Before Ben Affleck‘s Argo won the Producers’ Guild Darryl F. Zanuck award last night, the blogger/columnist view was “the PGA winner won’t be a lock to win the Best Picture Oscar — we all remember Little Miss Sunshine — but a PGA triumph definitely ups the odds and makes an Oscar win very likely.”

After the Argo win (which happened as I was watching the Daniel Day Lewis tribute at Santa Barbara’s Arlington theatre, or a little after 10 pm), the blogger/columnist rumble became “well, uhm…it appears that Lincoln has some stiff competition! Could it be that the our very own, historically-fortified, Spielberg-default, Guru-endorsed Lincoln might actually lose? Well, one thing’s for sure…we have a horse race!”

Lincoln has won no significant Best Picture honors, Argo has won three (PGA, BFCA and Golden Globes), and Silver Linings Playbook is favored to win the Best Ensemble SAG Award at the Shrine Auditorium tonight…and certain blogger/columnists are concluding that Argo might win “but who knows…we have our doubts…the Academy is not the PGA…it has its own way of thinking…could Lincoln snag a win regardless? It’s possible!” (Last night in Santa Barbara a respected columnist conveyed this view in so many words.)

Take the needle out of your arm and listen to the sound of Oscar pollen blowing in the wind. As a Best Picture contender, Lincoln is dead, dead, deader than dead.

Argo is a soft contender, agreed. It doesn’t have anyone’s idea of a strong subtext or thematic undertow. Every since Telluride I’ve been calling it a very well-made caper film — a “secret CIA operation to put one over on the Islamic radicals” movie that is well written, very nicely acted and smoothly assured, that offers a few knowing cracks about film-industry phonies and delivers a satisfying finale in which the baddies are foiled…curses!

So yes, Argo‘s support is not as impassioned as it could be, but the support for Lincoln is even less impassioned. That’s obvious.

The Best Picture contender with the most ardent support is Silver Linings Playbook, or so it’s been observed, but the SLP Hate Brigade has colored the conversation on that film and the longstanding prejudice against Best Picture-ing a comedy or a romcom (despite the fact that SLP is more accurately described as a spirited meds-and-mental-illness dramedy) is as alive as ever.

In my humble view the other “secret CIA plot to put one over on the Islamic radicals and make them angry” film — Zero Dark Thirty — is a sturdier, more impressive achievement. It’s less “commercial,” more finely woven, a stronger dose and obviously more realistic. Compare Argo‘s pure-Hollywood finale at Tehran airport with the cars driving alongside the jet to ZD30‘s Seal attack on the Bin Laden compound in Abottobad. No contest. Three or four months from now Argo will be a Netflix favorite; Zero Dark Thirty will one day be a Criterion Bluray.

But the lazy brains have bought into the leftie-Stalinist bullshit that Kathryn Bigelow‘s film endorses torture, and that’s where the conversation has pretty much stopped.

In my heart of hearts and dream of dreams, Silver Linings Playbook — my emotional favorite of 2012 — pulls out a surprise win. But that’s a dream. Argo will win. It’s pretty much over.

Fair assessment: “Ben Affleck‘s Argo has sealed its comeback from Oscar-nomination disappointment to become the clear frontrunner in the Best Picture race. This year’s best-picture race has been wide open…but wins at the Golden Globes and the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards gave Affleck’s CIA-meets-Hollywood thriller a boost, and the PGA win now edges it past Lincoln and suggests that Argo could well become only the third film to win the top Oscar without a Best Director nomination.” — Steve Pond at TheWrap.

Denial quote #1: “[The PGA win] was the latest triumph for Argo, which won the Golden Globes motion picture-drama earlier in the month. With the win, the film establishes itself firmly as a solid contender for the Best Picture Oscar after earlier being thought out of the running when Ben Affleck was snubbed for best director by the motion picture academy.” — Chris Lee, Julie Makinen, L.A. Times.

“Tentative” Semi-Denial Quote: “It’s starting to get serious. [The PGA] is the first guild to weigh in so we have a tentative frontrunner in Argo now for the Academy Awards’ Best Picture.” — Deadline‘s Pete Hammond.

Even-keeled assessment by Variety‘s Dave McNary: “The PGA winner has matched the Oscar Best Picture winner in the last five years with The Artist, The King’s Speech, The Hurt Locker, Slumdog Millionaire and No Country for Old Men. The PGA and AMPAS last diverged in 2006 when the Zanuck award went to Little Miss Sunshine and The Departed won the Oscar.

