Palladino’s Picks: Day Six

1) Goslingmania hit the Lobero hard last night. Women actually screamed when Ryan of Canada entered the building and then proceeded to wittily entertain the crowds while offering his wry observations on the advantages of alumni-ship from the New Mickey Mouse Club (along with Justin, Brittney, and Christina), the similarity between great scripts and danceable songs, and the funny adventures of Jerry the Driver: the man who saved his life. He then dignified the proceedings with yet another voice raised in dedication to the much-lamented departure of Heath Ledger. They never met, Gosling said, but he feels inexorably compelled to live up to Ledger’s artistic lead.

2) My thoughts turn happily to all the living Santa Barbarans whose accomplishments this generous fest helped spotlight. Eileen Quinn, who grew up in our fair town, produced a fine new version of E.M. Forster’s Room with a View.

Even more excitingly, this Saturday (4 p.m. at the Metro 4) gives us all a chance to see our own absurdly talented Robert Lesser in the Japanese post-WWII trial U.S. premiere of Best Wishes for Tomorrow – made by Akira Kurosawa‘s former assistant director Takashi Koizumi.

3) Biggest most justifiable gripe of the week so far? Fox’s ridiculously anal security accompanying the screening of Under the Same Moon. Lots of people were dying to see it and lined up only to submit to undignified demands that they surrender their cell phones for the duration of the film lest they film and broadcast two minutes of this film which once seemed noble in its intentions, but now seems nothing but vain.

4) The return of poetic realism! All hail Alexander Sokurov’s Alexandra and Yang Li’s Blind Mountain.