Academy Invites 120 New Members

Folks like MPAA Chairman and CEO Dan Glickman, Joaquin Phoenix, Felicity Huffman, The Brokeback Boys (Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal) and little Dakota Fanning are among 120 filmmakers and executives who have been invited to join The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). For those of you who have no idea what that means (Trust me, if you don't, you're not missing much), these are the folks who will be participating in the voting process for next year's Academy Awards.

Come Oscar time, the voting membership is normally up around the 6,000 range, with this past year clocking in around 5,798. Each yeah, as members pass away or retire, new slots then become available. For one reason or the other, the Academy decided to start going public with this list back in 2004, making it so you know exactly who to blame after losing a bet that Brokeback Mountain would win Best Picture. Bastards! After scrolling down the list, only 39 people were nominated for an Oscar in 2005, and eight of them won. One of the more puzzling moves finds 12-year-old Dakota Fanning landing an invite. Um, not for nothing, but the girl can't even watch a PG-13 film -- how in the world is she supposed to vote? I suppose her parents can let her watch an R rated film if necessary, but what would Dan Glickman think about that? This poses an interesting question: Should the Academy enforce a rule that states an invitee must be over the age of 18 before becoming a member?