Motion picture academy members faced the music and gave Chicago 13 nominations, including best picture, the first time a musical had been so lavishly honored by the academy since the heyday of the genre more than a generation ago. Moulin Rouge was nominated for a best picture Oscar last year and the animated musical Beauty and the Beast was nominated in 1991, but researchers were scouring the record books this morning to see when another musical had been showered with 13 Oscar nominations. At an early morning news conference, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Frank Pierson and Oscar winner Marisa Tomei announced the nominees for the 75th annual awards, set to be handed out on March 24. Other nominees in the best picture category included Gangs of New York, The Hours, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, and The Pianist. Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York, with 10 nominations, came in second, followed by The Hours, with nine nominations. The following are the nominees in the top categories:

Best Actor: Adrien Brody, The Pianist; Nicolas Cage, Adaptation; Michael Caine, The Quiet American; Daniel Day-Lewis, Gangs of New York; Jack Nicholson, About Schmidt.

Best Supporting Actor: Chris Cooper, Adaptation; Ed Harris, The Hours; Paul Newman, Road to Perdition; John C. Reilly, Chicago; Christopher Walken, Catch Me If You Can.

Best Actress: Salma Hayek, Frida; Nicole Kidman, The Hours; Diane Lane, Unfaithful; Julianne Moore, Far From Heaven; Renée Zellweger, Chicago.

Best Supporting Actress: Kathy Bates, About Schmidt; Julianne Moore, The Hours; Queen Latifah, Chicago; Meryl Streep, Adaptation; Catherine Zeta-Jones, Chicago;

Director: Rob Marshall, Chicago; Martin Scorsese, Gangs of New York; Stephen Daldry, The Hours; Roman Polanski, The Pianist; Pedro Almodóvar, Talk To Her.

Adapted Screenplay: About a Boy, Screenplay by Peter Hedges and Chris Weitz & Paul Weitz; Adaptation, Screenplay by Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman; Chicago, Screenplay by Bill Condon; The Hours, Screenplay by David Hare; The Pianist, Screenplay by Ronald Harwood.

Original Screenplay: Far From Heaven, Written by Todd Haynes; Gangs of New York, Screenplay by Jay Cocks and Steve Zaillian and Kenneth Lonergan, Story by Jay Cocks; My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Written by Nia Vardalos; Talk To Her, Written by Pedro Almodóvar; Y Tu Mamá También, Written by Carlos Cuarón and Alfonso Cuarón.

Meanwhile, the folks who bring you the Razzies, the annual "worst of" awards, have given Britney Spears the dubious honor of having her film Crossroads nominated in eight categories. Runner up was Madonna's box-office flop, Swept Away, which received seven, tying with Star Wars: Episode II -- Attack of the Clones. Also nominated for worst picture were Eddie Murphy's The Adventures of Pluto Nash and Roberto Benigni's Pinocchio.The Razzies have added a new category this year: most flatulent teen-targeted movie, intended "to dishonor the often moronic movies Hollywood is forever aiming at the acne-and-braces set." The winners are set to be announced on March 22, the day before the Oscars.

Critics may have said "Get lost!" to How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, but moviegoers paid more to see it last weekend than they have for any other debuting February release in history. The Paramount film starring Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey took in $23.8 million, easily beating the second-place film, Disney's Shanghai Knights, which earned $19.6 million. And in its 43rd week and just days before being released on the home video market, My Big Fat Greek Wedding was still earning more than $1 million at the box office, beating such relatively recent high-profile entries as The Pianist, Gangs of New York and Adaptation. Its total gross now stands at $240 million.

The top ten films over the weekend, according to final figures compiled by Exhibitor Relations (figures in parentheses represent total gross to date): 1. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Paramount, $23,774,850, (New); 2. Shanghai Knights, Disney, $19,603,630, (New); 3. Chicago, Miramax, $10,786,533, 7 Wks. ($63,803,153); 4. The Recruit, Disney, $9,226,419, 2 Wks. ($29,822,115); 5. Final Destination 2, New Line, $8,389,650, 2 Wks. ($27,876,495); 6. Deliver Us From Eva, Focus Features, $6,648,374, (New); 7. Kangaroo Jack, Warner Bros. $6,105,250, 4 Wks. ($53,035,263); 8. Biker Boyz, DreamWorks, $4,233,485, 2 Wks. ($16,017,600); 9. Darkness Falls, Sony, $3,820,366, 3 Wks. ($26,806,695); 10. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, New Line, $3,516,739, 8 Wks. ($320,857,049).

