This is arguably the best Jake Tapper editorial piece he’s ever written and composed — Putin-the-brilliant-murderer has been coddled and approved of or certainly not strongly challenged by U.S. Presidents all along… Clinton, Dubya, to some extent Obama, and certainly Trump–nuts. They all looked the other way.

YouTube commenter: “I had no idea just how complicit the West had been in all of this until now. Now the world is reaping what it sowed, just like it did in 1939 after years of appeasing and half-trusting the word of an autocrat with a Charlie Chaplin mustache. It’s fairly trite to reference him at this point, but just read a little history on the Third Reich and the foreign policy taken with them and it is hauntingly familiar.”

For nearly three decades (all through the ’90s, aughts and most of the teens) the Spirit Awards were the Indie Oscars, and were held the day before the actual Oscars in that big, white, champagne-fizzy tent on the beach. And it was cool and fun…humor, warmth, good vibes. And we all basked in that (including yours truly).

And then two or three years ago the woke virus began to seep into the industry bloodstream and the Spirits began to get a little obsessive, sinking deeper and deeper into the theology of “diminish if not eliminate the toxic straight white guy power structure” and “it’s our turn”.

And then Covid hit and the Spirit gang decided to schedule the show much earlier than the usual Oscar weekend and….wait, what?

I’m covering the Santa Barbara Film Festival and had honestly forgotten the Spirits were even happening today. Was anyone paying attention? Did anyone watch? Impressions of any kind?

Congrats to HE’s own Simon Rex for winning the Best Actor trophy, and to Maggie Gyllenhaal (Best Director, Best Screenplay) and The Lost Daughter (Best Feature) and Zola lead Taylor Paige (Best Actress), etc. HE approved of Zola from the get-go. I also respected The Lost Daughter apart from the doll thing.

Spirit Award voters to the rest of the world: “We loved The Lost Daughter‘s stolen doll thing! It worked for us! And eff your negativity if it didn’t rub you the right way!”

A friend called a couple of hours ago to complain about how choked with wokeness the show seemed to be…”the woke-iest awards show that has ever happened…it was totally immersed in the party line…mostly Planet Uranus.”

“But what about Simon Rex winning?,” I argued. “He’s not a wokester.”

Friend: “He won because he played a toxic, bottom-of-the-barrel white guy asshole…they voted for him as a way of saying ‘we’ll vote for a white actor if he plays a piece of shit, which at least offers welcome instruction.'”

Best Feature — The Lost Daughter
Best Male Lead — Simon Rex, Red Rocket
Best Female Lead — Taylour Paige, Zola
Best Supporting Female – Ruth Negga, Passing
Best Supporting Male — Troy Kotsur, CODA
Best Director – Maggie Gyllenhaal, The Lost Daughter
Best International Film — Drive My Red Saab While Chain-Smoking Cigarettes
Best Screenplay — Maggie Gyllenhaal, The Lost Daughter
Best Cinematography — Passing
Best Editing — Zola
Best First Screenplay – Pig

Who better to cover the Santa Barbara Film Festival’s first-ever animation panel than a columnist who used to watch and even admire certain Jeffrey Katzenberg-sired animated features when the boys were young in the ‘90s, but has since avoided animation like the plague?

I have to say that I feel a tiny bit differently after watching and listening to the five Oscar-nominated animation hotshots who showed up today.

I will always feel vaguely annoyed or tortured by family-friendly animation features but I respect the semblance of soul and obviously serious craft that went into Encanto, Flee, Luca, The Mitchell’s vs. the Machines and Raya and the Last Dragon.

And having now spent a little time with the people who respectively created (or co-created) these films — Charise Castro Smith, Charlotte de la Gournerie, Enrico Casarosa, Mike Rianda and Jon Hall — I can honestly call myself an admirer.

Hall (ginger-haired, glasses) and Rianda (big personality, gray-haired) are the nerdy-looking guys on the right. Charlotte de la Gournerie is the blonde with the high-heeled sandals and the curly frizzy hair, Castro Smith is the short-statured brunette with the jean jacket, and Casarosa is the slender, non-nerdy guy with the big ears and graying goatee.

