2003 ENTERTAINMENT: A BUSY OFF-SEASON FOR THE OSCARS 75TH AWARDS MARK REVIVAL OF MUSICAL.

Byline: Rob Lowman Entertainment Editord

The musical ``Chicago'' danced off with the Best Picture award at the 75th edition of the Academy Awards at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood on March 23, but Nicole Kidman had the best legs. Since winning the Oscar for Best Actress for her portrayal of Virginia Woolf in ``The Hours,'' the glamorous and statuesque actress has secured her position as one of the most powerful women in Hollywood.

By becoming the first musical to win top honors since 1968's ``Oliver!'' the Rob Marshall-directed ``Chicago'' - which won six awards overall, including one for Catherine Zeta-Jones, who was very pregnant at the awards show - seems to have reinvigorated that film genre. Several new musicals are now in the works.

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voters also had a certain affection for the Holocaust drama ``The Pianist,'' which scored in three major categories. Winning Best Actor, Adrien Brody beat out four former Oscar winners - Jack Nicholson, Daniel Day-Lewis, Michael Caine and Nicolas Cage. Screenwriter Ronald Harwood also took home honors, but the most surprising moment was the naming of Roman Polanski as Best Director. The winner wasn't around to pick up his statuette, being a fugitive for the past 25 years after fleeing the United States to avoid sentencing for having sex with a 13-year-old girl. Polanski faced arrest if he returned for the ceremony, although the now-grown victim had earlier expressed forgiveness of the exiled director. When Polanski's name was announced, many in the theater stood and applauded.

Instead of going into its usual hibernation after the ceremony, the academy stirred things up a little more than a month later, April 28, when it announced it was moving up next year's Oscar date and voting schedule by about four weeks to Feb. 29, 2004. Though the academy gave no formal reason for the change, it was quite clear that it felt the Oscars were losing some luster because of the glut of awards shows that occur early each year. The move set off a flurry of other changes - including shifting the dates of the Grammys and the Golden Globes.

The Oscars again became the center of another controversy late this year when the Motion Picture Association of America, under the direction of Jack Valenti, banned sending out screeners of contending films to everyone except the nearly 6,000 academy members - who would receive encoded VHS copies instead of DVDs. Valenti said the ban was prompted by anti-piracy issues, although a recent study by AT&T Labs found that 77 percent of pirated films originated within the industry. The ban was seen as helping big-studio films and hurting smaller independent ones like ``The Pianist,'' which had benefited from the extra exposure. It also affected members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the Screen Actors Guild and critics groups that give out awards, members of which would only be able to see films in theaters.

The MPAA ruling was then challenged in court, and on Dec. 5 a federal judge lifted the ban. Screeners were in the hands of critics and others within 24 hours.

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2 photos

Photo:

(1) Best-actor winner Adrien Brody swept more than audiences off their feet as he planted a kiss on presenter Halle Berry.

(2) Nicole Kidman accepts the Oscar for best actress at the 75th Academy Awards March 23 at Hollywood's Kodak Theatre.

John Lazar/Staff Photographer