Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a little report from the Santa Barbara Film Festival. I've seen some great movies (including RORY O'SHEA WAS HERE and Joe Berlinger's GRAY MATTER) which I will review shortly, but I had to share with you the shining beauty of Kate Winslet. She was honored with an award last night and had to sit through a bunch of clips from her career leading up to this point, starting at HEAVENLY CREATURES and going on to an early look at her role in the upcoming ROMANCE & CIGARETTES, a weird sounding musical directed by John Turturro and starring James Gandolfini, Susan Sarandon (dammit, janet!) and Christopher Walken in the sure to be classic role of "Uncle Bo."

Anyway, Kate Winslet is a beauty. I've had a crush on her since HEAVENLY CREATURES. She's got that right mix of natural beauty, cute as a button personality and that amazing accent that'll turn me into a puddle of goo with two syllables.

So, Kate was announced and made the walk to the stage after watching a 5 minute montage of clips from her work, including some boob shots, which I was quite surprised they had the balls to show to the crowd with Winslet sitting right smack dab in the middle it.

As you can see, she is led up to the stage looking ravishing decked in white and begins the very in-depth Q&A with some Variety dude. She told many stories of her rise to stardom. She was 17 when she was cast by Peter Jackson in HEAVENLY CREATURES alongside the beautiful Melanie Lynskey. Her previous acting experience had been fighting the villain of a Sugar Pops commercial. She was working at a deli and remembers getting the call while she was making some guy a turkey sandwich, which he never got because she got that call.

She told a story about how great and hands-on Peter was, able to talk two frightened girls into their roles whenever it became too much for them.

Winslet also told a story about filming SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, the famous scene where she was in the rain with a sprained ankle (which seems to be a running theme these last few weeks... something bad happening to ankles) was really on the coast and freezing. She ended up fainting and awoke to Emma Thompson being totally Emma Thompson "OK, get some sheets, definitely some tea... and a fifth of scotch. For medicinal purposes!"

The paramedic onset had said the best way to warm her up would be to put her feet in someone's armpits, so picture Kate Winslet with her feet in Greg Wise's armpits while Emma Thompson is mothering the lot of them (Wise is now married to Thompson, by the way).

Let's see... her most asked question about TITANIC is "Was that water really cold?" (The answer is yes). She also said that after having read Jim Cameron's 200 plus page TREATMENT (not script) for TITANIC she wrote, in pencil, "I... FUCKING... LOVE THIS!" on the cover. She still has that.

Why did she choose HIDEOUS KINKY after TITANIC? "Because I knew it was shock and annoy everyone!" Plus she read the book when she was a teen and loved the idea of trying to make it into a film.

Um... She was really drunk during the big drunk scene in HOLY SMOKE... Um... Depp was her main collaborator on FINDING NEVERLAND, getting limited direction by Marc Forster as he concentrated on the kids, knowing Winslet and Depp could handle themselves.

ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND... her favorite hair color was Blue... the toughest scene was the early scene where we first go to Clem's apartment... she said it was literally 12 pages of dialogue, which was mostly hers. She needed to find a balance between lovable and mysterious while being true to her character. Also the American accent was fun to juggle, too.

ROMANCE & CIGARETTES clip was awesome! Winslet is almost unrecognizable clad in trailer trash pants (the definition of tacky), an elaborate bra and make-up so flamboyant and thick that it'd make Tammy Faye do a double take and mutter, "Goddamn!"

She's in bed with a shirtless James Gandolfini (!) and begins singing him this over the top song, dancing around. It was hilarious and because this was 10 weeks after she gave birth to her little boy, her boobs were huge. Winslet had her face in her hands the whole time the clip was running. She was so embarrassed! Which I can understand... her gazangas were flapping around everywhere during that song. This movie is going to rule!

She said that during the shooting of ROMANCE AND CIGARETTES she'd literally be sitting in front of a mirror before going to set, looking at her boobs and going, "To pump or not to pump? Hmm... not to pump." Then she'd go onset and people would go, "Ah... didn't pump today."

Anyway, that was the night. Before getting her award, Roger Durling took the podium and was visibly nervous. He's such a geek, just like us... literally one of us that gets to program his own festival. He talked about a Santa Barbara premiere of FINDING NEVERLAND he hosted with Kate and the filmmakers back in October. He told her then that he wanted to have her out to the SBIFF this year and give her an award. She was with her husband, filmmaker Sam Mendes, and she was like, "Well, why do you want to have me at the festival... why give me an award?"

What he couldn't say was that he had the biggest crush on her and thinks she's one of the best actresses out there. What he did say was, "Well, the board of the directors have a list of actresses and we've decided to pick you..." He got a hug for his troubles, the bastard!

Winslet was everything I could have hoped she'd be live and in the flesh. I never got the chance to meet her, but she did walk by me and that was good enough for me.

Before I leave, I have to run a caption contest. You win nothing but the sweet laughter of your peers, but this picture screams out for a funny caption contest... My vote is for: INTERVIEWER: What was it about Sam Mendes that told you he was the one for you?

I know, leave it to me to take something innocent and turn it into a dick joke. So, this is my last night of the fest and I have to run out to catch DAVE BARRY'S GUIDE TO GUYS and Don Hertzfeldt's newest animated short!!! Be back later, squirts!

-Quint