The Golden Globes will air at 8 pm tonight on both coasts. For the first time in a long time I won’t be schnorring around the after-parties. Even if I was there in L.A. I don’t know that I’d be feeling all that amped about it. It’s just the Globes. Need to try a little push-back against the cynicism.

“If you’re looking for an item on a slow night, I thought you’d enjoy realizing that Roger Ebert and Lou Lumenick are consistently the two main critics quoted in the ads for Slumdog Millionaire. Both gave it four stars and raved it as being one of the best films of 2008.

“So what?

“Well, you’ll recall that their viewing of the movie was interrupted at TIFF when Lumenick whacked Ebert with his binder because Ebert objected to Lumenick blocking his view at a press screening. But obviously the dust-up didn’t interfere with the appreciation of the movie. All’s well that ends well.” — from Toronto Star‘s Peter Howell.

“Upon leaving a stuffy Beverly Hills party thrown by a socialite, Groucho Marx said to her, ‘I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.” — from “A Better Sort of Insult,” a 1.9.09 N.Y. Times piece by Dick Cavett.

“I’d love to hear your take on Silent Light, the new Carlos Reygadas film. Or his other work, for that matter. I just saw it at the Film Forum, and am still trying to decide what I thought of it. A few people in the theatre were falling asleep, and as I left a few were looking at the blown-up Manohla Dargis N.Y. Times review, giving each other bewildered looks while words like ‘terrible’, ‘pretentious’ and whatnot slipped out.

“I don’t agree with them, but I still haven’t quite made up my mind about it. Reygadas is definitely into meditative as an end in itself, and I think people were having trouble with the way he lingers on his shots, and how many of them are more or less stationary images. And the silence of it all. Like Battle in Heaven, there are huge stretches with absolutely no underscoring — a very powerful choice.

“It seemed to be too much for a lot of people, though, to sit and look at a hand for 20 seconds, and then a table for a bit longer, all of it in a more or less silent environment.

“It’s not something I’ll say I’m over the moon about, but I do find it very, very interesting, Now that I’ve seen what the movie and its story are, I definitely intend to have another go-round to take a closer look at the way he put it together.” — HE reader Eric Gilde in a letter received this afternoon.

Looking out of a half-opened doorway in a Chinese takeout place in East Syracuse — 1.10.09, 7:05 pm

Blizzard from Hollywood Elsewhere on Vimeo.

The question is whether or not rabid Christian righties will be dumb enough to make a stink about the already notorious “black model called Jesus who wears a loincloth and a crown of thorns” in Sacha Baron Cohen‘s forthcoming Bruno movie, a.k.a., Bruno: Delicious Journeys Through America For The Purpose Of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable In The Presence Of A Gay Foreigner In A Mesh T-Shirt.

At Thursday night’s BFCA awards Angelina Jolie reportedly said “she’ll be in front of the camera early this year [but] didn’t say what projects she may be working on.” She also told a reporter that she “may” work for a few months. My understanding is that she will start working in March — no ifs, ands or buts.

The film she’ll be starring in is no secret. It’s called Salt, a CIA thriller formerly known as Edwin A. Salt, which Tom Cruise planned to make earlier this year before he changed his mind. The part was given a sex-change to accomodate Jolie’s subsequent interest. The big-budget effort will be directed by Phillip Noyce, based on a script written by Kurt Wimmer.

Mass Pike heading west, east of Stockbridge — Saturday, 1.10.09, 11:35 am.

Berkshires from Hollywood Elsewhere on Vimeo