The red carpet itself is just getting started…I’m perched in Glick’s lofty dining room above his living room space, where he’ll be receiving celebrity guests for his infamously emphatic interviews. For now, Glick (AKA Martin Short) has been talking to shows like Entertainment Tonight and even CNN. So far he’s mounted two lady hosts and has just wobbled out to a throng of beachside onlookers for a hello to the fans.
I’m sitting at the bloggers’ table, where we’ve got an audio/visual feed into Jiminy’s interviews and a bird’s eye view of the red carpet. Waiting for the “big” indie celebs to roll in.
**OMG Jiminy Glick has joined us in the dining room! Look for Patrick from Cinematical and me on one of Netflix’s Indie Spirit Award videos. Patrick does look a bit like a guy from a Preston Sturges movie. And I think I may have just been hit on by Jiminy Glick.
Jason Reitman stops by to chat up Juno, the Oscar favorite that is also up for Best Feature at the Spirit Awards. “Don’t you want to talk to my father?” he asks Jiminy. In comes Ivan Reitman, who’d been patiently watching from the wings.
John Waters comes in. The topic of conversation, naturally, turns to Divine’s poop-eating scene in Pink Flamingos.
Goodness, these Spirit Awards are a breezy affair. Jiminy Glick’s been given license to fly fast and loose with Hollywood’s finest — talking poop with Waters (who, I’m paraphrasing, notes that everyone in Hollywood does so sometime…), humping Maria Bello (who gives a rather racy insight into her own sex life). Allison Janney, Matt Dillon, and Spirit Awards host Rainn Wilson have also come through — the latter getting into an impromptu pillow fight with Glick. (The big guy won.)
Meanwhile, let’s talk awards. Jason Reitman, up for Best Director for Juno (also up for Best Feature, Actress, and Screenplay), tells us he thinks the directing award will go to Julian Schnabel. Does he mean tonight, at the Indie Spirit Awards, or tomorrow night?
Glick to Aaron Eckhart: “Don’t you wish you were in Juno?”
Speaking of Juno (Is there any other movie in the running these days?? Geez!) Ellen Page has arrived. The tiny, 20-year-old Best Actress nominee is appropriately/predictably hipster cute in a menswear suit, looking like a deer in headlights under Glick’s gaze. Thankfully he doesn’t ask any explicit questions. Even Glick must know that would be gross.
One tasty tidbit that comes of Ellen Page’s visit is her mention of her Juno follow-up, Sam Raimi’s Drag Me To Hell. “I get my ass kicked by a crazy demon,” she explains of the plot, where she plays a girl suffering a supernatural curse.
“Do you think it will get released?” Glick asks. “I think because it’s Sam Raimi, it might get released,” she quips.
Page also says, modestly, that she hasn’t prepared her Oscar speech…yet. But she has practiced what she calls her “loser face.”
Interestingly enough, the crowd of fans over by the beach have yelled the loudest for Matt Dillon and Keri Russell. Am I the only one that finds this strange?
All of the celebs here try to keep up with Glick, but Ileana Douglas drops this gem: “My grandfather is Melvin Douglas, and he said if you want to get anywhere in this town, you’ve got to blow Lou Wasserman. And I did!”
Ed Begley Jr., obviously old pals with Glick/Martin Short, comes by. Somewhere in conversation, Glick chokes on a glazed donut and Begley Jr. administers CPR. Glick is saved. Photo is priceless. Later, off camera, Short and Begley gab about the inspired moment: “There’s nothing funnier than mouth to mouth!”
It’s starting to rain, and Jiminy Glick has returned. With him is a camera crew from Good Morning America, back to make sense of us bloggers. “These people are talking to other people sitting in basements, typing,” he explains. He leaves in a flurry, popcorn strewn all over the ground.
The red carpet is wrapping up; the Netflix people have graciously slipped me one of the gratis champagnes floating around for the talent. This glass of bubbly, incidentally, is breakfast.
