|
The Floating Film Festival
SUNDAY FEBRUARY 24, 2008
Today is the 80th anniversary of the Academy Awards and the beginning of my trip to the Floating Film Festival. More about that later. First I have to get to Los Angeles, see the awards and then make sure I'm awake at 3 am LA time to report on the show via phone and satellite for radio and television stations back home in Toronto.
So far things are going smoothly, save for a guy in front of my who has his seat pushed back so far that I am actually pinned into my chair, barely able to move. It does give me a good view of his dinner plate sized bald spot, but I am distracted from the vast hairless tracks of land in front of my face by the little girl sitting next to him whose running commentary includes remarks like, "I don't feel sick yet, just really, really scared!"
This year there doesn't seem to be the general excitement in the air regarding the Oscars. Perhaps it's because of the writer's strike and the uncertainty of the show happening, or perhaps it's because if you combined the grosses of all the movies nominated in the marquee categories you'd barely have enough to cover the craft services budget on Transformers. There Will be Blood, No Country for Old Men and Michael Clayton may be great movies, and all three appeared on my Top Ten list for last year, but they didn't exactly burn up the box office, so the buzz factor is kind of low.
I'm less excited about the whole thing this year, but only because I am convinced that I know who is going to win in the major categories, and because of my faith in my Oscar prognostication skills, the gold isn't quite as shiny for me this year as it has been in years past. This year I tried logic instead of sentimentality or opinion to create my Oscar Pool entry. I took all the major film critics polls and combined that data with the Golden Globe winners and SAG winners and came up with a mathematical formula to determine who will win and who will go home empty handed.
Somewhere my grade school math teacher is laughing really hard to himself, dancing a jig with his slide rule at the idea of me coming up with a mathematical anything, but I think I have come up with a method that is as good as any to determine the winners. It's numbers verses gut instinct, usually the kind of thing I hate, it's way too logical for my taste, but I have taken such a beating on the Oscar Pools in the last few years by using my expertise and opinions that I thought I'd give practicality a try for a change.
Here are my picks and their percentages:
Performance by an actor in a leading role
Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood 50 %
Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men 60 %
Performance by an actress in a leading role
Julie Christie in Away from Her 70 %
Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Amy Ryan in Gone Baby Gone 60 %
Achievement in directing
No Country for Old Men Joel Coen and Ethan Coen 50 %
Best motion picture of the year
No Country for Old Men 60%
Now, I realize all it will take is for a few ancient actors to vote for their old buddy Hal Holbrook and my whole mathematical system will be thrown out of whack, but until 5 pm Pacific Time today, at least, I'm standing by my predictions.
As I sit on the plane writing this, the laptop literally resting against my chest because the guy in front of me thinks his seat is a Lazy Boy recliner, my thoughts drift to Dusty Cohl. Dusty, one of the founders of the Toronto Film Festival, the Canadian Walk of Fame and general man about town passed away just before Christmas. I'm thinking about him today because I'm on my way to the Floating Film Festival, a seven day festival on a cruise ship that will take us from LA to Mexico that was another of Dusty's creations.
For those who don't know he was a man who knew everyone and took great pleasure in bringing people together for friendship, business and often, just for fun. When he died in December I was asked to comment on his passing by several radio and television outlets. I didn't really know how to sum up his life and accomplishments with just a soundbite, because his contribution to Canadian culture extends far beyond TIFF or the Walk of Fame or the FFF.
His genius was in putting people together who would go on to do great things. For me it is hard to pin down his legacy because we'll never know how many shows got green lit, how many scripts go written, how many movies got made or how many good times happened because of Dusty's influence. It is inestimable and the landscape of Canadian culture is going to be a little more barren and a little less fun now that he is gone. Hopefully his disciples, and there are many that looked to him as a mentor, will keep his tradition of collaboration and coercion alive. I didn't know him well, but I feel like I owe him, not just for the chance to help program the FFF and cruise the Mexican Riviera for a week, but also for all the stuff he gave Canada, and Toronto in particular, that made it a better place.
This is kind of a vacation—a break from Toronto’s ice and snow at least—but I still have work to do. On Sunday I'm doing radio hits via my cell phone leading up to and during the ceremony. The radio hits and my bad planning got in the way of watching the Oscars at a friend's villa at the glamorous Sunset Marquis Hotel in West Hollywood so I had to settle for the Hyatt Hotel bar in Long Beach. Not as chic, but they had big screens and lots of Stella Artois.
The red carpet show was just as weird as usual. What exactly, were The Rock, Miley Cyrus and Steve Gutenberg doing walking the Oscar carpet? I thought the red carpet was for Oscar nominees, not people who will likely never win anything more than a fan favorite award at a country fare.
Great to see Sarah Polley on the carpet looking slightly bewildered as Julie Christie rambled on about Guantánamo and it was great to hear Ellen Page talk about her recent birthday by saying, “I had a couple of drinks. I'm not gonna lie.”
Low points included Regis Philbin calling Javier Bardem Xavier and Heidi Klum’s spray tan.
Things improved once Jon Stewart took the stage. He poked the nominees saying, “Even Norbit got a nomination, which I think is great. Too often the Academy ignores movies that aren't good.” He also took a swipe at Away From Her. “It’s the story of a woman who forgets her own husband,” he said. “Hillary Clinton called it the feel good movie of the year.”
Apart from keeping the show running smoothly Stewart did something that I have never seen before. After Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová won for their song Falling Slowly from Once it was quite obvious that by the time that Hansard was finished his thank yous that Irglová was disappointed that she wasn’t able to speak before the music swelled and the show cut away to commercial. Stewart did the coolest thing by bringing her back and allowing her to say her piece.
“This is such a big deal,” she said “not only for us, but for all other independent musicians and artists that spend most of their time struggling, and this, the fact that we’re standing here tonight, the fact that we’re able to hold this, it’s just to prove no matter how far out your dreams are, it’s possible. And, you know, fair play to those who dare to dream and don’t give up. And this song was written from a perspective of hope, and hope at the end of the day connects us all, no matter how different we are. And so thank you so much, who helped us along way. Thank you.”
It was heartfelt, genuine and touching and probably the best moment of the night.
I remembered back to last June when I did a Q&A with Glen Hansard and the film's director John Carney at the Regent Theatre in Toronto. Once the formal question and answer was over Hansard grabbed his guitar—the same one from the film and the Oscar show with the hole worn in the front from constant use—and played a number of songs, solo, from the edge of the stage. It was a great, intimate performance with the same kind of warmth and charisma that he shows in the film.
It was unplanned and loose. He called up a guy named Peter Katz from the audience to perform and then several members of the audience requested that Glen play Falling Slowly, the future Oscar winner.
“I can't play it,” he said. “It's a duet and Markéta isn't here... although if you want to help me sing it I'll give it a go.” Three girls stood at the front of the room with him and did a transcendent version of it, complete with perfect harmonies. Of all the Q&A's I have hosted that one moment stands alone as a high point.
Back to earth… I must admit that my logical system of prognostication didn't really work out that well. Tilda Swanton and Marion Cotillard were unexpected winners that threw off my calculations and sunk me in the two Oscar Pools I entered this year. Perhaps next year I’ll try runes or astronomy when making my predictions.
Over all the show was short, Stewart was funnyish and occasionally hilarious—two words for you, “Gaydolph Titler”—and although no Canadians took home awards there were some upsets, lots of pretty red gowns with pretty actresses inside them and did I mention it all came in under four hours.
Off to bed early to grab a few hours of sleep before getting up while it is still very dark to do a phone interview with EZ Rock in Toronto and then go to a studio in what turns out to be a dodgy part of LA to do a satellite hit with Canada AM about the Oscars.
MONDAY FEBRUARY 25, 2008
It’s not even six a.m. when they start off my Canada AM segment with a clip from last Friday’s show where I say something like Tilda Swinbton doesn't have a chance in hell at taking home the gold. It's a funny clip and Seamus O'Regan and I spend the rest of our time mocking my fortune telling skills. The coolest part of the experience, however, was sitting in front of the Oscar green screen.
I’ve seen it on television for years—the giant gold statues and red curtains—and it was very cool to share a screen with it this year. When I'm done I head downstairs to grab the limo back to the hotel. I find the limo driver crouched in the front seat with the doors locked. Like I said, it's a sketchy neighborhood.
Once back in beautiful downtown Long Beach the PTC (preferred traveling companion) and I seek out a suitably big American breakfast. We find a diner a few blocks away, and even though it's a bit menacing looking—there’s a sign in the window that says, “Washrooms are for Customer Use Only. Please Do Not Ask,”—we go in. At the table next to us a woman is doing her hair and makeup. Deciding to stay despite the ambiance, we order two "ultimate" breakfast somethings. I make it about halfway through mine; she even less so. Somewhere a chicken weeps at the waste of her eggs...
After a long walk to burn off the "ultimate" calories we head to the boat, the Crystal Symphony. It's like an apartment building laid on its side. It’s colossal and, dare I say it, titanic, even. Later I find out that the boat is 781 feet long, 99 feet wide.
Standing in the custom line we end up talking to quite a few people. I come to understand that this is part of cruise culture, it's very friendly. Most everyone we talk to are Floating Film Festival veterans or “Floaters” as they call themselves. Some have come every single year since day one, others say they have only been coming for a few years, but would never miss it. Their enthusiasm is infectious. In addition to the endless food, the rolling ocean and luxurious surroundings, the people here seem to really love movies.
We get checked into our stateroom. I expected a tiny closet in the bowels of the boat, kind of like the below deck scenes in the Titanic. Instead we have a beautiful room—I've had expensive hotel rooms in NYC that were way smaller than this is—with great furniture and a fruit basket.
At 3 o'clock there is a reception in the Palm Court, a giant room with low bar tables and, most importantly, free flowing champagne. Now it is beginning to feel like a film festival.
Danielle McGimsie from e-Talk is here to do a story on the FFF and interviews me, director Barry Avrich and our special guest this year, Gena Rowlands. Danielle suggests that I am the only person she knows who would come on a beautiful cruise to the Mexican Rivera and then spend the whole time sitting in a dark room watching movies. I told her to have a look around. Everyone in that room was going to be spending most of their vacation in the dark.
At six the opening night film, Dinner Guest, a French farce starring Daniel Auteuil and comedienne Valerie Lemercier kicks things off in the Galaxy Ballroom, a large space normally used for live shows that has been converted into a movie theatre. With its pink plush seats and marble cocktail tables it more closely resembles a 1980s hotel nightclub, but the chairs are comfortable and the sightlines good.
After the movie—which everyone agreed was “cute”—we gather in the main dining room. It is a formal affair, although not so formal that we have to wear a tux—that's tomorrow night. Tonight we’re seated with six strangers, all of whom are huge movie fans who spend the entire time discussing everything from the merits of the Oscar show to Marlon Brando’s best performance to how Julie Christie was robbed of an Oscar for her performance in Away From Her. Despite my virulent anti-schmooze stance, and complete lack of ability to make small talk, it goes well. Just as dinner approached the sea decided to show us who is boss and kicks up some huge swells. Later as the boat rocked I became acquainted with the wonders of Gravol...
TUESDAY FEBRUARY 26, 2008
It's the first full day on the boat and I have become obsessed with how something this huge can stay in the water. There is nothing around us for miles except open sea—and, I imagine, the odd Kraken or two—so I have to have blind faith that the thing will stay afloat, but I don't see how it is possible. Also, I wonder, where do they store all the food, the thousands of gallons of fresh water? I ask around and find out that we will use over 1 million gallons of fresh water and 36,000 gallons of fuel on this trip to move the 854 guests and 575 crew members on board.
I’ve never been on a cruise before, so before we left for Los Angeles I decided to embrace my inner cruiser and buy what I thought would be appropriate cruise wear. I wanted to fit in. I guess it worked. Today I saw an eighty year old man wearing the same pants as me. The only difference is, he had a walker and I didn’t, but other than that we were dressed pretty much identically.
Being on the cruise is quite something. Crystal is very serious about service, so much so that the experience of being aboard the ship is kind of like being in a small town where nobody ever says “No” to you. They are relentless in their desire to please and no request is too much. You want to make substitutions on the menu items? No problem! You’d like nineteen extra pillows and a helium stuffed comforter? We’ll be right there! No request is too much and the only time I saw a staff member with anything less than a smile on their mugs was during the mandatory life raft drill when a stern Austrian woman shushed my group, admonishing us for talking and laughing during the drill.
We’re at sea all day today so there is little to do but eat and watch movies. Everywhere grinning staff members tempt me with pastries and tasty treats. The general rule of thumb is that you’ll gain a pound a day during the cruise. I’m shooting for two…
At the first screening of the day Richard Corliss made a funny and heartfelt tribute to Dusty Cohl that bears reporting. Corliss, a writer for Time magazine, was a friend of Dusty's for many years and one of the original programmers for the FFF. He read a letter written by his wife, Mary Corliss who wrote, “For more than forty years I have been connected with film, working at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and covering film festivals from Toronto to Tehran. IN that time I have met more than a few movie stars so you may consider me an expert on the subject. I can testify that nobody had the star quality of Dusty Cohl. His swagger, his patter his passion for life; the cigars and of course, that hat, made him a unique larger than life big screen character and a forever friend.”
Like many of the tributes to Dusty, Corliss’s homage was touching but irreverent, but, unlike the other tributes, ended with a song.
Corliss went on to describe how Dusty had always encouraged him “be all I could be as a writer of bad song parodies.”
“I will now torture you with one of them. Meeting Dusty’s friends in Canada and meeting many of them on the Floating Film Festival I would often ask the question, ‘Are there any Gentiles in Canada?’ So I was inspired to pen this… (to the tune of O Canada) Oy Canada! Oy Vey and how’s by you…”
The song goes on to praise Dusty and other famous Jewish Canadians like David Cronenberg and Lorne Michaels before ending with a stirring “Oy Dusty Cohl and Mazel Tov to thee!” It was a show stopper and the kind of funny tribute I gather Dusty would have liked.
To cap off the tribute to Dusty a short documentary titled Citizen Cohl, made by festival managing director Barry Avrich, unspoiled before the main feature. As the video played you could hear laughter and muffled sobs in the assembled crowd, many of whom were close personal friends of Dusty.
The first film of the day, Snow Angels, based on a book by Stewart O'Nan and directed by David Gordon Green, is a riveting slice-of-life drama set in a small town involving Annie (Kate Beckinsale) and Glenn (Sam Rockwell) childhood sweethearts whose dreams of happiness didn’t work out quite the way they planned. Separated after the birth of their daughter, the main story focuses on Glenn’s increasingly unhinged behavior and Annie’s inability to completely let go of the image of what Glenn used to be. Ripe with great performances, Snow Angels is a taut and uncompromising look at the dark side of relationships turned sour.
Not exactly 10 am entertainment, but pretty much par for the course at a film festival; if you want sweetness and light, go to Disney World. I think people liked it, but no one would ever call this one “cute.”
Just as the bleak blanket of ennui from Snow Angels was starting to lift I went to see the four o’clock presentation of Frozen River. Again, not exactly what you’d call uplifting. Ray Eddy (Melissa Leo) is having a rough time. Her husband took off just days before Christmas, she doesn’t have the money for the final payment on her new double wide and all she can afford to feed her kids is popcorn and Tang. Like I said, things aren’t going well. She finds a way out when the chance to make some easy, but illegal money, smuggling illegal immigrants into the US across the St. Lawrence River, comes her way.
I think Frozen River really wanted to be a better movie than it actually is. Leo is good in the lead role, but she’s working against a backdrop of waken supporting performances and a clichéd story.
After the one-two punch of downhearted and dreary films I was looking forward to channeling my inner George Clooney by throwing on my tux and meeting the Captain of the ship at a reception in the main ballroom. I felt as thought I had been thrown back in time to 1955 Las Vegas. The men are all wearing tuxedos, the women long gowns. There’s a small orchestra playing on the stage while people dance the fox trot and the mambo on the dance floor. People are drinking champagne and cocktails. It has the kind of glamour that you usually only see in movies, and I wish I had more opportunity to wear my tux.
Later at dinner we sit with six new people and get the inside scoop on Conrad Black’s trial from a friend of his who was on the cruise. Later, still dressed in our tuxes we retire to the saloon to indulge in that manliest of pastimes, cigar smoking and after-dinner port drinking.
WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 27, 2008
Slept late after a night of cigar bars, sambucca with venture captialists and port with the owners of several Tim Hortons in Calgary. Up in time to grab the "late risers" breakfast buffet on the Lido Deck and get ready to go into Cabo San Lucas for the afternoon. All I knew about the place was that it was the home of Cabo Wabo tequila, it’s at the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula and that it would be hot. Sure enough, after a quick ten minute tender boat ride from the cruise ship to shore we are on land for the first time in days and the first thing I see is a Cabo Wabo sign.
And yes, it is hot.
It was nice to be on dry land, but every now and again a wave of motion would wash over me as if I was still on the boat. It makes you walk funny and feel like you are drunk, but without the work of actually having to drink booze. I'm told Johnny Depp used this idiosyncratic walk in the Pirates movies when Captain Jack Sparrow was on land to show that he had spent most of his life on the sea.
The harbor front area in Cabo has been built up in the last couple of years and, while nice, is really touristy. I didn't come all this way by land and by sea to eat at Ruth's Chris Steak House or shop at Chanel, although I was fascinated by the big hotel at the base of the dock, called, I kid you not, The Taco Inn. Later we see a tatoo parlor called The Spunky Monkey with the most obscene store sign I have ever seen in public, outside of some strip joints in Northern Ontario and a bar called, appropriately enough, The Hangover and another store called Redrum (spell it backwards and it is a weird choice of moniker). I also notice that the street signs in town are sponsored by Dos Equis Beer. Al the signs have the street name and beer logo prominently displayed. I wonder if only people over 19 are allowed to walk the streets.
We spend the day walking through the older part of town, eating at an authentic Mexican restaurant (what other kind would there be in Mexico?) and shopping. I've always been fascinated by the Day of the Dead art and was lucky enough to find an out of the way shop that specializes in traditional Mexican masks and art. I bought a diorama of a skeleton Elvis, complete with white jump suit and guitar standing in a box stage emblazoned with the words, “Elvis... Has Left the Building.” Other pop culture tributes included a "Bone... James Bone" spy piece, Marrowlyn Munroe and James Dean skeleton figures. They're quite unusual, but I love my new Elvis piece and the way it mixes pop culture with the traditional Mexican art.
Walking through the streets I pick up a copy of The Gringo Gazette, a newspaper for tourists, with an eye catching photo of a man in a snow storm on the front cover. Underneath the photo it says “Not Cabo San Lucas.” Amen to that.
I'm presenting the movie Chop Shop tonight at 10:30. It was programmed by Jim Emerson, of The Chicago Sun Times, but he was unable to come this year so I have volunteered to chat it up before the screening. I saw it a couple of years ago at another film festival and liked it’s free form, slice-of-life story about a twelve-year-old’s desperate attempts to make a better life for himself and his sister in the downtrodden Willet’s Point neighborhood in Queens, New York.
There isn’t a story as such, but there is real humanity on display, and the kind of social consciousness usually only associated these days with the films of Ken Loach. Barry introduced as “the guy who you’ve seen walking around the ship who looks like Steve Allen.” I was always more of a Jack Paar man myself, but I won’t quibble.
