You look back at last year’s Best Actress race and you can’t quite believe that anyone really thought that Meryl Streep might not take it for The Iron Lady. Viola Davis, good as she always is, did not play anyone’s idea of a lead role in The Help, and that’s why she didn’t get there. Glenn Close‘s nomination for her work in Albert Nobbs was strictly a career-retrospective gesture and only a little bit about her performance, which was overly poised and in fact rigid. Michelle Williams was certainly good enough in My Week With Marilyn, but she never came close to being a knockout — no one thought otherwise. And Rooney Mara‘s nomination for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was strictly about rounding out the field. But there’s was so much speculative hot-air bullshit thrown around last year (as it is every year) that people were actually saying, “Hmmm, who might win?”

I was one of the few keyboard-tappers allowed into last night’s (Saturday, 2.23) Weinstein Co. party at West Hollywood’s Soho House. It was quite the hot-shit event, let me tell you. The currently configured creme de la creme of the Weinstein realm was there (Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo DiCaprio, David O. Russell, Katy Perry, Harvey himself, Joaquin Pheonix, Amy Adams, Christoph Waltz, Quentin Tarantino, Phillip Noyce, Bladimiar Norman, Scarlett Johansson, Juno Temple) plus my girlfriend and myself and weren’t we pretty hot also? It felt like that for a while, at least.

Jennifer whatsername in the elevator-foyer entrance to last night’s Soho House Weinstein party.

It was loud and crowded with live music and everyone was in their 40s or younger (almost no gray or white hair in sight) and dressed to the nines and going “whur-whuppa-wallah-wullah-wullah-whoa-whur-wuppah-dumba-doodah-doppa-wadda-badda-boo.”

Sincere thanks to Lisa Taback for waving me in. Yes, it felt a little too crowded at times. Yes, it took an average of 10 to 12 minutes to get the bartender’s attention every time you wanted a drink. (And no, they had no non-alcoholic beer — assholes.) But that fantastic penthouse-floor view always makes up for everything.

And the women were wall-to-wall, top-to-bottom magnificent to…well, not stare or gawk at but discreetly eyeball. Every one of them said “this is it…this is the top, and my being here verifies my being in the upper .005% of desirability, and if you’re not really comfortably connected to this realm by way of wealth and creative contacts and whatever else…I don’t have to say it, do I? Just forget it. But I’ll chat if you have a clever mind or a line or…whatever, I’ll smile and listen and laugh. And why not? I’m easy-going. I’m not crass or thick or uneducated. I get it.”

The coolest part of these things is arriving in your car and then getting past the first lady with the invitees on her iPad and then the second lady with same, and then being waved into the ground-floor elevator foyer (this is where I first saw Jamie Foxx and his entourage…”here we are, all six or seven of us! No, wait…nine!”) and going upstairs and walking into the main lobby and then up the grand staircase and doing your first walk-around and saying hello to familiar faces. It doesn’t get any better than that.

And then, minute by minute, Diet Coke by Diet Coke, chat by chitty-chat, it very slowly starts to dissipate. After a couple of hours you’re ready to pack it in. I got there at 10:05 pm and left just a little past midnight.

I was more ready to leave this party than others because — I have to be honest here — most of the cool people were packed into an elite inner-sanctum back room that the general populace was discouraged from trying to get into. Or so it seemed. There was a line to get in and yes, I saw Amy Adams waiting along with several others, but I don’t like parties that pull this elite shit. I really don’t. But that’s SOP for Soho House, which is all about selling exclusive access to people who aren’t sure if they’re hot shit but are willing to pay in order to feel that way.

If you’re connected enough to get into a party of this magnitude you should ideally be good to go all around, I think. The Silver Linings party that I attended at the Chateau Marmont on Friday, 12.7, was much cooler and friendlier because there wasn’t any effing back room. The best and/or coolest people (David O. Russell, Diane Keaton, Josh Brolin, Melissa Leo, Jane Fonda, Robert DeNiro, Mel Gibson) were everywhere and there were no giant-sized security goons in sight.

The Oscar night after-party at the Beverly Hills hotel when Shakespeare in Love beat Saving Private Ryan (14 years ago!)…that was another relaxed, well-handled, unlimited-access event. The more the people giving a party try to rope off the elite with special rooms and goons, the less cool they are and the less cool their party is and the more you want to leave.

I was standing at the top of the staircase and looking down at Tarantino, who was wearing a black beret like he’s worried about a hair-loss issue or something. He’s really big these days. He’s borderline Orson Welles. The difference between the way he looks in this 19 year-old Pulp Fiction cast photo and now is the difference between how Welles looked in 1938 when he did that radio broadcast of War of the Worlds and how he looked when he played Quinlan in Touch of Evil.

