Contrary to the Getty Images caption, the woman with Nightmare Alley director-cowriter Guillermo del Toro at today’s Oscar Nominees Luncheon is not a “guest.”‘ She’s GDT’s wife and Nightmare Alley co-author Kim Morgan.

Earlier today HE reader “Mike” complained about my Santa Barbara Film Festival doings thus far. “Why the obsession with the festival’s back-slapping, glad-handing interview sidebars?,” he wrote. “What about the bread and butter? It’s a film festival, for Christ’s sake. Surely it’s not hard to see a couple a day and drop a few comments. What are your favorites so far?”

HE to “Mike”: “The back-slapping, glad-handing interviews ARE the festival’s bread-and-butter. Bringing brand-name celebs to town in the heat of Oscar season is what the SBIFF does — what it’s famous for.

“The films that show at SBIFF are always curated with care — Roger Durling and his staff do the best they can, and most are quality-level as far as it goes — but for various reasons the SBIFF never gets the pick of the litter. You would hope that they’d screen some of the more interesting Sundance titles, but they never do (and not for lack of trying).

Every so often there’s an interesting doc or odd foreign feature in the lineup. I take them as they come.”

Right now I’m watching Neil LaBute‘s House of Darkness, an eerie seduction drama with Justin Long and Kate Bosworth. Synopsis: “A man drives a woman home after they meet over drinks in a local bar. When she invites him into her home for a nightcap, the evening doesn’t follow the familiar path toward seduction.”

Later this week I’ll catch Justin Kurzel‘s Nitram, a drama based on the saga of Australian mass murderer Martin Bryant. Costarring Caleb Landry Jones, Judy Davis and Anthony LaPaglia,

Nitram had its big premiere at last July’s Cannes Film Festival; Jones won the Best Actor award. Pic received a limited theatrical release in Australia last September.

“It was one of those surreal moments when light entertainment mugs history. Vladimir Putin crooned the song ‘Blueberry Hill at a children’s charity benefit in St Petersburg in 2010, as a crowd of celebrities — including Sharon Stone, Kevin Costner, Kurt Russell, Goldie Hawn, Gérard Depardieu, Vincent Cassel and Monica Bellucci – clapped along like they were in kindergarten.

“When the politician reeled off the opening line — ‘I found my thrill’ — thoughts of the Georgian invasion or the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko didn’t seem to be urgently popping into anyone’s head. Knowing what we know now, the spectacle plays more like Dr. Evil’s rendition of ‘Just the Two of Us’ but far less funny.” — from “Putin’s Hollywood pals – the stars who snuggled up to the Russian dictator,” a 3.7.22 Guardian piece by Phil Hoad.

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Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone is asking her readers to pick preferences among the ten Best Picture nominees. She’s asked me to ask the HE community to join in. Right now Jane Campion‘s The Power of the Dog seems to be leading, she says.

If you believe in fairies and if you care about doing your part to halt the scourge of homosexual panic in 21st Century cinema, please vote now. Within the realm of this small but culturally significant poll, only YOU can stop The Power of the Dog.

King Richard’s Will Smith and Aunjanue Ellis are speaking with SBIFF moderator Scott Feinberg on the Arlington stage, and Smith has been hilarious so far.

Confident and smooth and relaxed top to bottom, Smith has been needling Feinberg for being a meticulous researcher. Oh, and no talking about Wild Wild West, Scott! The crowd is laughing and whoo-whooing…cheers and applause.

An argument broke out between a female POC and festival security guys over her shooting some iPhone video footage, which is against SBIFF rules. Will hears and sees, asks if everything is cool, etc. And then he says (not an exact quote), “This is why we like white-people audiences.”

Smith #1: “I’ve never sat in a room with Richard Williams.” Smith #2 (approximate): “I don’t struggle with being humble and modest.”

After King Richard’s riveting kitchen argument scene is shown, Aunjune whispers to Smith that she’d never seen it before. And then Smith tells everyone what she’s just said.

Feinberg mentions having been a pro tennis ball guy in his teens, and mentions his brief, real-life meeting with Williams during a New Haven tennis match, and shows a pair of photos for proof.

HE to Feinberg: I knew you wouldn’t ask Smith why he blew off The Matrix. I knew it.

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.”

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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.