I hoped people would like it and ended my spiel with, “This is a really great film, and I know you’re going to enjoy it.”
Boy was I wrong.
People hated this movie with the white hot burning fever not felt since the opening night of Plan Nine from Outer Space. It literally cleared the room, with one woman loudly declaring “I don’t like this,” as she stomped out. By the end of the film only a few of diehards are left. I’d like to think that people were just tired from a day in Cabo and a late start for the movie, but deep down I know they hated the movie and I feel I’m going to have to spend the next couple of days explaining the movie to irate Floaters.
My first presentation at the FFF was a bust, and I hope that the good folks won’t hold it against me and boycott the movie I am presenting later in the week. I go to bed tired and feeling slightly paranoid.
THURSDAY FEBRUARY 28, 2008
At breakfast this morning I was so convinced that people were going to chastise me for presenting Chop Shop that I sat with my back facing the aisle so Floaters walking by couldn’t see me.
Today's port of call is Mazatlán, the “Pearl of the Pacific.” Accoring to Wikipedia “Mazatlán is the hometown of Pedro Infante, one of the most popular actors and singers of the golden years of Mexico's film industry… and was well regarded by film stars such as John Wayne, Gary Cooper, and others of their generation as a sportfishing mecca.”
More than one million people visit this small city every year, but unless I missed something, I can’t imagine why. Perhaps I still had a Chop Shop rejection hangover, and wasn’t in the mood for the place, but I found it to be mostly rundown and dirty, and while we had a great cheap lunch and saw some beautiful tile work, there isn’t much here that grabbed me.
The highlight of the trip to Mazatlán was a visit to the beautiful Teatro Angela Peralta. Legend has it that in 1883 revered Mexican opera singer Angela ‘The Nightingale of Mexico’ Peralta was scheduled to perform in the city’s premier showcase, the Rubio Theatre. Upon her arrival she was met with adoring fans that carried her to her hotel. Touched by this show of affection Peralta performed did an impromptu performance from the balcony of her hotel. The tragic part of the story is that just days later the singer died of yellow fever contracted in the boat that brought her to Mazatlán. She never got the chance to perform in the lovely theatre, but the townsfolk named the place in tribute to her, erecting a plaque which commemorates her unfortunate end.
The theatre didn’t fare much better than poor Miss Peralta. According to the Mazatlán city website, “In later years, the theater was turned into a movie theater, then a vaudeville stage, a boxing ring and eventually a parking garage! Finally, in 1975, a hurricane hit Mazatlán and destroyed the inside of the theater. Standing in ruin for years, the theater began a restoration in 1987, and re-opened in 1992.”
Today it is a splendid example of the Neo-Classical style of the era and is still in use as a working theatre. The day we go through a modern dance troupe are rehearsing on the stage. Upstairs some rather dramatic signs tell the story of the theatre’s restoration. My favorite caption shows a tree growing amid the ruins of the theatre and reads, “A gigantic wild Ficus tree sprang up from the middle of the shattered stage, dwarfing the surrounding walls and making this space look like a ruined dollhouse.” Another says, “When restoration was finally undertaken in 1986 the place looked like a thirties movie set for a plane crash in the jungle.”
We get back to the boat sun stroked and crazy from the heat and miss the four o’clock screening of the new Errol Morris documentary Standard Operating Procedure.
At dinner we sit with the guy whose company built the Toronto subway and the 401 highway. Turns out he’s a movie fan and his grandson just completed the producer’s course at the AFI in Los Angeles.
After dinner we’re off to see the 10:30 screening of OSS 117: Nest of Spies, a spoof of James Bond movies presented by thehotbutton.com’s David Poland. This boat is so large it has two screening rooms, one we have been using during the day and a fully equipped theatre that is used for later screenings. Tonight we’re in the Hollywood Theatre, an ersatz art deco movie palace that holds about 150 people. The audience tonight is in full vacation mode, they’re talking moving around and generally making a lot of noise. The movie is funny in a quirky kind of way with a few genuine laughs, but the restlessness in the bleachers annoyed me.
FRIDAY FEBRUARY 29, 2008
We spent a rare February 29 in Puerto Vallarta, a small resort town that became famous after John Huston and Richard Burton shot Night of the Iguana there. Huston fell in love with the place and built a home on the remote Las Caletas beach and another house in town. Huston's children Angelica and Danny share his love of the place and are the founders and patrons of the Puerto Vallarta Film Festival.
Night of the Iguana isn’t the only Hollywood connection, however. Parts of Predator were shot there (apparently director John McTiernan lost quite a bit of weight during filming because he was afraid to eat the local food) and more recently Ben Stiller staged a fight with a sea lion at the Sea Lion Adventure of Vallarta Adventures for his film The Heartbreak Kid.
It’s a picturesque tourist town, with shops (the most unique of which was the Rolling Stones Leather shop whose logo is the famous Rolling Stones lips with the addition of bulging eyes) and restaurants dotting the main drag on one side with beach on the other side. Along the boardwalk that snakes through town there are really beautiful, but really unusual bronze sculptures. Resembling something out of a Terry Gilliam movie, these art pieces are vaguely disturbing alien looking faces perched atop chairs at various look out points. Very strange, but quite excellent.
After a couple or pineapple cocktails at the excellently named Daiquiri Dick’s we head back to the ship to catch a special screening of the John Cassavetes’s film Opening Night. Made in collaboration with our special guest Gena Rowlands, Opening Night, which could easily have been called Actress on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, or maybe even Actress Under the Influence, is pure Cassavetes—uncompromising, raw and brilliant. In it an actress (Rowlands) suffers emotional upheaval in her personal and professional life after a fan accidentally dies after asking for an autograph.
I am interested to see that Ms. Rowlands came to the screening and stayed for the whole film. Not too unusual I guess, except that I would have thought it would be painful for her to watch a film co-starring her late husband of thirty-five years. “As an artist I love him,” she once said of Cassavetes. “As a husband I hate him.” Maybe she’s just here for the art.
There is time to grab dinner before the Q&A with Ms Rowlands so I head back to the stateroom to change. I am not a small man, but today, for the first time I noticed a passing resemblance to John Goodman when I looked in the mirror. When I get back on dry land it’s diet time.
The conversation with Gena Rowlands was moderated by George Anthony, the former Sun entertainment writer, current CBC executive and biographer of Brian Linehan. After a slow start the two began to click and she talked openly about Cassavetes—“Once he fell in love with directing,” she said, “he cared nothing about acting.”—told a funny story about Bette Davis and said that after she did her Emmy winning role as Betty Ford that the former first lady was “polite enough not to say anything bad about my portrayal.”
She was gracious, and even took a few questions form the audience, including one from me about her first Cassavetes movie A Child is Waiting. Cassavetes lost final cut of the film to producer Stanley Kramer who changed the ending. The temperamental director immediately disowned the movie. I asked how she felt about the film.
She told me some anecdotes about the making of the film, which used mentally challenged child as cast members. During the making of the film Cassavetes worked with these kids and got several of them, who hadn’t spoken in years, to speak. “It was a miracle,” she said. She went on to describe the difficulties with Kramer and the fist fight—“John popped him”— which ended the working relationship between director and producer.
“We had just come up from New York. I don’t think we had ever heard the fact that the director didn’t have the final cut. To us it was an assumption that he did. We found out the hard way. So there was a great deal of controversy about that. On the other hand I thought the picture was pretty terrific from either point of view. I liked John’s better, but I didn’t hate Stanley’s.”
By the time Ms Rowlands left the stage it was well past midnight and well past my bedtime.
SATURDAY MARCH 1, 2008 and SUNDAY MARCH 2, 2008
Arr Mateys! We’re at sea for two days without a speck ‘o land in sight. There’s nothin’ but water everywhere you look and the seas be rough out here in the open ocean.
I spend some time sitting in the main lobby watching the other guests try and walk upright and the boat lurches to and fro. They’re like Weebles; they wobble but they hardly ever fall down. Watching people try and maintain their balance (and dignity) get old fast so I head for the screening room for a morning of short films and one documentary.
Bruce Kirkland of the Toronto Sun has programmed a nice selection of shorts which have been running before most of the main features. Today we see the Oscar nominated I Met the Walrus. When it played at Sundance the program book said: “In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon's hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace. Using the original interview as the soundtrack, this narrative tenderly romances Lennon's every word in a cascading flood of multi-pronged animation.”
It’s really quite remarkable, doubly so when you realize that it is the director Joel Raskin’s first film fresh out of school. I have socks older than him, which probably says more about me than him.
The main feature is Gotta Dance, a work in progress from director Dori Berinstein. It’s a charming doc about a group of senior citizens who become overnight sensations as the first ever hip hop dance squad for a major sports team. It’s a crowd pleaser and gets a couple of applause breaks during the film. Afterward Dory takes questions from the audience.
Next up was possibly a FFF first, a film made by an alumni of the festival. A young man named Jonah Bekhor produced a short film called The Butcher’s Daughter as his final project for the AFI. He has ambition, I’ll give him that. For a student film the production value is exceptionally high—it’s a period piece, has jibs and steady-cams—and character actors that I recognized from series television and movies.
With a plot that owes a debt to David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence, The Butcher’s Daughter tells the story of a young girl who grows up quickly when she learns that her father has a shady and violent past. It gets a rousing round of applause and later wins the Best Short Film Award.
At two o’clock George Anthony and Barry Avrich do an engaging interview and Q&A regarding George’s book, Starring Brian Linehan. It’s a best seller in Canada already where Brian’s legend for being the most prepared interviewer ever still has people’s interest. Gena Rowlands is there, and speaks about Brian in glowing terms and calls the book one of the best celebrity biographies she’s ever read.
I’ve seen the other two films programmed for the rest of the day—The Counterfeiters and My Winnipeg—and while they are both great I decide to take the rest of Saturday off and enjoy the weather and the ice cream on the Lido Deck.
Strange celebrity story of the day: Richard Carpenter of The Carpenters, as in Top of the World, Superstar and Rainy Days and Mondays was in the casino last night. I didn’t see him, but David Poland swears it is him. Poland also has the Todd Haynes film Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, the infamous short film Haynes made in 1987 with Barbie dolls cast in all the major roles. The film is available as a bootleg on the net, but hasn’t been officially released due to a grocery list of lawsuits filed by everyone from the Estate of Karen Carpenter to their music publisher to Mattel.
Sunday is pretty rocky on the ship and I end up spending most of my time in my cabin reading and gulping down Gravol. I’m presenting the closing night movie, which sounds much more important than it actually is. The film is The Life of Reilly and I think this crowd will love it, I’m afraid though, that no one will come because it’s at 10:30 pm, after dinner and just hours before we’re disembarking.
Here’s the speech I wrote: “The late Charles Nelson Reilly was a Tony Award winner, an Emmy nominee and a Broadway director but will always be best remembered as the slightly tipsy, pipe smoking panelist on the 70s afternoon show Match Game. In Life of Reilly, the touching and hilarious adaptation of his one man show Save It for the Stage, the actor reveals a creative depth and sincerity only before hinted at in his television and film work.
“Shot with high definition hand held cameras at the El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood in what would become his final stage appearance the film begins with stories from Reilly’s troubled childhood.
“’Eugene O'Neill would never get near this family!’ he says with perfect comic timing, breaking the tension built by a series of autobiographical anecdotes about life with a bigoted mother and alcoholic father. It’s his ability to shift the tone of the monologue with just one well placed line or facial gesture that gives Life of Reilly much of its oomph.
“Dressed casually, he roams the stage, a lion in winter, recounting his miraculous escape from a 1944 circus fire; studying acting with Uta Hagan (with Jason Robards and Hal Holbrook as classmates); his innumerable visits to The Tonight Show and the time he put a snobby guest in her place by accurately and powerfully reciting a monologue from Hamlet on Carson’s stage. It’s a masterful performance that suggests that he was underused and underappreciated as a serious actor.
“The stories are by turns sad, funny and poignant, but no matter the tone, are never less than compelling and illuminating. Almost fifty years after an NBC executive told him, “They don’t let queers on television,” you can still hear the hurt in his voice, but also the determination to break through the prejudice barrier that kept openly gay men off the airwaves.
“Of course Reilly proved that executive wrong—he says during the height of his 1970s fame he once counted his name on 56 entries in one week in the TV Guide—and in the process became a groundbreaker for gay rights. His sexuality never defined him as a performer, but nor did he hide the fact that he was gay. He was simply Charles Nelson Reilly, take him or leave him.
“Charles Nelson Reilly passed away in May 2007 just as Life of Reilly was starting to make a buzz at film festivals all over the world. It’s a shame we won’t have any new CNR performances to marvel at, but I can’t think of a more dignified tribute to him than this heartfelt but well etched portrait that reveals new sides to both the artist and the man.”
It’s good stuff, but as I feared there were only a handful of people in the room for the screening. Unlike Chop Shop, however, the few that showed up stayed and liked the movie, so for me, my first FFF ended on a high note.
MONDAY MARCH 3, 2008
Leaving a cruise ship to fly home to another country is a multi-step process that for us began very early in the morning with a visit to American customs. Then off to breakfast. Then off to pick up our bags which had been collected the night before. Then off to a shuttle which took us to a hotel for lunch and then, finally, to the airport. We see Pride & Prejudice’s (and former Bond girl) Rosamund Pike at the Wolfgang Puck restaurant at LAX and then had an uneventful flight home.
The Floating Film Festival is probably the most casual film festival I have ever been to, but don’t mistake casual for haphazard or uninteresting. The films we showed ranged from mainstream to provocative; we had an Oscar winner and at least one film everyone hated (Chop Shop, in case you’ve forgotten) which I think is a must at every film festival. I was thrilled to be a part of it and still managed to get a bit of a tan even though I sat in the dark for most of my vacation.
MONSTER-IN-LAW: LOS ANGELES
FRIDAY,
APRIL 8, 2005
I
have an early afternoon flight to Los Angeles and two good reasons to go there.
Firstly, last weekend in Toronto it snowed. Wet, heavy, unpleasant snow. The
weather in LA will be in the low 20s and as long as it doesn’t snow or hail
I’ll be fine. Secondly—but of no less import—I’ll be interviewing Jane Fonda.
That’s right… Barbarella. Catherine
'Cat' Ballou. Bree Daniel. Jane Harper. Do I need to mention the work-out
videos? She is appearing in her first movie since Mikel Milken pled guilty to
securities fraud, Bruce Willis still had hair and George Bush Senior was
president.
Her last movie
was 1990’s Stanley and Iris, the
Martin Ritt film about an illiterate cook (Robert De Niro) at a company
cafeteria tries for the attention of a newly widowed woman (Fonda). Soon after
that movie tanked at the box office she announced that she was retiring from
the screen and settling down with husband Ted Turner.
She told IMDB
that she came out of retirement because she's attracted by the idea of making a
few more films to fund her charitable enterprise, the Georgia Campaign on
Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention. She says, “I could use more money, I have to
be honest. I'm 67, who knows what's going to happen. I really believe in the
work that I'm doing in Georgia with young girls and boys and you teach what you
need to learn. I'm trying to help girls own their bodies, honour their bodies,
respect themselves and help boys not be afraid of claiming their hearts... I
want to be sure it keeps going after I go.”
I have just
cracked her book, the newly minted autobiography My Life So Far and hope to glean as much info about her as I can on
the five-and-a-half-hour flight. Of course, I know her movies, and how her
mother’s suicide was kept from her—she found out about it when she read about
it in a movie magazine—and that she suffered from bulimia from age 13 to age 37
but I’m hoping to get a little more insight for my interview on Saturday. I
won’t have much time with her, but I like to feel prepared.
The book is
much different than most celebrity biographies. She divides her life into three
acts—writing about her childhood, first films, and marriage to French director
Roger Vadim in act one; act two covers the emergence of her activism, the
disastrous “Hanoi Jane” trip to North Vietnam, her career peaks and marriages
to Tom Hayden and Ted Turner; in her third act, we learn of her philanthropic
work and her plans for the future.
“I hope that
other women might see something of their own experiences in what I have to say
about how a girl can lose touch with herself, her body and have to
struggle—hard—to get herself, her voice, back,” she writes in the book.
It’s an
interesting book written by someone who has obviously spent some time coming to
grips with the vagaries of her life. She writes movingly about her troubled
relationship with her movie star father Henry, and is more emotionally open and
honest than I expected from a book written by a movie star. There are some
salacious details—her relationship with Vadim pushed her sexual boundaries—but
his isn’t simply a tell-all book. It’s a conversationally written account of
her life that doesn’t gloss over the bad or embarrassing stuff, and digs deep
to help the reader understand what makes her tick.
I plough
through ¾ of the book’s 584 pages of the book as we touch down at LAX. From
there we make our way through the LA rush hour traffic—when is it not rush hour
in this town—to the Four Seasons. I have just enough time to check-in and hang
my clothes in the closet when it is time to board the bus that will take us to
the screening of Monster-in-Law. The
bus can’t leave until all the reporters are aboard—about twenty in all—and we
get held up for half an hour by one genius who decides to dawdle.
The movie is at
Grauman’s Chinese Theatre—an unusual version of a classical Chinese temple,
complete with quasi-Chinese motifs and inverted dragon tails— on Hollywood
Boulevard. We’re going to one of the smaller theatres next to the Kodac Theatre—where
they hold the Academy Awards—but out in front we see a long line-up for the
main theatre. There are over a hundred people and apparently they are waiting
for the May 19th debut of Star Wars:
Episode III— Revenge of the Sith. Most of the other Star Wars films have
debuted there at the legendary theatre but this time 20th Century
Fox has decided to open the film at the ArcLight, several blocks away.
According to IMDB the fans who are braving the elements to be the first to see
the film don’t believe the hype and are refusing to move. "This is Mecca
for fans," one said. "It's been a tradition for decades."
I have a
line-waiting limit of five minutes, so I admire these stubborn—if maybe a
little naïve—fans, but I also think they should move out of their parent’s
basements, get jobs and stop dressing like Wookies.
Once inside
we’re seated in the VIP balcony section. It’s nice, but I’ve been sitting in an
airport lounge, a plane, then a cab and a bus for almost ten hours. I’m tired,
and the chairs are almost too comfortable. My goal is too stay awake during the
movie and not get seduced by the comfy chair that seems to be tenderly
whispering in my ear, “Sleep… sleep in my peaceful arms, rest your head against
my soft leather and you’ll feel better after the movie.” In my sleepy
hallucination the chair’s voice sounds like Scarlett Johansson. I can feel my
lids getting heavy but somehow I stay awake.
Monster-in-Law is pretty simple stuff. J-Lo—whoops, she doesn’t
want to be called that anymore—plays Charlotte Honeywell, a free spirited young
woman who meets the perfect man, a good looking doctor named Kevin (Alias’ Michael Vartan). After a
whirlwind romance they decide to marry. His mother, Jane Fonda in an
over-the-top comedic performance, however, has different ideas. For the next
hour-and-a-half psychological warfare ensues, hair is pulled, faces slapped and
crimes against fashion are committed. For a full review, tune into Reel to Real in May.