“The PGA uses the preferential balloting system employed for the Academy Awards and the PGA winner has matched the Oscar Best Picture in 16 of 23 years. There are 494 producers in the producers branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — about 8 percent of the AMPAS membership. “

I saw relatively few of the 2013 Sundance Film Festival award winners announced thus far: I missed Fruitvale (Grand Jury + Audience Award for Best Dramatic feature), saw Inequality For All (winner of Special Jury Prize, U.S. Documentary) and totally missed the following: Blood Brother (US Doc Audience Award), Metro Manila (Audience Award for Best World Narrative), The Square (World Doc Audience Award), This is Martin Bonner (Best of Next), A River Changes Course (World Doc Grand Jury Prize), Pussy Riot: A Pink Prayer (World Cinema, Special Jury Prize, Documentary)…to hell with this. I saw everything I thought I should have seen, and I missed out on a few and that’s that.

No way I’m not watching House of Cards, the David Fincher-produced, Kevin Spacey-starring Netflix series that begins on Friday, February 1st. Particularly the first two episodes, which Fincher directed. An initial run of 13 episodes followed by a second run…when? Cards is the first project made specifically for Netflix. $100 million smackers for 26 episodes. Here’s the original British series, which I watched so long ago I barely remember the particulars.

I announced this morning that I’ll jump off the Santa Barbara pier if Steven Spielberg‘s Lincoln wins the Daryl F. Zanuck award at the conclusion of tonight’s Producers Guild Awards. (The announcement should come around 10 pm Pacific, give or take.) A little while ago I was going to walk down to the end of the pier to see how much of a jump it is and whether the water is deep enough as I don’t make idle threats. But I’m not getting wet tonight. You know it, I know it.

I’ve just spoken to Deadline‘s Pete Hammond, who’s on his way down to the Beverly Hilton as we speak. None of the handlers are certain what’s going to happen or not happen, he says, but Lincoln is probably not going to take it because “it doesn’t have the passion vote.” I’ve been saying that all along. It’s hard to vote for a combination civics lesson, grandfather clock and sleeping pill.

Either Ben Affleck‘s Argo or David O. Russell‘s Silver Linings Playbook will take the prize….but probably Argo, which “puts producers in a good light,” remarks Hammond. “That’s as good a reason as any other” to predict an Argo win.

I personally believe that Bill Clinton‘s Lincoln plug at the Golden Globes was the thing that cooked Lincoln‘s goose as it made Spielberg, who asked Clinton to show up, look too desperate, too hungry.

I’m betting on Silver Linings Playbook winning the SAG ensemble award tomorrow night. The 19th Screen Actors Guild Awards will air on TBS and TNT at 5 p.m. Pacific.

SAG ensemble could go to Silver Linings or Les Miz…they could well get the ensemble thing…..

“As commentary on the social ideals of Disney World,” Randy Moore‘s Escape From Tomorrow “seems to clearly fall within a well-recognized category of fair use, and therefore probably will not be stopped by a court using copyright or trademark laws,” according to The New Yorker‘s Tim Wu.

“Escape from Tomorrow is, essentially, a commentary on a shared social phenomenon, namely the supposed bliss of an American family’s day at Disney World. In Moore’s version, the day is a frightening and surreal mess that destroys the family forever. The film isn’t so much a criticism of Disney World itself but of the unattainable family perfection promised by a day spent at the park.

“It’s important to understand that Disney does not have some kind of general intellectual-property right in Disney World itself. It is not a problem to film the Magic Saucer ride. The case would depend on the appearance of Disney’s trademarks or copyrighted works in the background of the film, like when Goofy wanders by or when we see the waving robots in ‘It’s a Small World.’ Filming these works without justification would be an infringement of the copyright law.

“The question is whether they are ‘fair use’ — or in other words, whether technical infringements are negated because they are justified by public policy. If there were a fire in Times Square, TV-news teams would be free to film there despite all of the copyrighted billboards in the background, given the public’s interest in the reporting and the First Amendment’s protection of the press.

“Under copyright law, commentary and parody are well-established fair-use categories, and this is where the film likely falls.”

A possible wrinkle, says Wu, is that Moore “may have committed trespass when [he] broke Disney World’s rules” by violating the terms of entry on their tickets. It should be a fairly easy matter to read these terms of entry and determine if what Moore did is/was actionable.

