This morning’s Oscar Poker chat, in which Sasha Stone and I were joined by AwardsWatch.com’s Erik Anderson, ran about two hours. Brooklyn, By The Sea, Room, Best Actress, the curious persistence of Steve Jobs despite the air being out of the tires, the bizarre support for The Martian, Best Actor, etc. Again, the mp3.

I’m obviously late in posting this, but last night Revenant director Alejandro G. Inarritu spoke strongly and very critically about Donald Trump‘s anti-Mexican-immigrant rhetoric. He did so as a guest of honor at the annual Los Angeles County Museum of Art & Film gala. Here’s the best part:

Alejandro G. Inarritu, wife Maria Eladia Hagerman at last night’s LACMA gala.

“Unfortunately, there are currently people proposing [that] we build walls, instead of bridges. I must confess that I debated with myself, [wondering] if I should bring up this uncomfortable subject tonight. But in light of the constant and relentless xenophobic comments that have been expressed recently against my Mexican fellows, it is inevitable.

“These sentiments have been widely spread by the media without shame, embraced and cheered by leaders and communities around the U.S. The foundation of all this is so outrageous that it can easily be minimized as an SNL sketch, a mere entertainment, a joke. But the words that have been expressed are not a joke. Words have real power; and similar words in the past have both created and triggered enormous suffering for millions of humans beings, especially throughout the last century.

There’s good buzz about Ryan Coogler‘s Creed (Warner Bros., 11.25), in which Sylvester Stallone‘s Rocky Balboa trains Michael B. Jordan‘s Adonis Johnson Creed (son of Apollo) for a big fight. A few others have heard the same talk. So why isn’t Warner Bros. screening it more liberally (i.e., for people like myself)? Hubba-hubba, guys. It opens in two and a half weeks.

Just today Deadline‘s Mike Fleming, one of the few journalists who’s seen it, said that he “wouldn’t be surprised if Sly Stallone’s subtle performance gets him nominated.” There was also a line in Josh Rottenberg’s 10.30 L.A. Times profile of Stallone that said Stallone’s “quietly soulful performance in Creed already has some Oscar pundits considering him as a potential supporting actor nominee.”

Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone in Ryan Coogler’s Creed (Warner Bros., 11.25)

It’s understood that Creed is basically a good “audience movie.” Fleming called it “uplifting” and a movie that “dropped me right back into how I felt watching those first few [Rocky] films…[it] might rebirth a franchise.”

It sounds good enough to show at the currently unfolding AFI Fest, but it’s not on the slate. (There’s been talk about a possible sneak preview between now and the festival’s conclusion next Thursday night, and that the sneak could be Creed…but who knows?) You’d think that the buzz for the film + Stallone would have required the screening of a Creed trailer at yesterday’s Deadline Contenders event at the DGA and perhaps even a Stallone drop-by, but I’m told that didn’t happen either.

Leaving aside my vague feeling of depression after reading a LexG tweet saying that he liked Room better than Spotlight, mainly because Room made him cry and Spotlight didn’t, how did Spotlight play for the HE community? And how did the rooms feel as everyone was filing out? Translation: Apart from the usual X-factor responses from HE readers, how enlightened are paying audiences for admiring Spotlight as much as the Metacritic & Rotten Tomatoes gang, or (much-feared alternate scenario) do they not seem to be appreciating it as fully as they could/should? In which case I would have no choice to but characterize them (I’m sorry but is there another way to put this?) as…well, not so much rock stupid as devolved beyond hope.