Carey Mulligan made her way to the Santa Barbara International Film Festival on Sunday to accept a Chopin Virtuoso Award with fellow honorees Emily Blunt, Saoirse Ronan and "A Serious Man" star Michael Stuhlbarg. Each actor took to the stage at the Lobero Theatre, perched in a director's chair to answer questions from the audience. "Someone said this is a bit like Telluride [Film Festival] tonight. It's not big glamour and scary," said Mulligan. "It's real people who are interested in film."

Keri Russell braved the January chill Thursday night at the Cinema Society screening of her latest film "Extraordinary Measures." Russell stars opposite Harrison Ford and Brendan Fraser in the tearjerker based on the real life story of a couple who enlists an experimental medical researcher to find a cure for their two ailing children.

Not surprisingly, the actress had kind words for Aileen Crowley, the woman on whom her character is based. "She's amazing and funny and self-deprecating," Russell cooed.

Photographing lingerie on the beach doesn't seem like too novel an idea, but when the shoot is in January at Coney Island in Brooklyn, it must be the original, if slightly mad, brainchild of the WWD fashion staff. We feared for our poor model, Caitlin Lyon, who would be wearing some pretty skimpy underwear (granted, under loads of layers) in 25 degree weather -- probably 5 degree with the wind chill -- to be featured in our biannual Intimates Magazine. So we went on a hunt for heaters that would function on the beach. After a long and arduous search -- we weren't allowed to use propane and electric heaters could not generate enough heat and would require a 100-plus pound generator to be lugged onto the sand. Any form of heat within a tent was considered a fire hazard. We wound up with a small tent that did nothing more than block the wind.

Amy Adams, Matthew Goode and John Lithgow were among the cast on hand at the Directors Guild of America Theater Wednesday night for a screening of their latest flick, "Leap Year." In the romantic comedy, Adams stars as a woman who, fed-up with her boyfriend's procrastination, chases him through Ireland in an elaborate scheme to propose to him on Leap Day.

And it seems the leading men don't mind being chased. "Just as long as it doesn't involve knives or numchucks or anything like that," said Goode.

The gambling references made in the run-up to CityCenter's grand opening in Las Vegas are too numerous to count, but there's no irony lost in the fact that Bobby Baldwin, the megaproject's plain-spoken but charismatic chief executive officer, won the World Series of Poker in 1978.


A self-described "card player from Oklahoma," with his own Wikipedia entry (one that features Seventies-era pictures of Baldwin at the Vegas card tables), he quipped at the mega-project's opening ceremonies: "It's hard to believe you can get all this for only $8.5 billion."

On Friday night, a horde of prepubescent girls and their parents descended on Madison Square Garden for the Z-100 Jingle Ball presented by H&M. Last year, I took my daughter, a Z-100 fan, to the radio station's Zootopia concert. A glutton for punishment, I agreed to accompany her and two friends to this musical extravaganza.

"OMG, our seats are on the floor!" my daughter screams. "I'm so excited!"

Last Wednesday morning, WWD stopped by Point A Showroom to get a look at the latest from Whitney Eve, the new line from Whitney Port of "The City." After being beleaguered by a swarm of "City" producers hounding us to sign a release form, we got a preview of the reality star-cum-fashion designer's spring 2010 collection.

Upper East Siders -- and art aficionados -- will soon have a new boîte to call their watering hole. This Friday, the Guggenheim will open the restaurant The Wright, named after Frank Lloyd Wright, the architect of the museum building, and coinciding with the 50th anniversary of his design.

The sleek, predominantly white space features a cozy 58 seats, a communal table and a casual bar nestled in the 88th Street corner of the museum, perfect for a post-Kandinsky viewing or Christmas shopping break.

Tuesday night, the Oak Room at the Plaza Hotel was packed to the rafters for the Cinema Society and Paramount Pictures after-party for a screening of "The Lovely Bones." Based on the book by Alice Sebold, the movie follows a 1970s family rocked by the murder of their 14 year-old daughter. And the story clearly struck a cord with guest Courtney Love. As the film's cast including Susan Sarandon, Stanley Tucci, Mark Wahlberg and Saoirse Ronan
worked the room, an unusually voluble Love chatted about death, fashion and feeling like a cougar.

Courtney Love: I just met Rose [McIver, one of the film's stars] and what is
the Irish girl, what's her name?
 
WWD: Saoirse.
 
C.L.: And her father.
 
WWD: As a mother, watching this film it must be...
 
C.L.: I was actually just talking to the paps to get them to not, because I was drinking out of a champagne glass and I didn't want them to use a picture of me corrupting youth and or drinking around young girls. But that [the movie] was really moving and I kept thinking about my daughter and just about my daughter and about death. I never read the book.
 
WWD: Oh the book is beautiful.
 
C.L.: I didn't read it. I came [here] alone. Helena [Christensen] is here. So that's awesome because I was sort of feeling a little cougary or something. So I have a girlfriend here.

On Wednesday night, we stopped by Marc Forgione's restaurant in TriBeCa to say "hi" to Christian Cota, who was holding a benefit for 2009 CNN Hero Doc Hendley's charity Wine to Water. The designer showed us looks from his eHoliday collection, created exclusively for his new e-commerce site. "We made them from extra fabric from the fall collection to bring down the price and make everything affordable," Cota said of the pieces, which retail from $60 for a T-shirt to $950 for a cocktail dress and will be available from Dec. 1 through Dec. 30.