“Sipping Sideways,” posted on or about 9.22.04: Fox Searchlight invited several press people up to Santa Barbara last weekend for a Sideways film junket. I accepted at the drop of a hat.

The deal included a suite at the Bacara hotel and spa in Goleta (about 12 minutes west of Santa Barbara, just past Isla Vista), a complimentary T1 line in the hotel room, too much food, a wine-tasting party, moonlight walks on the beach, all kinds of beautiful women everywhere, more food, and chats with Sideways writer-director Alexander Payne and costars Thomas Haden Church and Virginia Madsen. Paul Giamatti wasn’t there due to a family situation.

I drove up late Saturday afternoon. About 90 minutes, give or take. I checked into the Bacara around 6 pm. Swanky, expensive, built four years ago. Spanish mission style. A series of two-story buildings sloping downhill and all of it landscaped to death. The cheapest rooms go for $400 a night. The vibe felt a bit too rich for my blood.

The drive back to Santa Barbara for the Sideways wine party felt longish. If the Bacara were farther away it couldn’t be in Santa Barbara — it’s really out there.

Publicists at the door told me I’d missed a 5 pm screening of Sideways, which nobody told me about. I’d like to catch it again soon.

Payne was there without his wife, Sideways costar Sandra Oh. I asked him why his usually longish hair was cut short. “You have to cut back the rose bush every fall,” he replied. I spoke briefly to Madsen. I saw Church but didn’t approach.

Best part of the article:

I’m a particular fan of Church’s performance as Jack, an actor friend of Giamatti’s Miles who’s due to be married in a few days and is determined to get laid during their wine-country safari any which way. It’s one of those last-gasp, go-for-the-gusto-before-surrendering things.

Jack is a selfish, immature child, but Church gives him a kind of dignity because he takes hound-dogging very seriously.

You should have heard the journos at the table imparting their p.c. sentiments about what a despicable misogynist Jack is. Bullshit — he’s like 80% of all the engaged guys I’ve ever known or heard about. And for what it’s worth, I’ve been lucky twice with women who were about to get married. I know that the main reason they waved me in was because they knew this was their last shot before reciting marriage vows.

End of the best part of the article.

Update, posted today: I had totally forgotten about T1 internet connections.

Episode #3 of “The Misfits” features Jeffrey Wells, Glenn Kenny (“The World Is Yours: The Story of Scarface“), Jeff Sneider (i.e., Hollywood’s most fearless journalist”) & “Talking Movies” co-host Bill McCuddy (recorded on Monday, 3.11, at 1 pm).

Profuse apologies for being too much of a klutz to have correctly posted the pod early last evening.

I’m not a total idiot with this stuff — I did manage to organize and record the Zoom video and then down-convert via Handbrake (with help from Glenn Kenny) and then incorrectly post it on Substack. So I’m getting there. But I’ll never be a whiz kid at this stuff.

Enormous thanks to the great Sasha Stone for helping me correct my errors.

During the pod I mentioned the likelihood that John Cena wore a “sock” during his nude moment at the Oscars.  Nobody bit (one or two of my colleagues vaguely shuddered) so the subject fell by the wayside.  But The Hollywood Reporter‘s Beatrice Verhoeven has done the reporting.  

Just like my having also mentioned the advisability of Lily Gladstone returning to the way she looked three years ago while filming Killers of the Flower Moon. (She looks different today.) Lily will never be Emma Stone, but elemental logic tells us she’d be more suitable for a wider range of parts if she could adopt a somewhat leaner profile. But no — only a “bad” person (and I mean someone deserving of condemnation if not a Julius Caesar-like stabbing) would bring this up in casual conversation.

Does anyone think Amy Schumer could have played the lead in Trainwreck at her current proportions?  

Directors, casting agents and casting directors don’t tiptoe around this topic (or dodge it) when they talk turkey with each other.  Tom Hanks didn’t dodge it when he mentioned a few years back that some actors have diminished their careers by bulking up.  Everyone understands that Brendan Fraser lost his star luminosity when he became the “new” version of himself.  Just saying.

Again, the link.

I’m trying to at least post an acknowledgment of the universally expected Best Picture Oscar win for Oppenheimer. Maybe this will post and maybe it won’t. But it was a great show! And I fell over backwards in my chair when the deserving Best Actress winner was announced. Wow…my faith in humanity semi-restored.

10:13 pm: And here we go with the official Lily Gladstone celebration — the Best identity Oscar campaign for Best Actress. And…holy shit, Emma Stone wins for Best Actress! Justice, truth, radiance!! The Movie Godz approve!! The Academy actually voted to support a performance and not a politically woke proclamation!! Merit prevailed over progressive instruction!!

10:07 pm: Chris Nolan wins the Best Director Oscar for Oppenheimer. A locked-down win for months. Congrats to a first-rate filmmaker. I found Oppenheimer a difficult sit and will probably never see it again, but Nolan did a “good” job. He’s a class act, although his version of 2001: A Space Odyssey was not a good thing.

