You know you’re at a cool party when Dan Aykroyd greets you at the front door of a beautiful Beverly Hills home high in the sky. And it’s not even his house!

Aykroyd was an official co-host with his wife, the gorgeous Donna Dixon (yes, she is still every bit the ravishing beauty from “Bosom Buddies”) at an intimate gathering to celebrate Adam McKay’s “The Big Short.” Aykroyd was waiting for Dixon outside, even with the drizzle and the unseasonable cold, shaking hands with stars as they filed in one by one.

The actual hosts were famed producer Mike Medavoy and his stunning wife, Irena, who are sort of Hollywood’s unofficial goodwill ambassadors this week.  Last night it was “The Big Short,” tonight it’s “The Revenant.” If you want to know where anyone is this week, ask the Medavoys. (They couldn’t be nicer about it either– and so much cozier than another hotel or restaurant party.)

Inside, actress and social butterfly  Colleen Camp– who appeared this year in “Grandma,” “Knock Knock,” and “She’s Funny that Way”–was busy also co-hosting and greeting the stellar crowd including Lily Tomlin, “Grandma” director Paul Weitz, the naturally ebullient David O. Russell, Candy Clark (beloved from “American Graffiti”), plus Val Kilmer, Chaz Bono, Melanie Griffith, star jewelry designer Loree Rodkin, Laura Dern, Mary Kay Place, producer Fred Roos, director Tony Kaye, Marisa Tomei, Judd Apatow, and so on. I don’t know if they saw each other, but Rosanna Arquette and Vincent Spano, who starred in John Sayles’ great romantic comedy “Baby It’s You,” were also roaming around.

Brenda Vaccaro, raspy throated, theatrical, still a force of nature, told me: “I filled in for Valerie Harper this summer in a musical in Maine. I’d never sung before. I thought, why not?”

And then there were Steve Carell and Ryan Gosling, as well as Jeremy Strong, stars of “The Big Short,” a movie that came into the Oscar race late but has picked up steam fast. Based on Michael Lewis’s book about the 2008 financial crisis, “The Big Short” seemed like a movie no one would understand. But then actress Margot Robbie appears in a bathtub and explains it, and the math part drifts away. You’re in.

Back to the party: Gosling bear hugged Carell, who’s become the Tom Hanks of this generation (nicest guy, everyone loves him), Russell and Weitz compared directors’ notes, everyone marveled at Melanie Griffith– who I think is ready for a serious film comeback folks, and producer Howard Rosenman regaled Tomlin and Tomei with stories of his years as Leonard Bernstein’s assistant.

And yes, Mary Kay Place and I did discuss the coincidence of “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman” debuting 40 years ago this week. She played country singer Loretta Haggers, and was so funny that it seems like time has never passed. Judd Apatow told her, “I have the box set, and it’s huge”– he motioned his arms out wide. After all, it was a nightly show that went on forever. “Yes,” Mary Kay, still cut as a button, said, “and some episodes were very, very good and some were baddddd.”

The party may still be going on. It’s so great to come to Hollywood– it’s like a dream of a movie of a dream.

Michael Keaton and Saoirse Ronan won the top actor awards for “Spotlight” and “Brooklyn” respectfully at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards celebration last night at Tao Downtown. But the main attraction at the star-studded event was Kristen Stewart, who received the best supporting nod for Olivier Assayas’s little-seen showbiz drama, “Clouds of Sils Maria,” starring Juliet Binoche as a superstar and Stewart as her meticulous and subservient personal assistant, first screened at Cannes over a year ago.

Stewart was the last of the award winners to arrive on the red carpet and posed for photographers in a flurry and then was whisked away for the ceremony where she was guarded by security all night. The “Twilight” star stayed for the entire celebration and at the end of the evening mixed with celebrity guests Jim Jarmusch, David Hyde Pierce, Paul Haggis, Bennett Miller and Tony Kushner.

