Hammer Director Ann Philbin was given the celebrity treatment at the museum’s star-packed gala Saturday night as a host of arts and culture luminaries, including Jodie Foster, Mark Bradford, Hilton Als, k.d. lang, Lari Pittman and Will Ferrell took to the stage during an elaborate sit-down dinner to sing her praises as she readies to retire after 25 years.

Guest speakers took on a tone of reverence as they paid tribute to Philbin’s many accomplishments, noting that she had emerged as a trailblazer, helping to transform the arts landscape in Los Angeles with her deep historical knowledge, her commitment to up-and-coming artists and her enthusiasm for a scene that in the last quarter-century has seen Los Angeles define itself as one of the world’s preeminent meccas of fine art.

Artist Bradford recalled meeting Philbin in 1999, a time when he didn’t know if he’d be able to scrape together a few dollars to pay the valet after attending parties she‘d invited him to. He remembered her as both bold and vulnerable — a woman who could persuade collectors to give her their finest pieces while at the same time worrying about whether or not her haircut was up to par.

Als launched into a tender speech, delivered like a poem, beginning with, “I’m very nervous because I really love Annie and I don’t want to mess up.”

Multiple speakers noted that the museum, once called the Armand Hammer Museum, had morphed from a bland corporate organization into a vibrant cultural center under Philbin’s care. Halfway through the night, lang received a rousing standing ovation after singing a soulful rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.”

The evening’s most raucous note came when comedian Ferrell made an unannounced cameo, striding up to the podium to declare that Philbin isn’t who she says she is, but rather a woman named “Tiffany Sullivan.”

“Let me tell you what the real Annie Philbin is like,” Ferrell said. “She was arrested twice at the Rose Bowl swap meet trying to sell Mark Bradford paintings. Often, she is seen walking around the museum with an empty martini glass in her hand, just licking works of art …. She once told Joni Mitchell that her music wasn’t good and that nothing good ever came from Canada.”

His jokes were followed by a slide show of Philbin accosting famous artists like David Hockney and Ellsworth Kelly in the Hammer men’s room.

“She is an H.R. nightmare,” Ferrell said, concluding, “Don’t be fooled by Annie. She’s never leaving this place. Just like Trump, she’s going to barricade herself inside her office and nationalize the National Guard.”

By the time Philbin took the stage, she was almost too emotional to speak. “I am not a pretty crier,” she said. “I am really ugly when I cry.”

Later, when the chocolate dome cake and white wine signaled the meal’s end, and the DJ cranked the music, Philbin was once again all smiles — hugging Los Angeles County Museum of Art Director Michael Govan and greeting a seemingly endless array of well wishers.

Outside the event, about 20 UCLA faculty members protested, calling for amnesty to be granted to pro-Palestinian students arrested on campus recently. Speakers, including Foster and Philbin, acknowledged acknowledged the Gaza protests.

The evening also included a DJ set by D-Nice and an art component by Pae White. Other attendees included Alexandra Hedison, Viveca Paulin Ferrell, Keanu Reeves, Alexandra Grant, Jane Fonda, Owen Wilson, Ava DuVernay, Rufus Wainwright, Dana Delany, Joel McHale and Julian Morris.

Surely, Elísabet Ronaldsdóttir has had easier gigs.

Watching “The Fall Guy” — the big-screen take on the 1980s TV fave about a Hollywood stuntman who worked on the side as a bounty hunter that this week kicks off the summer movie season — you can’t help but think of its editor.

“The Fall Guy” is many things: an homage to the show; a romance; a vehicle for stars Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt; a large-scale action flick; and a love letter to stunt performers — those who do the dangerous work or, as the movie suggests early on, get to do “the cool stuff.”

It is big, and it is messy, but Ronaldsdóttir has helped mold it into something that, while lumpy and misshapen, is more entertaining than not.

This isn’t her first cinematic rodeo with director David Leitch, having collaborated with him on hit movies including such winners as 2017’s “Atomic Blonde” and 2018’s “Deadpool 2,” so she surely knew what she was signing up for.

It is, of course, entirely fitting that Leitch sat in the director’s chair for “The Fall Guy,” as he once was a stuntman himself. Famously, he was Brad Pitt’s stunt double on 1999’s “Fight Club.”

Here, the stuntman is Gosling’s Colt Seaver, the movie borrowing the name of Lee Majors’ hero from the TV series, which ran from 1981 to ’86.