10 pm: The Best Actor moment arrives, and may we please, please see emotional justice done by giving the Oscar to The Holdovers‘ Paul Giamatti? Can we pleaase tell those SAG-AFTRA mouth-breathers to take a hike? Please? No — the Oscar goes to Cillian Murphy, which gives me further trepidation about Gladstone (another SAG-AFTRA favorite) winning in her category. A nice-guy British actor wins for playing a cold-eyed space alien.

9:45 pm: As expected Ludwig Goransson‘s Oppenheimer music takes the Oscar for Best Score. Billie Eilish takes Best Song Oscar for Barbie. Neither creative effort knocked me out. Congrats to all but…

9:33 pm: Great camerawork and dynamic editing on Ryan Gosling‘s Barbie song, “I’m Ken” or “I”m Just Ken” or whatever it’s called. Nice overhead Busby Berkeley shot. Excellent color design, great lighting and choreography. First-rate all the way. Hats off.

9:30 pm: The Zone of Interest wins Best Sound Oscar. That eerie humming sound, right?….subtle design, absolute malevolence.

9:20 pm: The show has been underway for two hours, 25 minutes so far. And Best Actor presentation is just around the corner. And congrats to Wes Anderson winning his very first Oscar for anything. (i.e., Henry Sugar).

9:17 pm: Best Cinematography goes to Oppenheimer and the brilliant Hoyte van Hoytema.

9:03 pm: Best Documentary Short and Feature presentation. I have no passionate dogs in these hunts. The Last Repair Shop…congrats! 20 Days in Mariupol (as expected) wins Best Feature Doc Oscar!

8:50 pm: The low-budgeted Godzilla Minus One wins the Visual Effects Oscar! HE approves!! Wait…clumsy, sloppy acceptance speech…taking too long…get it together! Play them off! And now the Film Editing Oscar…Oppenheimer! Honestly? I didn’t think the editing in that film was knock-out level…did anyone? Another coat-tail thing.

8:37 pm: And now the Best Supporting Actor presentation, obviously going to Oppenheimer‘s Robert Downey, Jr. Nice tributes given to all five nominees. Classy, well-written…perfectly handled. RDJ: “I’d like to thank my terrible childhood and the Academy, in that order. Downey thanking his entertainment lawyer for helping him out during his unfortunate druggy period in the late ’90s (“bailing me out of the hoosegow”) was especially good.

8:27 pm: To no one’s surprise, The Zone of Interest wins Best Int’l Feature Oscar. Director Jonathan Glazer is calling out the horror of the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

8:16 pm: Poor Things wins a third Oscar!! For costumes! Three in a row! Lily Gladstone is sweating bullets right now. John Cena‘s mostly nude walk-on was pretty good.

8:07 pm: Maestro‘s suoerb makeup doesn’t win the Oscar….Poor Things does instead. Willem Dafoe‘s facial prosthetics did the trick. And Poor Things wins the production design Oscar! Is this an indication that Emma Stone might take the Best Actress Oscar? is it possible that the Acadeemy might actually give that Oscar to the giver of the greatest performance? Is there a chance that Lily Gladstone‘s identiity play might not pan out?

8:02 pm: Billie Eilish‘s singing is fragile and breathy. But at least she looks nice for a change.

7:51 pm: Time for the Best Screenplay Oscars, Original and Adapted! And the winner of the Original category is Anatomy of a Fall. A political gender thing. The Holdovers should have won. Please give the Adapted Sceenplay Oscar to American Fiction….yes! As expected. Cord Jefferson! The first 45 to 50 minutes of this film are really satisfying. Excellent speech by Jefferson….”this has changed my life!”

7:40 pm: How many have seen War Is Over, winner of the Best Animated Short film? Will The Boy and the Heron win the Best Animated Feature Oscar? Yes!

7:25 pm: The Holdovers‘ Da’Vine joy Randolph is about th win the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, and good for her. Each nominee is receiving a special tribute from a past BSA winner….nice touch. All hail Rita Moreno, America Ferrara, Danielle Brooks, Jamie Lee Curtis/strong>! Da’Vine supreme!! All hail Alexander Payne for casting her. Da’Vine gives a tearful and passionate shout-out to her publicist, but doesn’t mention the publicist’s name. Paul Giamatti crying for her.

7:17 pm: I’m sorry but Cillian Murphy is a rather odd-looking person. For a change, Robert Downey, Jr.‘s evening apparel isn’t offensive. All hail Kimmel’s Killers of the Flower Moon-is-too-effing-long jokes. Kimmel’s simple black tux is very attractive, but the tie is too big. Dwayne Johnson‘s gray metallic tux is fairly awful. I love the below-the-line crew people taking a bow…”a ton of of overtime”!!

7:12 pm: Margot Robbie to Jimmy Kimmel on a bench: “You’re so beautiful.” Kimmel to Robbie: “I know. I haven’t eaten in three weeks. I’m so hungry.”