I went back to the Holiday Inn Express a little after 1 pm to get a laptop charger, and made the mistake of lying down. I woke up around 2:55 pm, and in so doing missed the Santa Barbara Film Festival writer’s panel, which began at 2 pm. My apologies to moderator Anne Thompson, Zero Dark Thirty screenwriter-producer Mark Boal, Looper screenwriter (and HE’s own) Rian Johnson, The Perks of Being A Wallflower‘s Stephen Chbosky, Moonrise Kingdom co-writer Roman Coppola (an admitted wearer of gold-toe socks), Flight‘s John Gatins and Life of Pi‘s David Magee.

Coppola’s publicist got in touch and asked if I’d like to chat with him. I would have, naturally, if I’d been at the Lobero theatre. We could have just shot the shit, kicked it around. But in terms of a phoner I paused. “What would we talk about?,” I asked her. “Moonrise Kingdom is a fine film but what is there to say at this point? I still haven’t seen and in fact haven’t been invited to see Coppola’s A Glimpse Inside The Mind of Charles Swan III, which opens six days from now.

“Would Coppola consent to debate the aesthetic merits or demerits of gold-toe socks? He’s said he’s a devout wearer and I’m not. We could have a little debate.”

Coppola’s publicist ignored my question.

Coppola and Wes Anderson‘s screenplay for Moonrise Kingdom has been nominated for Best Original Screenplay along with Michael Haneke‘s script for Amour, Quentin Tarantino‘s Django Unchained, John Gatin‘s Flight and Mark Boal‘s Zero Dark Thirty.

This morning I attended the Santa Barbara Film Festival’s directors panel. Moderated as usual by Variety‘s Peter Bart, the participants included Les Miserables helmer Tom Hooper, Silver Linings Playbook‘s David O. Russell, Wreck-It Ralph‘s Rich Moore, Beast of the Southern Wild‘s Behn Zeitlin, Searching for Sugar Man‘s Malik Bendjelloul and Brave‘s Mark Andrews. Here’s a clip of Russell responding to a slightly needling question from Bart about bipolar behavior.

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Ben Affleck, the Oscar season’s comeback kid with Argo‘s Golden Globe and BFCA wins following his Best Director Oscar nomination snub, took the stage last night at the Santa Barbara Film Festival to receive the Modern Master Award. All bets are off if Argo fails to win Best Picture tonight at the Producers Guild Awards, but right now Affleck is The Guy With The Momentum…a smart, smooth pro who knows how to play the game and who knows everyone and knows what’s good and what isn’t, and is basically on the Shining Path.

Argo director Ben Affleck as he accepted the Santa Barbara Film Festival’s Modern Master Award — Friday, 1.25, 10:25 pm.

Taste is a result of a thousand distastes, and Affleck has learned the difference after going through the furnace in the early to mid aughts. He knows in his soul that he’ll never go back to the mute, flared-nostril horror of Pearl Harbor and Gigli and Bennifer. He’s learned, he’s grown, he knows what matters. And that’s what people will be voting for, I think, as well as the fact that they all really like Argo. Hell, I like Argo. I just don’t think it has enough subtext to be considered “great.” But it’s a very good film.

If Argo or Silver Linings Playbook don’t win the top prize at the Producers Guild Awards tonight, and more to the point if Lincoln wins, I’m going to jump off the Santa Barbara pier.

Bearded and affable and dressed in a dark, well-cut suit, Affleck submitted to a two-hour chat with Leonard Maltin, who never even mentioned the Best Director nomination snub or Affleck’s thoroughly honorable rep as “the new Sydney Pollack.” Not did Maltin ask about Affleck’s political passions or his recent encounter with Bill Clinton at the Golden Globe awards.

Their discussion was nonetheless pure pleasure. The 40 year-old hyphenate went into his usual appealing personality tapdance routine. Affleck is loose and likable and always with the clever, self-effacing quips, fast footwork and whipsmart assessments. He’s been professionally humping it since he was 14, or just over 25 years. Affleck knows everyone and has a ton of great stories to tell, and he’s a gifted raconteur.

Matt Damon, Affleck’s childhood pal, a fellow Bostonian and creative partner on Good Will Hunting, showed up and at the end and handed Affleck the festival’s Modern Master trophy.

I went over to the small after-party, and Affleck came in soon after and started talking with Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson and In Contention‘s Kris Tapley and…I wanted to say hi and offer good wishes (50% of me wants Argo to win Best Picture because it’ll be a good thing for Affleck, whom I personally like and admire, and 50% of me wants Argo to win because this would mean the stopping of Lincoln). But then the travelling fatigue wrapped around my soul like a banshee and took me down.

I slipped out and walked back to the Holiday Inn Express on Haley Street. Honestly? This is a cooler, spiffier place than the Hotel Santa Barbara, where the festival has been hosting me for the last four or five years. The hi-def flatscreens are much better (i.e., made within the last three or four years) than the semi-rickety ones at the Hotel SB.