After the
screening it’s back to the hotel for a Monster-in-Law
themed poolside party. There is a giant wedding cake, appetisers and plenty of
freeloading journalists soaking up as much free beer, wine and spirits as
humanly possible.
I hear loads of
gossip at the party. Typically the movie’s biggest star gets the biggest room
on these junkets, but in this case you have a recent star verses a Hollywood
legend. Who will get the larger suite? Apparently Jenny from the Block demanded
and got the larger hotel room for her interviews. I guess Fonda didn’t need the
extra room for her two Oscars, six Golden Globes, her Emmys, People’s Choice
Awards or New York Film Critics Circle Awards. Perhaps the younger actress
needed the extra space for her ego. Who knows?
I stay at the
party until I can’t stand being around the juiced-up journalists anymore. It’s
been a long day and I still have a hundred or so pages of the Fonda book to
read.
SATURDAY, APRIL
9, 2005
As usual
because of the time change I’m up pretty early. It doesn’t seem to matter what
time I go to bed on the first night here, I’m always up with the sun in the
morning. I have my usual Four Seasons breakfast—Heuvos Rancheros, a Jet Lag
smoothie and a huge urn of tea.
I have a 3:15
flight this afternoon, so I should leave for the airport around 1:00. I’m
scheduled to start at 9:30 so I should have lots of time. After breakfast I
head upstairs to the hospitality suite to read over my notes and have more tea
before I start. I only take two steps off the elevator before I am stopped by a
security guard. He asks my name, and cross checks it with a list he has on a
big official looking clipboard. He asks me spell, then re-spell my name, I
point it out for him on the list and he nods. Apparently I will be allowed
access to the fourteenth floor today. He hands me a glittery, bright pink wrist
band which I’m told to wear at all times. It is my ID pass. I’m told that the
security is there at the request of Ms. Lopez, who isn’t even scheduled to
arrive until after I have left the building. As I walk away I hear others being
given the bracelet to wear. “I can’t wear this,” I hear one complain, “I’m on
camera!”
In the
hospitality suite we’re watching a large flat screen television with clips from
the film. I look closely to see if any of J-Lo’s co-stars in the movie were
required to wear the pink security bracelets on set. I make a joke about Jane
Fonda being required to wear the pink wristlet. The publicists do not smile. I
have more tea and read the press notes.
There usually
isn’t a whole lot of interest in press notes, just a bunch of generic, ‘Oh we
loved working on this project…” quotes and some specs on the film. The Monster-in-Law notes are rather
standard, but there are some unintentionally funny lines in there. Fonda thinks
Lopez is “deeply talented,” while Lopez says Fonda is “the real thing.” So far
nothing unusual. Press notes are usually filled with this kind of claptrap, but
there is one line that made me laugh out loud.
The director’s
notes are often the most fawning, but I never read anything like this before.
Since their first meeting director Robert Luketic, apparently still can’t stop
talking about J-Lo’s beauty and the way she smelled. The way she smelled. Not
her great talent. Not her ability to light up a screen, but the way she
smelled. It’s a shame he couldn’t have made the movie in Smell-O-Vision.
The interviews
actually start on time. When I go down the hall to Jane Fonda’s room at 9:30
she’s already there, in make-up and ready to go. I’m her first interview of the
day. I was told yesterday at the party that she was very easy to work with, and
when she asked how many interviews she’d be doing today she was shocked to
discover that she’d have to talk to 50 or more people. In her day, she said,
they would only do ten or fifteen interviews a day.
She looks
fabulous for 68. She looks fabulous for 58 or 48. Time has been kind to her. We
sit and make small talk as they adjust the cameras. I tell her that I have read
her book, and she wants to know what I thought about it. I give her a brief
review (see above) and she seems to be very interested in how people are
reacting to her work.
Once the
cameras start to roll we turn the conversation to Monster-in-Law. Here’s a transcript of that conversation:
RICHARD:
Congratulations on Monster in Law.
In your book, you talk about being blinded by insecurities before stepping on
set, and I’m thinking particularly of when you were making Klute and you actually even tried to convince Alan Pakula to fire
you, or to replace you in the film because you just weren’t sure you could pull
it off, and of course, history has shown us that you could. It’s been 15 years
since you’ve made a movie, are there any of those feelings that bubbled up
again before you walked on set for Monster
in Law?
JANE FONDA: No, and I had a feeling that there wouldn’t be
because I’m just so different than I was 15 years ago. When I decided to quit
the business 15 years ago I was…It was agony for me. I felt very un-creative,
very un-talented, I just didn’t want to be scared anymore, so…Now I thought, last
year “You know, I’m so different. Let me see if I can have joy again in the
process of making a movie,” and I did.
RICHARD: I wonder were you thinking—when you were on set
and working on Monster in Law—were
you thinking of some of the advice that maybe Katharine Hepburn had given you,
because in your book you talk about her a great deal, and you talk about the
difference between a movie legend and a movie star and how as a movie star, you
felt that it was okay to have other jobs, whereas she just could not completely
understand that.
JANE FONDA: Yeah, movie making has always been just a part of
my life whereas for her, it was her whole life, and maybe that’s why she was a
legend and I’m just a movie star—was a movie star. But are you asking that in
reference to the character?
RICHARD: Yes…
JANE FONDA: Because the character that I play—I would be the
monster… definitely somebody who like Katharine Hepburn, very self-conscious,
very conscious of her image. I didn’t think so much about all that when I was
trying to figure out how to play Viola you know, to tell you the truth, one of
the things that helped me play Viola was my 10 years with Ted Turner, because
he is also outrageous, over-the-top and at the same time lovable, and what
makes someone like Ted lovable in spite of the outrageousness is that you sense
underneath the pain that never entirely goes away, and the insecurity, and I
think that that’s—I think that’s what I brought to Viola. She could have really
been a monster, and certainly a lot of her behavior is despicable, but you
always know of the pain of the pain underneath.
RICHARD: Well, I think once you recognize the core of
humanity in a character, it doesn’t matter what they do, the audience will buy
them if they can sense some insecurity, or if they can sense something that
they can automatically relate to as a human trait.
JANE FONDA: Spoken like a true Canadian.
RICHARD: Exactly [laughter]. I met Ted Turner once, and I
found that he filled the room and that was the thing that…It’s interesting that
you said because Viola’s very much a room-filler. She’s a very big, very large
commanding personality.
JANE FONDA: Yes and I think I might have been more scared to
play her if I hadn’t gotten to know someone who filled the room as well as I got
to know Ted.
RICHARD: Yes. Now, you talk in the film about how—in the
book, rather—about how different emotions are sort of like muscle. I know how
to flex the scared muscle; I know how to do this. You’re flexing the comedy
muscle for the first time in a very long time. I mean it’s been a long since
you’ve appeared in a film. It’s been since you’ve made a comedy. Tell me about
that, because comedy’s tough…or can be, I think.
JANE FONDA: If I had to do this 15 years ago, it would have
been really hard for me. Laughter comes much more easily to me now, so it was…I
have a natural fondness for and proclivity to physical comedy, so I don’t know,
it came real easy, it was a whole lot of fun. I love working with Wanda Sykes
in particular. We had a lot of stuff together, and Jennifer is very good at
physical stuff, she’s a dancer, she knows how to control herself, so it was
very easy doing the physical stuff wither her.
RICHARD: Thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure to meet
you.
I’m pleased
with the interview. She actually seems like she thinks about each question and
gives nice, well thought out answers. Later I’m talk to another reporter who
says his interview didn’t go as well as mine. Apparently when he sat down
across from her she was taking a sip of water. As he extended his hand to shake
hers she spilled her water down her front and in her lap. It wasn’t his fault,
and she wasn’t terribly troubled by it, but he felt the rhythm of the interview
had been thrown off.
Next up for me
is Michael Vartan. He’s been in a bunch of movies, but is best known as the
co-star on Alias opposite Jennifer
Gardner. He looks tired, and tells me that he was up until 4 am shooting the
season finale of the action series. He is the male lead in the film, although
he is quite comfortable admitting that it isn’t his movie. He is there to
support the two female leads and look good while doing it. In that he succeeds.
From there I
speak to Wanda Sykes, who plays Jane Fonda’s deadpan assistant in the film.
She’s a stand-up comedian, who has appeared in everything form Crank Yankers to Curb Your Enthusiasm and her own short lived series called Wanda Does It. We talk about how her
part seems so natural, like it was improvised. I ask her about performing
comedy opposite Fonda, who earlier told me that doing comedy is “like riding a
bicycle or having sex” you never forget how to do it. Wanda joked that if you
read Fonda’s book you know how good she is at having sex, so she must be a
pretty good comedian as well.
Last was
director Robert Luketic. He is best known for directing light frothy comedies
like Legally Blonde and Win a Date with Tad Hamilton. I refrain
from asking him how J-Lo smells. Instead we talk about the challenge of
directing a movie that blends so many different comedic styles—slapstick,
deadpan, screwball and situational. For more on all these interviews, tune into
Reel to Real in May.
That’s it. The
interviews are done and it is only 10:30. I have a couple of hours to kill
before I have to leave for the airport so I take a quick walk down to the
Beverly Center, but some magazines for the flight home and generally soak up
the sun. The flight home is uneventful. I run into Treed Murray and Foolproof
director William Phillips who is travelling with his family. He offers me
twenty bucks to sit with his three small children on the plane. I politely
decline, even though they seem like lovely kids.
I arrive home
late and check the newspapers that had piled up while I was gone. I see that it
was almost as warm and sunny in Toronto as it had been in LA over the weekend.
I guess for the next few months I won’t have to spend my weekends on the road
to catch a few rays.
SIN CITY MARCH 18-20
FRIDAY MARCH 18, 2005
March
Break hasn’t been on my radar since I left school. I have no kids; I’m not a
teacher and I don’t feel the need to let it all hang out at keg parties in
Daytona Beach with people a third my age. So it came as quite a surprise to me
when I had to book a flight to Los Angeles for March 18 that all the flights
were full with rowdy March Breakers except the 8:15 pm, which had only limited
seating.
You
know what you get when you book last minute for March Break? Row 31. Yup, the
toilet row. Not only are you at the desolate end of the plane, but you will be
the first to get on, the last to get off and spend the whole flight listening
to shrieking flight attendants dropping glasses and smelling wafts of toxic
waste from the loos. That’s how I spent March Break this year. Hope you had
more fun.
Got
into LA late, checked into the Four Seasons—no bad smells or noisy staff
there—and went to bed.
SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 2005
The
late, great Hunter S. Thompson used to say that “breakfast is the only meal of
the day that I tend to view with the same traditonalized reverence that most
people associate with Lunch and Dinner.” He recommended starting the day with
“four Bloody Marys, two grapefruits, a pot of coffee, Rangoon crepes, a
half-pound of either sausage, bacon or corned beef hash with sliced chiles, a
Spanish omelette or Eggs Benedict, a quart of milk, a chopped lemon for random
seasoning and something like a slice of Key lime pie, two margaritas and six
lines of the best cocaine for dessert.” He also suggested eating outside and
“preferably stone naked.” I bring this up because I too believe in the
multi-course breakfast, but rather than brace me for the day, I think the four
Bloody Marys might just send me back to bed. But, with Dr. Thompson in mind I
order a substantial breakfast, the same one I have every time I stay at the
Four Seasons—Huevos Rancheros, a Jet Lag smoothie and a giant urn of Earl Grey
tea. It’s delicious and gives me the kick start I need to face the day,
although I have to marvel that two eggs, a black bean quesadilla, some
guacamole, a smoothie and some tea costs 47 US dollars.
I’m
here to see the new Robert Rodriguez movie Sin
City, a gritty translation of the Frank Miller graphic novels, and
interview some of the cast. I don’t have to be at the screening until 6:30, and
despite LA’s record rainfall in recent weeks—and a light drizzle today—I have a
number of errands to run and I’m determined not to take cabs everywhere. I’m
going to get around town the two ways that would make most Los Angelians
wince—walking and the bus. I walk down to Fairfax and Third Street and just
outside of the Farmer’s Market I catch the bus. For three dollars you can buy a
day pass that’s good for the whole day.
My
first stop—two busses later—is Astro Burger (7475 Santa Monica
Boulevard) on
Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood. You may have seen the place on the
cover of the New York Post or in People recently. Photos of Million Dollar Baby star Hilary Swank,
still dressed in her revealing backless gown, chowing down at the low-cost
burger bar after partying at the Governors Ball and the Vanity Fair shindig on
Oscar night were everywhere following her win. Accompanied by husband Chad Lowe
and a group of friends, the actress ordered a vegetarian cheeseburger and fries
and plunked her new Oscar down on the plastic tray next to her burger while she
ate.
"She walked in with a big smile, raised the statue over her head
and everybody burst into applause," said Astro Burger owner Dino
Andrianos. "It was a thrilling moment for everyone."
Restaurant boss Andrianos says Swank is a regular visitor to the West
Hollywood burger-bar—described by one LA food writer as “the kind of place
where the cast of Happy Days would feel right at home”—which is also
frequented by luminaries including Leonardo Di Caprio and the late Marlon
Brando.
He added: "She doesn't have the personality of a star. She's just a
regular person—and very low-key."
I
was going to have the Ostrich burger—I’ve had it before and it tastes like
really lean beef or maybe like a cow and a chicken had a baby—but instead chose
the Swank meal, a Santa Fe Veggie Burger with avocado and Swiss cheese, fries
and a root beer ($9.85). It was delicious and I’m told the secret to a truly
scrumptious veggie burger is in the cooking. It must, I was told, be grilled
over charcoal and never, ever microwaved or fried.
From
there I walked back to the bus stop in a light drizzle, stopping only to watch
the police arrest someone who I thought was Dave Foley from The Kids in the Hall. It wasn’t Foley
and standing there watching what I thought was a celebrity take-down made me
miss the 217 bus on Fairfax and I had to sit for twenty minutes to wait for
another one.
From
there I took a series of busses that dropped me at Sunset and Vine. Not exactly
where I wanted to go, but there was something disrupting traffic and my bus was
detoured. As I walk toward Hollywood Boulevard I discover why my bus had to
detour. The streets were blocked off to make way for a large scale peace rally.
It was a sea of “Bush Lied-Thousands Died” placards and fists raised in
defiance for as far as I could see. I walked with them for a while—I was going
that way anyway—and soon found myself chanting their peace mantra.
“What
do want?”
“Peace!”
“When
do we want it?”
“Now!”
I
felt like I had stepped into time warp back to 1969. Beware the brown acid,
man. For a peace rally many of these people seemed a little aggressive—madder
than stranded Jets-Go passengers at March Break. Despite the hippy-dippy peace
and love message of the crowd, I had the uneasy feeling that things could go
wrong at any time. I later heard that there were 20,000 people there, and when
you have that many fired-up people in one place, trouble can’t be far away.
I
dropped by Grauman’s Chinese Theatre—the Hollywood landmark recently featured
in The Aviator—and stood in its
famous forecourt. Here Hollywood legends from Mary Pickford to Tom Cruise have
left their footprints, handprints and more—John Barrymore left an impression of
his famous profile and Marliyn Monroe left an earring—in the cement slabs
outside the theatre. I hear some tourists talking as they look at the Peter
Sellers autograph.
“Do
you know who he is?” asks a mother to her daughter. “He did Three Men and A Baby.” Somewhere Steve
Guttenberg chuckled and Sellers rolled over in his grave.
I’ve
been to this theatre many times, but have never taken the daily tour, so I cut
away from the protesters—I’m with you in spirit my brothers and sisters—and
ducked into the theatre. It was a more appealing option than walking around LA
in the rain, so $12 later I find myself standing in the ornate lobby with a
tour guide in an ill fitting tuxedo. He was enthusiastic, but spoke just a
little too loud and seemed like he was reading from cue cards that none of us
in the tour could see.
The
theatre is tacky-beautiful, with every inch of wall space covered in murals and
Asian themed paintings. The curtain, which measures more than 80 feet wide, is
embossed with a palm tree pattern originally designed by Rumba King Xavier
Cugat. Also still in place are large, hollow imported marble columns which are
air cooled and have provided the theatre with air conditioning for over seventy
years. Grauman’s Chinese was the first air conditioned theatre in America.
The
fancy wooden and brass armrests on the end of each aisle are also originals,
we’re told, having recently been rescued from storage, restored and re-installed.
From
there the tour quickly denigrates into a sales pitch for the various amenities
offered by the theatre. We’re shown the “VIP” room which is a glorified waiting
room above the old theatre, but, our guide says, “you never know who you might
see up here,” and relates stories of various celebrities who have frequented
the place. From there we are taken to one of the newer, smaller theatres and
shown a five minute documentary on the theatre. The place has a rich history,
but you would never know it from this puffed up commercial, which rapidly skips
through the Hollywood history of the place in favor of plugs for the
corporation that owns the building.
The
tour ends where so many of these kinds of things often end—in a gift shop. I
leave the tour with buying a souvenir—no Grauman’s night light, trivet or polo
shirt for me. I’ll be content with the memories.
By
the time I bolt from the gift shop the screening is just an hour away. Not
enough time to go back to the hotel—especially since Hollywood Boulevard is
still closed down for the protest—so I decide to walk over to the screening
room. LA is so massive that a walk that I thought would take fifteen or twenty
minutes based on the number of the address, took almost an hour.
It
was worth the long sweaty walk. Sin City
may be the best movie of the year—and perhaps last year and very possibly next
year. The movie is utterly unique, using legendary graphic novelist Frank
Miller’s Sin City books as
storyboards for the film’s trio of noirish blood-soaked stories, it is unlike
anything I have seen before. Every frame is high black and white style with the
occasional dollop of color thrown in for effect. Fans of hard-boiled
‘40s-era crime fiction will recognize many of the conventions of those films—low-key lighting, a bleak urban setting
and corrupt, cynical characters—but while the film has a
decidedly retro feel, it manages to feel absolutely current at the same time.
Viewers should be warned that this movie is not for
everyone, and I think audiences will be split into two groups—people who love
this movie and people who hate it. There won’t be any middle ground, and for a
take-no-prisoners kind of movie like this that’s the way it should be.
Directors (yes, there are three of them) Robert Rodriguez, Frank Miller and
Quentin Tarantino have made a movie that doesn’t compromise visually or
thematically. It is violent, distasteful and pushes the “booze, broads, and bullets” (and adds at
least one more “b” word in there in the form of Carla Guigino’s character)
ethos of classic film noirs to the limit. In what are essentially three love
stories, Sin City explores taboos
that not even the most cynical, pessimistic noir director from yesteryear
would have considered. It’s
a muscular movie, which pulls no punches—although many punches are thrown
during the course of its 100 minute running time—made with defiance, but also
with grace.
(WARNING: Extremely clumsy metaphor
ahead!) If Sin City was a cup of
coffee to make it you’d first need to fill a Double Indemnity filter with finely ground Pulp Fiction and Dick Tracy,
then pour liquefied Sam Peckinpah through it and let it brew until it is dark
and so filled with caffeine that it makes your brain buzz.
For
an extended review, tune into Reel to Real March 28.
I
was scheduled to see another movie after Sin
City, but bailed out. Anything would have been too much of a buzz kill
after that one. Instead I headed back to the Four Seasons for a late night
snack at the bar. Three Heinekens and some Kobe Beef Sliders with Bavarian
Potatoes—which, in Canada we would call Hickory Sticks—a bill for $41 USD and
it was sack time.