Julianne Moore presented Stewart with her supporting actress award and joked she was glad it was still early in the evening, because otherwise, “I was going to be drunk before I got up there.”

Moore went on to say that she has known Stewart since the actress was twelve years old and starred in the 2004 film, “Catch that Kid,” directed by her husband Bart Freundlich, who told her Stewart was going to be a big star.

Stewart gave a laid back and short speech but seemed genuinely moved by the nod from the New York Film Critics. “I’ve received a lot of Popcorns, MTV Popcorn awards,” she said, but this meant something more for a film she described as “thoughtful and quiet,” adding, “It came out a year ago, so this is nuts.”

If Stewart was the evening’s superstar, Irish actress Saoirse Ronan was the event’s charmer. Liam Neeson, who presented her with the award, compared her to the late Irish actress Maureen O’Hara, who also became a star as a teenager.  Nominations are nothing new for Ronan, who was nominated for an Oscar when she was thirteen, for “Atonement.”

Ronan, who will appear next month on Broadway in Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible,” mentioned that she was born in the Bronx and moved to Ireland when she was three.  “I am from the Bronx after all,” she said in her charming Irish brogue. “Saorise from the Block’ is what they call me,” she said, referring to the Jennifer Lopez song. She added, “It’s a lot like J-Lo, a little more attitude, though.”

Best actor winner Michael Keaton, who plays a Boston Globe editor in “Spotlight,” who headed the investigative team that uncovered sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy, gave his typical freewheeling speech that was endearing during last year’s awards season and has now become his trademark. Keaton said as one of seven sibling his mother “drilled” into him that, “You should be grateful, so whining was not even remotely in our vocabulary.”

He continued, “I’m going to say simply to the people who decided I was pretty good in this movie, ‘Thank you, just thanks.’ That’s it!” He went on to say, “I’m so fortunate to do what I do.” He thanked the cast and director Tom McCarthy.  “This is tough material to pull off in the degree he pulled off… Look man, I’m a blessed dude! I’ve had a nice life,” Keaton said. “I work hard. I deserve it. I will tell you that.”

Keaton extended special thanks to the “real stars” of the movie, the journalists of the Boston Globe, and he thanked his cast and directors and crew. He also singled out the people involved. “God bless them! This is for the survivors of this horrific situation, and I really hope it’s going to change things in the world.”

Early in the evening on the red carpet, Keaton admitted he doesn’t pay much attention to what writers say about his films. “This is not a good thing,” he confessed, but he thinks about critics only as an after thought. “I often go, ‘Oh that’s right! Someone’s going to write about this.’ I pretty much just enjoy making the movie. I haven’t really seen any of my movies, for, I don’t know, a bunch of years. I saw this and I saw ‘Birdman.’”

Keaton said he saw “Spotlight” two or three times. “Birdman is his favorite. “I’ve seen ‘Birdman’ four times,” he said. “That’s just unique. There’s just nothing like it. I venture to say there never will be anything like it. Honestly it’s not me. It’s Alejandro [Iñárritu]. I’m part of cinematic history if you ask me. And I’m not talking about me. I’m talking about him and IT, so as a person who loves filmmaking, I can’t not watch that,” he said. “I tell people all the time I would catch myself thinking, ‘God I love this movie,’ and then I’d go, ‘Wait, I’m in this movie.’”

Raised Catholic, Keaton said “Spotlight” was special to him. “I was an altar boy, and it means a lot to be part of something like this, to be honest with you.”

A reporter asked what his favorite part was about working with the “Birdman” director? ”He’ll drill down, he’ll drill down, he’ll drill down to the specifics to get to the truth of the scene, to get the reality of the scene, and I like that,” said Keaton. “It’s not just being pushed. It’s how you’re pushed and why you’re pushed. You know, I can go all day. They can never wear me out.”

