Opening Night Gala

I know it's a little late, but I figured it was time to post my experience at the Opening Night Gala.

I didn't see Me and You and Everyone We Know - though I wish I had now that I've heard everyone's strong love"t-or-hate"t reactions. Truth is: I just couldn't afford to fork out the required monies. I got to tag along to the after-party with some of the talent (The Posies) because for some reason they thought I was worthy enough to be included on the "guest list".

Since I'd never been to an Opening Night Gala before (again, the money issue), I was pretty excited to be invited along...especially upon learning that I would be able to get into the coveted VIP room. I tried to get dressed up, but I just wasn't feelin' it so I settled for black capris, a tank top, and my sparkly sequined shoes. Of course I felt seriously underdressed next to my female friends who were decked out in frou-frou gowns and had immaculate hair and makeup, but there was nothing to be done but make the best of it. Also, I was still more dressed than a lot of people there, so it wasn't as if I'd stumbled into a black-tie event by mistake.

My beautiful red-headed friend and I arrived via taxi just as hoards of people were rushing into the building - er, well. Trying to rush would be a more appropriate term I guess. It resembled a huge cattle-call more than anything, with people shuffling slowly up the stairs. Luckily, we got to head straight past the stairs and into the little alcove that contained the VIPs. I said my hellos to my friends, and then dashed over to the bar to grab what I could, as I'd been warned that it gets ugly up there. In truth, the bar line moved fairly quickly despite the number of people at it; it was the food line that became too horrendous for me to tackle. I never made it to the sushi and had to settle for the chocolate truffles scattered across the tables (pure torture, I assure you). Of course, this only aided in my mission: to get as drunk as possible on the free gin & tonics...and I definitely succeeded.

I managed to miss the other band(s?) entirely, as I was caught up in having fun with my friends and trying to figure out if Jennifer Connelly was indeed in the room. It turns out she was not - it was a girl who looked a LOT like her (I don't think we were the only ones who were temporarily fooled); her nose was just a little different. Mostly the room seemed to be populated by SIFF employees, many whiskered writers, tons of cute local musicians, and what I call "Aspiring Starlets": girls who are so tan that their perfect white teeth gleam with a blinding brightness from under their blown-out hairstyles, and whose breasts are prominently displayed in low-cut dresses. I somehow doubt any discoveries were made in the VIP room that night, but maybe. Who knows?

After a bit, we headed up to the 2nd floor to watch The Posies get their rock on via the super-secret special elevator (again avoiding the stair crush - yay!), which was another special treat for me, as the 3 gin and tonics I had socked away already were deluding me into believing that I was some kind of international party girl. I continued to get drinks during the show from the very cute bespectacled bartender to the left (my right) of the stage, while alternately dancing wildly, screaming out lyrics, loving the new Posies songs, flirting, grabbing my girls and hugging them - and having the time of my life.

I've read that several people found the party boring -- that wasn't my experience, but maybe it just depended on who you were with?

In any case, I finally got home via another cab, in which the cab driver somehow got 'round to asking me what I thought of sex...presumably with him, and also managed to exclaim that my ex-husband was "asshole" for leaving me (don't ask). Thank god my sober girlfriend rescued me and made sure I got home safely.

Also, 6 drinks seemed like a good idea at the time, but my body sure hated me the next day. My only memento from the evening (besides dehyrdation and a pounding headache) is the tiny tin of Bombay Sapphire mints that the sponsors provided. What can I say? I have no will power when open bars are involved.

SIFF 2005: David Beaird's The Civilization of Maxwell Bright with Patrick Warburton

THE CIVILIZATION OF MAXWELL BRIGHT

(David Beaird, USA, 2005, rated R, 107 minutes)

As the credits rolled, my good friend turned to me and said, "I like this director; he doesn't make great movies, but he makes movies that are refreshingly different". This is the best summation of The Civilization of Maxwell Bright that I can offer.

I went into this movie expecting a raunchy comedy about a man who concludes that American women are too much trouble and decides to buy a mail-order bride from China, only to find that his bride is not as subservient as expected. It turns out that my expectations were nowhere near the scope of this script.

