Kathryn Bigelow‘s big night happened a little less than five years ago. Doesn’t feel like it but that’s the math. All that love in the room…and then two and three-quarter years later Bigelow and her Hurt Locker collaborator Mark Boal delivered Zero Dark Thirty, a brilliant, even better film, in my humble view…and some of those who were cheering Bigelow for her Hurt Locker triumph turned right around and allied themselves with a cabal of p.c. lefties and helped to engineer or at the very least support the ugliest takedown in Oscar history. Find me someone in this town who isn’t a one-eyed jack and I’ll call bullshit. The only emotions you can really trust are resentment and envy — everything else is suspect.
Six weeks ago I said “hi” to Hurt Locker and ZD30 producer Megan Ellison at the Telluride patron’s brunch and asked if she was producing “Kathy” Bigelow’s new film. (I’ve spoken to a couple of people who call her that.) “You mean Kathryn?,” she replied. “Yes,” I said, “Kathryn…I meant to say.” She said, “Yeah, I’m a producer. Is this gonna be written about?” She was guarded, brittle…no point in trying to mellow things down. But you know what? At least Ellison was being straight.