Saturday Night’s Alright: Famous Film Folk from Here Fighting It Out This Weekend

Are you a big Josh Brolin fan, especially ever since his character Llewellyn Moss got his buff cowboy body blown away by Javier Bardem’s methodical and passionless hitman Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men, one of the Coen Brothers’ finest films? Or perhaps your taste runs to Jeff Bridges, another locally resident actor still perhaps most famous for a different Coen Brothers creation in The Big Lebowski’s The Dude. Maybe you’re more drawn to directors, in which case longtime Santa Barbara resident Andrew Davis likely captures your fancy. 

In a strange quirk of timing – and perhaps another positive sign that cinema really is scoring in town more than ever – all three at least Oscar-nominated filmmakers will be appearing in town for Q&As on November 23.

Just two weeks after former Montecito resident Tim Matheson regaled the audience at the Riviera Theatre in conjunction with the publication of his memoir, Brolin brings his just-published book From Under the Truck – described as a decidedly “un-celebrity” memoir – to the same venue, where a screening of No Country will be followed by a talk with the actor-author, starting at 5 pm. Admission is $20, or $50 with a copy of the book, which Brolin will sign. Visit https://sbifftheatres.com/an-evening-with-josh-brolin. 

Downtown at 7 pm, Andrew Davis returns for the penultimate event in the Granada’s Centennial Film Series: Santa Barbara Home Movies, participating in a pre-screening talk about The Fugitive, his most decorated and popular movie. Three actors from the film in Sela Ward, Tom Wood, and Montecito’s own Jane Lynch, along with the Oscar-nominated editor Don Brochu, will also be on hand. Admission is $5. Visit www.granadasb.org. 

Meanwhile, out at UCSB at 2 pm, former longtime Montecito (and now Santa Barbara resident) Bridges and actress Amy Brenneman, the award-winning stars of the current FX series The Old Man, will pop into the Pollock Theatre at The Carsey-Wolf Center for a pre-screening conversation with Brad Silberling, the UCSB-educated film and TV director-writer-producer who has been married to Brenneman for nearly 30 years. The two actors will share their creative perspectives on the series’ treatment of aging and will discuss other aspects of their unique collaboration before a screening of Season 2/Episode 6 of The Old Man… (Apparently, FX is acountry for old men.) Free admission. Visit www.carseywolf.ucsb.edu/pollock.

Decisions, decisions, just like the ones we’ll have to make six weeks from now when SBIFF 40 arrives (along with honorees Angelina Jolie, Ralph Fiennes, Zoe Saldana, Adrian Brody, Guy Pearce, et al) in February.