A Good Day

I skipped my first movie, ALL THE KINGS MEN, and slept instead. I mean, it opens in 2 weeks and the actors never show for the second screening, so I figured, better off sleeping a couple of hours longer.

So, my day started just around 11:00 when me and my caffeine got into a long ticket holders line for FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION, the new Christopher Guest/Eugene Levy movie. I started chatting with the guy in front of me about the movies we'd seen and the fact that we'd both lived in Philadelphia when we got onto the topic of the movie we'd seen the night before and discovered we'd both been in the new Zach Braff movie, THE LAST KISS. Nothing too remarkable there... But then he mentions that he's actually Zach's friend. Cool. So I chat with him some more about movies and Toronto and Philadelphia and his wife joins in the conversation a bit, too... and then this older couple come up and join us. Zack's parents. His dad (Hal, if memory serves?) told me about some creative decisions his son made writing GARDEN STATE and what it had originally been about and how neither of us liked the film PENELOPE much (more on that later in the week on the Drunk Writer Talk blog)...

Anyway... a cool start to a day which just got better.

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION was freakin' hilarious. Of course, I expected that... but it really is very funny. It was the second screening of this film, (it had premiered at a Gala the night before) and as I mentioned earlier, the filmmakers and actors generally don't go to the second screenings... Also the festival NEVER does Q&A's at the Elgin theatre and the film was at the Elgin.... So what happened this morning?
After the screening, we were treated to a half hour (at least) Q&A following the film, with at least 10 of the cast members. Christopher Guest, Catherine O'Hara, Jane Lynch, Fred Willard, Bob Balaban, Jennifer Coolidge, Eugene Levy, Michael McKean, Parker Posey... I'm sure I'm missing someone... I did take pictures. I'll post them some other time.

Anyway. Great film.

Then I went to see TEN ITEMS OR LESS, also a World Premiere, which is a very sweet movie with Morgan Freeman and Paz Vega.

Then... another Parker Posey movie, FAY GRIM, which was interesting and also starred Jeff Goldblum and made we really want to see a film by the same filmmaker called HENRY FOOL which I think I may have started to watch once on the Movie Network, but didn't see the whole thing. (My camera batteries died, so no pictures of Jeff and Parker... but I do have pictures of Parker from the earlier film...)

The day wrapped up with the Bobcat Goldthwaite film, SLEEPING DOGS LIE, which actually has distribution and will be in theatres in October. Can't really say if I recommend it... It was okay. Not really as provocative as Bobcat seems to think it is... and is basically just asking the question of whether total honesty is always the best policy in relationships.

Anyway... Fun day.

Crazy thing is. I have this insane idea that I'm going to get up early tomorrow to go down to see if I can get a ticket for THE FOUNTAIN for tomorrow night... According to my pal, Zack's dad, if you get to the box office by 7:00 am they have a few tickets for almost any film that day, but they're gone by 8:30 or 9:00. Problem is, even if it weren't almost 1:00 am right now... I don't typically do 7:00 am unless I've been up all night... But I do want to see that movie (in spite of the boos in Venice) and it would also make my schedule easier as it's at the same theatre as the film I'm seeing earlier in the evening... Wish me luck! (Luck in prying myself out of bed, that is.)

(Oh, and my first film tomorrow has Forrest Wittaker playing Idi Amin. Should be interesting.)