Members of the Screen Actors Guild who had complained that theater chains were no longer allowing them free admission to see this year's SAG Award-nominated films are now being invited by the studios themselves to see the films at special screenings being set up mostly on the studio lots. Dates and times have been posted on the SAG website, (http://www.sagawards.org).

TNT's telecast of Sunday night's NBA All-Star Game from Atlanta -- which featured Michael Jordan's second farewell appearance -- scored the highest ratings for any basketball game, professional or college, in cable TV history. The game drew an 8.0 cable rating, translating to 4.9 million households, or slightly more than half the audience that the contest drew a year ago when it was carried by NBC.

Thanks to Joe Millionaire, Fox won Monday night, slashing the ratings of CBS's Everybody Loves Raymond and Still Standing, usually big winners in the 9:00 p.m. time slot. Millionaire drew a 16.7 rating and a 23 share, its highest numbers to date and setting the stage for a smashing finale next week for the two-hour finale.

CBS's Dan Rather has expressed skepticism that his NBC rival Tom Brokaw will actually step down in November of 2004 as Brokaw announced last year. In an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer, Rather said, "I don't think it's a given. I think Tom meant it when he said it. I think he means it today. My experience in news is that overnight is a long time and a week is forever. We're talking about a year and a half from now. Who knows what will happen? I don't care who you are, it's hard to walk away from this job." Informed of Rather's comments, Brokaw quipped that he "didn't come to the primary source for that speculatiion. ... I'd have been happy to help him out. In fact, my plans haven't changed, but I appreciate his interest."

Jimmy Kimmel has been complaining on the air -- frequently -- about the decision by competing networks to block their stars from appearing on his new Jimmy Kimmel Live late-night show on ABC. Today's (Tuesday) New York Daily News observed that CBS not only prevented Patricia Heaton, co-star of its Everybody Loves Raymond, from guesting on his premiere, but booked her against Kimmel on its own Late Late Show With Craig Kilborn on the same night. Another network, Fox, pulled Bernie Mac off the Kimmel show, explaining to the Daily News that Kimmel's show "needs to get its sea legs before someone of Bernie's stature is booked on the show."

A tug of war may be in the offing for control of the Comedy Central cable channel, now owned 50-50 by Viacom and AOL Time Warner. Only weeks after Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone indicated that he would like to buy AOL's stake in the channel, the New York Post reported today (Tuesday) that AOL is considering ways in which it can wrest control of the channel from Viacom. Both companies declined to comment on the report.

Vivendi Universal announced Monday that it had chosen the auction house Christie's to sell the collection of modern art that had been acquired over nearly a half century by the Bronfman family and which had been displayed in the offices and public areas of the Seagram Building on Park Avenue. Vivendi acquired the collection when it bought Seagram from the Bronfmans two years ago. (It later sold off Seagram's wine and spirits business, but retained its Universal film, TV, music and theme-park holdings.) Among the works that are due to go under the hammer is a 22-foot-high curtain painted by Picasso in 1919 for Diaghilev's ballet Le Tricorne that has hung between the rooms of the Four Seasons restaurant in the building and which is visible from the street.

There are few details, no confirmation, and the whole concept has the ring of a hoax, but numerous publications today are picking up a report that appeared in Daily Variety on Monday claiming that Who Wants to Be a Millionaire creator Michael Davies is developing a game-show special for The WB in which the top prize would be $1 billion. According to the report, the two-hour live event would be produced with Pepsi-Cola. One billion dollars is more than the entire annual operating profit of Pepsi-Cola North America.

The BBC on Monday sent out marching orders -- or, more precisely, no-march orders -- to its staff concerning an anti-war protest that is scheduled to take place in London on Saturday. BBC journalists, anchors, and other news staff members ("anyone who can be considered a 'gatekeeper' of our output") were ordered not to participate in the demonstration. Other clerical staff would be permitted to attend the march and rally in a "private capacity with no suggestion that he or she speaks for the BBC."