Hollywood Elsewhere will be gladly returning to the Santa Barbara Film Festival next week. I’ll remain there for eight or nine days. The SBIFF is the friendliest, sexiest, easiest-to-navigate major film festival in the entire civilized world. Start to finish, it feels a sea breeze. And with the new CDC ruling we might not have to wear masks all the time!

The Directors of the Year Award tribute on Thursday, March 3rd (Spielberg, Anderson, Branagh, Campion, Hamaguchi) is the kickoff event.

On Friday night Spencer‘s Kristen Stewart will sit for a longish, in-depth interview at the Arlington while receiving the Riviera Award.

The next day brings the dual Writers and Producers Panels on Saturday, 3.5.22. The writers will include Kenneth Branagh, Jane Campion, Zach Baylin (King Richard), Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Lost Daughter), Sian Heder (CODA), Adam McKay (Don’t Look Up), Denis Villeneuve (Dune) and Eskil Vogt (The Worst Person in the World), and will be tossed the usual softball questions by IndieWire’s Anne Thompson.

The Producers Panel, set for the afternoon of March 5 and moderated by the mild-mannered Glenn Whipp will include Laura Berwick (Belfast), Miles Dale (Nightmare Alley), Kevin Messick (Don’t Look Up), Rita Moreno (West Side Story), Sara Murphy (Licorice Pizza), Mary Parent (Dune), Tanya Seghatchian (The Power of the Dog), Patrick Wachsberger (CODA), Tim White (King Richard) and Teruhisa Yamamoto (Drive My Car).

The SBIFF Virtuosos Award ceremony will happen at the Arlington that evening (Saturday 3.5) with TCM’s Dave Karger moderating. Belfast‘s Ciaran Hinds, Caitriona Balfe and Jamie Dornan, plus Ariana DeBose (West Side Story), Alana Haim (Licorice Pizza), Emilia Jones (CODA), Troy Kotsur (CODA), Simon Rex (Red Rocket) and Saniyya Sidney (King Richard).

The following morning (Sunday, March 6) will launch the Animation Panel, with SBIFF executive director Roger Durling moderating.

Not to mention King Richard‘s Will Smith and Aunjanue Ellis receiving the Outstanding Performers of the Year Award in a ceremony that begins at 8 pm on Sunday, 3.6 at the Arlington theatre, (b) Penelope Cruz receiving the Montecito Award on Tuesday, 3.8 at the Arlington, (c) Benedict Cumberbatch receiving the Cinema Vanguard award on Wednesday, 3.9 at the Arlington, (d) Javier Bardem and Nicole Kidman receiving the Maltin Modern Master Award on Thursday, 3.10 at the Arlington, and (e) a ten-year anniversary screening of David O. Russell‘s Silver Lining Playbook with a Russell q & a to follow.

The SBIFF runs from March 2nd through 12th.

On the evening of Thursday, March 3rd, the Santa Barbara Film Festival will present an on-stage interview with the five 2022 nominees for the 2022 Best Director Oscar — The Power of the Dog‘s Jane Campion, Drive My Car‘s Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Licorice Pizza‘s Paul Thomas Anderson, Belfast‘s Kenneth Branagh and West Side Story‘s Steven Spielberg.

The Hollywood Reporter‘s Scott Feinberg, always the gentle diplomat, will moderate the group interview on the stage of Santa Barbara’s Arlington Theatre. Here are some suggested questions that Feinberg might want to consider asking….hah!

Spielberg question #1: Leaving aside the Covid diminishment factor, what were your commercial expectations or hopes for West Side Story before it opened? Did you think it might appeal to Millennials and Zoomers and GenXers, or just boomers? Put another way, what led you to remake a famous 1961 musical that everyone’s seen and which won a ton of Oscars 60 years ago? You obviously did a beautiful job of re-energizing the material and all the critics loved it, but younger audiences totally blew it off. Thoughts?

Spielberg question #2: You’ve been working fairly steadily with cinematographer Janusz Kaminski for a quarter century now — The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Saving Private Ryan, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Minority Report, Catch Me If You Can, The Terminal, War of the Worlds, The Adventures of Tintin, Lincoln, Bridge of Spies, The Post, Ready Player One, West Side Story and the upcoming The Fabelmans. And a majority of these films bear Kaminski’s famous visual trademark — subdued, grayish colors with a milky, semi-hazy lighting scheme. If you could be magically transported back to the ’70s and early ’80s and had the chance to re-shoot your classic films from that era — Duel, Jaws, Close Encounters, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T. — would you bring Janusz along so he could give the subdued grayish-milky treatment to those films also?

Campion question: We all know that you’re locked to win the Best Director Oscar. The message has gone out that it’s your time, and that we need another woman to win, and that Netflix will finally have a major Oscar to its credit. And there’s no question that The Power of the Dog is very well made and exquisitely finessed. But these two factors aside, what was it that convinced you that a grim story about a toxic closet case and a belligerent asshole in 1920s Montana…a story of this macho dickhead making life miserable for his brother’s wife and how her gay son has his revenge…what was it about this story that told you “this…this is a story about closeted sexuality that needs to be told…this is a story that 2021 audiences are hungry to see!”