SBIFF honcho Roger Durling was a gracious and passionate interviewer, asking knowledgeable and thoughtful questions and making everyone feel respected and among friends.

It’s 10:46 am and sunny and fairly warm as Hollywood Elsewhere approaches the Arlington theatre, where Roger Durling’s animation panel will begin at 11 am. As I near the entrance area a young festival volunteer (female, Zoomer) smiles and says with a thin, reedy voice …

Zoomer Volunteer: “Auhyoohereguhfuhanimationevahnt?”

HE: (leaning forward): “Sorry?”

Zoomer volunteer: “Auhyoohereguhfuhanimationevahnt?”

HE (half-smiling): “Uhm, you’re asking me…?”

Zoomer Volunteer (trying to speak coherently, forcing herself to slow down): “Are you here for the animation event?”

HE (hugely relieved): “Yes, I am.”

HE comment-thread post about Simon Rex, from “Their Names In Lights”: “Never have I felt or flashed so much in the way of fan vibes and positive alpha for an actor I’ve only come to know within the last six months.

“Partly because of an award-level performance as one of the skankiest and most deplorable characters I’ve ever contemplated from a Telluride theatre seat, and partly because of something else.

“Because Rex has delivered two extra-relishy performances — as porn star Mikey Sabre and, in a sense, as himself.

“Not that he’s faking anything (I don’t sense this at all) but his award-season ‘act’ — his flair for blending honesty and humility with a form of salesmanship that’s almost on the level of early to mid ’70s Burt Reynolds on the Tonight Show — has been fairly brilliant.”

10:20 pm update: Among SBIFF journos there’s always a kind of competition among SBIFF “Virtuosos”, the idea being to choose who’s scored the highest in terms of charisma, wit, spunk, humor and general likableness.

The hands-down winner of the 2022 Virtuoso panel was Red Rocket’s Simon Rex — no question. The audience loved him. The first and second runners-up were CODA’s Troy Kotsur and West Side Story’s Ariana DeBose. Kudos to the other five, but this is what happened.

Earlier: SBIFF’s Night of the Virtuosos is happening as we speak. Dave Karger is moderating, of course, and the eight honorees are Licorice Pizza’s Alana Haim, West Side Story’s Ariana DeBose, Red Rocket‘s Simon Rex, Belfast ‘s Ciaran Hinds and Catriana Balfe, CODA’s Emilia Jones and Troy Kotsur, and King Richard ‘s Soniyya Sidney. (Belfast’s Jamie Dornan couldn’t make it.)

I had somehow ignored the anecdotal fact that Jones, CODA’s struggling protagonist, is British.

I can hear everyone perfectly from my fourth-row seat…no feedback or echo to speak of. Hats off to SBIFF’s tech crew. (Roger Durling informs that they re-booted the sound controls three or four hours ago, partly because I’d briefly complained about the boom-echo thing.)

Congrats to King Richard‘s Pamela Martin by the way, for snagging the top ACE Eddie award (Drama) earlier this evening. Another setback for The Power of the Dog, of course, but otherwise how meaningful is this?

We’ve all been watching Ukrainian citizens going through absolute hell — people of all ages but especially women and the elderly in shock, sobbing, stumbling around, tears streaming down their cheeks….reports of young children being killed, bomb craters, streets littered with shards of destruction, apartment buildings destroyed, homes burning…

This is not about Americans but my God, have CNN viewers ever witnessed such carnage and terror this vividly?…such a steady barrage, and so immediate.

And it’s going to get worse…much worse for so many…God help them all. The brave and heroic Volodymyr Zelensky, God forbid, might be killed. A name-brand CNN or BBC or SkyNews reporter might catch shrapnel or a bullet in the neck. Broadcast-wise, there’s never been this level of horror delivered this constantly…hour after after, day after day. Yes, it’s just “televised coverage” but my God, it’s devastating. In some ways I feel as if I’m almost there. In spirit I certainly am.

Death to Vladimir Putin…never has the phrase “terminate with extreme prejudice” sounded so apt, so justified, so longed for.

