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Ishtar
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The Devils
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The Pirates of Penzance
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The Fortune
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-30-
(Webb, 1959)
Betrayal
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Play It As It Lays
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The Outfit
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Alex in Wonderland
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The Legend of Lylah Clare
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In The Cool of the Day
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That Cold Day in the Park
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Thumb Trippin'
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Midas Run
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At Long Last Love
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Brewster McCloud
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Outcast of the Islands
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The Moon's Our Home
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Bad for Each Other
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Run of the Arrow
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House of Secrets
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Saint Joan
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Macabre
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The Fiend Who Walked the West
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Five Gates to Hell
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Bachelor Flat
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A Thousand Clowns
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You're a Big Boy Now
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Dark of the Sun
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Skidoo
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Last Summer
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Diary of a Mad Housewife
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Tropic of Cancer
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I Never Sang for My Father
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Sometimes a Great Notion
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Marriage of a Young Stockbroker
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The Music Lovers
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Drive, He Said
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The Steagle
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The Last Movie
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Made For Each Other
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The Day the Clown Cried
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Slither
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Open Season
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Law and Disorder
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Homebodies
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Stardust
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Celine and Julie Go Boating
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Rafferty and the Gold Dust Twins
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At Long Last Love
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Hearts of the West
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Welcome to L.A.
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W.C. Fields and Me
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Citizens Band
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Twilight's Last Gleaming
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Looking for Mr. Goodbar
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Girlfriends
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Movie Movie
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American Hot Wax
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Hot Stuff
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Scavenger Hunt
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Players
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Rich Kids
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Nightwing
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Screams of a Winter's Night
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When You Comin' Back Red Ryder?
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The Awakening
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Simon
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God's Angry Man
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Fast-Walking
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Twice Upon a Time
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Trouble in Mind
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When the Wind Blows
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Housekeeping
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The Glass Menagerie
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Patty Hearst
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Drowning by Numbers
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Haunted Summer
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The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years
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1990's
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Prospero's Books
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City of Hope
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The Baby of Macon
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King of the Hill
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Dadetown
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SubUrbia
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Upcoming

January 8

Bitch Slap

Waiting for Armageddon

Wonderful World

Youth in Revolt

January 15

January 22

Drool

Extraordinary Measures

The Girl on the Train

A Quentin Toasting

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"As everyone knows before I started making movies I was working in a video store. I made my first movie is '92...well, '91. And somebody asked me the question, 'In 1988, if someone had told you [that] you were going to be getting the Kirk Douglas Excellence in Filmmaking Award, given to you by Kirk Douglas... would you have believed it? And it actually stopped me completely in my tracks on the red carpet. 'No,' I said. 'That would have been unfathomable."

Diane Kruger, Kirk Douglas, Quentin Tarantino at last night's Santa Barbara Film Festival presentation of the Kirk Douglas Excellence in Filmmaking Award ceremony.

This was Quentin Tarantino's opening remark last night on the occasion of his receiving the KDEIF award in Santa Barbara. He then told a good story about watching a fragment of The Vikings when he was six years old (i.e., the part when Tony Curtis kills Douglas with a broken sword) and then watching Spartacus a few months later and figuring it was the same film, etc. (Watch it on the YouTube clip below.)

Tarantino was gracious and amusing and very much the debonair gentleman. Douglas (who will be 93 in December) looked happy. Inglourious Basterds costar Diane Kruger was there. Producer Lawrence Bender was there. Dennis Miller, who charmed the world with his Sonia Sotomayor "La Cucharacha" joke on Bill O'Reilly's show a while back, was there.

Ditto Santa Barbara Film Festival director Roger Durling (wearing a Brad Pitt/Inglorious Basterds haircut), SBFF publicist Carol Marshall and numerous well-heeled ladies and gents representing the creme de la creme of Santa Barbara society.