SUNDAY MARCH 20, 2005
I got up early, packed and headed upstairs to do my Sin
City interviews. While I’m waiting by the elevators a door opens behind me
and a familiar face walks out of the room next to mine. Apparently Clive Owen
was nearby. It’s about 8:15am when I see him, and he is wearing a finely
tailored Saville Row black suit, a white shirt open at the collar and very
shiny black shoes. Damned if he doesn’t look like James Bond. I have said for
years that they should give this guy the license to kill and bring some grit
back to the increasingly lame Bond franchise.
I
said hello and told him how much I enjoyed Sin
City. We chat about the look of the film and he is genuinely enthusiastic
about it. I have been doing this long enough to know the difference between
someone who really believes the movie is good verses those who are trying to
convince you that the movie is worth watching. He told me that he saw the film
for the first time on Friday and was blown away by the look of it. Remember it
was shot in a small room, completely on green screen, so he had no idea what
the finished product would look like. It sounds as if he was happy. He told me
that after the screening he hugged Robert Rodriguez. “I was blown away,” he
told me. “I told Robert afterwards that he was a genius.”
When
the elevator comes we go out separate ways—he takes the down elevator to the
lobby, I go up to the interview suites. These things rarely ever run on time,
so I rustle up a plate of breakfast and dig in. I’m three mouthfuls in when my
name is called to interview Robert Rodriguez.
Rodriguez
is wearing his trademark oversize cowboy hat, a shirt with flames licking up
the side and a large belt buckle with a real scorpion encased in plastic. We
made small talk for a while before the cameras rolled. I told him that I have a
plastic bolo tie with a real scorpion in it, much like his belt. He wanted to
know where he could get one like it. He doesn’t like wearing ties, but he would
wear a scorpion bolo tie from time to time. Here’s the transcript from our
on-air interview.
Richard Crouse:
Today I was looking at the EPK—the Electronic Press Kit—and I saw some footage
of you and Tarantino sitting together and you both looked kind of like the cats
that swallowed the canary, and I wonder: When you were on set, when you were
making this thing, was there a sense that you were breaking the rules or
redefining things a little bit? Because you’re working outside of Hollywood,
you’re working in a much different thing, and it just looked like two guys
having a great time—
Robert
Rodriguez: That’s mainly what it was…
Richard Crouse:
—and doing something really interesting.
Robert
Rodriguez: I think it’s just that we were just having a great time together.
And you don’t feel like you’re making a movie because you’re in Austin, you’re
in this green stage, and uh, Francis
Ford Coppola came and visited the stage and he said “This was my dream for
Zoetrope.” To have all these artists come and, you know, it was very strange. I
got two—three directors at one point and all these different actors coming in
doing something very experimental. It felt like renaissance. I mean, we really
were just beside ourselves that this was what we—beyond what we had dreamed of
when we began, that we would have the kind of set-up where we could just make
anything happen. And it’s really exciting, and just as friends, getting to work
together in a way that’s not the norm. I mean it is against the rules to
actually do that.
Richard Crouse: Yeah…
Robert Rodriguez: And when you realize you just made it
happen yourself it’s like: “How fun this is! People should do this more often.”
It’s actually a great collaboration.
Richard Crouse: Do you see yourself as kind of a rebel in
terms of the way you make films and the way you work.You quit the DGA so that
you could have three directors on your film because the rules…
Robert Rodriguez: It just felt right. It was a very new movie.
You watch the movie and you can see the results. It just doesn’t look like a
regular movie. but had I followed the rules, I’d be stuck with the same old
thing, and audiences need something new. So in order to sometimes change
things, you have to break the rules, and that’s always happened in the industry
with the guilds (and they usually then change the rule afterwards), but it has
to be stretched a little because art can’t be confined. You’ve got to be able
to break out, otherwise nothing new ever gets invented.
Richard Crouse: Without breaking the rules there’s no way
to advance.
Robert Rodriguez: You’re just driving the same two streets
over and over. “Can’t go beyond that!”
Richard Crouse: Do you feel now, after seeing the film—See,
by the time this airs, nobody much will have seen it yet, right.
Robert Rodriguez: Right…
Richard Crouse: So, I can’t really stress how different it
is from most films you see in the theatres, and what I wonder is: Do you see
yourself sort of on the vanguard of a new kind of filmmaking? You know, if you
look through history you have, you know, from the breakdown of the studio
system, you know, into the sixties where people started using hand-held cameras
all of a sudden, and then you know, in the seventies you had—sort of more
toward in the US—you had Scorsese and people like that making films. Do you see
a new wave here? A new kind of filmmaking?
Robert Rodriguez: I mean I felt it was new filmmaking when
I read these books, and I’ve been collecting the books twelve years—Took me ten
to figure out that I needed to make a movie out or it…
[laughter]
Robert Rodriguez: …but when I did look at it again, I
thought: “Oh, technologically I know how to do this now, with the way I know
effects and my photography I can pull it off, but beyond that, when I read the
books and started thinking about how to adapt it, I realized there weren’t—not
that they were cinematic, they were almost beyond cinema. They do things that
not even cinema would do: white silhouettes and imagery you just weren’t used
to seeing. They worked on the page and the storytelling didn’t sound like
screenplay dialogue so I thought: “Man, let’s not adapt it, let’s shoot it just
like this and then it’ll really be different.” So in other words, to make
movies different I really went to the comic book to help change it by using
that format that Frank had really created, cause his comics are different from
other comics even. And that’s why it feels so new, and I just thought it would
work because visual storytelling should work on the page or on the screen. And
if it worked on the page, I said “Let’s just shoot this. Just make it move, and
people won’t believe what they’re seeing, yet they’ll still be able to follow
it and it won’t be just totally weird. And they’ll just feel refreshed seeing
something exciting and different.”
I
enjoyed talking to him, but got the sense that he enjoys making movies a lot
more than he talking about making movies.
Next
was Jessica Alba. She plays Nancy in the film, and while she doesn’t have a
great deal of screen time, her character is pivotal to the Bruce Willis story
arc. We spent our time talking about her character and the challenge of
bringing a cartoon character to life.
Then
it was time for me to grab my tapes and head to the airport. I was sharing a
cab with a friend of mine, and agreed to meet her in the lobby. While I waited
I see Clive Owen again. This time he is surrounded by protective publicists,
attached to his side like barnacles. He says hello when he passes me, I respond
and for some reason one of his minders scowls at me.
The
trip back to Toronto is much less traumatic than the flight to Los Angeles and
for me, March Break is officially over.
CALL ME MADAM: KILL BILL VOL. 2 JUNKET APRIL 3 & 4,
2004
SATURDAY APRIL
3, 2004
By anyone’s
standards three am is the definition of “arse o’clock.” If you are still awake
at that hour chances are you can’t sleep or you’re doing something naughty and
are going to feel awful in the morning. Whatever the case, you’re going to lose
come sun rise. If, however, it is the alarm that’s waking you up at this unholy
hour, you’re either one of the hosts of Canada
AM (those poor buggers get up really early) or, like me, you have a very
early flight.
I have been in
Edmonton, Alberta – home of the pyramid-shaped city hall – to tape an episode
of a CBC radio show called Go, and
now I am dragging myself out of bed to fly to Los Angeles to see Kill Bill Vol. 2 and speak to the cast.
The radio taping went well – several hundred people crowded into a small
theatre to hear us ranting about the Junos – and afterwards we went out to grab
a bite to eat and have a few celebratory cocktails… until one am. When the
alarm started chiming I had really only had a long nap – about an
hour-and-a-half – and felt like I had been tap-danced on by a herd of Alberta
cattle.
While I was
struggling to stay conscious on the l-o-n-g ride to the airport I reflected
back on the trip. I had been on Edmonton for a total of 16 hours, just long
enough to eat some Alberta beef; pay $105 for a hotel room that would have cost
three times that in Toronto; have a bunch of drunken yahoos in a rusted pick-up
truck yell nasty names at me and get berated by a homeless man (that’s too long
and too weird a story to repeat here). I can’t wait to go back…
The connecting
flight to Calgary was a blur, and apart from a run-in with Custom Guardzilla,
the feared foe of cross border travellers and the sardine-can seating on Air
Canada, the trip was fast and uneventful.
It’s still
early when I arrive at the hotel, and even though I have literally been awake
since Friday morning I opt for a walk over a nap. It’s warm and I find the
gentle breeze knocks some of the cobwebs out of my head. Forty minutes later
I’m at the Farmer’s Market at 3rd Street and Fairfax. I like coming
down here on Saturdays and watching the weird mix of families, the occasional
celeb, (I see David Steinberg having a coffee and furiously making notes in a
large book), locals and rubber necking tourists. I stay and look at the giant freshly baked pies and weird looking
fish with their heads still attached until I start to actually feel the
synapses exploding in my tired brain. I
swear one of the strange looking fish told me it was time to lay down.
On my way into
the hotel I see a familiar face. John Travolta is leaving just as I am
staggering up to the door. I am tired and bedraggled with a slightly mad
expression on my face, I’m sure I looked like Omar Sharif coming through the
desert in Lawrence of Arabia.
Travolta, on the other hand looked like he just stepped off the silver screen –
his dark suit is perfect, his hair coiffed and his shoes are so shined the
reflection emanating off them is blinding.
He is
surrounded by minions who are shielding him from any contact with
non-celebrities. To make sure that he wouldn’t have to stop and speak to anyone
his eyes were focused somewhere off in the distance, making it impossible for
the fame-challenged to make eye contact with him. The whole effect was kind of
unnerving. I know this is a technique he has probably perfected over years of
appearing in public and being hassled by the public, but frankly the
thousand-yard-stare he is using today kind of makes him look like a robot. A
well dressed robot with shiny hair, but a robot nonetheless.
Back in my room
I fall into a coma. Before passing out I set three alarms – the clock by my
bed, then, set for a couple minutes later my cell phone alarm and then for a
few minutes after that I arrange a wake-up call. When the time comes to arise I
miss the first two and only the ringing phone rouses me from dreamland.
Kill Bill Vol. 2 is being screened for us at the Arclight Theatre
at 6360 Sunset Boulevard. Comprised of 14 large cinemas, each of which have
been recently refurbished with state of the art sound and as they say “black
box design aesthetic which favours
undistracted viewing over opulence” – it is a great theatre; truly a place for real movie
fans. Arclight also has very
large seats – according to their website the chairs are 3 inches wider than
current megaplex standards and boast 6 inches more legroom. It’s like sitting
in first class on an airplane, except that the screen is really big and there
is no one there to offer you a pillow or bring you caviar.
Kill Bill Vol. 2 is the Citizen
Kane of martial arts revenge films. The action moves from Japan back to the
United States, and while there are some incredible fight sequences, Vol. 2 focuses on answering the
questions of the first film and exploring the relationship between The Bride
and the bloodthirsty Bill. For a full review watch Reel to Real in April.
After the
screening I make my way up Sunset Strip to the hotel. As I pass by the line-up
at The Viper Room I wish I wasn’t so tired and could go out on the town, but
I’m feeling like ten pounds of hammers in a five pound bag, and it is time for
bed.
SUNDAY APRIL 4,
2004
It’s going to
be a strange day. By the time I call it a night I will have handled a giant
snake on Hollywood Boulevard; chatted with Hollywood Madam Heidi Fleiss and
hugged Uma Thurman. More on all of that later.
My interviews
have been scheduled for early in the morning. For some reason I have my doubts
that Michael Madsen or David Carradine will be up and at ‘em first thing, but
I’ll be there and ready to go nonetheless.
Michael Madsen
is first and he is on time. I saw him yesterday in the hospitality suite
wearing a black suit and colourful cowboy boots. He speaks in kind of a low
whisper, with a voice that sounds ravaged by cigarettes and too many late
nights. I heard him talking about his boots, telling someone that they’re very
comfortable, so much so that he bought two pairs, the ones he was wearing and a
white pair which he later gave away because they seemed too flashy.
Sometimes when
doing these interviews you have preconceived notions about people. The first
time I interviewed Ed Harris, for instance, I was told that he was difficult
and not a very good talker. Nothing could have been further from the truth and
the anxiety I felt leading up to that interview turned out to be wasted energy.
For some reason
I had that same vibe about Michael Madsen, that he would only give me “yes” or
“no” answers and be uncooperative. I guess I was confusing the on-screen
persona of Mr. Blonde from Reservoir Dogs
with real life. I should know better. He recently said that having kids “was a
good reason to stop acting like one,” and that new sense of maturity comes
through when you meet him. He’s open and friendly, and more than willing to
talk.
I asked him about
how working with Quentin Tarantino was different this time around than it had
been when they made Reservoir Dogs
together in 1992.
“I don’t think
Quentin has changed at all,” he said. “He’s exactly the same as he was when we
did Reservoir Dogs. He’s got a bigger
playground to play in and there’s more time to do what he wants to do, but he
deserves that.
“I like to
collaborate and he is a great collaborator… and on a picture like this it is
important that everybody just be calm and get on with it. He inspires that in
people – he brought out the best in Uma Thurman, she’s tremendous in the film
that’s for sure… and so is David…
“The guy has
only made four pictures and if he never made another film in his whole life he
would still go down in history. I don’t think that is an overstatement at all…”
After we were
done talking he notices my notepad full of questions. “I see you have a whole
list of questions there we didn’t get to… sorry if I rambled on too much…”
From there I
went over to David Carradine’s room. Everyone of my age grew up with the
phrase, “Quickly as you can snatch the pebble from my hand…” from the Kung Fu
series and if you didn’t know Carradine by name, you certainly knew by his
character’s name, Kwai Chang Caine or more informally, Grasshopper. Who could
forget the fortune cookie philosophy, the great fight scenes, or Carradine’s
signature line, “I am Caine.”? Awesome.
In
the thirty years since the original Kung
Fu went off the air Carradine has fathered a baby with Barbara Hershey, who,
in the free-wheeling spirit of the times was named Free; been convicted of
drunk driving; made some good movies (Bound
for Glory, The Long Riders) some bad movies (Down ‘n’ Dirty) and at least one cult classic (Death Race 2000). He also starred in a shot-in-Toronto series
called Kung Fu: the Legend Continues
and did some voice work for movies and video games. He has worked steadily
through the years, although, like his dad, the legendary John Carradine, (who
once said, "I've made some of the greatest films ever made – and a lot of
crap, too.") his choices haven’t always served him well. By anyone’s
standards Kill Bill represents a
giant comeback and a welcome return to A-list projects.
I’d like to
discuss that with him, but it is always awkward to sit with someone and
essentially ask, “You’ve made a lot of really awful movies… How does it feel to
be in a good one for a change?” Instead we discuss the scene that formally
introduces Bill to the story. It is a flashback scene at the beginning of Part
2 in front of the church were The Bride and her fiancée are about to rehearse
their wedding.
"How did
you find me?" the Bride asks.
"I'm the
man," says Bill.
The playful
back-and-forth between Thurman and Carradine continues for seven minutes or so,
ripe with sexual tension and the possibility of violence – we already know,
after all, that Bill has ordered a hit squad to crash the wedding – until we
have learned the true nature of their relationship.
“Well, before
we shot that Quentin and I were talking inside the church,” said Carradine,
“and he said, ‘I think this is your best scene in the movie.’ I said, ‘Quentin,
I think this is the best thing of my entire career.’ That scene was actually
written late in the process. Quentin never stopped writing right up until the
end of the movie. None of it is improvised. Not a single comma is improvised.
Quentin writes it exactly as he wants it and that’s how you do it.”
Watch Reel to Real in April for more with Kwai
Chang Caine… er… David Carradine.
The last one-on-one interview of the day was with
Daryl Hannah who plays homicidal maniac assassin Ellie Driver. I’ve interviewed
her a few times in the past for a number of different movies and find that she
really comes to life when talking about this character. Today we discussed the
epic fight scene between her and Uma. Quentin Tarantino described it as
“Hannah’s Cheryl Ladd to Uma’s Farrah Fawcett,” making allusions to the
original blonde cast of Charlie’s Angels.
She tells me it took almost two weeks to shoot, and for most of it she was
covered in gore, grime and a jar full of foul, brown spit. “I was like, thank
you Quentin,” she said of the spit, “because that was one of those things he
just added in…”
We’ll air more with Daryl Hannah on Reel to Real
in April.
Uma and Quentin
Tarantino opted not to do one-on-one interviews with the domestic press. In
both cases I can understand why. My guess is that Uma didn’t want to answer
endless questions about her very public is-it-on-again-or-off-again
relationship with Ethan Hawke. Who can blame her? She’s here to talk about the
movie not her personal life. I also have a feeling that from a scheduling point
of view it is wise to present Tarantino in a press conference situation because
his answers are so long that there would be no way possible to keep him on
track doing four and five minute interviews.
The press
conferences were being held in a small ballroom downstairs. I got there early
and grabbed a seat at the front. A few minutes later, with no announcement,
Tarantino showed up, took his seat and for the next hour spoke about his movie
at a pace that would make Martin Scorsese seem laid back by comparison.
He was asked
about the fight scene between Uma and Daryl Hannah and he explained the genesis
of the scene. “I started really thinking about the two of them really just
having at it… MAN! Uma Thurman verses Daryl Hannah… It sounds like a Tokyo
monster movie. I even told them, ‘If I could have come up with a way that I
could have had you guys take a couple of pills and grow sixty feet tall so you
could have fought over Tokyo like War of
the Blonde Gargantuans I would have done it.’ I thought that might have
been a stretch… Then I thought for two seconds, maybe they could have a big old
fight in a miniature golf course. That was my idea [for that scene] that they
were like huge Japanese monsters fighting.”
Later he was
asked if he had seen The Passion of the
Christ, and while he hadn’t seen the film, he had a funny story to tell. “I
had somebody last night as I was leaving this hotel… this old lady comes up to
me and says, ‘Young man, don’t have all this cursing that’s in your movie.
Every third word is profanity. You’re too good for that. You don’t need it. You
leave out that profanity and God will bless you the way He has blessed Mel
Gibson.’
“If it hadn’t
been at the end of the day after I had been talking my tongue out, I would have
said, ‘Let’s sit down…’ I love that line, but what I am curious about is what
does profanity have to do with anything? I don’t think that with all of God’s
problems – as long as we don’t use His name in vain – the little languages that
us puny humans have come up with are going to be high on His list. And how does
she even know Mel Gibson isn’t cursing all the way through the Aramaic scenes?”
He spoke at
breakneck speed on a variety of subjects – from a proposed animated version of
Bill’s life that he is working on to creating the soundtrack to hiring Robert
Rodriguez to write the score for one dollar – for a solid hour and it was exhilarating.
The time flew by quickly, and I could see why doing one-on-one interviews would
be tough with him as his answers averaged about six minutes each.
As soon as he
was gone Uma seemed to magically appear to take his place. She was asked about
The Bride and how she and Tarantino fine tuned the character.
