At the Santa Barbara Film Festival last Sunday I asked Sideways star Paul Giamatti why he didn’t get nominated for Best Actor. In so doing I aired my pet theory, which is that Academy voters of a certain age resented his Miles character stealing money from his mother’s bedroom bureau. Since then New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis has floated a better explanation, to wit: “While film critics embraced [Giamatti] and the performance, because they relate to both, actors are terrified of the specter that each presents. Actors sell themselves as being completely together, manicured, extraordinary physical specimens; they are not (or so they think and hope) losers. In this sense, both Mr. Giamatti, whose physical appearance is a rebuke to the buff and gloss of Hollywood’s plastic people, and the sad-sack character he plays in Sideways represent twinned nightmares for these professional narcissists. Then there’s the fact that actors can also be pretty damn stupid.”

In his comment following an Ain’t It Cool riff on last Saturday’s writer’s panel at the Santa Barbara Film Festival, Drew McWeeny (a.k.a., “Moriarty”) wrote, “I heard that Jeffrey Wells tried to shout down John Logan at one point about The Aviator.” C’mon…I hardly shouted Logan down. I simply asked his view about the heavy emphasis given to Howard Hughes’ obsessive compulsive disorder in Martin Scorsese’s film, given (a) a view shared by Hughes biographer Pat Broeske that Hughes’ OCD didn’t manifest big-time until the 1950s, and (b) given the fact that a 2002 draft of Logan’s script (the dialogue from which was very closely adhered to by Scorsese) didn’t emphasize it quite as much. “It√ɬ≠s amazing to me how some people get so invested in the Oscars that they start to disparage the work of the people they√ɬ≠re not rooting for, even to the point of attacking them verbally in a public forum,” McWeeny remarked. There’s a certain way of putting a question when you’re “attacking” someone, and — believe me — I put my question to Logan in a very measured and respectful way.

“My most embarrassing moment in Hollywood was an interview with Jim Carrey that at least absolved me of star fever,” New York Times reporter Bernie Weinraub has written in a farewell piece. “The comedian, in a suite at Ma Maison Sofitel, was promoting his film The Mask. I had taken medicine for a bad cold. The interview began. I was settled into an easy chair, facing Mr. Carrey with my feet crossed in front of me. As he began answering questions, I fell asleep. The next thing I knew, I was feeling somebody kick the bottom of my shoe with his foot. I woke up, mortified. Years later, I met his manager Jimmy Miller. I told Mr. Miller I had a confession: that I fell asleep while interviewing Mr. Carrey. Mr. Miller exclaimed: ‘So you’re the guy! He talks all the time about a reporter who once fell asleep on him.'” Hilarious, yes, but it’s also very brave of Weinraub to admit this. It was noted by some reporters who also interviewed Carrey at the Ma Maison Sofitel that same day (including myself, for a piece for the New York Daily News) that Carrey was giving the exact same quotes to every journalist who dropped by, so maybe this un-spontaneous shpiel had something to do with Weinraub’s slumber, above and beyond the cough medicine.

A bogus AP headline about Leonardo DiCaprio’s receiving the Platinum Award from the Santa Barbara International Film Festival last Sunday evening has led certain media commentators to smirk at the concept of giving the 30 year-old DiCaprio a “Life Achievement Award.” That term doesn’t apply, of course, as it was never used by the festival organizers.

It’s a shame that the righties are hammering away at Million Dollar Baby over …well, the life-and-death issue raised in the film’s third act. (I refuse to spoil, even though the cat’s totally out of the bag.) Not because the righties are wrong in their views about this, but because they’ve diminished the viewing experience for the millions who’ve yet to see it. That’s really crappy and I’m sorry. For a thorough reading of the hard-right position on this matter, check out Garret Keiser’s article (“Life Everlasting: The Religious Right and the Right to Die”) in the current edition of Harper’s.