Brad Pitt, Denbygate and Other Scenes From the Critics Circle

Once again, Brad Pitt was turning heads on the red carpet Monday night. And it wasn't just because of a gorgeous Angelina Jolie on his arm, but because of his newest accessory: a black cane.


The actor, 48, who previously told reporters he had an injured ACL (a ligament in the knee that connects the femur with the tibia), tells PEOPLE he's doing just fine.


"It wasn't life or death," Pitt, who slipped down a hill while carrying 3-year-old daughter Vivienne, said at Monday's New York Film Critics Circle Awards. "It was just an old man tripping.


The audience roared; Mr. Pitt, who seemed to speak without notes, grinned. He thanked the critics for their work, deftly poking fun at the difference in star wattage. “This is a real pleasure for me to see some of the faces behind the formidable names that instill such fear and reverence in the film industry,” he said, “although I thought you’d be taller.”


Mr. Pitt also didn’t shy away from Denbygate, the flap over David Denby’s embargo-breaking review of “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” in The New Yorker, which drew a withering response from the movie’s producer, Mr. Rudin, at the time. “We are complex, we are mysteries to ourselves, we are difficult to each other, we live in continual flux and instability and conflict,” Mr. Pitt said. “Christians and Muslims, Democrats and Republicans, Denby and Rudin.”


It turned into the evening’s reoccurring joke. “By the way, let’s admit the real reason David Denby couldn’t be here?” said Albert Brooks, the critics’ best supporting actor. “He was picking up Scott Rudin’s dry cleaning.”


Other highlights:


– “My acceptance will be 30 pages longer and include references to Gilbert and Sullivan” — Aaron Sorkin, following his co-writer and fellow winner of the screenplay award, Steven Zaillian.


– “’Moneyball,’ I think you all know by now, was not an easy movie to make. There are easy movies, there are hard movies, there’s 50 feet of crap, there’s ‘Heaven’s Gate’ and then there’s us” – Mr. Sorkin.


– “I never had a very good idea, actually, before this. I didn’t know that until now” – writer-director JC Chandor, accepting the best first film award for “Margin Call.”


– “I take courage from Margaret Thatcher. Because of the beautiful transparency of the Internet, you can find out exactly how many people in the New York Film Critics Circle voted for you and how many rounds of voting there were, and so I’m happy to report that Margaret Thatcher was the longest serving prime minister of the 20th century and she never got more than 30 percent of the votes, like me” – Meryl Streep, accepting her best actress award for playing Ms. Thatcher in “The Iron Lady.