“There were all
these things that came and went,” she said. “At one point The Bride had this
monster-like quality where there was a special effect in her eyes… I said, ‘No
Quentin, you can’t make the character into a monster.’ I mean, she’s a monster
anyway, but let’s keep the monster real…
“Then he
settled on a pulsating vein that he was going to put on me. I fought him on it
endlessly. He knew I hated it, but had the special effects rig one up just to
really draw the torture out because I was like, ‘Oh no, he’s going to do the
pulsating vein…’ They would [use it] when I was about to go nuts. Ultimately
the pulsating vein was gone. He wryly said to me, ‘You know, you have a vein in
your forehead that when you get mad it sort of sticks out, and you know, I
don’t need the special effect at all.’”
She spoke for about forty-five minutes before being
whisked off and then my work day was done. Now I can enjoy the warm weather and
explore the city. My first stop is a true Hollywood landmark, the Paramount
Gates. If you've seen Sunset Blvd, you'll be
familiar with Paramount Studio's ornate, wrought iron entry gate. Built in
1926, the arched gateway is located at the north end of Bronson Avenue (and is
hence called The Bronson Gate) and it has a unique history. According to legend
the extra iron filigree on top of the gate was added after hysterical female
fans of Rudolph Valentino
besieged security and climbed over the original exposed gate. Charles Bronson
(whose name was originally Charles Buchinski) took his stage name from this
gate. It looks a little smaller than I expected it would be, but since it is
the only studio gate that is still standing from the heyday of the studio
system it is worth a peek.
From there I
hoofed it over to Hollywood Boulevard. The first major intersection I came to
was Hollywood and Vine. It is a world famous address, but I can’t for the life
of me figure out why. There is nothing particularly notable here, other than a
cool neon sign suspended above the corner. Just north of the fabled corner is
the Capitol Records Building, which is home to the first
major record company based on the West Coast, and the world’s first circular
office building. Rumor has it that it was designed to resemble a stack of
records topped by a stylus on the suggestion of Nat King Cole.
|
|
Music fans take note that John Lennon's star on the Hollywood
Walk of Fame is right outside the Capitol Records building,
and is often the site of candlelight vigils on the anniversary of his death
(December 8).
After dark, you can see that the spire high
atop the Capitol Records building is capped by a red light which repeatedly
blinks on and off. The red light blinks out the word "Hollywood" in Morse code every
few seconds. In 1956, the granddaughter of Samuel Morse (inventor of the
Morse code) threw the switch that turned on the tower light. This single-word
message has been changed only once, in 1992, to celebrate Capitol Records'
50th anniversary. For the next year it signaled: "Capitol 50." In 1993, it
returned to sending the original message: "Hollywood."
On this outing I had decided that it would be
my goal to see one famous person doing something completely regular. I wanted
to see Steve Martin washing his car, or Nicole Kidman buying groceries. My
wish didn’t come true exactly, but I did encounter someone who could be
described as infamous.
The newest step of the gentrification of dirty
old Hollywood Boulevard is a store called Hollywood Madame, owned by Heidi
Fleiss, who once ran a high-priced prostitution ring that
allegedly served Tinseltown's rich and famous. Previously she held sway over
a cadre of high class hookers who charged Charlie Sheen $1500 a night. Now,
instead of doing time, (she did three years in jail for tax evasion and money
laundering) she bides her time writing books (Pandering) and running a clothing store.
|
I was surprised to see her behind the counter, and she told me that she
had just fired some of her employees for stealing and had to work the shop by
herself. I bought a t-shirt for my girlfriend and wanted to pay with my Visa
card. Trouble was Heidi didn’t know how to use the Visa machine. I went behind
the counter to see if I could figure it out, but couldn’t. We both stared at
the blinking box as though it was the impossibly complicated Rambaldi device. I
finally paid in cash, but unfortunately she didn’t have enough change. I took
whatever coins she had in the till and we called it even. With my pockets
bulging with quarters I left the store having fulfilled my wish to see a
celebrity doing something ordinary.
I tooled around Hollywood and Highland for the next hour or so; had my
picture taken with a giant yellow snake wrapped around my neck and talked with
a street performer named Dr. Geek Wordologist who has been busking in Hollywood
for seventeen years. He can instantly make up a rhyme using your name and your
hometown. It is quite impressive, and I noticed he had a bucket load of ones
and fives next to him, so his kind of wordplay must be profitable. He’s
probably making more than many of the songwriters who went to California to
find fame and fortune. Fans of late night infomercials will remember him as the
guy who rapped on the beach in the Blu-Blockers sunglasses commercial ten or so
years ago. I’ve never tried the glasses, but one website I checked said they
make everything look like you are having an “electric Kool-Aid flashback.” (You
can hear his song at: http://www.alphalink.com.au/~deddy/blue2.htm.)
Dr. Geek tells me that he came from Detroit in 1986 and he
has been here “crackin’ ever since.” When I ask if all his rhymes are straight
off the top of his head he replies in verse, “extemporaneous rhyme to help
please the mind… no profanity because there might be little kids around to hear
me… They’re getting enough of that crazy stuff out there, so I have to do it
the way I learned – old school with class.”
I walked back towards Heidi’s store and notice that she is
inside, alone looking bored. I go back in and say hello. She looks surprised to
see. “Didn’t your girlfriend like the shirt?” she asked. I explained that I was
just killing time, and we ended up talking for quite a while.
We talked about the store, which she described “as Hustler
without the porn,” and how when people come to Hollywood they can visit her
store and “at least say they saw someone who has been on the news.”
We also talked about why she chose Hollywood Boulevard as
the location for her store. “I’ll give you the rundown of LA,” she said. “Being
born and raised here I have seen the evolution of Hollywood. I remember when I
was in the sixth grade when I would skateboard down Hollywood Boulevard with a
bunch of kids and we were rowdy and rude and we would knock ice creams out of
people’s hands and do obnoxious things… I got my payback for that in prison,
don’t worry… Hollywood Boulevard, right now, all the nightlife is here and that
sets the trends. All the cool restaurants and the cool stores are coming here,
so it is going through a renaissance and it is good to be a part of it before
it gets to be all Banana Republics… no offence to Banana Republics, but how
much of the same thing can you see?”
She also tells me about her plans to expand her business
interests to Las Vegas. “I’m the best madam on earth because I know the
dynamics of males and females and the nature of human nature better than
anyone. Better than doctors, psychiatrists, professors… anyone. In two years
prostitution will be legalized in Las Vegas proper and I’ll have the best
brothel on earth.
“It’ll be a brothel that people would walk into and be proud
to be seen… like the speakeasy days, when people were proud to be there. In
today’s climate the type of person that I would see walk in there as a
celebrity… I would see someone like Ben Affleck. He looks like a hot shot. A
big roller. Confident enough to go in there and be proud. The girls would love
him. I’d promise him the time of his life. There is a reason why I am Heidi
Fleiss – I have superior product.”
She’s an interesting character, and I was surprised at how
much I liked her. I have never met her before, but had made up my mind
negatively about her from learning about her sordid past on E! True Hollywood Story, and seeing her
being lead away in handcuffs on the news. In person and conversation she is
quite sweet – edgy, but sweet. She is one of those people who gives you a
little too much information right off the snap. Within minutes of meeting her
she told me that her staff had been stealing from her; how she was hung-over
from being at a party at the Playboy Mansion the night before and that she was
a criminal with no college education. But despite the barrage of words and
personal data I got the impression that she was trying to be friendly but has
some trust issues… which is perhaps why she asked me several times if I was a
cop or had ever worked for the FBI… I guess she has been stung before.
When I left Heidi was sweeping the floor of her shop just
like any other shopkeeper would and it was hard to imagine that she was a
notorious madam whose little black book had kept Hollywood on the edge of its
collective seat during her trial.
Back at the hotel I had dinner with some friends on the
restaurant patio before retiring early to pack and get some rest. With visions
of long yellow snakes, legendary madams and Uma colliding in my head I got some
sleep so I wouldn’t be wiped out for my early Monday morning flight.
I JUST FLEW IN FROM THE
COAST AND BOY ARE MY ARMS TIRED:
LOS ANGELES & NEW YORK
MARCH 4 – 7, 2004
THURSDAY, MARCH 4, 2004
When most
people make New Year’s resolutions they vow to give up smoking or to lose ten
pounds. Me, I decided not to buy soap for the next calendar year. It’s not actually
as nasty as it sounds. Instead of buying bars of Ivory I’m just going to pilfer
soap from every hotel I stay in.
There is a lot
of soap in my future. This four-day weekend I’m off to Los Angeles for two
days, then New York City for the balance of the trip. Two cities. Two hotels.
Many bars of soap.
I arrive early
for my two o’clock flight and kill time by waiting at the gate. For some reason
there are two flights leaving from the same gate and it is very crowded. It
also seems like most of the people here stayed home the day they taught lining
up in school, so it is a kind of chaotic. In the melee I make the first
celebrity sighting of the trip. Tim Roth is at the head of the unruly throng,
and although he looks calm, if everyone in the crowd took one step forward he
would be squished flat against the big sliding glass door that leads to the
plane’s walkway.
The flight is
delayed, and once we get into the air the turbulence is so bad that for the
next five-and-a-half hours I feel like a James Bond martini – shaken, not
stirred. Being whipped like a meringue for that length of time is no fun but it
did lead to one of the more pleasant aspects of the trip. Usually on planes I
do my best not to speak to anyone. A quick “hello,” or “would you like some pretzels?”
to the person next to me is more than enough contact for me. I’m not on the
plane to make new friends. On this flight, however, because the turbulence was
so horrific the woman next to me started talking about the flight and we
continued to chat for the entire flight. She is a producer of television
commercials and was on her way to Los Angeles to shoot a car ad. The challenge
of making this particular spot, she told me, was working with the ten baboons
hired to jump all over the car. It’s a strange business.
She also told
me great stories about working with Vadim Perelman, the Kiev born, Toronto
raised commercial director, who recently made his feature debut with The
House of Sand and Fog. He has a reputation of being very talented but also
very difficult. His quick temper might stem from a troubled life – at one point
he had to beg for money on the street so his family could eat.
Just before The
House of Sand and Fog was released, she told me, Perelman held a screening
for his old advertising pals in Toronto, followed by a cocktail party at The
Windsor Arms. He invited everyone who had helped him in his career. While his
guests drank champagne and chatted about the movie he stood to make a speech.
After a few halting words of thanks he stopped and said, “I can run a movie
set, but I can’t express my gratitude to you for all your help…” With that,
teary eyed, he went around the room, hugged everyone and delivered personal
messages of thanks to each person. It was an interesting story, and presented a
much softer side of Perelman’s personality than I had heard about.
She also told
me that Steven Spielberg has taken Perelman under his wing and is shooting a
documentary about his life. Not bad for a guy who dropped out of Ryerson Film
Studies after only two years.
So despite
being tossed like a salad for the whole flight the company was good and the
time breezed by.
Shaky town was
a little chilly when we got there, but the palm trees swaying gently in the
wind at least gave the illusion of warmth.
I don’t have
any interviews scheduled today, just a screening of The Eternal Sunshine of
the Spotless Mind at nine o’clock. This is where the time difference really
kicks you in the butt. By the time I’m watching the opening credits it’ll be
midnight, my time. It’s not the ideal way to see a movie, but it is my only
chance to see the film before doing the interviews on Friday.
I took a
shuttle bus from The Four Seasons to The Grove Theatre located at Fairfax and 3rd
Street near the famous Farmer’s Market. The theatre is located adjacent a giant
fountain that features a choreographed water show with lights, music and giant
jets of water. It’s elegant in a showy kind of way and very L.A. but I’m
too tired to be wowed by it.
I’m tired and
hungry and have lost my cell phone at some point in the last couple of hours.
As I walk into the theatre I’m imagining someone wracking up my phone bill,
making long distance calls and phoning 967 numbers. Fortunately The Eternal
Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is so good it woke me up like a blast of cold
water in the face, and purged all the thoughts of evil phone thieves from my
head.
Before you ask,
the movie’s unusual title is quoted from the poem Eloisa to Abelard by
Alexander Pope (1688 – 1744). The script was written by Charlie Kaufman based
on a story idea by director Michel Gondry. It’s an unusual story about Joel
(Jim Carrey) who is amazed to learn that his girlfriend Clementine (Kate
Winslet) has had her memories of their bumpy relationship erased. Hurt, he
contacts the inventor of the process, Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson) to
have Clementine removed from his memory. As his memories of his ex-girlfriend
disappear Joel rediscovers his love for her. From deep within the nooks and
crannies of his brain Joel attempts to escape the procedure. As Dr. Mierzwiak
and his team of technicians (Kirsten Dunst, Mark Ruffalo and Elijah Wood) chase
him through the maze of his memories it’s becomes clear that Joel doesn’t want
to let go of Clementine.
Ace Ventura
3: Who Let the Dawgs Out
this ain’t. This is a dense, visually beautiful story of love as though told by
Phillip K. Dick. Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet both give very strong performances
– Carrey hasn’t been this good in a serious role since The Truman Show and Winset is sexy, funny and wistful.
After the movie
I went back to the shuttle bus. The driver had found my cell phone on the floor
next to my seat. I checked, no long distance calls had been made. Yah! I was
still jazzed from the movie, and unexpected return of my cell phone as we left
the parking lot. On the ten-minute drive back to the hotel, however, I could
feel my lids getting heavy. Back at the Four Seasons I bypassed the bar, went
to my room, packed the soap in my luggage and fell into a coma-like sleep.
FRIDAY, MARCH 05, 2004
It’s a
beautiful day. I opened my balcony door and took in the sights – the palm
trees, the Hollywood Hills and early morning joggers getting some exercise
before the smog gets too thick. My interviews don’t start until three-thirty so
I have most of the day to prepare and hang-out.
I start the day
with some room service – a giant urn of tea, some Heuvos Rancheros and a
smoothie made of fresh fruit. I weigh myself and discover that I’ve lost twelve
pounds since the last time I stepped on a scale three weeks ago. Maybe I should
have two orders of Heuvos Rancheros…
Outside the
hotel I have two very random celebrity sightings. Billy ‘I’m not really a
Hobbit” Boyd is waiting for his car from valet parking. He likely dropped by to
say hello to LOTR cast mate Elijah Wood who was doing interviews upstairs. As
Boyd’s car (actually, a giant silver SUV) pulled up, celeb number two showed
his face. Penn Jillette, the tall half of magicians of Penn and Teller
appeared, suitcase in hand. I half expected for fire to shoot from his
fingertips, or perhaps to see him levitate his way to his car, but apparently
all his magic props were packed away, and instead he simply waited at the curb
like any other mortal.
The weather was
hot and sunny, so with thoughts of the giant block of ice that has been sitting
in front of my house since January I soaked up the rays and walked down 3rd
Street. Along the way I passed a store called Meg’s which is owned by friends
of mine from New York. We never seem to be able to hook up. When I am in New
York they are always in L.A. and visa versa. I poked my head in just to check
if they were around and for once the travel gods were smiling and we were all
in the same place at the same time. The store is lovely, located in a trendy
part of 3rd Street between Sweetzer and Kings Road. We chat for an
hour or so, getting caught up and comparing notes on who had the worst flight
in on Thursday. They won. I only had turbulence to deal with. Their flight was
hours late, and there was no meal service because of the brutal turbulence.
From there I
move on to the Farmer’s Market. The original Farmers Market was created at
Fairfax and 3rd Street in 1934 when 18 farmers parked their trucks
on vacant land at Gilmore Ranch to sell fresh produce to locals who flocked to
the location. The first merchants at the Market – the farmers who sold produce
from the back of their trucks – paid 50 cents a day in rent. It’s a little
different since The Grove complex of high-end shopping opened next door, but
some of the old-timers are still there. Du-par’s Restaurant has been there for
sixty-four years and Magee’s has been serving Market patrons for 68 years.
Over the years
many Hollywood stars have been associated with The Farmer’s Market, and it was
once described as “the number one place in L. A. to spot stars” by the L. A.
Times. James Dean is believed to have eaten breakfast at Farmers Market on
the day of his fatal car crash (9/30/55), and Esther Williams once performed at
Gilmore Stadium – she had a pool built and staged a water ballet – and when the
show was over, the pool was immediately removed.
I find a nice
sunny place to sit and work on reading my notes and sketching out questions for
the interviews. I’m so happy be to sitting outside after the brutal winter
we’ve had in Toronto that I have hard time concentrating on my work. I don’t
make out lists of questions for these interviews, but I do try and familiarize
myself with the information and make a few notes on things I’d like to cover.
Usually I have a page of point form notes written in a scrawl that resembles
hieroglyphics. Many times I have been doing an interview, looked down to check
my notes and have been unable to read what I have written on the page. Today I
take extra time to make sure my notes are legible.
Back at the
hotel things aren’t running smoothly. The schedule is out of whack and Jim
Carrey arrived really late, and is taking his time deciding on which interviews
he would like to do. No matter, there are five interviews in total, so I’m not
going to pull my hair out over whether or not I’ll get Carrey.
I’m scheduled
to start near the end of the day, so I’ll likely be the last interview of this
session for most of the actors. First up is Kirsten Dunst, who is tres cute
with her short hair. She’s tired and looks it. It has been a long day for her
and she clearly wants to get this over with. On camera the interview goes well,
and we discussed the script and the emotional core of the film. She agreed with
my analysis that the story can be as fanciful as you like as long as the
emotional core of the film rings true.
She seemed
relieved when the interview was over. A few minutes later we met in the hall
just outside her room. She was with her publicist and wanted to drop by Mark
Ruffalo’s room to say hello before she left for the day. I asked her how the
day had gone for her.
“If one more
person asked me, ‘If you could erase one memory what memory would it be?’ I was
going to scream,” she said.
I pointed out
that I hadn’t asked that question.
“Yeah, your
questions were good,” she said. “And every man who walked into the room wanted
to ask me about dancing in my underwear and they all used the word ‘panties’…”
Again, I
pointed out that I hadn’t been one of the dirty old men who asked about her
undergarments and mentioned that Mark Ruffalo is a whole lot more naked than
she is in the movie. She giggled when I enquired if anyone had asked about
Mark’s panties.
When she went
into Mark’s room I heard her yell, “If you could erase one memory what would it
be!” then the sound of uproarious laughter from the two actors. Apparently it
was the questions of the day for all the actors.
I’ve
interviewed Mark Ruffalo many times in the last year or so, and find him to be
a pleasure to speak to. He’s open, funny and has a nice relaxed way about him.
He’s also the only man (other than Viggo Mortensen) that all my women friends
unanimously agree is husband material. We chat for some time, but most of the
interview we can’t use because we unwittingly gave away the end of the film.
Maybe much later we’ll use that footage once everyone has seen the movie.
Like everyone
else on the planet I saw Titanic when it came out, but in the years
since I haven’t given Kate Winslet much thought. I’ve seen her in the odd film,
and actually really liked her performance in Quills, but she wouldn’t
have made my top five list… until today. Her performance in The Eternal
Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is flawless, and completely different than
anything else she has attempted before. And for the first time I thought she
was beautiful. Really beautiful.
