Better Late Than Never

It’s crunch time in Hollywood as filmmakers and studio execs scramble to invigorate the buzz about their Oscar contenders in the final two weeks before ballots for the Golden Globes are due. While there are exceptions, Golden Globe winners often wind up on the “Most Likely to Win an Oscar Nomination” list. Golden Globe ballots go out Friday to Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. members and are due Dec. 17, with winners to be announced Jan. 20.

For some films, the hype machine has been running for months. It feels as though “Moulin Rouge” director Baz Luhrmann hasn’t stopped pitching his 20th Century Fox film since it came out in May. The film was re-released this month and honored by the American Cinematheque with a special screening Monday night in Hollywood. Cinematheque board member Peter Bart moderated a Q&A; session with Luhrmann and stars Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor.

Smaller films get by with a bit of help from their friends. “An American Rhapsody,” which stars Nastassja Kinski, Tony Goldwyn and Scarlett Johansson, got a boost last week when John Travolta, John Woo, Martin Sheen and Terence Chang hosted a screening of the film. Producer Colleen Camp said her goal is achieved “if we can get some excitement or at least some attention.”

The usual whirlwind of screenings and promotions slowed down after the terrorist attacks. But this month, activities are picking up, said Donald Haber, executive director of the British Academy of Film & Television Arts, Los Angeles. “All the high-profile films we should be screening, we are screening.” (Like the Golden Globes, the BAFTA awards have become an early indicator of Oscar contenders.)

Ballots for two other influential film awards, given by the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. and the Broadcast Film Critics Assn., go out before Christmas. The Screen Actors Guild ballots go out Jan. 3.

A Study in Orange and Pink

The royalty of the British fashion world descended on 10 Downing St. as Cherie Booth, barrister and wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, hosted a Halloween party to celebrate designer Zandra Rhodes. Actor Larry Hagman and his wife, Maj, Joan and Jack Agajanian Quinn as well as designer Mary Quant were among the 40 guests who enjoyed champagne and canapes and a chat with the British first lady.

Security at Downing Street was tight, but it didn’t overpower the British sense of style, said Joan Quinn. “It was very impressive. Each room had a notebook telling you about the artifacts,” Quinn said. “And there was a butler in each room.”

Blair was unable to attend the fashionable party (he was in Syria), but Booth was the perfect hostess, “very intense, very bright,” Quinn said. “I asked her, ‘Do you live in this splendor?’” but Booth demurred, pointing to less ostentatious living quarters next door.

Quant, the ‘60s style maven, wore black pants and a soft, black leather jacket. Her hair was in a “red Betty Boop ‘do. She looked fabulous, very chic,” Quinn said. Hagman, the ‘80s “Dallas” star, was also stylish in his own way, wearing a suit and his trademark cowboy hat.

The party also celebrated a new design museum founded by Rhodes. The Fashion and Textile Museum, scheduled to open next year, will be dedicated to exhibiting and recording the works of British and international fashion and textile designers, with an emphasis on design from 1950s and onward. Architect Ricardo Legorreta has transformed the museum’s site, a former warehouse in London, into a modernist building in orange and pink--Rhodes’ signature colors, said Quinn.

After the cocktail party, guests dined at the Savoy Hotel on the Strand.

Life With Weintraub

Producer Jerry Weintraub told us that his “Ocean’s Eleven” director Steven Soderbergh is also writing his biography. Soderbergh interviews Weintraub in this month’s Talk magazine. “There’s a lot to tell and a lot I’m not going to tell,” Weintraub said of the upcoming book. “We’re going to start on it as soon as we both have time to sit down.”