The trophy-giving over the weekend started early, on Thursday night at Bad Robot in Santa Monica, where the Oscar Wilde Awards honored John Logan, Melissa McCarthy and Michelle Williams.
J.J. Abrams hosted the event dedicated to the Irish in film, which led him to exclaim, ” ‘The Artist’ is getting nothing tonight.”
Logan introduced Williams, although he initially hesitated because of her Scandinavian roots. “Her people were in fact the Viking hordes that came to Belfast and pillaged,” he joked.
On Friday, Cathy Schulman and Gwyneth Paltrow hosted the Women in Film cocktail soiree at Ceconni’s, where Oscar-nommed actresses Jessica Chastain, Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer received jeweled broaches and other goodies.
“It’s a great honor to co-host this event,” said Paltrow. “We need to do everything we can to increase the amount of women in film…because we are smarter than men and better than men.”
Across town, the Brits threw a cocktail pour at the consul general’s residence in Hancock Park. Culture and Media Secretary Jeremy Hunt told Oscar nominees Janet McTeer, Gary Oldman, Kenneth Branagh and others, “We’re incredibly proud of the fact that the U.S. studios spent $1.5 billion making films in the U.K. last year. We’re incredibly proud of the fact that the three biggest U.S. superheroes — Superman, Batman and Spider-Man — are all Brits. And that’s the least you can do after we’ve allowed an American to play Margaret Thatcher.”
Later that night, the Eye on Black Salute at the Park Plaza Hotel honored Martin Lawrence and Debbie Allen, among others.
The comedian accepted his prize from Luke Wilson and Tim Allen, who joked, “It’s like being in Cirque du Soleil if you work with Martin.”
And it seemed like the circus was in town as Debbie Allen tried to accept her award from Nia Long and Kimberly Elise while the video screen kept bleeping in and out, interrupting her. “C’mon now, just hold the video,” Allen shouted. “It doesn’t work!”
The biggest pre-Oscars awards confab, of course, came Saturday afternoon. Seth Rogen kicked off the Independent Spirit Awards on the Santa Monica beach on an irreverent note, reminding the crowd that there’s no money to be made by winning one of these trophies.
“It won’t even raise your price, because it proves that you’ll work for nothing,” said Rogen, who later warned, “Please, keep your acceptance speeches short because the tent has be at a bar mitzvah at 5.”
Saturday night, the Weinstein Co. threw a pre-Oscar bash at Soho House in WeHo. If Harvey and Bob Weinstein were nervous about Sunday night’s outcome, they certainly didn’t show it.
Tony Bennett briefly tickled the ivories when the brothers brought out their mother, Miriam, who recently celebrated a birthday.
Later in the evening, Harvey huddled up with Leonardo DiCaprio, who puffed on an electric cigarette.
(Shalini Dore, Erin Maxwell, Dave McNary and Jeff Sneider contributed to this report.)
