LAFCA: Did I mention alcohol was served?

I’ve been “encouraged� to file some impressions from last night’s Los Angeles Film Critics soire, a simple enough task, one would think, until you factor in the amount of alcohol consumed by many at my table, which was comprised of the fun-loving folks behind the doomsday doc “An Inconvenient Truth.� (Al Gore was a no-show. Apparently he’s somewhere in Japan, promoting the movie or holed up at the Park Hyatt Tokyo with Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson.)

The imbibing had less to do with drowning awareness of those melting ice caps as it did with the length of awards segment of the evening. As the speeches went on and on (and, in some cases, on), it became apparent that “Truth� director Davis Guggenheim and his lovely wife Elisabeth Shue would not have to worry about potty training their infant daughter. She’d be old enough to go to the bathroom by herself by the time the ceremony ground to a close.

Still, the evening had its moments. Helen Mirren thanking her husband for still wanting to have sex with her while playing Queen Elizabeth II was a good line, topped only by her perfectly timed add that maybe the whole thing fulfilled some kind of sordid little fantasy on his part.

The wife found her fave – Sacha Baron Cohen – and made his fiancé, Isla Fisher, laugh with a joke that I’m forbidden to repeat here. I enjoyed a bit of cocktail hour time with Clint Eastwood.
(Did I mention that the event featured alcohol?) And, as previously mentioned, the “Truth�-tellers were a good bunch, even as their numbers thinned out due to illness (producer Lawrence Bender), attention-deficit disorder (Paramount Vantage president John Lesher) or just plain boredom (producer Scott Z. Burns).

They missed the dry brilliance of Mirren, a very funny Cohen and Reese Witherspoon popping in to present the career achievement award to Robert Mulligan with a speech that somehow managed to call attention to the vast sums of money that Witherspoon makes as an A-lister and the fact that she has a very good lawyer.

Witherspoon then left via the kitchen, either to avoid the paparazzi or get her hands on a second helping of polenta. Check back for updates.