At New York Film Critics Circle, Brolin being Brolin

By Steven Zeitchik

The hand feeds, the teeth don't bite. A good rule, whether at the zoo or at an awards show.

And indeed, most of the actors, writers and directors honored at the New York Film Critics Circle fete Monday night had nothing but fond things to say about critics; they either complimented them to the skies or  honestly expressed how feelings toward them changed depending on...circumstances.

(Jenny Lumet on what it was like to grow up with a director father who read the reviews copiously. "You guys terrified me as a little girl since Day 1. You've been called every name in the book. The profanity...and then (sometimes) 'Geniuses. 'They're so perceptive.'")

Still, we couldn't help but notice a few eyebrow-raisers. Introducing Mike Leigh, Salman Rusdhie took out the chief literary critic at the London Times, called him "three feet tall and angry" and cited, admiringly, a moment when Leigh called the critic an a*#hole on a popular radio program.

But it was Josh Brolin who had the choicest words for a critic -- New York Times scribe Ben Brantley -- whom apparently he's not that fond of after the theater writer panned him a while back. "Honestly, I hate that motherf#@#%er," said Brolin, who has a tendency for the, er, off-the-cuff remark at  awards shows. "And I don't think he's a good writer."

That's just some of the juicy stuff. Here are some other nuggets from the always intimate but still ritzy event thrown by the Gotham scribes right after the holidays.

* Does Sigourney Weaver have clout with Oscar voters? Pixar should be very happy if she does. Weaver thinks "Wall-E" is, um, very good. "(It's) one of the best films of the year. One of the best films ever...the movie's detail, its charm, its humor, its hope. It's a classic."

* NYFCC chair and event emcee Lisa Scharzbaum of EW, on the real-life origins of a particular film: "I used to think the script for Rachel Getting Married came out of Jenny Lumet's head. Then I met the Lumet family."

* CEOs didn't fare so well either. Lumet -- after getting into a back and forth from the audience with Pa Sidney, who was at the podium, over the real-life roots of  the "Married" dishwasher scene, took the stage and offered this haiku on Sony Classics' Michael Barker:
Texas eye candy.
Howard Stringer - But with taste.
Jewish? It could be.

* Did Robert Klein really say, when introducing the award for "Man On Wire," "I never liked (really tall) buildings. But 9/11 is going too far."

* Again Brolin, after chiding Sean Penn for the actor's self-seriousness (or was he chiding those who chided Penn for his self-seriousness? So hard to tell) had a whole riff, said in a deadpan voice. with theatrically long pauses.

"Quite an actor Sean Penn, quite an actor. [Pause] Amazing. [Pause] And now I'm an asshole. Like Russell Crowe.  Because I'm not as smart as Sean. [Pause] Quite an actor. [Pause] Amazing actor. I've loved you in Milk, I thought what you did with that role was incredible. We've known you as an actor who doesn't smile very much. And the fact that you smiled as much as you did in this film is amazing. Truly incredible. You are an amazing actor. You are going to get the Oscar. Because you smiled so much."

* Penn got in his own good-natured (we think) digs at Brolin. "I always wrote him off as a handsome square jawed actor...There's no one who's as big a nightmare as him." And then, "No one has much endurance at night and as a little during the day." (Then he said he's a great leading man, was one of the best experiences working with him, yadda yadda).

* Tony Kushner worked the bait and switch humor as he intro-ed "Milk" as best picture. "I want to thank the thousand of gay faceless, nameless people...who were hired to write a screenplay about the life of Harvey Milk over the past fifteen years."

He also thanked the "remarkable gay-straight alliance" that...got "Milk" made. "Gus Van Sant, Dustin Lance Black, Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen. They're the gays. James Schamus and the actors -- those are the straights. Give or take some of the actors."