Oscar party forecast

What do Posh and Beck, Jim and Jenny, Will and Jada, Jennifer and Marc have in common?

They're all relatively recent converts, sorry, friends of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. And they've all been invited to high profile TomKat social events in the past six months, including Cruise's over-the-top Italian wedding where the only thing not lined up to appease Katie's fervently Catholic parents was the Pope.

An overly enthusiastic Tom attended Oscar nominee Will Smith's "Pursuit of Happyness" premiere where he disrupted the carpet by loudly whistling until Katie dragged him into the theatre.

Last month, Tom arranged to present an award to Will at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. Tom arrived late to the event but hey, who's counting minutes. Katie was also supposed to be there, according to the fest reps, but it was raining really hard and she was probably exhausted from her Paris shopping trip with Posh (Victoria Beckham).

Tom and Katie were guests at Jim and Jenny's big blow-out Xmas bash on the Paramount lot which is ironic because Paramount passed on their Carrey film last year and kicked Cruise's production company off their lot. Just another thing the guys can bond over.

Victoria and Katie have become major couture shopping buddies and Posh, whom many credit with Kate's seriously chic new look, even styled Katie for her glam "Harper's Bazaar" fashion spread in the March issue.

Tom and Katie visited Jennifer and Marc in Miami and the couples partied at an "Ocean Drive" Super Bowl party and later at a private CAA party. And J-Marc, V-Beck and TomKat have also been spotted dining at Cut, Wolfgang Puck's Beverly Hills steak joint, where the cheapest slab of meat is $40 and some go up to $300.

But here's what has Hollywood buzzing: are these couples really new friends, cultivated to keep poor Katie from going out of her mind with boredom? Or are they recent/potential converts to the House of Xenu, commonly known as Scientology.

Roger Friedman reports on Jennifer's recent conversion, or submersion, into the L. Ron Hubbard fold, courtesy of her pal Leah ("I have so seen Baby Suri") Remini.

It's also been reported that Victoria Beckham insisted on having private Scientology lessons, rather than trudge to the Scientology celebrity center. However, once she found out how much money it cost to be a celebrity Scientologist, she's reportedly cooled on the idea, according to the New Daily News's Gatecrasher Ben Widdicombe.

As the unnamed pal told Gatecrasher: "Scientology is an expensive religion; Victoria is too cheap to convert."

Cheap she's not. She can spend bootloads of bucks during a couture-shopping spree. But hey, maybe she can get Scientology wholesale. Still, if Beckham does want a quick action film career with Tom's new studio after his soccer career is over, he may pony up.

In a recent "Details" magazine profile, Holly Millea mentioned Tom's halfway conversion of Jada Pinkett-Smith, "who now home-schools her kids with (Scientology Founder L. Ron) Hubbard's Study Technology."

As for Jim Carrey, it's been reported on the New York Post's Page Six (and denied by Carrey's camp), that he's also taking introductory Dianetics classes. The comic actor may be seeking answers since his career is in a slump, one that his inane and incomprehensible new film, "The Number 23," will not repair. He's openly discussed his ongoing battles with depression, having spent years on treatments such as Prozac. Gosh, think Tom might have given him the same impassioned anti--antidepressant speech he gave to Matt Lauer?

For more insight, we really must check out Carrey's new self-help book, "Be Ready to Be Okay" if he finds a publisher for it. According to an E! press release, Carrey reveals, "It will be very revealing about what I believe. The idea of that is accurate, that most things we get upset about in life can be avoided if we just went in ready to be okay when things happen. 'Okay, I'm getting in the car right now so chances are I could hit some traffic. Be ready to be okay with that. Deal with it.'"

Kinda sounds like Tom Cruise, doesn't it? But it also sounds eerily like longtime Scientologist Jenna Elfman whom I interviewed for a profile in USA Today in 1998. Discussing what Dianetics had done for her, Elfman told me about what happened the day after her first Dianetics class. She woke up late for an extra dancing job. She was in tears, driving as fast as she could, a nervous wreck about to happen. "Suddenly I was, like, wait.. . I remembered what I'd read. Am I going to get there upset or be OK? It analytically clicked in, and I was less reactive. When I got there, because I wasn't all anxious and upset but just said 'I'm very sorry,' they were, like, 'It's fine.' Once before, this happened and I was crying and crazed and the whole shoot was weird because of it. So this one little thing I learned really helped me. It made so much sense."

Hmmm. Anyway, it should be interesting to see if Tom and Katie and their new pals attend any of next week's Oscar events. Will, who is nominated for Best Actor, will definitely be at some Oscar pre and post events. That means a backslapping Tom and smiling Katie may not be far behind.

The biggest bash will undoubtedly be Armani's fashion fete scheduled for Saturday, the night before the Oscars. Remember Armani dressed Tom and Katie for their wedding and Katie and Victoria were just in Paris checking out his couture collection. Surely they picked out a little something to wear to an Oscar party or two. Bryan Lourd's Friday night CAA party may be a bit too casual for couture. But can you say Vanity Fair's post Oscar party?

As for Carrey, I'm not so sure, he'll do the party scene. For one thing, his movie "23" will have probably tanked and he may be bummed. He and Jenny didn't even show up for the "23" post-premiere party Tuesday night and the bash was only a few blocks from the darn theatre.

With an MIA Carrey, that left New Line honcho Bob Shaye, director Joel Schumacher, Virginia Madsen and Danny Huston to hold the fort at Edison, an edgy downtown nightclub/restaurant that had been decorated specially for the movie party.

Maybe Jim needs another Dianetics class.