Two significant Love & Mercy plugs have happened over the last 24. One, today’s announcement about Santa Barbara Film Festival honcho Roger Durling having selected Love & Mercy‘s Elizabeth Banks and Paul Dano as Virtuoso award recipients (i.e., supporting-level award contenders) at next February’s Santa Barbara Film Festival (2.3 thru 2.13). And two, Youth costar Jane Fonda — herself a Best Supporting Actress contender — offered a big Dano plug at the start of yesterday’s Youth press conference at the Four Seasons hotel. Fonda: “Oh my God. I live with a music producer [Richard Perry] and so I know about Brian Wilson and the fact that he’s a genius, and so I wanted to see the movie. And [Paul], as the younger Brian Wilson, I just found astonishing. Really special. I liked the movie too. Elizabeth Banks and John Cusack…all of them. Such a good film.” Again, the mp3.

At the recent Love & Mercy Brian Wilson concert at Vibrato: (l. to r.) Melinda Ledbetter, Paul Dano, Brian Wilson, Elizabeth Banks.