Why Oscar still rules the roost

Why are they looked on with such contempt? Principally because the members of the HFPA are notoriously starstruck. Every year, they are showered with expensive presents, invited to special dinners and flown to exotic locations - all in the name of promoting some movie or other.

Not surprisingly, these gifts pay off like gangbusters. In 1982, for instance, Pia Zadora's multi-millionaire husband flew all 89 members to Las Vegas for a two-day junket. In return, the grateful hacks crowned the softporn actress "New Star of the Year".

Occasionally, the level of corruption reaches such ridiculous heights the members are forced to do an impression of Caesar's wife - at least for 24 hours. In 1998, Sharon Stone sent every member of the association a £250 watch to draw attention to her performance in The Muse. This caused such a scandal that the members felt obliged to return the watches the following week. Stone didn't pick up an award that year.

As a member of the British domestic press, my attitude to bribes is the same as Cicero's: it is perfectly all right to accept them, provided you don't let them affect your judgment. If any movie stars are reading this column, feel free to deluge me with expensive baubles. Just don't expect me to pull my punches.

Eva's just a showgirl

Ever since Brigitte Bardot appeared in a bikini at Cannes in 1953, removing your clothes has been a tried-and-tested way for a French actress to draw attention to herself.

The latest bombshell to pull off this stunt is Eva Green, the 23-year-old star of The Dreamers, Bernardo Bertolucci's new film. It has just been given an NC-17 rating in America after Bertolucci refused to cut any of the explicit sex scenes. According to those who saw The Dreamers at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this week, far from containing the occasional bit of nudity, there's scarcely a single scene in which Green appears with her clothes on.

Needless to say, Green's career has now gone thermonuclear. She's just been cast as the female lead in Kingdom of Heaven, Ridley Scott's new film.

Is Mel truly blessed?

Until this week, the posters for Mel Gibson's latest film were expected to include a quote from rather an unlikely source: Pope John Paul II. The Passion of Christ, a faithful recreation of the crucifixion, has been dogged by controversy ever since it was branded "anti-Semitic" last year. Gibson, who directed the film but doesn't appear in it, arranged a special screening at the Vatican in the hope of receiving a papal blessing and, incredibly, he got it. "It is as it was," declared the pontiff after watching it on a wide-screen TV in his kitchen.

Or did he? Earlier this week, the Pope's personal secretary, Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, denied that his boss had said any such thing. "The Holy Father told no one of his opinion of this film," he told the Catholic News Service.

So will the Pope's words appear on the poster or not? We'll soon find out since Gibson has just announced he'll be releasing the film in America next month on an astonishing 2,000 screens. This is a far larger number than expected, not least because all the dialogue is in Latin and Aramaic - and there are no subtitles.

British audiences will be given a chance to make up their own minds when The Passion of Christ is released on 26 March.

Marty's monster project

Martin Scorsese will be taking on one of the great characters of English literature in his next project: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

After he's put the finishing touches to The Aviator, his forthcoming film about Howard Hughes, Scorsese intends to join forces with Dean Koontz, the American horror writer, to produce a weekly television series about the monster.

Not surprisingly, the action has been shifted to America. According to the hare-brained pilot script, penned by Koontz, Victor Frankenstein and his creation have settled in present-day Seattle, having survived the past 200 years through the doctor's fiendish genetic tinkering. The monster escapes his creator's clutches and joins forces with a female cop and her partner to do battle with Dr Frankenstein and his army of genetic freaks.

No decisions about casting have been made, but something tells me that a good-looking American hunk will play the creature, while the evil doctor will be played by a Brit.