This is arguably the best Jake Tapper editorial piece he’s ever written and composed — Putin-the-brilliant-murderer has been coddled and approved of or certainly not strongly challenged by U.S. Presidents all along… Clinton, Dubya, to some extent Obama, and certainly Trump–nuts. They all looked the other way.

YouTube commenter: “I had no idea just how complicit the West had been in all of this until now. Now the world is reaping what it sowed, just like it did in 1939 after years of appeasing and half-trusting the word of an autocrat with a Charlie Chaplin mustache. It’s fairly trite to reference him at this point, but just read a little history on the Third Reich and the foreign policy taken with them and it is hauntingly familiar.”

For nearly three decades (all through the ’90s, aughts and most of the teens) the Spirit Awards were the Indie Oscars, and were held the day before the actual Oscars in that big, white, champagne-fizzy tent on the beach. And it was cool and fun…humor, warmth, good vibes. And we all basked in that (including yours truly).

And then two or three years ago the woke virus began to seep into the industry bloodstream and the Spirits began to get a little obsessive, sinking deeper and deeper into the theology of “diminish if not eliminate the toxic straight white guy power structure” and “it’s our turn”.

And then Covid hit and the Spirit gang decided to schedule the show much earlier than the usual Oscar weekend and….wait, what?

I’m covering the Santa Barbara Film Festival and had honestly forgotten the Spirits were even happening today. Was anyone paying attention? Did anyone watch? Impressions of any kind?

Congrats to HE’s own Simon Rex for winning the Best Actor trophy, and to Maggie Gyllenhaal (Best Director, Best Screenplay) and The Lost Daughter (Best Feature) and Zola lead Taylor Paige (Best Actress), etc. HE approved of Zola from the get-go. I also respected The Lost Daughter apart from the doll thing.

Spirit Award voters to the rest of the world: “We loved The Lost Daughter‘s stolen doll thing! It worked for us! And eff your negativity if it didn’t rub you the right way!”

A friend called a couple of hours ago to complain about how choked with wokeness the show seemed to be…”the woke-iest awards show that has ever happened…it was totally immersed in the party line…mostly Planet Uranus.”

“But what about Simon Rex winning?,” I argued. “He’s not a wokester.”

Friend: “He won because he played a toxic, bottom-of-the-barrel white guy asshole…they voted for him as a way of saying ‘we’ll vote for a white actor if he plays a piece of shit, which at least offers welcome instruction.'”

Best Feature — The Lost Daughter
Best Male Lead — Simon Rex, Red Rocket
Best Female Lead — Taylour Paige, Zola
Best Supporting Female – Ruth Negga, Passing
Best Supporting Male — Troy Kotsur, CODA
Best Director – Maggie Gyllenhaal, The Lost Daughter
Best International Film — Drive My Red Saab While Chain-Smoking Cigarettes
Best Screenplay — Maggie Gyllenhaal, The Lost Daughter
Best Cinematography — Passing
Best Editing — Zola
Best First Screenplay – Pig

Who better to cover the Santa Barbara Film Festival’s first-ever animation panel than a columnist who used to watch and even admire certain Jeffrey Katzenberg-sired animated features when the boys were young in the ‘90s, but has since avoided animation like the plague?

I have to say that I feel a tiny bit differently after watching and listening to the five Oscar-nominated animation hotshots who showed up today.

I will always feel vaguely annoyed or tortured by family-friendly animation features but I respect the semblance of soul and obviously serious craft that went into Encanto, Flee, Luca, The Mitchell’s vs. the Machines and Raya and the Last Dragon.

And having now spent a little time with the people who respectively created (or co-created) these films — Charise Castro Smith, Charlotte de la Gournerie, Enrico Casarosa, Mike Rianda and Jon Hall — I can honestly call myself an admirer.

Hall (ginger-haired, glasses) and Rianda (big personality, gray-haired) are the nerdy-looking guys on the right. Charlotte de la Gournerie is the blonde with the high-heeled sandals and the curly frizzy hair, Castro Smith is the short-statured brunette with the jean jacket, and Casarosa is the slender, non-nerdy guy with the big ears and graying goatee.

SBIFF honcho Roger Durling was a gracious and passionate interviewer, asking knowledgeable and thoughtful questions and making everyone feel respected and among friends.

It’s 10:46 am and sunny and fairly warm as Hollywood Elsewhere approaches the Arlington theatre, where Roger Durling’s animation panel will begin at 11 am. As I near the entrance area a young festival volunteer (female, Zoomer) smiles and says with a thin, reedy voice …

Zoomer Volunteer: “Auhyoohereguhfuhanimationevahnt?”

HE: (leaning forward): “Sorry?”

Zoomer volunteer: “Auhyoohereguhfuhanimationevahnt?”

HE (half-smiling): “Uhm, you’re asking me…?”

Zoomer Volunteer (trying to speak coherently, forcing herself to slow down): “Are you here for the animation event?”

HE (hugely relieved): “Yes, I am.”

HE comment-thread post about Simon Rex, from “Their Names In Lights”: “Never have I felt or flashed so much in the way of fan vibes and positive alpha for an actor I’ve only come to know within the last six months.

“Partly because of an award-level performance as one of the skankiest and most deplorable characters I’ve ever contemplated from a Telluride theatre seat, and partly because of something else.

“Because Rex has delivered two extra-relishy performances — as porn star Mikey Sabre and, in a sense, as himself.

“Not that he’s faking anything (I don’t sense this at all) but his award-season ‘act’ — his flair for blending honesty and humility with a form of salesmanship that’s almost on the level of early to mid ’70s Burt Reynolds on the Tonight Show — has been fairly brilliant.”