Anne “softball” Thompson is moderating this year’s SBIFF “It Starts With The Script” panel — (l. to r.) King Richard writer Zach Baylin, Belfast director-writer Kenneth Branagh, The Lost Daughter director-writer Maggie Gyllenhaal, CODA director–writer Sian Heder, Don’t Look Up director & co-writer Adam McKay, Dune director & co–writer Denis Villeneuve, The Worst Person in the World director & co-writer Joachim Trier.

It’s happening inside the cavernous Arlington theatre. The usual venue, Santa Barbara’s Lobero theatre, is allegedly being renovated.

The acoustics aren’t right again, or at least they aren’t from my front-row center seat — everyone sounds bassy and echo-y — I haven’t been able to make out a single thought or phrase. I’m sure that a properly mixed video of this panel will be much easier to understand.

McKay doesn’t like to sit up — he prefers to slump with his head resting against the seat. I’m told he suffers from a condition — essential tremors — that prohibits him from normal sitting. The large SBIFF panel chairs were used to accommodate him.

If I were moderating, I would ask Baylin how he, a white guy, managed to write such a frank, absorbing, real-deal script about a black family from Compton? How could he have possibly understood or dramatically translated the story of the Williams family, given his privileged white-guy sensibilities? It’s a facetious question, of course, but I’m sure it came up during King Richards’ hiring phase and/or development.

Oh, and by the way: Thompson is wearing plain black slacks or jeans (relaxed fit), but Gyllenhaal and Heder have both submitted to the fashionista fascists by wearing broadly flared slacks (Gyllenhaal’s outfit is earthy copper, Heder’s is light brown corduroy).

I was astonished when Warner Bros. announced that Matt Reeves would direct yet another Batman film…post-Nolan trilogy, post Schumacher, post-Burton. And yet it turned out pretty well — The Batman is a grand symphony of gloom, and all of a harmonized piece. For those who’ve seen it (and those who haven’t), which of the many Batman films stands the tallest? And how good, really, is Colin Farrell’s Penguin?

Please point out any scene in any 2021 film about any kind of romantic or professional conflict that favorably compares to this one.

What is this scene mainly about? Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton) is angry about her inability to transcend or otherwise work past her limitations as a writer, along with the suffocating sexism that was par for the course back then. Plus she feels overshadowed by the more gifted and energetic John Reed (Warren Beatty), and so she mostly blames Reed. Naturally.

The writing (Trevor Griffith) is flawless; ditto the acting. Beatty-the-actor is always marvelous when he gets angry. Remember the “bark like a dog” scene in Bugsy?

Kristen Stewart night at the Arlington, 15 or 20 minutes before the show began. Masks are no longer mandatory in California, but the SBIFF greeting staff was asking everyone to wear them anyway…fine. I put mine on, smiled at the ushers and walked into the cavernous theatre.

Ten minutes later I was sitting in my usual third-row aisle seat with my mask off, in line with standard protocol (masks worn standing but not sitting). A lean, white-haired provocateur in a plaid jacket (one of the swells who always wait until just before showtime to arrive) came over, did a theatrical double-take and said, “I was just wondering why everyone is wearing masks except you.”

That wasn’t true, in fact — several people sitting in our immediate vicinity (including Charlize Theron, two rows away) weren’t wearing them.

HE reply (calmly): “I’m not wearing my mask for the same reason that sitting restaurant patrons don’t wear them. Plus the CDC says they’re no longer mandatory.”

White-haired guy: “But this is a private event and the festival has asked everyone to wear them.”

HE: “Unless you’re sitting down. Or unless you’re Charlize Theron or Kristen Stewart or Roger Durling or Anne Thompson. Or unless you’re invited to the after-party.”

White-haired guy (leaning over to inspect my press badge): “But but but….”

HE: “Look, I’m not a mask dilletante. I’ve been masking for two years and I’m triple vaxxed, but the mandatory mask stuff is basically over.”

White-haired guy: “You may not be a dilletante, but you might be a jerk.”

HE: “Okay, I’m a jerk.”