King of Pop Michael Jackson dead at 50

Oscar voting rules may be changed next

Update (3:05 PM):  Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences vice president Hawk Koch says the organization does not want a film with just over 10% support winning the top prize and that the board of governors will revisit the Oscar voting rules at its next meeting.

"We want to make sure that 11% does not win the best picture," said Koch, who is both on the academy awards review committee and the board of governors.

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Could 11% of the vote be enough to snag an Oscar for best picture?

If the current rules apply, the answer is yes.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences this week doubled the number of best picture nominees to 10. Under the existing guidelines, the academy's approximately 5,800 members simply select their firstchoice out of the nominated films, and the one with the most votes wins.

But perhaps mindful of a potentially perverse result in whichnearly 90% of voters don't agree with the outcome, the Oscars' governingbody is considering a rules change.

"We're studying how the voting procedures will work now based on this change," said academy spokeswoman Leslie Unger.

Anychanges probably would involve some kind of ranking system that takesinto the second, third, etc. choices of voters whose No. 1 selectionisn't among the top vote-getters.

Such a system is already used to pick the nominees. Voters havetraditionally selected and ranked their top five films of the year. Ifthe rules don't change, they would simply rank their top 10.

Butsuch a ranked system comes with its own flaws. Most notably, any filmthat doesn't get a single first-place vote is eliminated, even if it isan overwhelming second choice. And you thought figuring out who the No. 1 college football team is was hard.

-- Ben Fritz and John Horn

Photo: The cast and crew of "Slumdog Millionaire" accept the best picture Oscar in February. Credit: Kevin Winter / Getty Images.

RIP Farrah Fawcett

I don't have much to add to the many Farrah Fawcett stories and tributes that are appearing today, except to say that a few years ago, I actually watched her reality show, "Chasing Farrah," and she seemed like a fairly smart, grounded and kind person. Being famous takes its toll on the perspective of many stars, but Farrah seemed able to see her life realistically and with a sense of humor.

Having grown up in the Seventies, Farrah and the other "Charlie's Angels" had a huge impact on my early adolescence (there's one sweater that Jaclyn Smith wore on the show that I still distinctly remember wanting. And there was that time I took a paperback autobiography of Farrah to the pool and someone stole it. That made me mad for weeks).

How could I ever look as mesmerizingly pretty as Farrah? How could I ever be that comfortable in my own skin? "Charlie's Angels" and the jiggle TV shows that copied it made me ask myself those kinds of questions for years. I'm not sure I ever figured out the answer, but Farrah always wore her beauty lightly. She was gorgeous, but not intimidating. Even if we envied her, we also wanted to be her.

Perhaps the "Charlie's Angels" leads weren't the most enlightened roles ever written for women, but at the very least, the show gave us three women who were good at their jobs and didn't take themselves or life too seriously. There's something to be said for that. And when she left the show, she was castigated for turning her back on its success and what it had done for her. Yet she knew there was a difference between being a star and being an actress, and she wanted to be the latter. It took guts to act on that realization.

The way she reinvented herself as a serious actress, via "The Burning Bed" and "Extremities," is admirable. Later, the way she faced her illness with courage, grace and candor was inspirational.

Farrah Fawcett proved, in the end, that she was far more than just a pretty face. But what a pretty face indeed.

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