My newfound
lofty expectations of her were more than met when I walked into her hotel room
(oh no, this is starting to sound like a letter to Penthouse Forum). She’s down to earth, smart and used the word
“whilst” effortlessly during our conversation. We discussed how people are used
to seeing special effects in movies and can spot CGI a million miles away. This
movies uses special effects, but of a more organic nature. There is very little
computer manipulation of the images; instead director Gondry used older
techniques. She described to me a rig that was attached to the camera lens that
was made of two pieces of glass, and had a prism effect. When the two pieces of
glass were shifted slightly she would disappear from the shot, even though she
hadn’t physically moved. The “hand made” special effects give the movie a
magical feel, and even though they are based on age-old techniques they seem
very fresh. For more with Kate Winslet check out Reel to Real in March.
The final
interview of the day was Elijah Wood. I’ve interviewed him several times for
the LOTR films and am always amazed at how upbeat he is. The LOTR press days
were vicious, every media outlet on earth was trotted out for these guys to
talk to, and I can only imagine the stupid questions they had to answer. That’s
bad enough for one movie, but to have to do it three times is just cruel. But
he seems fresh and eager when I get him, even though he has been sitting in a
stuffy hotel room under hot lights all day. Perhaps he really is a Hobbit with
supernatural powers. We discussed how is character is being seen as the bad guy
in the film, but I told him I didn’t see him as completely awful, just desperate.
Really, really desperate, and this clouded his judgment. He agreed and expanded
on my theory. More with Elijah Wood in March on Reel to Real.
I finished my interviews at ten minutes after
five. Good thing too, my drive to the screening room for tonight’s movie leaves
at five-fifteen. I’m off to see Spartan,
a political thriller starring Val Kilmer and written and directed by David
Mamet.
The screening
room is in an office building just off of Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. As I
walk down the hall to the auditorium I pass hundreds of framed photographs of a
man with large, thick glasses hugging every celebrity you can imagine. Some are
in black and white, some in lurid color, particularly one with an obviously
drugged-out Paul Williams that looks like it dates from the mid-Seventies. It
is a quite a collection… I haven’t seen that many b-list celebs in one place
since Liza Minelli’s wedding. Anyway, the guy with Coke-bottle bottom glasses
in all the photos is the owner of the screening room. I didn’t catch his name,
but I spoke with him before the movie started. During our conversation he
disappeared several times, only to return with more photos and memorabilia to
show me. His prized possession was an honorary doctorate from a local
university. “By rights,” he said, “you should be calling me doctor.” Hollywood
is filled with strange characters.
Before the film
he made a speech informing us that we are about to see “a beautiful picture,
let’s not ruin it with noise from our cell phones…” I’m not sure I would call Spartan a “beautiful movie,” but it is
an interesting one.
Val Kilmer
plays Robert Scott is a career military officer working in a highly secretive
special operations force. He is recruited to find the daughter of a
high-ranking government official. His partner on the mission is novice Curtis
(Derek Luke).
Soon the
straightforward search-and-rescue mission becomes complicated by the political
ambitions of those in high places – like Stoddard (William H. Macy), a
political operative who may know more than he’s telling about the clandestine
circumstances surrounding Laura’s abduction. Scott and Curtis are at the brink
of tracking Laura’s whereabouts when the mission comes to an abrupt conclusion,
with the media issuing reports of the girl’s death.
Scott returns
to the quiet life and awaits his next assignment, but Curtis seeks out Scott to
confide his belief that Laura is in fact alive. If she is, their continued
unofficial investigation will put them as well as Laura at the center of a dangerous
conspiracy that reaches the highest levels.
Sounds
complicated, no? Well, it is, but in a good way. Think of it as a double
episode of The West Wing, (one of the
good ones from last season before Aaron Sorkin left), with sharp dialogue and a
story that takes chances. I sometimes wonder why Val Kilmer is famous. He
hasn’t had a hit in years and his Top Gun
/ Batman heyday seems like a long time ago now, but then I see him in
something like this and am reminded what a good actor he is.
I’m ravenous
when I leave the screening, and since I can’t afford to eat in any of the
restaurants on Rodeo Drive we head back to the hotel, grab a table on the patio
(!) and have a leisurely dinner. I’m in bed early ready to fly to New York the
next morning.
SATURDAY, MARCH 6, 2004
I’m up at an
hour that can only be described as “arse o’clock.” It is 4:30 am when my alarm
goes off. I fight off the urge to hit snooze and hide out in my room. It’s
still dark when I take a shower. It’s still dark when I check out of the hotel.
Ditto with the cab ride to LAX. I was up so early that the sun didn’t start to
drop rays until I was at the gate.
I wasn’t the
only one who had to get up early that morning. I spotted Val Kilmer making his
way to the departure area. He was leaving L.A. (or Valifornia as his fans call
it) and making his way to New York to do a day of press to promote Spartan. In person he is quite striking
looking, and he draws some attention from people at the airport. It must be his
eyes. A website, valkilmer.com describes them as “greenish in color and very
soulful.”
As we board the
plane for the seven am flight I pass Val who is sitting in row A seat one. He
nods at me as I pass and I mumble a “hello,” as I shuffle past him. I don’t
think he could possibly remember me. I have only interviewed him once, and that
was seven months ago on a press day in Toronto for Wonderland. He must have done fifty interviews that day, so either
he has a terrific memory, or he always wanted to be an airline steward and
enjoys greeting people as they board the plane…
Uneventful
flight. The breakfast is pancakes with apples, a strudel and some tea. The
movie is School of Rock and I have a
chance to read an entire GQ magazine.
The plane isn’t very full, and I have an entire row to myself. Other people are
stretched across the empty seats, but I can never quite negotiate that. I’m too
tall to lay down on a plane, my head always sticks out in the aisle, and I have
had some unpleasant run-ins with service carts on other occasions when I have
tried to catch a few winks in that position. There is nothing quite as
unpleasant as being woken from a deep sleep by getting dinged in the head by a
flight attendant with a heavy serving cart. I know. I have the bumps and
bruises to prove it.
We land at JFK
in mid-afternoon. No one, including Val has any idea where to pick up our
luggage. It is a big barn of a place and there is no indication of which
baggage carousel is ours. Eventually I spot Val sitting near a carousel and
wander over. He says hello again and we chat. I told I had seen the movie the
night before and enjoyed it. Then he said something kind of cryptic.
“David Mamet is
so funny,” he said. “He should make more comedies.”
I don’t really
know how to respond, as I didn’t find this movie particularly amusing. I think
he might have been referring to his deadpan delivery of the dialogue and how
that may have brought some humor to an otherwise very serious subject, but
frankly I’m a little baffled.
Luggage in hand
I grab a cab to The Regency Hotel on Park Avenue. The one bonus of getting into
town later in the day is that the rooms will be ready. I sign in and go up to
my room on the eleventh floor. I open the door and a blast of hot, dry air
blows me backward. It’s so hot in the room I think my hair gel is going to melt
(that could get VERY messy). As I turn down the heat and throw my bag on the
bed I notice a squishing sound. I take a step. There it is again. Closer
inspection of the floor reveals that it is soaking wet. Probably it has just
been shampooed and to help it dry they turned the heat up to one million
degrees.
It feels like
my skin is starting to blister and I’m being cooked from the inside out (OK,
I’m exaggerating a bit, but it was hot) as I call down and to the front desk and
arrange another room. It’s on the fourth floor – my view is gone, but at least
the carpet isn’t sweating. I notice that a “commemorative” bottle of Evian in
my mini-bar is $12. I inspect the bottle and can’t find anything unique about
it other than the outrageous price. Later, when I am out walking around I buy
the same bottle of water on the street for $1. How says you can’t make money
running a hotel?
I go out and
walk around for a couple of hours and see a man in a cowboy hat with a belt
buckle as large as a dinner plate. I admire the courage it takes to pull off a
look like that but don’t it would look good on me.
Tonight I have
to see Taking Lives at the AMC
Theatre in Times Square. Saturday night in Times Square really has to be seen
to be believed. There are more people at the corner of 42nd Street
and Broadway than there are in the town I grew up in – it is jam packed. On top
of that there are billboards and flashing signs on virtually every inch of free
space on the buildings. It is a sensory overload.
The theatre is
huge. I notice The Passion of the Christ
is playing on five screens here, and there are line-ups at each theatre. I’m
reminded of a headline I saw in the satirical newspaper The Onion earlier today on my walk: Jesus Demands Creative Control
Over Next Film. Inside it is as chaotic as it is outside. This isn’t just a
press screening, there will be a general audience as well. I like seeing movies
in New York with regular audiences. Critics tend to be a jaded bunch, with a
“seen it all” kind of attitude, so it should be fun to see it with an audience
that will interact with the picture.
An FBI profiler
(Angelina Jolie) is called in by French Canadian police to catch a serial
killer who takes on the identity of each new victim. The first scream from the
crowd comes about nine minutes in. From that point on there is a lot of
commotion in the audience. People are shouting, “Don’t go in there!” as
Angelina Jolie’s character moves to explore an old basement and “Told you so!”
as Ethan Hawke reveals a dark secret. That kind of thing would drive me crazy
normally, but here it seems to fit and gives me a good idea at how people will
react to this movie.
I liked the
movie. It is a good thriller in the spirit of 1980s fare like Basic Instinct and the Canadian in me is
happy that it was shot and takes place in Quebec. Also, Ethan Hawke’s character
comes from Nova Scotia (as do I) although he needs a little work on his accent.
After the movie
I go back to the hotel, pack the soap (see page one of this diary) and go to
bed.
SUNDAY, MARCH 7, 2004
I didn’t set an
alarm to today because my interviews don’t start until three o’clock. My plan
was to get up early, check out of the hotel, stow my bags, have breakfast
somewhere and study my notes. Unfortunately I woke up an hour after I was
supposed to have vacated the room. Whoops. The anxious maids in the hall are
circling the room like vultures, waiting to come in and strip the bed and erase
all signs of me ever having been there. They’ll have to wait, and I’ll probably
get charged a fortune for a late check out.
During packing
I realize that I have accumulated quite a lot of things on this trip and my
luggage feels like it is packed with anvils. I leave the bag in the hospitality
suite – I don’t have to worry about anyone stealing it because none of the
pampered reporters on this junket could lift it – and go for a walk. It’s sunny
and warm so I find an outdoor café on Lexington Avenue and have something to
eat while I go over my questions.
Back at the hotel
I’m told that Val Kilmer has cancelled most of his interviews for today. It
seems he isn’t feeling well and needs to lie down. That’s funny, because he
seemed OK when I spoke with his yesterday, but who am I to judge. I also hear a
rumor that on the Jersey Girl junket
at the Essex House (I’m not doing that one. I’m set to interview Kevin Smith in
Toronto.) Miramax is not releasing the Ben Affleck tapes. Apparently Diane
Sawyer is interviewing him on Primetime
so to insure her exclusivity Miramax is hanging on to Ben’s junket tapes until
after Sawyer’s interview has run. The day after Primetime airs the tapes will be sent to the junket reporters.
My first
interview of the day is with Ethan Hawke, or as I like to call him, “the man
formerly known as Uma’s husband.” I think it is rather brave of him to be doing
a full press day like this when his marital problems have been so widely
publicized. You have to figure that out of the forty or so interviews he’ll do
today at least a few people are going to try and talk trash about Uma and their
break-up. If I were him I’m not sure I would put myself in the position where I
would be expected to discuss my personal life in a very public forum. I stick
to talking about the movie and he seems a bit relieved.
Next up is
French heart throb Olivier Martinez. He plays a by-the-book cop in the movie
who doesn’t see eye-to-eye with Angelina Jolie. Most viewers will remember him
either as Diane Lane’s lover in Unfaithful,
or the bad guy who offered “One hundred meeelion dollars!” to anyone who could
break him out of jail in S.W.A.T.. As
I sit down he tells me he and the cameraman are having a competition to see who
falls asleep first. It’s not the most promising opening to an interview I have
ever had, but I soldier on and hope for the best. We discuss which is more fun
to play, a good guy or a bad guy. He gives me a long winded answer about
playing bad guys. I almost fall asleep during his answer.
There is a
slight delay for my interview with Angelina Jolie. Apparently she is changing
her clothes every few interviews so that all the footage from today won’t look
alike. I wait in the hall until I am called in. Walking into the suite I see
three or four people leaning over Jolie, primping her hair, and powdering her
face. I can’t see her, but I’m sure she’s in there somewhere. When the make-up
and hair people step away the effect is like the Red Seas parting, or a red
velvet curtain raising behind which there is something extraordinary.
Jolie is quite
remarkable looking, so much so in fact, that she almost doesn’t look real. She
calls the raised veins on her forearms her best feature. I disagree. As GQ
recently pointed, “To speak of her beauty in morphological terms – the lip
cleavage, the puma eyes, those great heaving… blah, blah – is like pointing out
the sun.” She is a mish-mash of unusual features – GQ recently described her face as “ripely round, yet violently
angular,” with plumped lips and a forehead made for arched eyebrows. I think
that any one of these features might look odd by themselves, but put together
they form a whole that is undeniably striking.
We’ve all heard
the tabloid stories about the vials of blood, eating disorders and the tattoos
but there are no markings visible today, although she has a number of them. She
has a koan inscribed on her stomach in Latin that translates to: “What
nourishes me also destroys me.” Today she is the epitome of elegance. She’s
open, looks you straight in the eye when speaking to you and gives thoughtful,
interesting answers to my questions.
She plays an
FBI profiler in the film and we discussed the similarities between that job and
her day job as an actress. Both are observers and both have to have a keen
understanding of human nature. For the full interview with Angelina Jolie watch
Reel to Real in March.
She’s the last
interview of the trip, and it is only four o’clock. My plane isn’t scheduled to
leave until eight-thirty but I really want to get home, so I head for the
LaGuardia hoping to make an earlier flight. The airport isn’t that busy, but
apparently the flights to Toronto are delayed because of bad weather in Canada,
so I have to wait until seven-thirty. I park myself in the executive lounge and
wait. Trainspotting director Danny
Boyle is also in the lounge – he’s shooting a film in Toronto and is probably
waiting for the same flight I am – but he looks like he wants to be left alone
and after doing interviews all afternoon I’m done talking about movies for
today so I don’t approach him.
The flight is
uneventful, and I’m glad to be coming home. It was a long, strange trip, but at
least I was able to keep up with my New Year’s resolution – I came back with
four bars of hotel soap!
FEAR AND LOATHING IN
JUNKETLAND: FREDDY VS JASON
JULY 14 – 16 LAS VEGAS
Monday July 14, 2003
I’ve been to
Las Vegas three times. Once to get married; once to try and sell a television
show and now, to interview Nightmare on Elm Street baddie Freddy Kruger. The
movie is called Freddy Vs Jason, and in an effort create a buzz around the
film’s August 15th opening, New Line Cinema has invited the press
and a few dozen radio contest winners to Bally’s Hotel on Las Vegas Boulevard
to attend a press conference followed by press one-on-one interviews with the
characters. To be clear, I will not be interviewing Robert Eglund or Ken
Kerzinger, the actors who play Freddy and Jason, rather I will be interviewing
them in character as Freddy and Jason. It’s a cute idea, but remember, Jason
doesn’t speak… this is going to be a challenge. I hope this trip to Vegas is
more successful than my previous ones.
On my flight to
Vegas I got bumped up to first class. Thanks Air Canada! The food was tasty up
in the pointy-end of the plane. I had a salad course with a spinach pie, Edam
cheese and grapes, followed by broiled chicken with broccoli with a light peach
cheesecake for dessert. Thanks Air Canada! I hope you don’t go out of business.
I arrived at
McCannan airport exactly on time after a four-hour flight from Toronto.
When I arrive
it’s noon – the hottest time of the day – and I have to wait outside for a cab.
A digital sign nearby reads 115 degrees. Later I find out that the high for the
day was 128 degrees. I don’tknow if you have ever experienced that kind of
heat, but when the hot breeze picks up it feels like Satan himself is breathing
on you.
Like everything
in Vegas, Bally’s Hotel is huge –five restaurants, hundreds of slot machines
and almost three thousand guest rooms. That’s enough guest rooms so that every
man, woman and child in the small town that I grew up in could have their own
room. Park Place Entertainment, the company that owns Bally’s also owns
Caesars, Paris and a number of other hotels in Vegas and across the world. In
Vegas alone they offer up over 14, 600 rooms.
At least it is
nice and cool inside. The air con bill must be astronomical… you can almost see
your breath in the casino.
My room is
large with a king size bed, a giant blue velvet sofa and a floor to ceiling
window that runs the length of the room. Too bad it overlooks the hotel’s giant
air conditioning units. Stuck in the window is a small sign warning that it is
moth season. “Swarms of moths flying around the building are attracted by the
lights…” Vegas is the “brightest” city in the States. There are lights everywhere
– bright neon, flashing bulbs, 80 foot tall lit up signs – no wonder there are
clouds of nasty moths attacking the city and the hapless tourists who are
foolish enough to open their windows.
The interviews
are on Tuesday so I have Monday to wander around and get acquainted with the
Vegas strip. I’m glad to have some down time. We’ve been busy lately with
screenings and in the last couple of days I have had to interview Peta Wilson
(from League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), cover the Toronto Trek, a science
fiction convention, tape interviews with the stars of the television show Buck
Rogers in the 25th Century Gil Gerard, Erin Gray and Felix Silla
and Buffy the Vampire Slayer actor Anthony Stewart Head. When I insisted
on calling him Anthony Michael Hall, I knew I needed a break. Vegas came along
at the right time. I’m reminded of the Hunter S. Thompson quote from Fear
and Loathing in Las Vegas… “Every now and again when your life gets
complicated and the weasels start closing in, the only cure is top load up on
heinous chemicals and drive like a $@&(%@$ from Hollywood to Las Vegas…” OK
I didn’t load up on heinous chemicals, and I flew rather than drove, but you
get the idea.
There is
something about Vegas that makes me feel excessive. I want to wear shiny shirts
and tip cocktail waitresses crisp fifty-dollar bills. I want to drink champagne
and take Jacuzzis. Ride in limos and bet everything I own on a roll of the
dice. In short, I want to behave like Robert Evans every time I come here.
I manage to keep
those dark impulses under wraps, and spend the next few hours walking around.
Vegas is like no other place I have ever been. At Harrah’s I see an
eighty-year-old woman wearing black leather gloves playing two slot machines at
the same time. There is a blank look on her face, and while she is playing a
game, she doesn’t really seem to be having any fun. I wonder to myself how
often she sits there, all alone, gambling. Later I see a man the size of a Coke
machine teaching his nine-year-old son how to play slots on a miniature toy
machine. I start to feel kind of numb, with the strange sights and the constant
clanging of the machines dulling my senses.
I don’t feel so
much like Robert Evans anymore. I think of Fear and Loathing again, this
time a quote from the movie. “What was I doing here? What was the meaning of
this trip? Was I just roaming around in a drug frenzy of some kind? Or had I
really come out here to Las Vegas to work on a story? Who are these people,
these faces? Where do they come from? They look like caricatures of used car
dealers from Dallas, and sweet Jesus, there were a hell of a lot of them at
4:30 on a Sunday morning, still humping the American dream, that vision of the
big winner somehow emerging from the last minute pre-dawn chaos of a stale
Vegas casino.”