At times, Maxwell Bright (Patrick Warburton) is one of the most abhorrent male chauvinist pigs ever seen (there's one particularly disturbing scene where he orders his wife to disrobe in front of his friends)...yet you can still see the soul behind this character - he's not all bad, he's not all good; he's just very, very human. Marie Matiko plays Mai Ling, his bride and "angel"; showing Maxwell that everyone has goodness in them, and redemption is possible at any time. I also have to mention that Eric Roberts delivers the best performance I've ever seen from him, as Max's loyal best friend (and foot-stool).

The film has its flaws -- it was shot on PAL and the color and lighting are very inconsistent, there are a lot of jarring hand-held movements, the arc of the story takes some strange turns -- but it still evoked a lot of strong emotions in me, and the characters were very genuine and tangible. It's a movie that made a lasting impression, despite the problems it had.

Warburton and Matiko attended the screening and expressed their happiness during the Q&A at being able to participate in this film, explaining that it was the kind of work that actors long to do -- something that will hopefully have an impact on people who see it. I definitely recommend seeing it; even if you don't like it, I'm confident you'll get something good out of it.

Image from Rotten Tomatoes (Marie Matiko as Mai Ling).  

Max and Grace, AKA My Suicidal Sweetheart

MAX AND GRACE, AKA My Suicidal Sweetheart
(Michael Parness, USA, 2005, 91 mins.)

Ever since Harold and Maude became one of the more surprising hits of the 1970s, one young American filmmaker after another has hoped and prayed lightning would strike twice and that they'd be blessed with their own personal cult classic. While there have been a few sparks here and there, for the most part, it hasn't.

The concept should've scared me away from the start, but I decided to give Max and Grace a try due to the fine work much of its cast has done elsewhere, especially Natasha Lyonne in The Slums of Beverly Hills and Lorraine Bracco in Goodfellas and on The Sopranos.

Alas, Michael Parrish's feature-film debut is one in a long line of calculatedly quirky romantic comedies that feel more cynical than sincere. The premise, in brief, is that Max (David Krumholtz, who'll be in town with Parrish to support the film) and Grace (Lyonne) are two suicidal mental patients who fall in love, get married, bust out of the mental institute, and go off on a journey of self-discovery. Max and Grace has its moments--I liked the dream and/or fantasy sequences--but it fails to catch fire.

That said, I don't mean to suggest that Harold and Maude was a perfect film or the template by which all off-beat romantic comedies should be judged (that would be The Graduate). The concept, after all, is pretty preposterous.

But in the hands of the right actors, like Ruth Gordon and Bud Cort, and, most importantly, the right writer/director, like the great Hal Ashby (Shampoo and Being There, among many others), Harold and Maude managed to be as bizarre as all get-out and genuinely touching at the same time. David O. Russell and Wes Anderson have come close to capturing some of its unique alchemy in their early films, like Spanking the Monkey (1994) and Rushmore (1998), but most others have failed--spectacularly.

My advice to other young filmmakers with visions of a post-millennial Harold and Maude in their heads: There was only one Ashby and, alas, he is dead.



Postscript: My Suicidal Sweetheart, aka Max and Grace, aka Crazy for Love, is not currently available on home video, but Krumholtz can be seen every Friday night on CBS's Numb3rs, where he has become a brainy sex symbol. He will also be appearing in the sequel to Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. Image: CineMaterial (My Suicidal Sweetheart poster).

SIFF 2005: François Ozon's 5X2 - Or Not

I was really looking forward to seeing François Ozon's 5X2 on Saturday (having loved 8 Women and Swimming Pool), but it just didn't happen.

My friend and I arrived at The Egyptian around 8:15 to get in line for the 9:00 showing. We noticed that the rush ticket line was unusually long -- like, longer than I've ever seen a rush line. I believe when the theater employees came out to count, it was 60+.

We had gotten in the ticket holders line early enough to be just around the corner of the building, but the line quickly grew and ticket holders eventually stretched down the entire length and around the corner on the other side. At this point, we realized that it was 8:55, and they hadn't started seating yet. Around 9:15, an employee came out and told us that the film before had run over by 45 minutes so it would be a little bit before we could get in, as they had to clear the theater first.

