush, “Shine”; Billy Bob Thornton, “Sling Blade”; James Woods, “Killer: A Journal of Murder”; best actress, drama: Brenda Blethyn, “Secrets & Lies”; Frances McDormand, “Fargo”; Kristin Scott Thomas, “The English Patient”; Emily Watson, “Breaking the Waves”; Robin Wright, “Moll Flanders”; best actor, comedy/musical: Tom Cruise, “Jerry Maguire”; Nathan Lane, “The Birdcage”; Eddie Murphy, “The Nutty Professor”; Jack Nicholson, “Mars Attacks!”; Stanley Tucci, “Big Night”; best actress, comedy/musical: Glenn Close, “101 Dalmatians”; Shirley MacLaine, “Mrs. Winterbourne”; Heather Matarazzo, “Welcome to the Dollhouse”; Bette Midler, “The First Wives Club”; Gwyneth Paltrow, “Emma”; best director, Joel Coen, “Fargo”; Scott Hicks, “Shine”; Mike Leigh, “Secrets & Lies”; Anthony Minghella, “The English Patient”; Lars von Trier, “Breaking the Waves.” The Golden Satellites will be awarded Jan. 15, four days before the network-televised Golden Globe Awards. Nominations for the Globes will be announced Thursday.

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Frames for the Memories: Clark Gable and a sled named Rosebud weren’t the only movie legends making auction news over the weekend. A few miles from the Christie’s auction of Gable’s “It Happened One Night” Oscar at the Pacific Design Center, Sotheby’s in Beverly Hills Sunday was selling authentic movie posters to the highest bidders for a total of nearly $510,000. The Top 10 (in order): the 1933 “King Kong” ($46,000), to a buyer for Poster City; “Flying Down to Rio” ($23,000); “The Adventures of Robin Hood” ($14,950); “Gone With the Wind” ($10,930); “Stagecoach” ($10,930); “The Bride of Frankenstein” ($10,350); another “King Kong” ($9,780); “La Grande Illusion” ($8,630); “Cabin in the Sky” ($8,630); and “No Census No Feeling” ($8,630). It was the first West Coast movie poster auction of Sotheby’s.

TELEVISION

Don’t Cry for ‘Evita,’ Oprah: Madonna’s sit-down chat and clip fest with Oprah Winfrey in Hollywood Friday delivered Oprah’s second-highest rating this season, behind only the Barbra Streisand interview broadcast in November. The hourlong interview didn’t do quite as well locally on KABC-TV Channel 7, attracting 28% of available viewers, the show’s fourth-biggest rating of the season in L.A. Meanwhile, the other queen of talk, Rosie O’Donnell, made ratings news over the weekend hosting “Saturday Night Live”--with musical guest Whitney Houston--when the NBC show scored its highest rating in more than two years.

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O.J. Trial Casualty: O.J. Simpson’s civil trial isn’t even over yet, but there is already a loser--Stephen Wayne Eskridge, who portrayed Simpson in E! Entertainment’s reenactments of the trial for “The O.J. Civil Trial” daily show. Eskridge said he was fired Friday because an E! executive did not like him. He also claims the network had failed to pay him for several weeks of work. Eskridge said he was contracted to receive $625 a week to do the show. E! executives denied the actor’s charges. Gil Colon will take over the role starting today.

QUICK TAKE

“Spin City’s” deputy mayor played by Michael J. Fox isn’t going to pine for too long after his breakup with his Manhattan apartment mate (Carla Gugino, who makes her last appearance tonight). Courtney Thorne-Smith will guest star on the ABC sitcom Jan. 14 as Fox’s first date post-Carla.