It was a black-tie event, and I had flown to California under-prepared. I had my black pants, socks and shoes and a nice tuxedo shirt...but no black suit jacket. So I asked L.A. Times/Envelope columnist Pete Hammond, who was also planning to attend, if I could borrow a black evening jacket, and he obliged. Except Pete's arms are shorter than mine and my white shirt cuffs were sticking out like crazy. It looked absurd. So I started telling people that short jacket sleeves was a new avant-garde fashion thing.

Another problem was that I was still on my New York clock, plus I made the mistake of accepting two Metropolitans early on. By the time the dinner had been served and eaten and the program began (a span of roughly two hours) I was feeling a little groggy. I had my pen and note pad at the ready but the energy wasn't there. I felt it best to slip out before the end of the show.

My infinite wisdom led me to decide it would be best to not drive back to Los Angeles with vodka in my bloodstream. I stayed at a Motel 6 in Carpinteria, which has been spiffed up in recent years.

10.22.09, 6:10 pm.

10.22.09, 6:55 pm.

10.22.09, 10:35 pm.

Vistas<< previous | next >>Holbrook In The Game

Posted by Jeffrey Wells on October 23, 2009 at 7:42 AM

comment #1

George Prager says ...

I remember seeing a mock up cover for Kirk Douglas' obit on someone's desk. That was ten years ago. He's a strong guy. Forget awards shows, this is the kind of Hollywood even that I would want to attend.

P.S. Why did you have to post this now?
D.Z./DeeZee took his pills and was planning on leaving his house this morning.

Posted by George Prager at October 23, 2009 8:51 AM

comment #2

Ryansi51 says ...

lightweight.

Posted by Ryansi51 at October 23, 2009 8:56 AM

comment #3

Manitoba says ...

Great to see Kirk Douglas out and about. Not only did he survive and battle back from a stroke,but I've heard him explain how he is shorter than before, as a result of a serious helicopter crash that proved fatal for some on board.His film career goes back to a 1945 search for "rugged leading men" by producer Hal Wallis. To quote from the Wallis 1980 autobiography 'Starmaker':"In the club car of the Super Chief en route to New York, I had drinks with the Bogarts, and Betty urged me to consider a friend of hers appearing in an obscure play called The Wind Is Ninety. I went to see it on a night of record-breaking June heat. Playing the part of the unknown soldier was a lithe, barrel-chested six-footer with a mop of wavy blond hair who impressed me tremendously. He had a jauntiness, a self-confident grace that commanded attention. He was everything Bacall said he was. His name was Kirk Douglas."

Posted by Manitoba at October 23, 2009 9:41 AM

comment #4

M. Hulot says ...

Man oh man, I can't tolerate listening to him speak more than a few sentences without having my ears bleed.

QT has to be the single most grating people in show business, if not the entire country as a whole. There is nothing polite of gracious about him.

And why is he always so shiny and wet-looking? Is it Botox? Does he have thyroid issues? Or is he just naturally greasy?
Even his doppleganger (you know, Jaws?) had the decency to towel off before walking the red carpet for that Bond film.

Posted by M. Hulot at October 23, 2009 9:47 AM

comment #5

Eloi Manning says ...

Kruger looked awesome in Troy. She's still nice, but seems slightly less spectacular than she once did. Bizarrely she is seeing Pacey from Dawson's Creek.

Posted by Eloi Manning at October 23, 2009 9:52 AM

comment #6

actionman says ...

She looks even better in the Troy Director's Cut...

Posted by actionman at October 23, 2009 10:01 AM

comment #7

Eloi Manning says ...

I wish Mike Nichols would release a director's cut of Closer with the Portman rudery reinserted, like Petersen did for Troy. So selfish to keep it to himself.

Posted by Eloi Manning at October 23, 2009 10:17 AM

comment #8

Abbey Normal says ...

Smart move checking into the hotel, but while you were fueled up on alcohol and thus in possession of some additional chutzpah, you should have punched Miller in the neck.

Posted by Abbey Normal at October 23, 2009 11:31 AM

comment #9

mtgilchrist says ...