Since we had underestimated how cold it was outside (neither of us had jackets on), we discussed selling our tickets to a few people in the rush line - trying to figure out how we could offer them to the cute girls we had our eye on in the middle of the line without offending anyone else. We also became the "hub" of the line; everyone would stop right where we were to ask if our line was the ticket holder's line. One guy who stopped exclaimed it was odd that the ticket holder's line was so long and the rush ticket line was so short*...after talking for a bit about that, he seemed to get nervous, glanced around and exclaimed, "Oh hi guys, I'm a ticket holder too!". Maybe he thought the crowd would turn ugly or something. I think he ended up ditching because he didn't want to go to the end of the (now gigantic) line.

As luck would have it, the venue manager for the theater came 'round shortly after that and offered people $10 a ticket, in order to shorten the line and make sure they didn't have to turn too many people away. We volunteered, she took our tickets, 10 minutes later the line started moving in, and we collected our cash and were on our way.

Note: The friendly Egyptian employee with the long hair (who I always see at SIFF, but still don't know his name) also informed everyone that 5X2 would be playing at The Varsity soon -- so everyone who missed it at SIFF can catch it there.

*yeah, I didn't get it either.

Image (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi and Stéphane Freiss) from Rotten Tomatoes.  

An Interview with Gregg Araki

Araki on the set While he was in town to support his fine new film Mysterious Skin, I got the chance to talk to writer/director Gregg Araki (The Living End, The Doom Generation) on a Saturday afternoon prior to the final SIFF screening. I figured I would be lucky to get 15 minutes, but we ended up chatting for almost 40. I'll post just a few of his comments for now. When I can find the time, I promise to post more. Thanks to the SIFF press department for setting things up and to Mr. Araki for the generosity of his time. First, Araki and I talked about all the good press Mysterious Skin has been generating. It's his first adaptation and concerns two 18-year-old boys in Kansas, both of whom are dealing--in very different ways--with sexual abuse they suffered as children. Neil (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who views the relationship he had with his Little League coach (Hal Hartley vet Bill Sage) as a love affair, has become a sociopathic hustler, while Brian (Brady Corbet) is a nerdy college student convinced he was abducted by aliens (he can't account for several hours from his eighth year). The poster art It was hard for Araki to contain his enthusiasm for the way the film turned out and the overwhelmingly positive response it's been receiving. That said, a lot of reviews have emphasized the differences between Mysterious Skin and his other features, like Totally F**cked Up and Splendor. I wanted to highlight the similarities. ***** ***** ***** ***** Araki: I love this film. I'm so proud of it. I really think it is a departure for me, since it is my first serious, character-driven drama. Fennessy: The tone is different. Araki: The tone is much more heartfelt and sincere. It doesn't have that satirical, kind of postmodern irony. It's very straightforward and direct. It's much more straight-emotional than my other films. I think it's because Scott Heim and I, our sensibilities are so much aligned that it very much fits in [with] my "ouevre." Like the relationships, and especially because my movies are always about outsiders and Scott's a little bit younger than me, but our sensibilities are on the same wavelength, so a lot of the characters, the relationships, the themes, the sexuality... Fennessy: There are some bizarre coincidences also. Like the aliens in Nowhere. Araki: There are so many things in the film, in the story, that are like the rest of my films. Fennessy: When you read the book was that one of the things that convinced you to do an adaptation? Araki: I think that it was. The story had a huge impact on me. I just found it devastating when I read it. It really stayed with me. I've been sent a lot of scripts and books and stuff and I've never encountered a story like it that has really stuck with me. It just had an emotional impact. That's it for now. Once I've transcribed more, I'll post again. In the meantime, I'll summarize a few of the more interesting things I learned about Araki from our chat. First of all, his influences are a little different than I expected. While making Mysterious Skin, he wasn't consciously trying to emulate other filmmakers, but he did have three in mind that he really admires: Alfred Hitchcock, Terrence Malick, and Wong Kar-Wai. The character of Avalyn (Mary Lynn Rajskub), who believes she was abducted by aliens (and forms an unusual bond with Brian), was the hardest to cast. While writing Mysterious Skin, which is set in the early-1990s, Heim was listening to a lot of the music that appears in the book and in the film: Ride, Slowdive, etc. The name "Avalyn" actually comes from an Ed Harcourt song (Slowdive, if I'm not mistaken). Araki is such a big music fan that he owns over 1,000 albums, but has never worked as a DJ or spent time in a band ("I don't play any instruments"). According to the IMDb, however, he did used to write music reviews for the LA Weekly. Above: Gordon-Levitt and Michelle Trachtenberg Although there won't be any other opportunities to see Mysterious Skin during SIFF, the good news is that it opens in Seattle on 6/17. Click here for part two.

