Last night my son Jett and two of his roommates were discussing wall-poster decorations in their just-moved-into flophouse — a seedy second-floor apartment with five bedrooms, a kitchen and a bathroom that’s only a couple of blocks from the Syracuse University campus. Jett wanted to put up a poster featuring James Dean and Bob Dylan, and one of the roommates — a very bright 20 year-old who’s (a) gay, (b) African-American and (c) a Republican — said no way. The point is that the guy had never heard of Dean or Dylan. I’m putting it as plainly as I can. The guy had never heard of either one. That’s dedication.

Earlier today The Envelope‘s Tom O’Neil posted a list of who will present what award at tonight’s Golden Globes ceremony. I know one thing — the presentation of the Cecil B. DeMille Award to Steven Spielberg is bathroom-break, make-a-meatloaf-sandwich, throw-the-wet-clothes-into-the-dryer time for me. All hail the director of Tintin!

What exactly has Spielberg done lately to deserve another brass kowtow besides having agreed to show up tonight? If Spielberg wasn’t a billionaire big-shot who’s hired a great number of people in this town and whose films have made gazillions over the past 33 years, would he be receiving this award tonight? I mean, it’s not like he made Schindler’s List last year or anything.

If a troubled heterosexual relationship drama had come out this year with scenes as good as this, it would absolutely be among the five Best Picture nominees with a damn good shot to win. The older Carnal Knowledge gets, the better it gets.

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.