The other journalists at the party were Hollywood Reporter columnist Scott Feinberg, Showbiz 411‘s Roger Friedman, Daily Mail columnist Baz Bamigboye, and N.Y Post columnist Cindy Adams.

Until this morning I never saw this 2000 Charles Schwab ad in which Sally Field parodied her “you really, really like me!” Oscar speech. (Or I don’t recall having seen it…whatever.) But what Field actually said is “You like me…right now, you like me!” Intolerably sappy as her basic sentiment is and always will be, the quote did not include “really, really.” Repeating “really” is what makes the line legendary, but Field didn’t say it even once. Think about that.

On top of which the words “right now” mitigates somewhat. If you want to be generous about it Field wasn’t just making tens of millions of people gag en masse and say “good God, put a lid on it!” She was also acknowledging, a bit sadly, the cosmic impermanence of absolutely everything.

Field was saying that all glory is fleeting, that life is a constantly moving and shape-shifting thing and that the “like” she was feeling was good, really, only for that precise moment, and that the next morning the mood would change along with everything else. And indeed it did. Field soon became a joke, a punch line, a poster girl for Hollywood egoism and self-indulgent sentimentality. She spoke these words on Oscar night in 1985 — a little less than 28 years ago. The actual quote is on the Places in the Heart Wiki page. But it might be time to cut her a break because of the “right now.” I’m just trying to be fair.

I should also acknowledge that Robert Duvall has aged only slightly since that night.

Yesterday afternoon Timothy Egan posted a N.Y. Times “Opinionator” piece about why Zero Dark Thirty will not win the Best Picture Oscar. I asked a guy who’s closely affiliated with this Kathryn Bigelow-directed, Mark Boal-written film for a response. Here it is:

“Oy! He keeps moving the goal post.

“First he charges the film is inaccurate. Then he admits that CIA leadership folks (who, unlike him, have access to the secret record) say the movie is pretty accurate. But that validation now becomes a flaw because the new goal post is not accuracy but does the CIA agree — or is the film a CIA blowjob?

“Of course, if the CIA said the film was lousy, he would then agree with the CIA. and the CIA’s opinion would shift from being untrustworthy to being spot-on. Then he says the film lacks context. Okay, write your own movie, make your own creative choices.

Egan states that “a quick reminder [in ZD30] that President Bush all but gave up on bin Laden — “I truly am not that concerned about him,” he said less than a year after the murder of 3,000 of our citizens — would have plugged a vital hole.” To which i say Ehan must have been too busy texting his editor that he has a hot column to notice the scene where the Bush-appointed station chief screams at Maya, “I don’t care about Bin Laden! He’s out of the game!”

“By the way, we showed plenty of false starts. We portray the first eight years of the hunt as being wasteful because the name [of the courier] was in the files the entire time.

“He mentions a quote from Jane Mayer, writing in The New Yorker, to wit: “The film doesn’t include a single scene in which torture is questioned. This is also not true.

“Jason Clarke‘s character, the guy who does all the dirty work, quits because his soul is sick…and when it comes to decision time in the boardroom with Leon Panetta/James Gandolfini, he doubts the value of all the interrogations. ‘I spent time in those rooms,’ he says. ‘I would say it’s a soft-sixty” that bin Laden is there. In the context of the scene and indeed of the entire film, the guy who has done the most torture Is the most skeptical about its value, of anyone in the room.

“It’s just become fashionable for a certain class of political reporter which feels threatened by the power of this film and their own dwindling capacity to reach readers, to diss it.”

“Egan doesn’t have a coherent argument. He has an opinion (that ZD30 is bad news) based largely in jealousy, and he drives that opinion around through a variety of logically inconsistent attacks, constantly searching to reach his conclusion , which is that ZD30 isn’t nearly as good as if he had done it.”

Honestly? I wasn’t expecting Silver Linings Playbook to win four big Spirit Awards today. And yet it took Best Feature, and David O. Russell won for Best Director and Best Screenplay and the Best Actress trophy went to Jennifer Lawrence. I figured they might split the biggies between SLP and Beasts of the Southern Wild and/or Benh Zeitlin, but no.

What does this mean Oscar-wise? Maybe nothing, but could Russell at least take Best Director? Along with Jennifer Lawrence taking Best Actress, I mean.

The Sessions scored twice with John Hawkes winning for Best Actor and Helen Hunt taking the Best Supporting Actress award. Matthew McConaughey won Best Supporting Actor for his aging stripper role in Steven Soderbergh‘s Magic Mike.

Amour director Michael Haneke before start of Spirit Awards ceremony.

SLP‘s David O. Russell, winner of the Best Director and Best Screenpay awards.

Jonathan Dana, Deadline‘s Pete Hammond.