The Dying Gaul

Peter Sarsgaard plays Robert, a screenwriter who's written a deeply personal script about his lover who died from Aids. Campbell Scott is the slimy Hollywood producer who seduces Robert with money (and his body) in order to get him to rewrite it -- changing one of the main characters to a woman because, "No one's going to see a movie about a dying gay man". Sound interesting? Throw Patricia Clarkson (I swear I fall in love her a little more every time I see her on film) into the mix as the producer's creatively frustrated wife, whose interest in Robert also compels her to seduce him (emotionally) under the guise of another gay male via chat rooms. Soon secrets get shared, tension mounts, and all hell breaks loose.

I'll admit that this film wasn't perfect; I found the stylistic way of presenting the computer chats towards the middle of the film to be kind of distracting, and the ending seemed to leave some people scratching their heads with the odd direction it took -- but overall the dialogue was strong, the story kept my interest, and the acting was pretty amazing (which makes up for a lot, in my opinion).

Before the film, Sarsgaard was awarded The Golden Space Needle Award for Outstanding Achievement in Acting, and he introduced this film saying something about how it was his best...well, maybe not his best film, but definitely one of his best performances (unfortunately, I wasn't taking notes). I think I agree. Although you would have a hard time getting me to say that any of his performances are less than stunning.

On Kirby Dick's Twist of Faith

This emotionally trying documentary was almost as hard for me to get through as the Paradise Lost/West Memphis Three documentaries.

Tony Comes is a firefighter, family man, and a genuinely good guy. He was sexually abused during several of his teenage years by a priest at his church, but had suppressed those experiences until he buys a new house with his family -- and finds that the priest lives in another house just down the block. Prompted by the urge to protect others from the same experience, he reports the incidents to his church, and the church begins a cover-up operation to protect itself form scrutiny.

What follows is a terribly emotional journey for Tony in which he questions his church, his family and friend's loyalty, and witnesses the disintegration of his marriage because he can't get the justice he needs in order to move on. All the while, he's clinging to his faith in god and trying to reconcile that with the Catholic Church he grew up in. How can he trust them now? Some of the most poignant moments in the documentary come from the cameras director Kirby Dick provided Tony and his wife Wendy, in order to record their own thoughts. Some of the most frightening moments come from the abuser's deposition, in which it's clear that he has no idea what he's done to these boys was (or still is) wrong.

I'd also like to add something here about the audience I saw this with: I am not a religious person by any means, and organized religion drives me up the wall -- however, when there's a lot of laugher (of the ha-ha funny variety, not the uncomfortable variety) during a very serious and sad documentary, and the Q&A leads people to ask questions about why Tony wanted to continue going to church, I find it kind of insulting. It was clear that he wanted to keep his strong connection to god, and he wasn't sure if he could still do that through a church that had lied and not protected him, but man. It was the only way he could hold on to it, and since he was losing everything else, it made sense that he'd cling to his beliefs.

Speaking of the Q&A, it was just as emotional as the documentary itself. In addition to the director, one of the abuse survivors, Matthew Simon, came up to answer questions and the entire audience exploded out of their seats and clapped and cried with him. I recommend you see this (premiering on June 28th on HBO); just be prepared to take a long time recovering from it.