Parasite And Leonardo DiCaprio Pop At The Pre-Golden Globes Parties

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Imagine walking into a room and seeing Guillermo del Toro, Edgar Wright and Rain Johnson sitting at a table just shooting the shit. The ramifications of such a conversation might give heart palpitations to genre and film fans of all sorts.  Fantasy is often reality and the trio appeared to be having a fantastic time on Friday night at a special pre-Golden Globes celebration for “Parasite” hosted by del Toro.  Friday night’s big star, however, was director Bong Joon Ho.

READ MORE: 2020 Golden Globes nominations Snubs and Surprises

The list of additional talent that made their way to meet Director Bong and “Parasite” stars such as Song Kang-Ho and Cho Yeo-Jeong was, frankly, jaw-dropping. Especially considering it’s NEON’s little South Korean Palm d’Or winner that could.  Making the rounds were Leonardo DiCaprio who arrived almost incognito to talk to Director Bong as well as Noah Baumbach, Laura Dern, Taika  Watiti, Aziz Ansari, Kevin Bacon, Natasha Lyonne, Paul Dano (who starred in Jong Ho’s “Okja”), “Succession’s” Jeremy Strong and Paul Walter Hauser. “Portrait of a Lady on Fire’s” Adèle Haenel was also in attendance.  And, yes, the buzz on “Parasite” having a shot to win the coveted Best Picture Oscar is for real (more on that later).

Saturday was one of the most notoriously busy days on the awards season calendar. The morning began with the annual Independent Spirit Awards Brunch where Kelly Reichardt became the third winner of the Bonnie Award following Marielle Heller and Lulu Wang. “Premature” filmmaker Rashaad Ernesto Green took the Someone to Watch award and “Jaddoland’s” Nadia Shihab was honored with the Truer Than Fiction Award.

Immediately following was the annual BAFTA tea at the Four Seasons where members get to meet up with numerous awards season contenders.  Word has it DiCaprio was the biggest star in the room while Elton John and Director Bong had their own pockets of fandom. These are also one of the few events where you can find DiCaprio and “The Farewell” star Zhao Shuzhen posing for photos together.

Less than a mile away, Netflix followed BAFTA’s event with their own pre-show soiree at Cecconi’s.  Netflix content chief Ted Sarandos hosted a packed event with streamer stars Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Wesley Snipes, Ben Platt, Sacha Baron Cohen, Baumbach, Dern, and Da’vine Joy Randolph mingling with Robert Downey, Jr. and Josh Safdie, among others. To reiterate, it was beyond packed with some slight nervousness over how the HFPA will reward the content giant on Sunday night thrown in (this pundit has gone on record he expects “The Irishman” to take the Motion Picture – Drama statue).

A quick trip up to Sunset Blvd. and Lionsgate ended the night with a celebration for both “Knives Out” and “Bombshell” at the Chateau Marmont.  Charlize Theron, director Jay Roach and screenwriter Charles Randolph were on hand for the latter, but the former saw the big guns of Chris Evans, Daniel Craig, Toni Collette, Ana de Armas and Jaeden Martell.  Oh, and writer and director Rian Johnson, of course. “Knives Out” is a global hit that is on its way to outgrossing one of the presumed frontrunners for Best Picture, “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood,” domestically.  There is some hope Johnson’s surprise hit could land a Best Picture nod, but there will be cheers all around if he earns an Original Screenplay nomination.

A couple of major takeaways after conversations with Academy members this weekend.  First, many members have not submitted their ballots yet. The deadline is Tuesday, but it’s rare to hear so many voters still needing to screen one movie or another. Second, watch out for “1917.”  It’s the title the members are buzzing about most, likely because it came to the party “last” and most are just screening it over the past few weeks.  Third, members are all over the place in their top Best Picture selections, but “Parasite,” “Once Upon A Time In Hollywood” and, again, “1917” are very consistent.   Fourth, there are always surprises, but as one consultant told me, “there are more surprises coming than most [people] think.”  Oh, my.

Look for complete coverage of the Golden Globes on The Playlist.