Here’s a shot of our bloggers’ dining room, from earlier this morning. The telecast is about to begin — 2pm PST on IFC, watch it! — so I’m signing off. More photos, and winner interviews, later. I’ll close with the remark Jiminy Glick made to me the first time he came around: “If I had a pair of shears, I’d snip here [gesturing to my dress] and release the hostages!” Stay classy, Jiminy.
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This Saturday, Film Independent will be hosting their annual Independent Spirit Awards — and we’ll be live-blogging the affair, right from Jiminy Glick’s red carpet living room!
Technically, yours truly will be one of a handful of elite guests reporting live from the red carpet “dining room” in the house of the lovably ignorant celebrity interviewer, Jiminy Glick (Martin Short). As celebrities stop by to chat with Jiminy, Rotten Tomatoes will be blogging the action leading up to the 23rd annual Spirit Awards, held as always in a cozy beachside tent in Santa Monica, California and broadcast live at 5pm EST on IFC.
The Spirit Awards, unlike their Oscar brethren, celebrate the best of the year’s independent films and filmmakers — taking into consideration both “economy of means” (read: films with a budget up to $20 million) as well as “original and provocative” subject matter in their declaration of the year’s best.
Competing for honors this year are Oscar nominees Juno and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (both for Best Feature) as well as more indie-minded fare like Gus Van Sant‘s Paranoid Park (Best Feature), Michael Winterbottom‘s A Mighty Heart (Best Feature), Julie Delpy‘s 2 Days in Paris (Best First Feature), and Jeffrey Blitz‘s Rocket Science (Best First Feature). Films nominated for the screenwriting award include Tamara Jenkins‘ The Savages and also Waitress, by the late Adrienne Shelley.
Other notable and critically acclaimed films nominated for multiple awards are Sidney Lumet‘s Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (Marisa Tomei – Best Supporting Female, Kelly Masterson – Best Screenplay), Zoe Cassavetes‘ Broken English (Parker Posey – Best Lead Female, Zoe Cassavetes – Best First Screenplay), and Todd Haynes‘ I’m Not There (Best Feature, Best Director, Cate Blanchett – Best Supporting Female) and more. Click here for the full list of nominees.
After the show we’ll also be interviewing winners backstage, so here’s your opportunity to pick the brains of the best independent and indie-spirited filmmakers of the year! Got a question for Spirit Awards M.C. Rainn Wilson, Honorary Chair Javier Bardem, or Robert Altman Award winner Todd Haynes? Submit your questions below and we’ll lobby them on the red carpet, and remember to check in with me on RT this Saturday afternoon starting at 11:30am PST/2:30 pm EST for all the Spirit Awards action!
Below is a list of presenters and nominees expected to attend. Send in those questions!
Jason Bateman, Kate Beckinsale, Maria Bello, Cate Blanchett, Zach Braff, Josh Hartnett, Felicity Huffman, Allison Janney, Lisa Kudrow, Eva Mendes, Ellen Page, Dennis Quaid, Ryan Reynolds, Keri Russell, Meg Ryan, Julian Schnabel, Kerry Washington, John Waters, Forest Whitaker, Tom Wilkinson, Steve Zahn, Christian Bale, Roger Birnbaum, John Carney, Diablo Cody, David Cress, Julie Delpy, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Richard Gere, Todd Haynes, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tamara Jenkins, Angelina Jolie, Janusz Kaminski, Tony Kaye, Frank Langella, Ang Lee, John Malkovich, Sienna Miller, Ellen Page, Parker Posey, Jason Reitman, Marjane Satrapi, Julian Schnabel, Marisa Tomei, and more.
**The show airs live beginning at 5:00pm EST/2:00 pm PST on IFC (Independent Film Channel). Live red carpet footage will precede the show starting at 1:30 pm PST on WE, with an edited re-broadcast of the ceremony airing later that evening on AMC at 10:00 pm EST/PST.
