Two days ago (Wednesday, 10.22) I ran a quickie about Renee Zellweger’s surgical face-change and noted that she’ll be attending the Savannah Film Festival. (A 10.18 JustJared piece was one of the articles that reported this.) But Zellweger, it turns out, cancelled her Savannah plans on or before 10.17, per Do Savannah‘s Linda Sickler. The story said that Zellweger’s withdrawal was due to her having “signed to appear in a film and [having to be] on set during the film festival.” Maybe, but I think she didn’t want to be near any out-of-town press people who might ask about her new appearance. Who would hire Zellweger to be in a film? The Oscar-winning actress she used to be, facially-speaking, no longer exists.

Hollywood Elsewhere touched down at Savannah Airport today around 5:35 pm. I got to the Marshall House on Broughton Street around 6:45 pm. Sure enough, just like the last time I visited, the festival tried to palm me off with a dinky broom-closet-sized room. (Journalists never get the class-A treatment — I totally understand that — but I won’t be humiliated.) And just like the last time I had to stamp my feet and throw a hissy fit and tell them that a broom-closet room wouldn’t do, etc. I was ready to go right back to the airport and fly back to Los Angeles…I really was. They finally put me into a decent-sized room — not a suite or a grand movie-star room by any standard…just a nice, simple, modest-sized room with a king-sized bed and a TV and a bathroom…big deal.

I’ve also been told that legendary New York publicist Bobby Zarem, a native Savannah resident whom I worked for in Los Angeles in the mid ’80s and who invited me to cover the Savannah Film Festival eight or nine or ten years ago, is for whatever reason no longer officially involved with the festival. I’m sure there’s a story behind that.