6:58 pm: The red carpet fashion show is too fast, fizzy and frothy…all hail the gray-haired, well-dressed Mark Ruffalo (Poor Things)! HE is the opposite of fast, frizzy and frothy…and that, for better or worse, is the brand.
‘
6:47 pm Brendan Fraser looks good, considering that he’s well past his glammy peak. All hail Sterling K. Brown! All hail Holdovers hotshot great PauL Giamatti, whose Best Actor chances are under threat by Oppie‘s Cillian Murphy, whose prpminence is entirely due to the SAG-AFTRa community coasting along on the Oppie bandwagon….those reliable Chris Nolan coat-tails…Eugene Lee Yang appears in a stunning red ball gown…reminding us all that asserting one’s sexuality is extremely important in the overall scheme of things.

6:33 pm: Why did Billie Eilish decide to switcch strategy by trying to look attractive tonight?? She looked like a dressed-down dishrag at the Globe and SAG awards. Caitlin Wells reply: “To keep you on your toes.”

Friendo: “I think the alleged “line-by-line” Holdovers/Frisco plagiarism claim really needs to be seriously questioned.

“Is there a single line that has been cited?

“The Holdovers is a movie defined by its dialogue. The writing is fantastic. The voice of the Giamatti character. The words of…everybody.

“The accuser (i.e., Frisco author Simon Stephenson) said that The Holdovers ripped his script off ‘line-by-line.’ And Variety included this angle without questioning it.

“But is there even a whisper of truth to this charge? That, I think, is the point that needs to be made.

“Because if it’s just the plot, it came from that 1935 French movie, Marcel Pagnol‘s Merlusse. (It really did.) If it’s just other elements of the “concept”…well, Hollywood movies lift stuff like that from other movies every fucking day.”

Nothing to do with Barbie will ever be funny…ever. Certainly not in terms of Jimmy Kimmel‘s opening monologue this evening. What abotu this movie is the least bity amusing or laugh-worthy? Nothing. All I can think of is that famous shot of that reprehensible pink lampshade guy. Talk about depressing.

Barbie is not funny, and it never will be.

Problematic Bill McCuddy Barbie joke, written for Kimmel:

Kimmel: This year I’m on a first-name basis with every woman in the audience. I’ll prove it.
(CUT TO Margot Robbie) Hi Barbie.
(CUT TO Meryl Streep) Hi Barbie.
(CUT TO Octavia Spencer) Hi Barbie.
(CUT BACK TO KIMMEL, HE’S NOW JUST RANDOMLY POINTING AROUND THE ROOM)
Hi Barbie, Hi Barbie, Hi Barbie.
I also know some of the men. (sheepishly) Hi Ken. (CUT TO Ryan Gosling)
I also know Alan. Where’s he?
(CUT TO THIRD KODAK BALCONY)
(Michael Cera is waving his hands)
Cera: “I’m up here!!!! Jimmy! Jimmy?”
Kimmel: (IGNORING) I guess he couldn’t make it.

I fell hard for Cameron Crowe‘s Almost Famous nine or ten months before it opened in September 2000, or when I came across a 1998 draft of the script (called “Untitled”, 168 pages). I didn’t just like or admire it — I was blown away, head over heels.

I was generally delighted with the film but it didn’t get me off like the script did because it felt a little too compressed here and there. It ran 122 minutes, in part because Dreamworks producer Walter Parkes kept insisting on “shorter, shorter, shorter.” Plus the film didn’t include a “Russell Hammond confesses all to Rolling Stone editors” scene that I thought was perfect.

I’ve had Almost Famous on my best of the 21st Century list for two decades now as it’s 90% of a great film, but I didn’t completely tumble until the 162-minute “director’s cut” bootleg Bluray came out in 2011.

I attended a big Almost Famous press shebang during the 2000 Toronto Film Festival, and a moment from that event is burned into my memory. I was shuffling into the main restaurant where the party was taking place, and in a center booth I saw L.A. Times critic Kenneth Turan chatting with Crowe and then-wife Nancy Wilson. And I was almost startled by a look in Turan’s eyes — a look of absolute rapture that reminded me of a ninth-grader swooning over his prom date and dreaming about some act of exquisite erotic kindness that might be in the offing later that evening.

Turan, in short, was making goo-goo eyes at Crowe…talking to the man of the moment was filling him with awe and joy and ecstasy, and his eyes…his eyes were doing ring-a-ding-ding backflips. Turan was in love…completely fluttering with feeling.

And at that very moment I made a mental note to myself, to wit: “Don’t ever give anyone slavish goo-goo eyes for any reason or under any circumstance…show respect and admiration but keep your cool…hold on to your dignity. Because if you don’t show a modicum of restraint the filmmaker will remember those goo-goo eyes, and if you don’t goo-goo him the next time he’ll know you don’t like the new film as much as the older one, or he’ll conclude that you were being a phony the first time.”

Let this be a lesson to us all. The next time you find yourself chatting with someone you genuinely admire, don’t flash the goo-goo eyes!