I need to get
away from the throngs of slot-crazed tourists. What better way to ditch the
crowds in Vegas than to seek out something cultural? Sure enough, I made my way
over to the Venetian Hotel, a massive place with canals running through it that
is supposed to replicate Venice. It does a pretty good job, all that’s missing
is the smell of the real Venice and the pushy Europeans… I make my way to the
Guggenheim Hermitage Museum, located deep inside the hotel. As I suspected it
is a vast wasteland, there isn’t a soul inside, despite the crowds that are
hanging around the casino and shopping areas. I spend an hour or so looking at
the American Pop Icons exhibit, undisturbed by @#@#$. (Lichtenstein, Oldenburg,
Rauschenburg and Warhol)
I’m meeting
some friends who are coming in from Austin, Texas. They arrive at 10 pm, and I
meet them at the front desk. My friend Teri checks in, and gets a room on the
73rd floor. I help her up to her room with her bags. We open the
door and are greeted by a long marble foyer. There is an echo when we speak. We
continue through the foyer and into the room. All of a sudden my room doesn’t
seems so big. As we step into her sunken living room we are blown away by the
view just outside the picture windows. We can see the dancing fountains at the
Bellagio and the Eiffle Tower that stands in front of Paris, Las Vegas. Wow. We
turn around… there is a Jacuzzi, a shower stall the size of my apartment in
Toronto and gold fixtures everywhere. We nickname it the Frank Sinatra Suite,
and all of a sudden the excessive Vegas fever hits me again.
Before I can
get into too much trouble I go back to my (tiny) suite and go to bed. Vegas
will have to wait to see my Robert Evans impression…
Tuesday July 15, 2003
Up early. First
up today is an event at the Jubilee Room downstairs in the casino. It is
usually the home of an old-style Vegas show, complete with showgirls and loads
of glitz and glamour. In fact, when the clothing designers were making the
costumes for the show, they used so many sequins, that they caused a worldwide
shortage. Apparently there are over 8000 feet of sequins on display. I don’t
think there will be much in the way of sequins today. I’m here to see a mock
conference between Freddy and Jason, where they will face off against one
another.
The theatre is
big… no surprise there. According to the hotel’s press info the stage is half
the size of a football field. Should give Freddy and Jason lots of room to
tussle.
THE BIG MANGO: NOVEMBER
2003
THURSDAY & FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13 &
14, 2003
Welcome to the Big
Mango. Bangkok. As I sit here writing this it is 9 am in the morning, and
the temperature is already approaching thirty degrees. Bangkok. Hot, crowded,
exciting, frustrating and aptly named because at six foot four inches I have
been banging my head on every low hung sign and short doorway in town.
I arrived Friday
night after a grueling twenty-six hours of travel. I shouldn't complain,
apparently fifty years ago it used to take nine days by plane to get here.
When I was a kid I was sure that by 2003 we'd have teleporters
or high-speed space crafts for this sort of trip. Apparently I was
wrong, and the best way to get here is the route I took.
I was pleased to
see that I had been assigned seat 3-D, a very appropriate choice for a film
critic, although I'm having a hard time remembering when the last 3-D movie I
liked. The five hours from Toronto to Vancouver was brightened considerably by
the selection of movies -- one of which I hadn't seen!!! That almost never
happens when I travel, and I'm not sure how I missed Confidence when it
was in the theatres. Rachel Weisz and Ed Burns play grifters who are
indebted to a mob boss played by Dustin Hoffman, and while it's not going to
win any awards, it's a pretty good airplane movie.
Vancouver to Hong
Kong is a long haul. Seat 3-D reclined to an almost flat position, but I
have a hard time sleeping on planes. At almost thirteen hours it is a hard
flight, not helped by my choice of movie, Bad Boys 2. Unlike fine wine,
this movie does not get better with age.
Hong Kong to Bangkok is only a couple of hours, and I flew on the top deck of
an old 747. The last time I was in a 747 I was with my parents and there was a
full bar on the upper level with a smoking lounge. The in-flight bars are
gone now, and of course you can't smoke anywhere anymore, least of all on a
plane.
By the end of the
twenty-six hours I had plowed through the new Patricia Cornwell book on Jack
the Ripper (maybe the perfect airplane book... it is kind of compelling, but is
so packed with facts and minutia that it kind of deadens the brain...), read
three magazines, eaten four or five complete meals, several snacks, drank six
or seven liters of water and one port. While I didn't really sleep, I was able
to get some rest so I felt pretty good when the plane touched down.
After being cooped
up in a big metal tube for over a day I was ready to hit the streets
immediately and see what Bangkok had to offer. It's almost midnight, but it is
thirty degrees and the air is thick with pollution and humidity. It is too hot
walk – I'm told most Thais try to avoid walking in the heat when possible – and
the BTS (above ground subway) is closed, so we can either take a taxi or a tuk
tuk to our destination. Taxis are plentiful, but I think a tuk tuk would be
more fun. They are motorized three-wheeled vehicles that can carry a couple
people and are good for short rides and dodging in an out of traffic. The
engines are notoriously noisy and it is a very touristy thing to do... but
what the heck, I'm a tourist for the next ten days.
My first impression
of Bangkok is that (at night anyway) it reminded me of the movie Blade
Runner. Very new, modern looking buildings co-exist with crumbling
structures which seem to have been built a century or more ago. You have to
watch for the tangles of electrical wires which snake down from utility poles
and the motorcycles which whiz past at alarming speeds. Ridley Scott must have
used this landscape as the inspiration for the strange urban scenes of Blade Runner.
Bangkok-based Jake
Needham is an ex-pat American who writes detective novels set in the city. His
latest, Tea Money is particularly
good, sort of like Elmore Leonard with an Asian twist. There is a passage in
the book that talks about the area of town I went to on Friday night. “During
daylight hours Sukhumvit Road was one of Bangkok’s principal traffic arteries,
four lanes jammed with vehicles and the BTS (Bangkok Transit System) running on
massive concrete pillars down the center. It slashed like a fault line across
the part of the city where almost every foreigner lived. For miles it was lined
with luxurious shopping malls, expensive restaurants and multi-colored hotels –
most of them thronged every day with well-heeled tourists, foreign residents,
and those adventurous Thais who didn’t mind so much mixing with either.
“In the hours after
dark, however, a different breed took over the street. Even at its most benign,
Bangkok was part Miami and part Beirut, and there was nothing benign about
midnight on the fault line. In the late, late hours, Sukhumvit Road became Blade Runner country.”
Our first stop is
to one of the city’s famous "entertainment districts." People are
bustling on Soi (translation: sidestreet) Cowboy, cooking food (chicken, fish,
rice and bugs... yes, grasshoppers, cockroaches etc), begging for money
and trying to lure you into the bars. Bars line both sides of the streets,
and it is best not to make eye contact with anyone, otherwise they will
follow you and try to convince you to spend money at their bar with a
persistence that Hercules would admire.
The Long Gun is our
first stop. Jim Morrison and the Doors are blaring, scantily-clad (but not
naked) girls are dancing and the beer is cold. It feels kind of surreal to me,
like I'm not really there, but actually watching a scene from a movie.
That feeling was
re-enforced at our next stop in the Plaza of the Nana district. I actually
felt like I was hallucinating, that the long flight and twelve-hour time
difference had finally caught up with me. The scene at DC-10 was a combo of Blade
Runner and Apocalypse Now as though directed by David Lynch, with a
healthy dose of Striptease thrown in. If I was to cast the movie of
this place the doorman would be played by Peter Dinklage, the 5,6,7,8s
would play the house band and Lucy Lui would be the mama san. The girls danced
to AC/DCs Highway to Hell, and for a moment I felt I might be along for
the ride. We leave and finish the night at a regular bar across the hall. I
meet some locals who convince me to ring the bell in the bar. I do, and then
have to buy a round for the whole place. It’s a small bar and a round only
cost $20 or so, so I rang the bell again and again until it was time to go...
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2003
Saturday morning
came way to fast. With only a few hours of sleep it was time to drive to
Kanchanaburi, a small town two hours away by car. We made it there despite my
legendarily bad navigational skills. My directionally challenged method of
course-plotting was further strained by a problem with the language. Some of
the place names have more than thirty letters, some of which are silent and
others which need to be emphasized. My favorite place was a small town with a
very big name that translated into “The City of Nice People.”
The town is
best known for is association with the infamous Burma-Siam
railroad. During the Second World War the Japanese needed a railroad to
move supplies the 225 miles from Burma to Siam. Engineers estimated the project
would take 5 years, the army, however, had different ideas. Almost 60,000
Allied POWs and 300,000 Asians laborers were forced to work eighteen hour days
on its construction to finish the project in a mere sixteen months.
Approximately 30,000 of the POWs and 200,000 of the Asian workers
lost their lives to cholera, malaria, malnutrition and maltreatment. The
conditions were so appalling it is said that one man died for each tie laid.
The most famous
stretch of the railroad is the bridge over the River Kwai, which runs the
length of the town. David Lean's famous 1957 movie told a cleaned-up version of
the story, and while it is a great film, I don't think the horrors of life on
this chain gang could properly be captured on film, particularly when Lean made
the picture, just a dozen years after the end of the war.
The town has become
a resort town, although not a flashy one. In the center of town there is a
large cemetery commemorating the soldiers who lost their lives building the
Death Railway. Thousands of marble plaques are lined up in long even rows,
manicured lawns on all sides. As I walked up and down the rows I was struck by
the young age of many of the men, 23, 24 years-of-age. Most of them passed in
1944, which meant they had likely spent three or four years in the service
-- their whole adult lives in most cases. I was humbled to walk among
them, and imagine the sacrifices they made for their countries.
From there I went
to the Jeath Museum, no that's not a typo, it is an acronym for the names of
the six countries involved in the building of the railroad: Japan, England,
America and Australia, Thailand and Holland. It was established by a Buddhist
monk to give people a better understanding of how the prisoners were treated.
None of the original huts the POWs lived in survived the war, but the long
narrow bamboo hut that houses the bulk of the exhibition is an exact
replica from the war. Inside you feel claustrophobic as the heat and
humidity bear down on you, and can't imagine how people were able to live under
such conditions. Then you take in all the photos and paintings and realize that
many of them weren't able to live under those circumstances. I'm reminded
of a quote from the movie. "I'd say the odds against a successful escape
are about 100 to one," says William Holden as Major Shears, "But
may I add another word, Colonel? The odds against survival in this camp are
even worse."
On display are
photographs taken by Thais and prisoners of war that depict the deplorable
conditions. The Japanese did not object to photographs in the early days of the
interment although later they prohibited prisoners from keeping any kind of
record because if the bad reflection of themselves. The images that
survived are horrific -- skin disease and death; men, little more
than skeletons wearing lion clothes toiling on the brutal heat. They are
pictures that burn themselves into your subconscious.
The hotel was a
welcome relief from the draining events of the day. The Felix River Kwai Resort
overlooks the famous river and is just minutes away from the only surviving
section of the original bridge.
The room is
beautiful, two floors with two river facing balconies, one up and one down.
Teak wood walls and floors. Two bathrooms, one with a Jacuzzi just steps away
from the largest swimming pool I've seen. The sights of the day
have weighed heavily on me, but the exhaustion of the trip has caught up to me
and I embrace the comforting luxury of the hotel.
After a quick
breather I take a walk over to the bridge. It is unassuming, and teaming with
tourists and Thais who walk the tracks, even though there are no handrails and
the wooden slats that separate you from the water look suspiciously like they
need to be replaced. I didn't come all this way to chicken out now, so I
carefully balance myself and walk the original part of the bridge. Despite my
nerves, I find it quite beautiful. Flood season has just passed so the river
was filled to overflowing with a strong current that looks like it could easily drown
anyone who had the misfortune to fall in. Beautiful but deadly. Again I think
of the men who gave their lives to build the bridge. I wonder if they
saw any beauty here at all...
By four o’clock the
time change and constant travel had begun to catch up with me. I had been
warned about “the fog,” and it seemed by the late afternoon that I was
completely surrounded by it. The fog is a condition that happens when you have
been traveling a great deal, zipping through time zones. It is a dreamlike state
that envelopes you, making it impossible to think or even have a regular
conversation. Luckily I was alone in my room. My first reaction was to sleep,
but I was afraid if I slept now I would never adjust the time change. I
soldiered through, and as I got a tenth wind, the mist started to lift.
Even in the midst
of “the fog” I remembered not to drink the water. Before coming here I had
every shot known to man, and for a while I felt invincible, like a Superman who
was immune to anything the tropics could throw my way. Then I spoke with a guy
in the Thai Airline lounge in Hong Kong who was on his way back to Canada. His
stories of discomfort convinced me that I am a mere mortal, and have to be
careful what I eat and drink.
Dinner was at a
small outdoor restaurant called The Resort in town. We figured the place must
be pretty good because we were the only farang (foreigners) in the joint.
Delicious Thai food, with strips of fried basil and some very small chili
pepper that was so hot it made my dinner companion's tongue go completely
numb. Delicious, but deadly.
It is at the hotel
that I learn about the durian fruit. At the front gate is a familiar sight, a
sign with a large red circle with a line through it. We've all seen these.
No smoking... No Littering… No Dogs… No Film Critics… (I kid with you…) This
one, however, has something that looks like a piece of watermelon in
the banned area. I discover that it is something called a durian. Durian is a
fruit: a big, green thorny fruit native considered to be the "King of
the Fruit" throughout South East Asia. It has a creamy texture, and the
taste of its flesh sends its eaters into ecstasies (and it has the reputation
of being an aphrodisiac) But is has one drawback. It has an extremely offensive
odor similar to stinky feet or Limburger cheese. Or perhaps stinky socks
stuffed with Limburger cheese. In Thailand, I discover, it is illegal
to bring a durian into a hotel or on public transportation due to its
offensive smell.
This is hilarious
to me. You can buy deadly hunting knives at the street markets but
you can't take a piece of fruit into a hotel. I make it my mission to
track down a piece of durian fruit, although I'm told it is out of season.
I do the math and
figure out I have only had about ten hours sleep in the last three days.
I'm asleep before I hit the pillow.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2003
I wake up Sunday
feeling rested and on Thai time. The return trip to Bangkok takes considerably
less time on the way back. There are no "rotit mak mahs" (phonetic
spelling) or very bad traffic jams. That is the first Thai I learned... I
picked it up from the tuk tuk driver on Friday night, and with the state of the
traffic here it seems to be a good descriptive phrase to know, right up there
with "Where's the restroom?" and "Do you know where the hospital
is?"
We have breakfast
at the British Club. Wow. Founded on April 23rd, 1903 as a place for ex-pat
British business men to have traditional English food, play snooker and
generally keep the Empire's flame alive in Thailand. It is an elegant old
complex right in the middle of town that has been in constant operation,
except for the Second World War when Bangkok was occupied by the Japanese. A
large wooden sign in the lobby lists all the club presidents since 1903. The
years 1942 – 1946 are simply listed as “Club Inactive.”
Many famous people
have passed through the club’s doors – royalty, famous writers, and
dignitaries. In fact, part of the movie Comeback,
starring Priscilla Presley, Michael Landon and Edward Woodward was filmed
there.
After a traditional English breakfast (with scones!) in the Winston
Churchill Pub I toured the grounds, saw the snooker hall, the beautiful pool
and outdoor entertainment areas. It is a lovely oasis; you don’t really feel
like you are in the middle of a massive city. It is quiet and pastoral. And
best of all, cell phones are prohibited!
Next was a long tail boat ride up the Thai River. These boats an
affordable and unique way to see a different view of the city. We began the hour
journey at the Pier Takesin Bridge. It bustles with activity. People are trying
to sell you knock-off Calvin Klein wallets and wooden Buddha statues; while
others are fishing for their dinners and still others are trying to lure you
into renting their boats. The sights, sounds and smells are quite overwhelming,
but exhilarating.
We negotiate and get a long-tail boat for ourselves for 700 baht (about
$20 Canadian). They are indeed long-tail boats – the boat itself is roughly
thirty feet long with a pointed stern that is typically decorated with a
Buddhist good luck offering of silks or flowers. It isn’t the length of the
boat, however, that earns it the name long-tail. Off the back end is a ten foot
pole with a rudder attached. That’s how the captains navigate the boats through
the choppy river waters. To get the lay of the land I am talking about and to
see some really cool long tail boat action check out the James Bond flick The Man With the Golden Gun. The water
chase (or “motorboat mayhem” as it is called on the DVD) was actually shot on
this very river.
It is a spectacular ride, one that every visitor to Bangkok should take.
It really shows another side of the city. The Big Mango doesn’t look like Blade Runner as you glide through the
canals. Many of the houses are no more than roughly constructed shacks with
only three walls. They are left open on the river side for ease of fishing,
shopping from the rivers merchants and to catch any breeze that might happen by
on the swelteringly humid Bangkok days and nights.
It is a fascinating glimpse into the lives of the people who live along
the river. You do see the odd television and an occasional modern looking
refrigerator, but for the most part it is like looking at a living time
capsule. It is a lifestyle that hasn’t changed that much for many, many years.
It gets rather hot out on the water. To quench your thirst the river
merchants motor right up next to your boat. Their small crafts are laden with
odds and sods – wooden fans, food items, plastic toys – but most importantly
(it is to me anyway!) Singha Beer. Singha is the official beer of Thailand, and
was the first beer to be brewed here. We buy three; it is bad form not to buy
one for the captain and continue down to the end of the voyage at the Grand
Palace Pier. From there we take another boat, this time an express water bus to
bring us back to the BTS. This too is an incredible ride. We could easily have
taken a regular taxi, which would have been faster, but the boat is another
unique little piece of Bangkok that I wanted to experience.
It is essentially a bus on water. It docks at the small piers along its
route, much like a bus at a bus stop. Because the boat is so big a helper blows
a whistle, signalling the captain of the boat when he has to speed up or slow
down. It is quite a show, and these guys have it down to a science. Between
them they are able to dock, load customers and be back on the water in less
than a minute. The elaborate marine choreography is almost as impressive as the
view from the boat.
Bangkok has some of the best hotels in the world – The Peninsula and The
Oriental to name two – and both were on our route. It was as we passed them
that I realized that Bangkok truly is a city of contradictions where rich and
poor, new and old live side by side. It can be a confusing place but in its
disorder there seems to be strange kind of order. There has to be otherwise the
city couldn’t work, and it is this conundrum that makes it such a fascinating
place. I have been surprised by how little culture shock I am feeling. I
expected to be completely dumbfounded by this place and the language and
culture, and for sure there have been a few Lost
in Translation moments, but by and large I don’t feel as alienated as I
thought I would. For a country that is so protective of its culture and
language (Thailand is the only country that uses the Thai language) there are
many more English signs than I expected. Of course, I’m seeing ads for the new
Britney Spears album and The Matrix:
Revolutions everywhere I turn. As I walked past the Starbucks today, which
was next to the KFC, across the street from the 7-11 (there are 7000 7-11s in
Thailand) I realized that globalization is almost complete, and soon New York
and Bangkok and London and Paris will essentially be the same place, separated
only by religion, geography or customs.