When we meet Colt, he’s at the top of his game, specializing in being the stunt double for Hollywood megastar Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Leitch’s “Bullet Train”). On the set of a big movie — Leitch and another frequent collaborator, director of photography Jonathan Sela, appear to take great pleasure in showing off the scale of such a shoot with a couple of elaborate shots — Colt is about to perform a huge fall.

On the way up to his starting point, he flirts via walkie-talkie with camera operator Jody Moreno (Blunt), the two talking about how, after the movie wraps, they could grab a couple of swimsuits — or, as a Brit such as herself would say, “swimming costumes” — hit a beach somewhere and enjoy a few margaritas, as well as the bad decisions to which they lead.

The fall goes badly.

Eighteen months later, Colt, perhaps more psychologically damaged than physically so, is out of the stunt game, making a living by parking cars for a Mexican restaurant. And, having long ago pushed away a caring Jody, he is a walking pile of regret.

When old producer friend Gail Meyer (Hannah Waddingham of “Ted Lasso”) calls, asking him to be a last-minute fill-in on a set in Sydney, Australia, he declines. She then tells him it’s for Jody’s directorial debut and that his old flame requested him.

He says he’ll need an aisle seat.

Upon arriving at the shoot and set to do a car stunt known as a cannon roll, he complains about the sand on which he’ll be driving on — it’s, um, not dense enough — to another old pal, stunt coordinator Dan Tucker (Winston Duke of “Black Panther”), who coaxes him into the car.

The stunt goes well, save for Colt destroying a camera tracking his car, but Jody is shocked to learn he is behind the wheel. She did NOT, in fact, request him.

Unable to kick him off the project, she instead sets him on fire repeatedly for one scene. Between these hot takes, her frustration via bullhorn over what happened in their relationship under the thinly veiled guise of talking about the lead characters in her epic science-fiction romance flick, “Metalstorm.’

At the end of the day, Colt gets into a truck, cranks a Taylor Swift song, thinks about their time together and cries — at least until Jody catches him. They talk, and while it’s clear feelings still exist between them, they agree to keep things very “profesh.”

Colt soon has bigger problems than Jody, as Gail has secretly recruited him to find the movie’s missing star, the aforementioned Tom Ryder. She convinces Colt that to save Jodie’s movie, the cops must be kept out of it, and he agrees to take on the task.

From here, “The Fall Guy” keeps things really loose, Leitch and writer Drew Pearce (“Iron Man 3,” Leitch’s “Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw”) prioritizing action and gags over clear storytelling. (Hey, it’s now summer at the movies — what did you expect?)

As Colt works to uncover the mystery of Tom’s disappearance, Gosling does a lot of the heavy lifting to keep “The Fall Guy” from falling apart. He brings some leftover “Ken”-ergy from the cultural event that was last year’s “Barbie,” for which he earned a well-deserved nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He nails every important line read with great Kenfidence, er, confidence.

One of the movie’s issues is that Jody becomes a glorified background player, not the best use of the talents of Blunt, a four-time Oscar nominee including for her work in the other half 2023’s “Barbenheimer” phenomenon, “Oppenheimer.” “The Fall Guy” would have benefited from a setup that gave more time with its leads together. (One of the movie’s many meta moments has them talking via split-screen as Jody talks about its potential use in her movie, Leitch deciding to educate us on that filmmaking choice and others.)

So, OK, “The Fall Guy” leaves you wanting a bit more, but it succeeds as a two-hour excuse to shove buttery popcorn into your mouth.

And those hoping for a nod to the show beyond the initial offering of closing credits, which feature the “Unknown Stuntman” theme song from the show, should stick around for an extra treat.

Yes, “The Fall Guy” makes a bit of a mess of things, but it sure has fun doing it.

“The Fall Guy” is rated PG-13 for action and violence, drug content and some strong language. Runtime: 2 hours, 6 minutes.

Singer and songwriter Dua Lipa has performed her music on “Saturday Night Live” before, but for the first time, she pulled double duty as guest host and musical act. The sketch-heavy show didn’t try to surround her with a bunch of cameos or five-timers jackets or anything gimmicky this week. Except for a “Weekend Update” appearance by Jerry Seinfeld, who was there to promote his new Netflix movie “Unfrosted, and a musical introduction by actor and musician Troye Sivan, Lipa was mostly left to her own devices to show if she could “give you everything” as she promised in her monologue.

