I don’t mind saying I’ve been in a faintly melancholy mood over the all-but-complete domination of whitesides, as HE regulars know. Everywhere I go, nearly every actor in town…a fashion tragedy. It’s not hugely depressing, but despair grips from time to time.

And then Jon Hamm walked onstage following Wednesday night’s Harmony Gold screening of Richard Jewell, and suddenly my whole outlook changed. He was wearing a pair of snazzy, possibly Italian business shoes with — I loved this — slightly worn red soles. Plus a nifty, well-tailored plaid suit. All I know is that I suddenly felt…well, better. The whole whiteside thing fell away.

Imagine that after winning Iowa and possibly New Hampshire, Pete Buttigieg manages to streamroll past a South Carolina loss and then scores big on Super Tuesday. He might not but imagine him doing this, for the sake of hypothesis. If he does he could theoretically assemble a majority of delegates and win the Democratic Party’s nomination for President. If and when this happens, what are African American voters, a majority of whom have been head-in-the-sand stubborn about their support of Joe Biden and are too lazy to pay the slightest attention to Buttigieg or anyone else in the campaign…what are they going to do next November? Vote for Trump? Or what…sit on their hands and let Trump win? At what point does obstinacy morph into self-destruction?

All hail Willem Dafoe‘s harumphy salty dog in The Lighthouse and Adam Sandler‘s crazy-pinball gambler in Uncut Gems. These, for me, are the two biggest standouts among the just-announced nominations for the 35th Independent Spirit Awards. I have to do an 11 am interview with Beanpole director Kantemir Balagov, so for the time being here’s the Indiewire announcement story. I’ll be back around 12:30 or 1 pm.

2:30 pm update: What happened to Sterling K. Brown‘s Best Supporting Actor nomination for his performance in Waves? Remember that Marriage Story‘s Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson and Laura Dern weren’t nominated in their respective categories because Noah Baumbach‘s bicoastal divorce drama will instead receive the Robert Altman Award for ensemble, which makes it ineligible for individual acting nominations.

The Spirit Awards will be held on Saturday, 2.9 — a day before the Oscars — under the big tent in Santa Monica.

I’ve boldfaced the likely winners and in some cases offered comment here and there:

Best Feature:
A HIDDEN LIFE (not happening)
CLEMENCY (rounding out the pack)
THE FAREWELL
MARRIAGE STORY
UNCUT GEMS (nope)

Best Director:
Robert Eggers — THE LIGHTHOUSE (definitely should win)
Alma Har’el – HONEY BOY
Julius Onah – LUCE
Benny Safdie, Josh Safdie – UNCUT GEMS
Lorene Scafaria – HUSTLERS

Best First Feature:
BOOKSMART
THE CLIMB
DIANE (should win — easily the best of these five)
THE LAST BLACK MAN IN SAN FRANCISCO
THE MUSTANG
SEE YOU YESTERDAY

Best Female Lead:
Karen Allen – COLEWELL
Hong Chau – DRIVEWAYS
Elisabeth Moss – HER SMELL
Mary Kay Place – DIANE (may lose but better than Zellweger)
Alfre Woodard – CLEMENCY
Renée Zellweger – JUDY

Best Male Lead:
Chris Galust – GIVE ME LIBERTY
Kelvin Harrison Jr. – LUCE
Robert Pattinson – THE LIGHTHOUSE
Adam Sandler – UNCUT GEMS (definitely Sandler!)
Matthias Schoenaerts – THE MUSTANG

Francis Coppola‘s The Cotton Club Encore is a longer (139 minute), blacker, dancier and allegedly better version of his 1984 original, which had a difficult production history, and for all the trouble wound up losing money and getting ho-hummed by critics. Coppola assembled the Encore version on his own dime ($500K) and premiered it at the Telluride Film Festival two-plus years ago.

Have I seen Encore? Uhm, well…no. It played at West L.A.’s Landmark last month, but something always got in the way. (It was press-screened once by Lionsgate — Monday, October 7th at 11am — but I couldn’t get there.) My next shot is snagging the Bluray (out 12.10) or streaming it — I’ll probably choose the latter.

The Encore trailer looks, sounds and feels just right – there’s no denying that.