L.A. Film Critics Awards Have More Stars, Weirdly, Than Most Other Awards Will

There are reasons why the Los Angeles Film Critics Association doesn't broadcast its awards ceremony.
For one, we're not the most technically adept group in Hollywood. At Saturday night’s dinner at the Intercontinental Hotel in Century City, microphones went out, glasses fell off presenters' noses and video montages failed to load.
But it's also because our gatherings are all about the love of cinema, which was celebrated all the way from the evening's big and bold best picture winner, "There Will Be Blood," to the work the UCLA Film Archive and partner organizations have done to restore low-budget, little seen indie masterpieces such as "Killer of Sheep" and "Parting Glances." Those who are just into awards season crap simply wouldn’t get it.
Not that the event suffered for glamour. Since our reason for existence isn't to put on a TV show, the Writers Guild had no beef with us. Ergo, "Blood" star and universally hailed best actor of the year Daniel Day-Lewis showed up. So did LAFCA's best actress winner Marion Cotillard ("La Vie en rose"), all the way from France, yet, in a slinky black gown with a sparkly heart appliqué on the left breast.
Also present were Sissy Spacek (husband Jack Fisk received the production design plaque for his “Blood” work), Christine Lahti (introducing the career achievement honoree, 83-year-old director Sidney Lumet, with a speech containing a remarkable number of references to penile erections) and supporting actor winner Vlad Ivanov who, being Romanian, probably would have found any strike-related activity that didn’t result in beatings and prison sentences refreshingly amusing .
Ivanov plays the abortionist in the brilliant, as-universally-acclaimed-as-Daniel-Day thriller “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” and had one of the night’s better acceptance speeches: “Sometimes, it is good to be a bad guy. One of the best comments I got after this movie was, ‘I want to kill you.’ ”
Some other choice quotes:
Brad Bird, director of animation co-winner (with “Persepolis“) “Ratatouille,” who asked the voice of the film’s lead rat, comedian Patton Oswalt, to write some lines for him: “What do you do when God hands you a miracle? That’s what I felt when I first heard Patton Oswalt’s voice . . .”
Lumet, who’s made a lot of movies, not all of which were quite up there with “Serpico,” “Dog Day Afternoon” and “Network,” addressing the critics who haven’t always chosen to honor him: “This is so lovely, because the normal relationship is one of hostility, right?”
“The Savages” writer-director Tamara Jenkins, echoing Lumet’s wariness of us opinion-slinging types, on her screenplay awards plaque: “As soon as I get back home to New York, I’m going to show this to my therapist!”
Daniel Day, definitely out of “Blood” character and in his humble, soft-spoken British guy mode: “In a year when so much significant work was done by so many people, thank you for wholeheartedly appreciating our film.”
But towering above them all, speech-wise, was the creator of “There Will Be Blood,” our own local golden boy, Paul Thomas Anderson. In accepting his directing award, PTA waxed nostalgic about all of the newspaper reviews that inspired him to watch great movies during his San Fernando Valley childhood (for some reason - wonder why? - I especially liked when he said “My father was reluctant to get the Daily News at first, but he came around”). And he seemed genuinely moved when he noted that the reviews of his latest work seemed to “have as much enthusiasm as we had making the film.”
But it was when Anderson came back to accept LAFCA’s best picture prize that his true, foul-mouthed genius came out: “This is a hell of a lot better than going to the goddamn Golden Globes!”
Especially this year. Yeah, the LAFCA awards are kinda inbred. But no one thanks their agents at them, which is good.
For a full list of winners and maybe, eventually, a picture or two from inside the ceremony (like I said, not the most technically gifted bunch), go to www.lafca.net.