The result? A mixed bag of sketches that were neither derailed by the singer nor really elevated much by her presence. Except for a funny filmed homage to “The Elephant Man,” she was either relegated to secondary parts that didn’t require her to carry a scene, or dropped in for a few lines and then made to disappear. At least two of the sketches were repeats of ones from previous episodes, including a Young Spicy sketch about voiceover artists recording inappropriate rap song intros, and the return of phone number jingle artists Soul Booth at the end of the show. Elsewhere, Lipa played a woman with a Sonny Angel doll collection come to life who wants to recreate the vibe of the new movie “Challengers,” a wearer of very tiny activist pins on the red carpet, and an eater of penne alla vodka, which is always there for us in its bland, comforting way. She also was a nurse for a BBQ pitmaster turned OB-GYN named Fat Daddy.

If nothing else, this episode whetted the appetite for next week’s return of Maya Rudolph as host.

As musical guest, Dua Lipa performed “Illusion,” introduced by Sivan, and “Happy For You,” introduced by Seinfeld.

This week’s cold open eschewed White House politics or Trump court drama for a look at how parents are reacting to recent student protests at college campuses. The backdrop was a show, “Community Affairs with Ryan Abernathy,” whose host (Michael Longfellow) asked parents of New York college students what they think about their kids protesting (presumably for Palestine). The joke was that Alphonse Roberts (Kenan Thompson), parent of a Columbia student, isn’t worried about his kid Alexa Vanessa Roberts because she is not protesting. “She better have her butt in class. I’m supportive of y’all’s kids protesting, not my kids,” he said. “Free this, free that. I’ll tell you what’s not free: Columbia.” He talked about the jobs he’s working to help pay for $68,000 a year in tuition so that his daughter can get a degree in African-American studies and how he’s looking forward to going to her graduation while in deep denial that commencement might be canceled.

In her monologue, Lipa (or as she’s come to accept, “Dula Peep”) showed off her parents in the audience, who named her Dua, Albanian for “Love,” and Lipa “Albanian for my last name.” The singer said her parents party as hard as she does, recounting how she ran into them late one night at a London club. She talked about her new album “Radical Optimism” and gave examples of it to cast members in the audience who recounted their sad situations, like being dumped or being told by a doctor to stop drinking. Lipa’s advice: “There’s always poppers!” But she cut off one audience member — South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (Heidi Gardner) — before she could ask anything. She joked about the “lazy dance” meme that she’s embraced over time and promising to do the opposite as guest host. “I’m gonna give you everything! I’m making the wigs, I’m dealing Adderall to the writers, I’m doing it all!”

Best sketch of the night: ‘The Anomalous Man’ has swagger

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The black-and-white pre-taped sketch features Sarah Sherman as an Elephant Man-like playwright named Peter who has claw hands, a pig’s snout for an ear and a gigantic eye on his back. A woman named Emily (Lipa) meets Peter and shows him affection he says he’s never felt before. The two start to fall in love, but the first night they share a bed together, she’s awoken by the sound of text messages. Peter, it turns out, has multiple phones and multiple women he’s planning to bed, sending messages like, “POV: You’re about to get railed by a weirdo.”

Also good: Explaining the Kendrick Lamar-Drake feud

On the TV show “Good Morning, Greenville,” the hosts (Gardner and Mikey Day) cluelessly try to explain the escalating feud between rappers Kendrick Lamar and Drake, which came to a head Friday with the release of three diss tracks and was followed by a fourth on Saturday night. Hilariously, the two hosts try to include their Black weatherman (Devon Walker), who asks to be left out of the very uninformed and basic discourse. A piano teacher (Lipa), who considers Elton John lyrics to be rap, tries to decipher the tracks and comes to the conclusion that Drake is Canadian and that Kendrick’s shoe size is being scrutinized. The cringe level reaches its pinnacle when the hosts try to squash the beef with cutouts of Drake and Lamar’s faces they use as puppets. “Nah,” the weatherman says as he leaves the studio.

‘Weekend Update’ winner: Cricket is a good boy

This week’s “Weekend Update” had three guests, including Chloe Fineman revising her JoJo Siwa impression to chronicle her new “bad girl” image, and Seinfeld discussing the fatigue of doing too much press for his new movie, with a warning specifically for Ryan Gosling. But it was Marcello Hernandez who had the most impact with his portrayal of Noem’s other puppy, Cricket the 7th, who defended the governor while apparently suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. The canine insisted the first six Crickets were bad dogs, while he hoped for a long life. A talking button set the canine uses begged to differ with messages including, “She is going to kill me tonight,” and “I die tonight.” “I’m a good boy!” the dog insisted as the segment concluded.