Question for Hollywood Reporter columnist Scott Feinberg, who took this video last night from his orchestra seat inside Santa Barbara’s Arlington Theatre: what about your camera’s zoom function, ace? Who am I to talk, right? I was sitting just a few seats away with my Canon 300 Elph and was too lazy to shoot anything myself.

Everything took longer than expected yesterday. My SLC-to-LAX Southwest flight left a half-hour late, and then we ignored the usual eastern landing approach and flew out over the Pacific three or four miles before banking hard right and finally landing from the west. (This almost never happens.) And then 25 or 30 people were waiting for a cab. And traffic was snarly. And then I realized I had the wrong set of keys and couldn’t get into my pad. At least no one Road Warrior-ed me on my way up to Santa Barbara.

I finally saw Randy Moore‘s Escape From Tomorrow late yesterday afternoon. Set entirely in Disneyland and shot in black-and-white, it’s basically a riff on The Shining with a vein of social criticism about pudgy, desperate, flabby-brained Americans indulging themselves with sugar, booze and fantasy while corporations control and exploit them like cattle. Is this not the central middle-class affliction of the 21st Century?

The Shining parallels: (1) Weak, economically strapped dad has (or has had) an alcohol problem; (2) Dad and family submit to extended stay within a large, imposing, surreal realm (hotel/theme park) with gradually revealed ghosts and sexually tempting witches preying on dad, exploiting his barely suppressed lusts; (3) for spooky reasons two young girls openly invite a major character to come and play; (4) Dad succumbs to drink, is wounded and bloodied, goes loony and staggers around until the hotel/theme park finally eats him up and takes his soul.

Escape is definitely an interesting sit. It’s brave, absorbing, original as far as it goes, subversive, occasionally funny, and it has a thematic point. I was never bored and was/am glad I saw it. I hope that it finds some way to be seen by Joe Popcorn. I’m presuming that Disney attorneys will do what they can to block it.

Few things make me more irate than driving-and-talking scenes in which the driver primarily looks at the person riding shotgun (usually a woman) and only glances at the road sporadically. Five or six seconds of eye-contact for every one or two seconds of road-watching. That’s exactly the opposite of what real driving is like, even in the case of reckless drunks. I never, ever look at a passenger except when we’re at a stop light or stalled in traffic.

Shailene Woodley, Miles Teller in James Ponsoldt’s The Spectacular Now

And yet directors are constantly telling actors during driving scenes that they can eyeball the passenger all they want. I flinch and seethe when this happens. I twitch. “Asshole!Watch the road!”

Most actors don’t care about driving realism. The car they’re acting in is usually being towed by the camera-and-lighting car so what do they care? They just want as much eye-contact as possible with the person riding shotgun so they can show the audience how personable and sensitive they are. And 90% of the time the director indulges them when he/she should be saying, “Do you drive like this in real life? Glancing at the road in one- and two-second bursts while staring soulfully at your passenger?”

I’m mentioning this tendency because director James Ponsoldt and actor Miles Teller have taken the ignore-the-road aesthetic to a whole new level in a scene in The Spectacular Now, a decent Sundance flick about a teenage drunk that I saw two or three days ago.

Teller, a 25 year-old playing an 18 year-old, is driving down a suburban road when a car with a couple of girls pulls up on his left side and starts cruising at the same speed. Both parties roll down their windows and start chatting, and Ponsoldt and Teller blow Hollywood’s “four or five seconds of eye-contact for every one or two seconds of road-watching” rule out of the water. Teller — this guy is bold as brass — just fucking stares at the women in the car and ignores the road altogether…nine, ten, twelve seconds! Go for it, Miles!

Two little kids could have run out in front of Teller’s car and he would have flattened them like a flesh pancake. An elderly man who’s fallen out of his wheelchair could be crawling across the road and Teller would have come along and turned him into a pile of blood, broken bones, brain matter and hamburger.

I mentioned this to Ponsoldt yesterday when I ran into him at the Prospector, and he laughed in his usual charming way and said I need to ask Teller about this. Ask Teller?

It’s time for directors like Ponsoldt to man up and admit that they’re consciously trying to defy the reality of the road when they shoot driving-and-talking scenes, and once they’ve done that they need to man up and push it farther. One of these days a truly bold and visionary Kubrick-like director is going to tell his behind-the-wheel actor to ignore the road altogether when he/she is driving. Don’t glance at the road every five or six seconds or, in the case of guys like Teller, every ten or twelve seconds. What road? Make your own world, man!