I nearly forgot about my acidic King’s Speech stomach during last night’s Santa Barbara Film Festival Geoffrey Rush tribute. I’ll never be able to watch Quills again, and Rush’s over-acting in the HBO Peter Sellers biopic (which he was too old for) and the Pirates films is a tough thing, but he’s just about perfect in Tom Hooper‘s high-end buddy flick.

Last night reminded that Rush is a wise, cultured and very eloquent fellow. He made an excellent impression all around. And he looks good as Mr. Clean. If he wins the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, as Sasha Stone suspects he might, I will not twitch or shudder in my seat. His Lionel Logue is a first-rate inhabiting.

King’s Speech costars Colin Firth and Helena Bonham Carter dropped by atr the end of the tribute along with director Tom Hooper,

Rush and moderator Pete Hammond — Monday, 1.31, 7:35 pm.

Like many in her realm, Entertainment Weekly critic Lisa Schwarzbaum is close to apoplectic (“gobsmacked”) over last weekend’s DGA triumph by The King’s Speech helmer Tom Hooper. But perhaps, she adds, Hooper does merit exceptional recognition for his clever use of classical music in four important scenes.

“What were those DGA voters thinking?,” she writes. “My conclusion: They weren’t thinking; they were feeling. And they were feeling because of incalculable help provided to the director by two geniuses ineligible for an award in this or any other year to come. I’m talking, of course, about Ludwig van Beethoven and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Without them, The King’s Speech would be filled with much emptier words.”

Gee, I wonder what inspired Salon‘s Matt Zoller Seitz to post a slideshow piece about the most egregious Oscar’ wrongos of all time? Did the idea just arise out of the blue? Or is there a present-tense contender prompting rolled eyes and audible groans?

Update: Hollywood Foreign Press Association president Phil Berk has denied Ricky Gervais‘ claim that he’s been asked to host the Golden Globes yet again next year, despite the brouhaha sparked by his his stint earlier this month. “There is no truth to this rumor,” Berk said in a statement. “We have not asked him to come back. Nice try, Ricky.”

Earlier: The Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. has reportedly invited Ricky Gervais to return and host the 2012 Golden Globes telecast. That’s the Stockholm Syndrome, no? It’s also one hell of a swing from what one HFPA member told Popeater’s Rob Shuter about Gervais not only being finished as a GG emcee but his future films being blackballed in terms of potential Golden Globe honors.

Gervais has expressed reluctance about doing the show again. He’d be a fool not to, of course. The whole “he went too far!” thing (i.e., shock and umbrage, death-ray looks from Tom Hanks and Tim Allen, objections from Robert Downey, Jr., publicists reportedly calling to complain) has boosted his stock and then some.

The complete classic quote: “‘Hit Me,’ said the Sadomasochist. ‘I won’t,’ said the Sadist.”

Last year Vanity Fair‘s John Lopez floated the idea of AMPAS’s preferential voting system possibly leading to a surprise upset in favor of Inglourious Basterds. Now he’s saying that The Social Network could pull off a surprise Best Picture win by being everyone’s No. 2 choice…or something like that.

“The Social Network [being] the ‘It’ movie of the year makes it the logical No. 2 slot for everyone in the Academy who doesn’t hail The King’s Speech,” Lopez writes. “So Oscar whisperers should be sure to find out from Academy sources who their No. 2 pick is, because this year coming in second might just do the trick.”

I need to inspect a hard copy of Vanity Fair‘s just-out Hollywood issue with a magnifying glass, but this image from the magazine’s website makes the cover spread look like a piss-poor Photoshop job. If all the principals were snapped at the same time at a single photo session, fine — I stand corrected. But it sure doesn’t look that way. Is “bartender” Robert Duvall the fakest-looking of the lot? No, that would be Mila Kunis — she looks like pure cardboard, shaped by an Exacto knife.

The headline of this N.Y. Times/Michael Cieply piece about the surge of The King’s Speech promises a couple of snippy quotes. It delivers nothing of the kind. There’s only a mention of a faintly xenophobic Variety ad for True Grit.

“Since forming the Weinstein Company with his brother, Bob, in 2005, Harvey Weinstein has struggled to regain the hot hand that made him one of the most successful and feared figures in the independent movie business,” writes Media Equation’s David Carr. “An opportunistic bottom feeder with a knack for resuscitating troubled projects, Mr. Weinstein has become one himself. Here at Sundance and elsewhere, people whispered he was a ghost.

(l.) Harvey Weinstein; (r.) David Carr.

“Turns out that he wasn’t starring in The Sixth Sense. He was playing the role of Jason in Friday the 13th, Part 9: biding his time and then striking again.

“As the Oscar nominations demonstrated, Mr. Weinstein is still capable of spotting value. Many people, including me, look at The King’s Speech and see a by-the-numbers film that’s a fine candidate for BBC TV. Mr. Weinstein saw a high-end buddy movie that humanized its royal subject and then he carefully husbanded the marketing resources of the film, enticing consumers to come out and see the film and reminding the academy voters that the carefully crafted dramedy of manners was worthy of consideration. The nominations surprise last Tuesday provided oxygen to the struggling company.

“Yes, his company is a shell of its former self and his partners are out a lot of money, but there is something to be said for relentlessness, a refusal to acknowledge that you are finished, and the will to just keep hacking away no matter what.

“No wonder Bob has had such good luck producing horror films: he grew up with Jason.”

“By standards of quality, the DGA’s choice of Tom Hooper, director of The King’s Speech, over The Social Network‘s David Fincher is indefensible,” writes Time‘s Richard Corliss.

“Hooper manages his principal players (Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter) expertly enough but forces the supporting actors into caricature. His camera style is stodgy, and his handling of a delicate subject lurid but not invigorating. He’ll do anything — peel onions — to make his audience cry. He commits all the sins of omission and commission that Fincher avoids. And this is one more reason The King’s Speech will triumph on Oscar night: if mediocre work wins in Hollywood’s official circles, it tends to keep on winning.

“When The King’s Speech had its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival in September, I pointed out the ways in which, by coincidence or cynicism, the movie followed virtually every rule of a Best Picture winner. It’s a biopic of a real person; it is set on or near World War II, with Hitler’s shadow looming; it dramatizes a man’s heroic struggle over some physical or psychological infirmity; and it’s got oodles of those classy British actors.

“Other Academy watchers noticed the same thing: Steve Pond, resident Oscar savant of industry website The Wrap, predicted a Best Picture win before he had even seen it. And it would be odd indeed if the people the movie was designed for — the senior Hollywood professionals who vote on the Oscars — didn’t go for it.”

Oscar Poker #19 is a discussion between myself, Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone and Hollywood & Fine‘s Marshall Fine about the stunning Oscar-race turnaround of the past week. Here’s a non-iTunes link. And here’s a bonus link to the first half-hour of yesterday’s Oscar Blogger podcast.