Toy’s House director Jordan Vogt-Roberts.

I somehow missed (a) Thursday night’s Live Read of the screenplay/film version of David Mamet‘s Glengarry Glen Ross, which was performed by an all-female cast (terrific idea!) and then (b) Sean Fennesssey‘s account of same on Grantland, which appeared yesterday afternoon.

Fennessey begins by quoting LACA Film Series curator Elvis Mitchell: “‘The melancholy of the blues and the immediacy of jazz…his characters are hard-hearted and hardheaded, so I thought women can do that,.’ That was how Mitchell [introduced] the conceit of last night’s Live Read. Mamet’s terse, rhythmic story tracks four real estate salesmen (and scam artists) desperately working through the night on the eve of a robbery. The Live Read, a semi-regular event at LACMA, is a quiet, clever, only-in-L.A. happening where the city’s access to celebrity and artists is actually used for good.”

Robin Wright as Ricky Roma, originated by Al Pacino, but more primally by Joe Mantegna in the original stage production. Catherine O’Hara as Shelley Levene, originated by Jack Lemmon or Robert Prosky in the stage version. Melanie Lynskey as George Aaronow, originated by Alan Arkin. Maria Bello as Dave Moss, originated by Ed Harris. Mae Whitman as John Williamson, originated by Kevin Spacey. And Carla Gugino as Blake (“set of steak knives”), originated by Alec Baldwin.

Taken in October 1987 from the East Berlin side of the Brandenburg Gate. Berlin was part of an Eastern Bloc honeymoon my ex-wife Maggie and I were on. We had tied the knot in Paris at St. Julien le Pauvre and were looking to avoid a typical westernized European atmosphere (i.e., McDonalds) by visiting only Communist countries — i.e., Czechoslovakia, East Germany. Cool idea, mixed results.

In about 90 minutes I’ll be driving over to that same beach-adjacent parking lot in Santa Monica for the good old Film Independent Spirit Awards. Same red carpet, same crowds, same parking passes, same security goons, same massive circus tent. The best part is the schmooze time (11 am to 1 pm) before everything starts. In my drinking days I used to enjoy my champagne during this period and get happily buzzed. Not “half in the bag” but…you know, “happy.” At noon! Thank God those days are over.

For years and years the weather in Santa Monica was perfect on Spirit Awards day — warm and balmy, no breeze or not too breezy, radiant blue sky. But last year it was chilly and blustery and faintly miserable. It was like the Southern California Weather Demon was saying “I left you alone for so many years in the past but not today….today I’m going to put you through it, Spirit Awards!” Being inside the main tent was okay but if you were in the rear press tent it was like “where’s my overcoat?” I felt like Jack London looking to build a fire. The almost-gale-strength winds assaulted the heavy plastic material covering the tent entrances. The gusts blew napkins into the air and destroyed women’s carefully coiffed hair styles.

Please, God…please spare me an experience like that today. Either way the Spirits will air tonight on IFC at 10 pm Pacific/Eastern and 9 pm Central.

Former SNL headliner Andy Samberg, who’s looking to be the next Paul Rudd or Adam Sandler or Bill Murray or whomever, is the emcee.

The Spirit Awards are basically the Indie Oscars, of course, but the definition of what specifically constitutes a Spirit-worthy indie film has become more liberal and/or less precise in recent years. I forget what the budgetary limit for Best Feature contenders is now but I remember the days when it was $15 million. Now it’s…what is it? $25 million? Higher?

From last year’s report: “The 2012 Spirit Awards did the wrong thing today by giving four awards to the Big Oscar Inevitable known as The Artist — Best Feature, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Cinematography. The worst kowtow was giving Jean Dujardin its Best Actor prize instead of, say, A Better Life‘s Damien Bichir or Take Shelter‘s Michael Shannon. It wasn’t an indie thing to do — it was a ‘we want to be the Oscars too!‘ thing. Extremely bad form, dark day, etc.”

But the dominant Spirit Award qualifier, as always, is having the right attitude, a certain unpretentious or hands-on “fuck it, we’ll do it this way instead” approach to filmmaking. Being willing and able to scrimp and cut corners whenever necessary, to occasionally pick out your own wardrobe and do your own makeup in a gas station bathroom, and…I don’t know, having the improvisational fuck-all nerve and spontaneity and irreverence of spirit to quietly pantomine “what the fuck just happened?” when an 85 year-old actress wins a BAFTA award? Serious Spirit-minded people don’t walk around frowning and seething and spitting bile and getting their knickers in a twist.

Best Feature nominees: Beasts of the Southern Wild, Bernie, Keep the Lights On (which I haven’t even seen), Moonrise Kingdom and Silver Linings Playbook. I’ll be happy if Beasts of the Southern Wild or Bernie or SLP wins. Prediction: Beasts of the Southern Wild.