I know you didn't mean this, but when you said you brought a "tuxedo shirt" all I could imagine was Wells in one of those printed long-sleeve tux tees while everyone else around him actually was in formalwear.

Posted by mtgilchrist at October 23, 2009 12:10 PM

comment #10

nemo says ...

"Except Pete's arms are shorter than mine and my white shirt cuffs were sticking out like crazy. It looked absurd. So I started telling people that short jacket sleeves was a new avant-garde fashion thing."

Tell 'em it's the new Wes Anderson look.

They must have spiffed up Motel 6 a lot. The last time I stayed in a Motel 6 some 20 years ago it felt like a minimum security prison.

"And why is he always so shiny and wet-looking?"

I always wondered whether QT was related to the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Kirk Douglas will still be going strong when all his obituary writers are in the ground. I always remember him in an early Western making a jaunty stride across a mud-choked street to a pretty lady in a long skirt: "For 2 bits I'll carry you across the street!" I wonder if he said that to Diane Kruger.

Posted by nemo at October 23, 2009 12:40 PM

comment #11

DeeZee says ...

Hulot: You should see him with a dye job...

Posted by DeeZee at October 23, 2009 1:48 PM

comment #12

Ronald McFirbank says ...

"I know you didn't mean this, but when you said you brought a "tuxedo shirt" all I could imagine was Wells in one of those printed long-sleeve tux tees while everyone else around him actually was in formalwear."

I like to imagine Wells in a tuxedo T-Shirt because it says I want to be formal, but I'm here to party.

Posted by Ronald McFirbank at October 23, 2009 1:57 PM

comment #13

Stringer Bell says ...

I thought that was Michael Douglas next to Quentin.

Posted by Stringer Bell at October 23, 2009 2:17 PM

comment #14

Ronald McFirbank says ...

"Playing the part of the unknown soldier was a lithe, barrel-chested six-footer"

Kirk Douglas wouldn't be six feet if he was standing on Billy Barty.

Posted by Ronald McFirbank at October 23, 2009 2:23 PM

comment #15

Griff says ...

I stayed in the Motel 6 in Carpinteria a few months ago. Way cheap, but, hell, it was a room. Not sure I'd want to sleep off jetlag and two drinks there, though.

Posted by Griff at October 23, 2009 3:41 PM

comment #16

bluehost says ...

He's talking me into a coma.

Posted by bluehost at October 23, 2009 6:18 PM

comment #17

Manitoba says ...

I think Ronald McFirbank is correct in saying Hal Wallis overestimated the height of the 1945 on stage Kirk Douglas. I don't think he was ever a six footer, closer to five feet 10 inches or thereabouts. I have also seen the post helicopter crash Douglas say on an NBC late night show interview that he is now about three inches shorter than before the crash.

Posted by Manitoba at October 23, 2009 7:34 PM

comment #18

/3rtfu11 says ...

And why is he always so shiny and wet-looking?

He's sexy.

Posted by /3rtfu11 at October 23, 2009 8:13 PM

comment #19

COCO says ...

Kirk is the bomb....always delivers....never closes
the performance.....As for D. Kruger....all the baby fat is in the right places.

Posted by COCO at October 24, 2009 6:58 AM

comment #20

Ronald McFirbank says ...

I don't think Wallis overestimated it, I think he was peddling harmless BS. I think Douglas has always been sensitive about his height (widely believed to be in the 5'5" to 5'7" range tops). He can be seen wearing substantial lifts quite clearly in movies where he has a genuinely tall costar (such as Burt Lancaster, who claimed 6' 1" and may have been close to it, in Gunfight at the OK Corral). The one person I know who saw him socially in real life back in the day (c. 1970) described him as quite surprisingly short in person.

None of which is meant to knock one of the great stars, and the big-cojoned producer-star we have to thank for Stanley Kubrick's career. Just an amusing observation on the ways of Hollywood.

Posted by Ronald McFirbank at October 24, 2009 7:15 AM

comment #21