Perhaps the true test of one's star power is not winning an Oscar, but rather being invited to present the trophy. The list of celebrities handing over the Oscars at this year's 73 annual Academy Awards reads like the current roster of A-List Talent. Longtime favorites such as Anthony Hopkins (7th time) and Nicolas Cage (6th time) return to the Shrine Auditorium, joining the year's hottest new stars like Kate Hudson and Julia Stiles making their first appearances behind the teleprompter.

This year's star of the show, however, is writer/zactor/dramaturg and Oscar-veteran Steve Martin who will host the show for the first time in his eighth appearance.

Old Timers

Russell Crowe (#2)
Julia Roberts (#2)
Chow Yun-Fat (#2)
Kevin Spacey (#3)
Jennifer Lopez (#4)
Nicolas Cage (#6)
Julie Andrews (#6)
Anthony Hopkins (#7)
Samuel L. Jackson (#4)
Juliette Binoche (#2)
Mike Myers (#5)
Morgan Freeman (#4)
Michael Douglas (#9)
Annette Bening (#6)
Winona Ryder (#4)
Sarah Jessica Parker (#3)

First Timers

Kate Hudson
Angelina Jolie
Julia Stiles
Ben Stiller
Hilary Swank
Renee Zellweger
Catherine Zeta-Jones
Halle Berry
Michelle Yeoh

The Berlinale 2001 proved to be an accurate barometer of this year's Oscar nominations with competition entries such as Traffic, Chocolat, Quills and Malena all snaring Academy Award nominations.

USA Films' Traffic won nominations in the supporting actor category (Benicio Del Toro), best picture, best director (Steven Soderbergh), best editing (Stephen Mirrione) and best screenplay (Stephen Gaghan). Matching Traffic almost award for award was Chocolat.

In the all-important foreign language category, five titles were nominated, culled from submissions from a record 46 countries. Receiving nods were Alejandro Gonzalez's Amores Perros (Love's a Bitch) from Mexico, Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Taiwan), Jan Hrebejk's Divided We Fall (Czech Republic), Dominique Deruddere's Everybody Famous! (Belgium) and Agnes Jaoui's Le gout des autres (The Taste of Others - France).

An interesting wrinkle: director Soderbergh is only the second director (Francis Coppola was the first) to have two films nominated for best picture simultaneously. Besides a nod for Traffic, he was also nominated for the Julia Roberts starrer, Erin Brockovich, for which Roberts was nominated as best actress.

Another prized seat goes to Ang Lee's highly praised Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, invited into the pantheon of non-English-language productions to be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. Since the Academy Awards began in 1927, only six foreign-language films have been nominated in that category. Although none of them has taken home the Best Film prize, both The Emigrants (1972) and Life is Beautiful (1998) won the Oscar for Best Foreign-Language Film when they were nominated in both categories.