I know that if I see Richard Linklater there I’m going to tell him how knocked out I was by Before Midnight, which will definitely be a Spiit Award nominee this time next year in several categories.

Best Director: Wes Anderson, Benh Zeitlin, Ira Sachs (Keep The LIghts On), David O. Russell, Julia Loktev (The Loneliest Planet). Prediction: Zeitlin or Russell.

Touchstone Home Entertainment’s Bluray of Michael Mann‘s The Insider looks perfectly fine. It looks like film, which is the right way to go, of course. Noticable but tolerable grain levels. Dante Spinotti‘s cinematography looks as good as it did when I first saw The Insider at the big Academy premiere in late October 1999.

It’s a significant upgrade from the DVD, of course, but how could it not be? If I had my druthers the look of this Bluray would be tweaked just a bit more because I like my Blurays to “pop” just a bit more, but that’s me. I don’t mean to indicate that the Bluray hasn;t been “done right.” It has been. It’s fine. No beefs.

But I do have a problem with the lack of a decent “making of” documentary. There’s so much to get into with this film, so much to look back and reflect upon in terms of issues that reach well beyond the concerns of the entertainment industry, that it’s a shame that Disney decided to merely remaster the elements for a bare-bones release.

For openers there’s the story of Marie Brenner‘s researching and writing of “The Man Who Knew Too Much,” the May 1996 Vanity Fair story that inspired the film. The writing of the screenplay by Eric Roth, and Mann’s massaging and tweaking and whatever else. The casting. The shooting and the logistical challenges. The reactions by CBS News and 60 Minutes staffers, particularly the late Mike Wallace.

You wouldn’t expect that a Disney Bluray would include an honest look at the spectacularly awful marketing of the film by Disney feature publicity, which in my mind is one of the great cock-ups of all time. The Insider is basically about how CBS corporate interests allowed a major 60 Minutes news story to be diluted over fears of a Big Tobacco lawsuit. And yet Disney marketers somehow allowed the public, some in the press and even some in the filmmaking community to run with the idea that The Insider was an anti-smoking film.

I recall attending an Insider press conference with Mann and Al Pacino and Russell Crowe and others, and that’s exactly what was on the minds of at least some of the journalists.

Consider a piece I wrote three years ago:

“Most of the moviegoers who’ve heard of The Insider probably still think it’s an anti-smoking drama, but you’d think that a smart guy like Jason Reitman would know better. The Insider is about the killing of a major 60 Minutes news story, and about the wreckage (personal, professional, cultural) that this action causes. At most the film was peripherally or tangentially about smoking.

“The fact that Big Tobacco had enough money and legal power to make CBS corporate feel legally threatened (and thus leading to the story being de-balled on 60 Minutes) is what’s crucial to the story. It was a movie about big-time TV journalists being pushed around and then folding their tent. But the adversarial element could have just as easily been weapons manufacturers or any politically powerful concern.

“Since The Insider was released in ’99, it’s become common knowledge that due to their corporate-ownership and corporate priorities, major news media orgs can’t really be counted upon to report the tough stories (’03 Iraq invasion, WMDs). Robert Kane Pappas‘ Orwell Rolls In His Grave (’04) spelled this out pretty clearly. For my money the serious hardball information today comes sporadically from the N.Y. Times and from Bill Moyers’ Journal but mostly from online reporting and columnists and from the British newspapers. TV network news is pretty much out of the game.”

Last night’s Irish shindig (for the US-Ireland Alliance) at Bad Robot was cool. Thanks to JJ Abrams for inviting me. Nice vibe, nice guests, nice food, nice potato chips and dip, pretty girls. Colin Farell was one of the honorees. I spoke for a bit with director-producer Tony Bill, who was sharp as a tack and in a chipper mood.

Bar Robot honcho and host JJ Abrams delivering remarks at last night’s event.

I have to mention that it was partly an outdoor party, and you know how Santa Monica can be at night with the chilly damp air and all. After a while I started to say to myself, “This is a really good gathering but fuck this cold damp air…this feeling of wanting to be someplace warmer but not really feeling that warmth.” So I exited out of a side door, got into the car and fired up the heat. And then I drove back to West Hollywood for some sushi and parked my car in the wrong lot and got towed.

Colin Farrell.

I switched from Softlayer to Liquid Web late yesterday afternoon, but the ISP-to-root server propagation process is slow and grinding. Did I mention frustrating? 19 hours have passed so far and HE’s appearance is spotty — great on the iPhone and IPad, better on Safari, not so hot on Firefox or Google Chrome. Things won’t really be smooth as silk until sometime tomorrow, I’m guessing. Some sources say website propagation can take as long as 72 hours, but I’m not buying that.