Mourn With Us

I’m of two minds about this afternoon’s Irish Wake at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, otherwise known as the Santa Barbara Film Festival Blogger’s Panel (4 to 5:30 pm, 1130 State Street). On one hand I’d like as many people as possible to come because it’ll feel like a less miserable thing with friends offering hugs. On the other hand the only way to get through it might be to bring a quart of Jack Daniels and pass it around. Either way you don’t want the panelists to outnumber the audience.

Because the only thing anyone will want to talk about is last night’s impact grenade — i.e., The King’s Speech‘s Tom Hooper winning the DGA award for feature directing, and thereby all but settling the Best Picture race. It’ll basically be an occasion for whimpering, howling and lamenting on the part of myself, Scott Feinberg and Awards Daily‘s Sasha Stone, plus the usual dry, perceptive, mild-mannered analysis from Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson, the beat-reporting, up-with-movies-and-the-people -who-make-them positivism of Deadline‘s Pete Hammond, and the avuncular wit and wisdom of moderator Peter Rainer, critic for the Christian Science Monitor.

7 thoughts on “Mourn With Us

  1. God forbid there’s a bomb threat or something. Seeing how Pete Hammond turned tail and ran away from predicting The Social Network at the first sign of trouble, he’d probably hide under his chair. Who’d ever want to be stuck in a foxhole with him?

  2. For fuck’s sake, Jeff. What a critics group or the Academy or anyone else says about TSN will impact NO ONE’s relationship with the film itself. Or shouldnt. It’s a great film that will surely be enjoyed and even treasured forever. THAT is what counts, not what some sodding wankers decide.

  3. If you ask me, David Fincher dodged a bullet with this one. There is nothing uncooler than being honored by the Academy. It’s saying, “Congratulations. Your film is vanilla enough to win the prom.”

    And Best Director Oscars have a way of destroying an auteur’s killer instincts. It’s like an athlete and an orgasm.

    Mr Hooper made an Oscar movie. Getting an Oscar based on that should come as no surprise.

    Anyway… a serious question… I’m seeing an odd pattern of dissing any Golden Globe best picture winners. Do you think the guilds and Academy would be so petty to gun down a movie based on what those idiots choose? Out of crazy spite?

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