Academy Awards Arrive: SBIFF Scoops Oscar

Certain surprises in the film industry award season have shaken things up among the professional prognosticators known as Oscarologists. Leading up to this weekend’s Oscars, the long-predicted winners of a couple of the major categories seem less etched-in-stone than in previous Oscar bouts, such that a welcome air of unpredictability sweetens the weekend’s anticipation. You know what hasn’t changed?

How about the fact that virtually every one of the film industry folks who stroll up to claim one of the Academy Awards this weekend will have already spoken into a microphone 90 miles north of Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre – right here at our own historic Arlington Theatre. Yes, during last month’s Santa Barbara International Film Festival, we had but to exit our modest homes and head downtown to see many of the honorees, panelists, special interviewees and presenters who will be politely swaggering in their televised finery come Sunday evening.  

That includes the absolute guaranteed winner of Best Picture, Director, Supporting Actress and Actor, Original and Adapted Screenplay, and the new award category of Casting, since every single nominee for those awards showed up at SBIFF. Also highly likely to receive statuettes on Sunday after speaking at SBIFF is actress Jessie Buckley (Hamnet), while the opportunity for a clean sweep in the acting categories improved immensely as Sinners’ Michael B. Jordan is now favored to snatch the statue from Marty Supreme’s Timothée Chalamet – perhaps not coincidentally the only Best Actor nominee who stiffed SBIFF. 

Festival-goers also got to hear from the odds-on favorites to win Best Song (K-Pop Demon Hunters) as well as the likely Oscar-winning achievers in the artisan section, including Costume Design and Makeup & Hairstyling (both Frankenstein), Editing (One Battle), Sound Editing (F1) and Visual Effects (Avatar: Fire & Ash).

My original plan here was to carry on a tradition of providing single quotes from most of the nominees who were part of SBIFF. But the utter inundation of award hopefuls that flooded State Street four weeks ago was so overwhelming that I wouldn’t have had enough space to cover them fairly, even if I started sharing snippets three issues ago. So…sorry everyone, and apologies to Oscar, too. 

The Arlington Theatre is once again hosting its Oscar Watch Party featuring free admission to the pre-party in the courtyard and projection of the red carpet arrivals and awards on the big screen. An optional VIP reception adds free snacks, live DJ music, opportunities for photos on the red carpet and prizes for best dressed and more. But I probably won’t be there to watch the screening. After all, I saw the stars on the same stage live in person just a month ago.

Department of Discounts 

UCSB Arts & Lectures has always offered generous discounts for any of its series, even build-your-own packages of its generous slate of events. But now a solid 20% is available for single events that start up again with the spring quarter in April, as long as you buy them by the lucky cutoff date of this Friday the 13th. Use promo code SPRING26 to secure your savings in A&L’s Spring Forward sale.