As for whether he was shocked by the subject of “Spotlight,” Keaton said he read about it for a long time, but “It’s always shocking. You think you get it and you know, when you’re making this movie you think, ‘Well, I read the script and I’m in it, so I get it.’ And then there would be days where you’d be in the middle of the scene, and you run through it maybe in the fifth, sixth scene and you go, ‘Wow!’ It hits you on a whole other level. It’s kind of hard, you know, to fight through it and get back to work frankly.”

When asked if he enjoyed being back on the awards circuit, he said, “How bad can it be? There’s a whole lot worse things to do beside somebody saying, ‘Hey we think you’re pretty cool!”

I asked him what it meant being recognized by the New York Critics group? “These guys, they really write well and they can be really tough, so if they think you did all right that’s pretty gratifying.”

Although the New York Film Critics Circle is comprised primarily of male critics, the big winner was the estrogen-cocooned film, “Carol,” about lesbian lovers in 1950’s New York, which stars Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett. “Carol” received the top prize for best film. The Weinstein Company film also picked up awards for screenwriter Phyllis Nagy, cinematographer Edward Lachman and director Todd Haynes, who are all getting a lot of practice making speeches leading up to the Oscars.

Photo c2016 Showbiz411 by Paula Schwartz

EXCLUSIVE Ryan Coogler’s “Creed” is on the outside track, making a quick secret run toward an Oscar nomination for Best Picture. Sylvester Stallone, already tipped for a Golden Globe this Sunday, is looking at his own Oscar nomination and very probable win. Who wouldn’t want to hear that acceptance speech on Oscar night, after Stallone’s played Rocky Balboa for 40 years?

So last night, Stallone, Coogler and “Creed” (as well as actress Tessa Thompson) were feted at Patsy’s on West 56th St– the real Patsy’s, former home of Frank Sinatra and his buddy Jilly Rizzo, where the bolognese sauce melts in your mouth.

Producer Irwin Winkler– who’s been with Stallone the whole 40 years– was also toasted by the likes of Gayle King, Bob Balaban, Patricia Duff and journalist Richard Cohen, New York Daily News publisher Mort Zuckerman, legendary former NBC News correspondent Richard Valeriani, director Malcolm Lee, actors Joey “Pants” Pantoliano and Rosie Perez, Rutanya Alda, “Wall Street” producer Ed Pressman, Oscar winning screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher (“Precious”) and so on.

Missing only were “Creed” stars Michael B. Jordan and Phylicia Rashad, each working on the west coast.

Stallone was beaming. Dressed nattily in a blazer and tie, and looking fit, he held the room in the palm of his hand when he spoke about how Coogler convinced him to “raise Rocky from the dead.” You can see that Stallone is very enamored of his new director.

Now that “Creed” has crossed the $100 million line, it’s time to think about the sequel. Stallone thought after “Rocky Balboa” (2006), the franchise was dead. But now it’s back. He told me he could see a sequel that brings back Rocky’s son (played by Milo Ventimiglia in “Rocky Balboa”) as Coogler develops Adonis Creed’s next story.

Rocky’s cancer, of course, would be in remission.

“We just gotta sit down and map it out,” Stallone told me.

So what was the difference playing this Rocky than the last six? “As we live we acquire all kinds of experiences, some good, some bad. It builds up a reservoir of emotions. As we got older the opportunities diminish and we don’t get a chance to express ourselves. Well, he [Coogler] gave me a format where I could let out a lot of stuff that had been building up inside. It was very cathartic. Perhaps when I was younger, it was a different kind of exuberance. I think as you get older you get a resignation about how life works, and maybe a world weary intelligence.”

Did you know Sly Stallone was so articulate, so thoughtful? As Ryan Coogler said after first meeting him and expecting Rocky, “You know he has to be a good actor. He’s completely different from the character.”

Yup. “Creed,” Rocky, Stallone. It’s time, kids.

PS Stallone pointed out that Coogler, 29, wasn’t born the year after Sly made “Rocky IV” in 1985!