Branagh question: You’ve made a film about the struggles of a Protestant Belfast family during “the troubles”, but without really explaining what the troubles were about or indicating what your personal views are (or were) about the occupation of northern Ireland by British troops, and what the Catholics were fighting for, and whether or not the whole Protestant, anti-Catholic thing had merit or not. Since you didn’t get into it in your film, would you care to discuss it now?

This metaphorical occurrence happened earlier today in Kyiv. A certain party has yelled at me for having joined Newsweek, the NY Post, the Guardian and others in posting this video. “Where is the proof that the tank is Russian?,” etc. HE reply: The common consensus, backed up by reporting, is that the tank was definitely Russian.

I’d be okay with re-watching The Godfather on a big screen but only in a first-rate, tip-top theatre. I’m less sure about re-watching it in the company of popcorn-munchers at an AMC theatre. The best way to re-immerse is via the 2008 Robert Harris-supervised Bluray restoration, on my 65” 4K HDR Sony.

Hugs and condolences to everyone who knew, hired, liked, occasionally fraternized with or loved Sally Kellerman, who’s passed at age 84.

Sally hit it big exactly once in her career when she played Major “Hot Lips” Houlihan in Robert Altman‘s M*A*S*H (’70 — snagged a Best Supporting Actress nomination). She also costarred in some other Altman films (Brewster McCloud, Welcome to L.A., The Player, Prêt a Porter) plus an assortment of films and TV shows.

The only other Kellerman performance that really stuck out for me was her real-estate agent in Dan Mirvish‘s Open House, a musical comedy that premiered at Slamdance ’04. Honestly? With all the singing done “live”, the best you could say was “nice try.” Kellerman indicated during a post-screening q & a that the film could have benefitted from the usual practice of post-production scoring.

Over the last 30-plus years I must have run into Kellerman at a minimum of 200 post-screening parties.

When and if Russian troops run into Sean Penn and his camera crew on some rubble-strewn Ukraine battleground, they should leave them alone. No shoving, no rifle butts, no bullets — please give the order to this effect. You’re friendly with Oliver Stone, of course, so you probably know Oliver made a ‘90s film with Sean (U–Turn) and that they’re good people, etc. Be cool, respect the fifth estate, don’t let the troops get carried away.

In a day-old interview with Clay and Buck (2.22.22), The Beast complimented Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin. He called the invasion (which has just escalated into bombing) a “smart move” and “genius…Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine — Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful. He used the word ‘independent’ and ‘we’re going to go out and we’re going to go in and we’re going to help keep peace.’ You’ve got to say that’s pretty savvy.”

Joseph McBride‘s “The Whole Durn Human Comedy” (Anthem, 3.1) is half-nutrition and half-dessert — a warm, wise, non-linear take on the careers of the great Joel and Ethan Coen.

But around the halfway mark it hit me that McBride and Anthem may have published the first Coen brothers eulogy on dead tree materials. For all the signals seem to say (or at least indicate) that these guys just aren’t feeling it, certainly on Ethan’s part. This is a book that says the Coens have a great history that may have wound to a close, and that their brand is no longer a going concern. We all hope otherwise, of course, but who knows?

The last effort from Joel and Ethan was The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, an anthology film for Netflix. But my view is that it didn’t count because it wasn’t really a single-narrative “Coen Bros. film” that opened in theatres. Within that realm, Joel and Ethan have actually been M.I.A. since Hail, Caesar!, which came out in 2016 and was a bit of a disappointment. It was fine (Josh Brolin was excellent) but it also felt incomplete.

If you ask me the last real Coen brothers film was Inside Llewyn Davis, which was nine fucking years ago.

McBride and I did a phoner a couple of weeks ago. I tried to grill McBride about this apparent state of affairs, but the only substantive comment he shared about Joel and Ethan possibly going their separate ways…well, read below.

If you know your Coens, you knew they’ve always conveyed for a contempt for American culture, and one way or another they’ve always delivered a scolding and a critique…which was true of Billy Wilder also, I think. But a lot of people “really hated” A Serious Man‘s mockery of Jewish community anti-semitism…God’s in a bad mood…doesn’t give a shit.

The last effort from Joel and Ethan Coen was The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, an anthology film for Netflix. But that wasn’t really a single-narrative “Coen Bros. film” that opened in theatres. Within that realm, Joel and Ethan have been M.I.A. since Hail, Caesar!, which came out three years ago. Except that was a bit of a disappointment. It was fine (Josh Brolin was excellent) but at the same time a bit strained and somehow incomplete.

I “liked” but didn’t love True Grit (’10) all that much. It was basically about Jeff Burly Bridges going “shnawwhhhhr-rawwwhhrr-rawwrrluurrllllh.” It certainly wasn’t an elegant, blue-ribbon, balls-to-the-wall, ars gratia artis Coen pic — it was a well-written, slow-moving western with serious authenticity, noteworthy camerawork, tip-top production design and, okay, a few noteworthy scenes.

So let’s just call the last 11 or 12 years a difficult, in-and-out, up-and-down saga for the boys, but at the same time acknowledge that the Coens have enjoyed two golden periods of shining creativity and productivity.