Finally--the Ballots That Count

Now that that insignificant other election is out of the way, we here in Southern California have finally moved on to something interesting.

Ballots to choose the five nominees for Best Picture were sent out Friday by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. I believe they were delivered by Ryder rent-a-truck and will be hand-counted by elderly people with magnifying glasses.

A butterfly ballot will not be used, so Academy members intending to nominate “Billy Elliot” won’t accidentally vote for “Battlefield Earth.”

For anyone who doesn’t have time to vote, it may interest you to know that Dan Rather of CBS News has already declared “Gladiator” to be the winner, with Chow Yun Fat also doing much better than expected in the Best Actor exit polls.

Only the out-of-state ballots went out Friday, probably to save money before a postage stamp goes up to 34 cents. California’s Academy members won’t get theirs in the mail until Wednesday at the soonest. They should still have plenty of time to let personal assistants and pool cleaners fill out the ballots for them.

This should be a far more entertaining campaign than the one staged by George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Al Gore and Joe Lieberman, four men with all the personal magnetism of a barbershop quartet. Mt. Rushmore has more personality than those four talking heads did. I’ve heard better dialogue from Rudolph Valentino movies.

It took an extra month or more before Bush, the contender, defeated Gore, the nutty professor. Let’s just hope that the Supreme Court justices won’t need to be brought in on this Academy Award business. They probably would rule 5 to 4 that votes for “Crouching Tiger” count, but votes for “Hidden Dragon” don’t.

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I personally believe that it has been a very surprising year for movies. For example, just the other day I was very surprised to find a movie that didn’t star Helen Hunt.

Steve Martin will emcee the Oscar telecast on March 25 at the Shrine Auditorium, where you can expect jokes to be made about:

(1) Robert Downey Jr.;

(2) Chads;

(3) Bill Clinton doing the sequel to “What Women Want”;

(4) Steven Spielberg and Steven Soderbergh secretly being the same person;

(5) Why a certain Erin Brockovich costume design should have been nominated for best support of an actress;

(6) Why “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” was loosely based on a true story involving the governor of Florida;

(7) Why President-elect Bush’s favorite films continue to be “The Green Mile” and “Dead Man Walking”;

(8) Why Steve Martin believes the book “Shopgirl” would make a spectacular motion picture;

(9) Why “Miss Congeniality” is not about the secretary of state of Florida;

(10) Why “Thirteen Days” is about how long it should take the Dodgers to fall 13 games out of first place.

There will be scientific and technical awards galore, 17 of which will be given out in a March 3 ceremony rather than on March 25, just to keep the Oscar telecast from running as long as the presidential election.

Furthermore, the Academy has wisely ordered a spare set of Oscars, just in case L.A.’s roving band of statuette thieves strikes again. The federal government under our new administration is vowing to crack down on all of the domestic and international Oscar-smuggling cartels.

I have only one thing to add to this year’s Academy Awards, and that’ll be the presentation of my first--perhaps first annual--Best Blurb nominations for the year in film.

With help from readers, I’ll be monitoring advertisements looking for the best quotes from critics or reviewers used in the marketing of major motion pictures.

No rules apply. For example, when a movie called “Beautiful,” directed by Sally Field, came out last year, the lone blurb appearing in many of its ads went something like this:

“A hip chick flick”--Rosie O’Donnell.

It doesn’t matter that O’Donnell is neither a critic nor a reviewer. That is one beautiful blurb.

Right now I’m considering such other gems as: “ ‘My Fair Lady’ Meets ‘Lethal Weapon’!” (Sara Edwards, NBC-TV, Boston); “Profoundly Humanistic!” (Susan Stark, Detroit News); “Monica Bellucci Is Stunningly Incarnate!” (Bruce Dimes, the New Yorker); “A Bona Fide Hoot and a Half!” (Jane Horwitz, the Washington Post); “Casablanca With Firepower!” (Time); “So Hip and Happening, It Grooves!” (Bob Thompson, Toronto Sun) and “You Will Walk Out of the Theater in Absolute Awe!” (Joel Siegel, “Good Morning America”).

These are just a few of the fine blurbs I’ve found in this very weekend’s newspapers. Should you see blurbs you like even better, I am accepting nominations. Pick ones that leave you in absolute awe.

Mike Downey’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to: Los Angeles Times, 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012. E-mail: mike.downey@latimes.com.