I’m at the BAFTA awards brunch on the UCLA campus, and the show (a direct feed from London) is about to begin. There’s no suspense in this, however, since the winners (not 100% confirmed but quite possibly reliable) have been leaked and are up now on Sasha Stone’s Awards Daily (www.awardsdaily.com). Posted from my iPhone at 1:01 pm. Update: The feed from London isn’t working so everyone’s just sitting around and drinking champagne. Except for me.

25 minutes from now, four Writers Guild of America honchos will hold a press conference at WGAW headquarters to “update the media on important developments” regarding contract negotiations between the WGA and the AMPTP.

A friend has sent along three links to recent NPR ruminations concerning No Country for Old Men. An “All Things Considered” visit by producer Scott Rudin, “Weekend Edition” chat with director-screenwriters Joel and Ethan Coen, and a “Day to Day” discussion with Oscar-nominated costar Javier Bardem.

N.Y. Times Magazine editor Lynn Hirschberg narrates a montage of fifteen youngish actors (Seth Rogen, Ellen Page, James McAvoy, Josh Brolin, etc.) who broke through this year with strong, distinctive performances in high-calibre films. Here‘s the article itself.

Barack Obama‘s successes in yesterday’s primaries “don’t just speak to his popularity as a Democratic candidate,” writes Time‘s Ana Marie Cox. “A close look shows a fundamental shift not just in who’s winning but in who is voting for the winner.

“Obama’s victory in Louisiana could be, if one were especially cynical, written off as success with ‘black voters.’ But what of Nebraska, just to take one example? Obama won the state 68 to 32; he won Nebraska’s second congressional district 77 to 23. And while it’s true that this district (my home district, by the way) encompasses the University of Nebraska and the capital (pointy-headed academics and whatnot), it’s also 80% white, with a mean household income of about $50,000.
“These are not latte liberals. They are just barely caffeinated. What’s more, 1,500 of the 10,000 those who voted in just Lincoln, registered that same day.”

The Envelope‘s Tom O’Neil and Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone chatting about Oscar blogging and taking shots at pundits like Patrick Goldstein and Scott Foundas, who’ve accused them (and the Oscar-blogging comunity in general) of focusing too much on the race and not enough on the films.

The Clinton campaign’s “other most potent form of currency remains its thick deck of race cards,” N.Y. Times columnist Frank Rich observes in today’s issue.
“In October, USA Today found Hillary Clinton leading Mr. Obama among African-American Democrats by a margin of 62 percent to 34 percent. But once black voters met Mr. Obama and started to gravitate toward him, Bill Clinton and the campaign’s other surrogates stopped caring about what African-Americans thought.
“In an effort to scare off white voters, Mr. Obama was ghettoized as a cocaine user (by the chief Clinton strategist, Mark Penn, among others), ‘the black candidate’ (as Clinton strategists told the Associated Press) and Jesse Jackson redux (by Mr. Clinton himself). The result? Black America has largely deserted the Clintons. In her California primary victory, Mrs. Clinton drew only 19 percent of the black vote.
“Last month a Hispanic pollster employed by the Clinton campaign pitted the two groups against each other by telling The New Yorker that Hispanic voters have ‘not shown a lot of willingness or affinity to support black candidates.’ Mrs. Clinton then seconded the motion by telling Tim Russert in a debate that her pollster was ‘making a historical statement.’
“It wasn’t an accurate statement, historical or otherwise. It was a lie, and a bigoted lie at that, given that it branded Hispanics, a group as heterogeneous as any other, as monolithic racists.”

I have to go to a BAFTA awards viewing party that starts around 11:30 am. Maybe I can file a story or two from this location. I can certainly post a couple of photos.

Isabel Coixet‘s The Dying Animal, which is apparently screening today in Berlin Film Festival, is an erotic drama about a university professor (Ben Kingsley) having a scorching affair with a much younger Cuban student (Penelope Cruz), and the mad possessiveness (stemming from a fear of death) that this alliance brings out in him.

Unreviewed so far (later tonight?), The Dying Animal is based on a Phillip Roth novel of the same name; the title comes from something (a line, a poem… whatever) written by William Butler Yeats, who had a thing for younger women as well.
For the average moviegoer, of course, The Dying Animal is going to be seen as another film about Kingsley doing his wackjob thing — i.e., playing characters who either embody or succumb to an intense but arresting eccentricity bordering on madness. This is what he’s principally become known for since his great seminal performance as Don Logan in Sexy Beast, which came out seven and a half years ago.
Kingsley has played many different sorts, but his nutters attract the most attention. The irresponsible, pot-smoking therapist in The Wackness. The alcoholic hitman in You Kill Me. The nutter criminal type in Lucky Number Slevin. The deranged Herman Tarnower in Mrs. Harris. Is it fair to say that the saner and more rational his characters are, the less engaging Kingsley’s performances are?

Diablo Cody took the WGA’s original screenplay award for Fox Searchlight’s Juno and Ethan and Joel Coen have taken the adapted screenplay trophy for Miramax’s No Country for Old Men at tonight’s WGA Awards show.

“What do you mean one of the most violent movies of all time?” Sylvester Stallone says to Scotland on Sunday about Rambo. “It is the most violent movie of all time!” Slight amendment: it’s also, at times, the funniest super-violent film of all time.

In a letter earlier today to NBC News president Steve Capus about the flap over MSNBC’s David Shuster‘s comment that the Clinton campaign had “pimped out” 27-year old Chelsea Clinton by having her call super-delegates and three of the View regulars, Hillary Clinton said that suspending Shuster isn’t enough — she wants him whacked. This is who she is and what she is — a seething revenge harridan, back-arched, ready to wield the knife at the drop of a hat. Most liberals agree with Hillary (as do I for the most part), but has there been a more loathsome would-be Presidential candidate on the Democratic side in terms of personality and character? Here‘s the letter.