Golden Time

(One Oscar contender that won't factor into the Globe nominations is Life Is Beautiful. Roberto Benigni's Holocaust dramedy was deemed ineligible because it was released at the tail end of 1997 in Italy. The Oscar cutoff for foreign films is Nov. 1 of the previous year.)

Of course, there's much irony in the Globes' becoming a respectable event: One of Hollywood's long-standing open jokes is that the Foreign Press has never met a publicist it didn't like. Since it consists of a scant 82 voting members (compared with the Academy's 5,463), the Foreign Press is an easily targeted group for lobby-minded studios and individuals. Sharon Stone scored a Globe award in 1995 for Casino after she sent handwritten notes to every member of the Foreign Press. Stone has been active again this year, hosting a special press conference to promote The Mighty. Similarly, Columbia TriStar sent out an exotic fruit basket to each Globe voter, touting its Full Monty-meets-Spinal Tap comedy Still Crazy. ''It's nothing out of the ordinary,'' asserts Columbia TriStar's Levin. TV mounts similar campaigns: The cast of Buffy the Vampire Slayer hosted a lunch for Globe voters on the show's set in September. Since Globe victories often serve as precursors to Emmy nods (witness the winning patterns of The X-Files and Ally McBeal), the strategy is understandable.

But though the Foreign Press may be unduly starstruck, it can be intractable — and often inscrutable — in its decisions. Sources say Globe voters chose to include Patch Adams in the comedy category despite Universal's push to classify it as a drama. (A Universal spokesman says it was a ''mutual decision between the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the studio, and the talent.'') And while Sony saw Stepmom's Susan Sarandon as a lead actress and Julia Roberts as a supporting one — arguing that Roberts has 12 fewer minutes of screen time — Globe voters insisted on including both in the lead category. ''It's frustrating,'' concedes Levin. ''But I can't make that kind of demand of any other group, so why should I [think] that I can command them to act in certain ways?'' Well, maybe Pia can explain that....

Additional reporting by Pat H. Broeske and Zack Stentz