Month: December 2017

Traffic on the 101 freeway killed me last night, and so I gave up trying to attend last night’s Judi Dench tribute fundraiser at the Ritz Carlton Bacara. The event was organized by Santa Barbara Film Festival director Roger Durling. It turned out that in all of her 82 years Dench had never been to Santa Barbara before last night. Really. With all her activity and connections in Los Angeles for so many years.

Judi Dench, Santa Barbara Film festival director Roger Durling during red-carpet portion of last night’s Kirk Douglas Award festivities.

(l. to r.) Armie Hammer, Roger Durling, Jeff Bridges, Judi Dench, Ali Fazal.

The main focus was on Dench’s Oscar-hopeful performance as Queen Victoria in Victoria and Abdul, which may or may not be part of the 2017 Best Actress Derby. Dench was nominated 20 years ago, of course, for playing the same monarch in Mrs. Brown (’97). My three favorite Dench performances were in Mrs. Brown, Shakespeare in Love (in which she played Elizabeth I) and Notes On A Scandal, in which she more or less lusted after costar Cate Blanchett.

I never responded all that heartily to her performances as M in all those 007 films — they’re a blur.

Ali Fazal (who plays Abdul Karim in Victoria and Abdul), Santa Barbara mainstay Jeff Bridges and Call My By Your Name‘s Armie Hammer attended the Dench tribute.

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Received this morning: “As the nominations for Critics’ Choice are upon us, [please] consider the unforgettable performance Bill Skarsgard gave as Pennywise the Dancing Clown in Andres Muschietti’s reimagining of IT. Skarsgard gave a genuinely unsettling and transformative performance that transcended the hair and makeup. As the centerpiece of IT, Skarsgard’s performance won high praise. We hope you will consider him for Best Supporting Actor.” I’m sorry but I felt that Skarsgaard pushed the demonic evil button way too hard. The point of the opening rain-gutter scene was that Pennywise was supposed to be disarming Georgie so he would trust this evil clown enough to reach in and retrieve his paper boat. Except Pennywise’s voice and expressions were completely threatening (those yellow cat eyes, that cackling purr), and so the scene was about what a complete idiot George was. Honestly? I enjoyed Tim Curry’s Pennywise in the 1990 TV miniseries a lot more.

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Yesterday I posted a piece called “Strange Avoidance Mechanism.” It questioned a group decision by six contributors to an 11.29 L.A. Times Oscar Buzzmeter piece (Anne Thompson, Tom O’Neil, Glenn Whipp, Kenny Turan, Justin Chang, Nicole Sperling) to name six films — Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, The Shape of Water, Dunkirk, Darkest Hour, Get Out and Lady Bird — most likely to “lead this year’s Oscar race.”

What was wrong with that? Oh, nothing except for the fact that a very likely Best Picture nominee and, to go by the Oscar fortunes of Gotham and Spirit Award winners over the last five or six years, a likely Best Picture winner was more or less ignored — Luca Guadagnino‘s Call Me By Your Name. In fact Chang, Turan, Whipp, Sperling and O’Neil picked Call Me By Your Name as a leading Best Picture contender. But Anne Thompson didn’t, and so the other six films ranked higher.

I should have just written Thompson, but I wrote them all a letter instead. “I don’t think I went off the handle at all with this piece,” it began. “It was a measured, carefully phrased analysis that concluded with a head-scratcher. I simply pointed out the likelihood, given the pattern of the last few years, of a Gotham or Spirit Award winner ending up as Best Picture Oscar winner. It’s not an unreasonable presumption as it’s based upon statistical fact. And yet somehow you guys, in the aggregate, managed to exclude Call Me By Your Name from your list of the six most likely Best Picture contenders or winners. (“…which movies will lead this year’s Oscar race.”)

Can I ask something? Who among you is predicting with a straight face that Darkest Hour might “lead” the pack or win a Best Picture Oscar? It might be nominated, sure, but winning? C’mon.

Not only that, you also managed to avoid naming The Post, which is easily locked as a Best Picture nominee and, given the present political current, a likely winner — it’s safe, steady, boomer-friendly (Tom and Meryl), well-written, staunchly liberal, and it really, really doesn’t like Trump. Hello?

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