That night we had dinner at an Australian bar called Busstop. You know,
I used to really like the Green Mango restaurants in Toronto. Good, cheap fast
Thai food was a staple of my diet, but since I have been here I have been
spoiled. Once again my dinner companion got the hot chilli that numbed his
entire head. I know my turn is coming. Later we went to a bar on the fault line
called The Blue Barbeque and got to know the staff, and DJ. The staff had
trouble pronouncing my name, so instead they called me James Dean, I guess
because of my slicked-back hair.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 17,
2003
I’m disappointed. I’ve been here for several days now and haven’t seen
an elephant. Ever since I found out that elephants are the only other animal
other than humans to cry when they are happy or sad I have been determined to
get up close and personal with one. Nothing yet, but if there are elephants to
be seen, I will find them (the durian fruit is proving to be equally elusive).
The day begins with a shopping excursion to the department store at Chit
Lom near the condo I am staying in. I’m looking to pick up some gifts and
further my obsession with buying new shirts. I have to admit it, I have a problem.
My name is Richard and I am addicted to buying shirts. One is too many and one
hundred isn’t enough. It has been four days since I have purchased one and I am
fighting the urge to buy! Buy! Buy!
As it turns out I don’t have to try that hard to control myself. As soon
as I walk into the shirt department and started eyeing the merchandise a
helpful young man approaches me and says, “We don’t have any big sizes…” These
are not the words I wanted to hear. Not only can I not find a shirt to fit me,
but I think he is implying that I am fat and out of shape. Maybe that’s just me
being paranoid, but all of a sudden I am regretting the cool new Snickers
Crunch! bar and the Chicken Namtog flavoured potato chips (made by a Thai
company called Tasto) I have eaten over the past couple of days. I move on with
what’s left of my dignity.
Ironically I take solace in lunch. After walking around and window
shopping I decide on a place called MK. I have been seeing them everywhere. It
is a chain of restaurants that is actually quite a remarkable success story.
The chain was founded by a woman who began her business by selling food on the
streets of Bangkok. She gave credit to people, cooked good food and turned her
small business into an empire. The idea is that you order your ingredients and
cook the food yourself in a broth-filled wok that is attached to your table. I
love the idea, and although I think I ordered poorly (I couldn’t really
understand the menu or the cooking instructions) it was really fun. I also
discovered that when you order an iced tea in Bangkok it comes with milk and
l-o-a-d-s of sugar, blended with ice.
I have been hearing a Thai rock band named Paradox since I have been
here. Apparently they are two young guys barely out of their teens who have
created quite a splash. I like their song Sexy
even though I have less than no idea what they are actually singing about. I
was joking to a friend that the boppy little pop songs on the album could
actually be about genocide, terrorism and George Bush for all I know, but
whatever they are about they have a good beat and you can dance to it. I have
tried a couple of stores and haven’t been able to find the CD; it’s very
popular and is sold out everywhere. I finally buy a copy of it at one of the
big department stores, along with some Thai hip hop and rock & roll by
Spydamonkee and Playground respectively.
I spent the rest of the day walking around and getting my bearings.
Being on my own in the city has given me more of a feel for it. I don’t have
the safety net of having someone with me who lives here as a tour guide, so I
have to figure it out for myself. The day goes well, I don’t get lost and I
manage to make it back to the condo on time and in one piece. For dinner we have chosen a restaurant / surf shop called Larry’s Dive
in the Klongtoey district. It is run by a Canadian guy from British Columbia
who has lived in Bangkok for about fifteen years. Despite their food service
guarantee: “Served in thirty minutes or its cold,” the food is quite good. If
there had been a problem with the meal, the menu suggests e-mailing complaints
to: prisonqualityfood@5-star-hotel-prices.com. It’s a pretty funny place
particularly because the guy who owns it isn’t named Larry.
From there we head back to The Blue Barbeque for a nightcap. We are
greeted with chants of “James Dean! James Dean!” which makes me laugh.
Hollywood movie culture has permeated Thailand in a big way. Aside from the
bootleg DVDs available on the streets, there are also many giant movie theatres
(I hope to visit one of the major theatres later this week) and there seems to
be a video store on every block. Once again I realize that movies really are a
universal language when I am trying to order fish in a restaurant from a server
who doesn’t speak a word of English. I try to say it in Thai (“bplah,” phonetic
translation: pla) and when that doesn’t work I mime a fish, making a shadow on
the wall. “Nemo!” she yelled, excited that she had figured out my bizarre clue.
One of the bartenders at The Blue Barbeque who witnessed my lame attempt
to order fish, and who speaks some English decided to teach me how to speak
Thai. She wrote Thai words for me in phonetic English and I then had to guess
what they meant. We started with “Khop khun krap,” which I knew meant “Thank
you.” Next was “Kid tung mark krap,” which I was told meant “Miss you so much.”
I asked her how to ask for some food in Thai. She wrote, “Pom lor mark.” When I
repeated this the waitress looked me quizzically and started to laugh. I found
out later it actually means, “I am a very handsome man.” When I left I asked
her how to say “Good night.” She wrote, “Khun Jiab soy mark mark krap.” Again
the other girls laughed. Her name is Jiab and she had me say, “Jiab is very,
very beautiful…” It was time to call it a night when I began falling for those
kinds of practical jokes.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 18,
2003
It’s the beginning of my fourth full day in Bangkok and I’m feeling a
little rough. I guess all the shots and vaccines in the world can’t prevent you
from having a headache after a late night in a bar.
I’m getting braver with the BTS all the time. Today I was able to go
further and transfer without getting confused or lost. I wanted to see the Jim
Thompson house which is reputed to be one of the best museums in Bangkok.
Thompson was an American architect who came here in 1945 as the Bangkok
head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a predecessor of the CIA. Like
many others when the war was done he stayed in Asia. In 1948 he founded the
Thai Silk Company. Through his expertise he revived the ailing silk industry
and became a celebrity in Bangkok. He was known as Thailand’s most famous
American, a local hero, and after his disappearance during a walk in the
Cameron Highlands in Malaysia in 1967 he became a local legend. He vanished
without a trace, leaving behind many unanswered questions – did he have a heart
attack, fall off a cliff or was the CIA involved? It’s all very season two of Alias.
Along with questions about how he died he also left behind a compound of
six teak houses which he had moved from the Ban Khura and Ayutthaya provinces
and reassembled in Bangkok. I managed to find the museum, but it was closed for
a special function, so instead I hired a tuk tuk driver to cart me around for a
couple of hours.
The tuk tuk thing is a bit of a scam, which I had heard about, but got
sucked into anyway. I spoke with the Thai attendant and told him I wanted to
see some Buddhist Temples (or wats as they are called in Thai). He said he
could arrange that, but also suggested a number of other stops along the way. I
wasn’t terribly interested in the Thai Promotional Center or The Thai Fashion
Center, but he assured me that they were on route and were well worth a visit.
Talk about “rotit mak mah” (traffic jam), we putted along through main
streets, side streets, alley ways in this noisy little tuk tuk that sounded
like a cross between a lawn mower and a chainsaw. It is a cool way to see the
city. With no doors or windows on the vehicle it’s up close and personal, but
also smelly, dirty and very loud. It sounds as though you are rolling down a
rocky hill in a large tin box. There is one cool thing about Bangkok traffic,
however. Recently they have hung large digital time clocks by the lights which
countdown the time until the light changes. It doesn’t help alleviate traffic
but it does help pass the time as you are stranded in a “rotit mak mah.”
The first stop was the Lucky Buddha – a small temple downtown known for
bestowing luck on those who visit. I stop in, removing my shoes before going
inside the wat, spend a few minutes then it is off to our next stop which is
the Thai Promotional Center. I have no idea what this is, but the tuk tuk
driver told me I would save 30% on any purchases I made there. What I would be
able to purchase he couldn’t tell me. I go inside and am immediately pounced on
by several well dressed sales people who try to convince me to buy rubies and
gold – all at 30% off market value. I excuse myself and quickly leave. I’ve
heard about the gem swindles in Thailand. I can live with getting conned by a
tuk tuk driver but parting with thousands of dollars for a worthless stone is
another matter.
I’m a little disgruntled when I get back to the vehicle, but continue on
to the next stop which is the Wat Traimit, home of the Golden Buddha on
Charoenkrung Road. It was a hellish ride which took a long time, but it was
worth it, the Buddha is spectacular. It is 700 years old, measures twelve feet
five inches and weighs approximately five tons. Did I mention it is made of
solid 18-carat gold?
It has a long and strange history. The Buddha was uncovered by accident
in 1955. While expanding the port of Bangkok workers for the East Asiatic
Company come across what appeared to be a simple stucco Buddha. The image was
kept at Wat Traimit under a make-shift shelter for twenty years until a crane
dropped it while moving it to a more permanent home. The plaster cracked
revealing the gold Buddha underneath. The statue had probably been encased in
plaster to hide it from Burmese invaders during the Ayutthaya period. It has
been on constant display ever since, and many local Chinese residents come here
to worship the Golden Buddha and earn merit by rubbing gold left on the
temple’s smaller Buddha images.
I’m in a better mood now, but am expecting another scam at our next
stop, the Thai Fashion Center. Sure enough, it is a tailor shop, specializing
in making high end shirts and suits. When I tell the guy I’m not interested in
buying a suit he kicks me out of the store. He was the first really rude Thai
person I have met, but I was too mellowed out after my visit with Buddha to
care.
Back at the tuk tuk I cut the ride short and have him drop me off at a
nearby BTS stop. I pay him 40 baht which is about $5 Canadian and swear off tuk
tuks forever. One more day of bombing around Bangkok and still no elephants (or
durian fruit)!
It’s been a long few days (and nights) so after a quick dinner at a
downtown restaurant called The Peak I come home, write this and call it a night.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19,
2003
Before I left Toronto my co-producer Claudio joked that I wouldn’t be
able to kick back and relax on my vacation, that I just couldn’t stop working.
I explained to him that I haven’t had a proper holiday for a long time and I
was more than capable of putting the show out of my mind while I was in
Bangkok.
I’m glad I didn’t bet with him because I would be a few bucks lighter if
I had. I did a couple hours of work on the plane, but that doesn’t count as the
vacation hadn’t officially begun, and on my first day here I had to return an
emergency work-related e-mail. Beyond that I swore I wouldn’t work. Today I
broke down, and checked my e-mail, work, personal and cell phone messages.
Spent the morning returning calls – even though it was night time in Toronto –
catching up on e-mails and trying to arrange a satellite interview with Billy
Bob Thornton for the film Bad Santa.
I would do the interview on the phone, while they shoot Billy Bob in New York.
The time difference would be a drag for me, as it would be one am in Bangkok on
Friday night… Anyway, I’m just glad I didn’t bet with Claudio.
I left the house at noon, and walked around the corner to an unusual
Buddhist shrine I saw from the street last night. It is located on a little
wedge of green between the river and the Hilton Hotel. In the daylight I could
see hundreds of phallic statues grouped around a large ficus tree and spirit
house. I discover that it is the Goddess Tuptin Shrine built by a monk called
Nai Lert for the spirit who was believed to live in the large Sai (ficus) tree.
As with all shrines, people offer gifts to curry favour with the
spirits. The basic gifts were all here: fragrant wreaths of “snow” – white
jasmine flowers, incense sticks and pink and white lotus buds – and offerings
of food. Less conventional are the phalluses that decorate the area. They are
all different sizes, they are stylized and realistic and there are hundreds of
them. The reason why this has become a shrine to the phallus is a bit of a
mystery, but because of the sheer number of the statues the shrine has
automatically been concluded to be dedicated to fertility.
It’s quite a sight, and I fill up the memory stick on my digital camera
taking pictures of it.
I’m going to take the BTS to the National Stadium stop, a tricky little
manoeuvre which requires transfers from one train line to another. The area
around the National Stadium is a good shopping district, and is also home to
the Jim Thompson House Museum. I went there yesterday but it was closed for a
special event.
I take my time getting there. I’m having a bad Thai day. For some reason
today everything seems a little harder than it should be. The BTS was really
crowded, it is scorchingly hot and I got turned around and wandered aimlessly
for a while. To combat the lost feeling I having I went to MacDonald’s for a
blast of western food. Even though I am halfway across the world the Big Mac
tastes exactly like it does at the McDs just around the corner from my house on
Bloor Street. One thing, however, strikes me as different. As I sit eating my
burger, a giant cockroach runs past. When I say giant I mean GIANT. To
paraphrase Woody Allen, this cockroach was the size of a Buick, and just about
as fast. No one is screaming or freaking out that a huge prehistoric looking
dino-bug is crawling around them while they try to eat, but several girls next
to me were clearly uncomfortable with it. One of them told a staff member, who
then approached the evil looking creature, but instead of killing it, she put
on a plastic glove, picked it up and deposited it outside. As a Buddhist she
isn’t permitted to kill the bug. This was the cockroach’s lucky day.
From Mickey D’s I try and find my way to the Jim Thompson House. It is
hard to find, and even though I was there yesterday, I get slightly lost. On my
travels I pass by dozens of street merchants. Most just have their wares on
small tables or blankets, and are selling everything from home cooked food to
lighters. And socks. Almost every one of them is selling socks, which I find
strange because hardly anyone here wears shoes. Everyone wears sandals, and
thankfully no one is committing my most hated fashion faux paus – the toxic
sandal with socks combination – so who exactly is buying the socks, and why are
there so many for sale?
These peddlers exist in the shadow of the National Stadium, the new BTS
and a giant shopping mall, another example of how old and new ways of life are
co-existing here. Bangkok feels to me like a city that is on the verge of major
advancement. A financial crash in 1997 left the city crippled – there are
almost three hundred and fifty abandoned office towers here. The skyline is
dotted with half built buildings, some are crumbling, others are now being
finished, some six years after being deserted.
In the last six years the city has gotten itself back on track. There is
construction everywhere and Bangkok has one of the fastest growing economies in
the world. Things are changing rapidly. A few years ago cell phones were only
for the rich. In a country where a decent meal for one can be purchased for 20
baht, they cost 42,000 baht and weren’t that common. Now they only cost 3,000
and are everywhere. Nose jobs too are apparently very popular, and only cost a
paltry $200 USD.
The BTS which connects the city with above ground trains has also
changed the complexion of the city. Areas that were difficult to get to before
are now becoming popular, and conversely, parts of town that aren’t near a BTS
stop are suffering. The train, (coupled with a new air conditioned subway that
is due to open in April), is going not only cut down on traffic and pollution,
but open up the city for business and construction. The times they are ‘a
changin’ in Bangkok.
I find the Jim Thompson Museum tucked away at the end of a crowded and
noisy soi (sidestreet). My guidebook says it is one of the most well run
museums in Thailand and I have to agree. Unlike the chaos which seems to
accompany almost anything you try and do here, the Thompson Museum is relaxed
and organized. For 100 baht (about $3 Canadian) you are given a ticket, a time
and a letter. The time on the ticket is your start time, the letter is your
group identification. At precisely the time on my chit a young women gathers me
and my group and the tour begins.
The houses are beautiful. In the mid-fifties Jim Thompson (for more on
him see yesterday’s diary) bought, restored and moved six ancient Thai houses
and reconfigured them into one stunning complex, surrounded by a wild garden.
Each room yields a treasure trove of antiquities, including eleventh century
Buddha statues, blue and white Japanese dishware and some of the region’s
oldest surviving paintings.
The tour guide supplied an encyclopaedia’s worth of information about
the house and some interesting trivia about Thompson. For instance, traditional
religious rituals were observed during the construction of the house, so much
so that Thompson waited until a lucky date chosen by an astrologer to move in.
After the official tour I spent time walking through the grounds and
having another look at many of the treasures. I spent most of the day there,
much longer than I had planned, but it is so beautiful and peaceful that it was
the prefect remedy to the Bangkok blues I had been feeling earlier in the day.
In the parking lot of the museum I also learned of another Bangkok
custom. In order to maximize space in parking areas, cars are double parked,
with the drivers of the outside cars leaving their vehicles in neutral. That
way when drivers of the pinned in cars need to leave all they have to do is
push the double parked cars out of the way.
The skies had darkened while I was at the museum, and I feared a rain
storm. Rainy season is over, but I am told that one of the legendary Bangkok downpours
could happen at any time. Not feeling like getting soaked and having to wade
through two feet of water I headed to the Grand EGV at the Discovery Center on
Rama 1 Road.
I had heard about the opulent movie theatres here and wanted to check
them out. Their slogan at the Grand EGV is “We’ll treat you like a star,” and I
have to say it’s kind of true. It is expensive by Thai standards, but is pretty
cool. A Gold Class ticket will cost about 500 baht (about $16 Canadian), and
entitles you to choose your seat, use the Gold Class lounge and sit in a
special VIP theatre. The theatre is quite large with rows of large, red leather
overstuffed seats that resemble a cross between a Lazy Boy and an airplane
seat. The seats recline to an almost flat position, and should you feel a
little chilly there is also a blanket and a pillow. There are conveniently
placed tables for your snacks, and when you order a drink, it comes in a glass
not a plastic container. If you need anything you just alert the hostess or host
who seated you and they will take your order.
That was the good part. The bad part was that I the only movie playing
there that I hadn’t already seen was House
of the Dead, a z-grade zombie flick based on a video game and shot in
Vancouver. I like horror movies, but this is so bad I almost have to wonder if
it wasn’t meant to be a spoof of brainless teen slasher / zombie b-movies.
There is a great deal of gory stuff, zombies and humans get their heads blown
off, legs are ripped from their sockets and at least one hottie gets thrown-up
on. It’s pretty graphic, which apparently is OK with the Thai censors who let
the scenes of carnage through with no cuts, but crudely blurred out the breasts
of two of the lead actresses – but only when they were on land, when they were
swimming underwater the breasts were unblurred and unfettered.
Even though the movie was a horrible waste of time, the experience was
great. Like North America there were lots of trailers, and several annoying
ads, but unlike our movie going experience, Thais are expected to stand and
“pay respect to The King,” while the national anthem plays. Just like North
America, though, nobody stays for the credits.
Tonight we a trip planned to Pat Pong, a notorious area of town named
after its one time owner, Chinese millionaire Khum Patpongpanit. It is probably
the most famous red-light district in the world, stemming from its origins in
the 1960s when dozens of Go-Go bars sprung up here to entertain airline crews
and GIs on leave from the Vietnam War.
To brace ourselves for the gaudy go-go bars of “the Pong” we first check
out an Irish pub called O’Reilly’s. A good mix of farang and Thais are eating
and drinking when we get there, and I am delighted to discover that it is happy
hour. A bucket of frosty Carlsberg hits the table, and we note that the labels
come equipped with a temperature gauge that tells you how cold the beer is. On
the back of the bottle there is a box with the word “cold” written in it. When
the bottles are frosty cold the letters are bold, and become fainter as the
beer warms up. Isn’t modern beer technology wonderful?
We are also there to see a Thai Beatles cover band that we have heard
are really good, but after waiting for some time we are told that they are
stick in traffic and won’t be arriving anytime soon. We leave and head for Pat
Pong.
It is only a five minute walk from O’Reilly’s but the streets are so
crowded with tourists and merchants trying to sell bootleg DVDs and CDs that
the walk takes about twenty minutes. I’m told that is pretty good time for this
neighbourhood. I’m also told to put my wallet in my front pocket and pay
attention to it as there are pickpockets around. During the day the streets
here are empty, it is an area that only really comes alive at night when the
prostitutes and vendors take over. Street vendors set up tables on every square
inch of the streets, and moving down the street to the bars is akin to running
a gauntlet with sellers yelling and grabbing, trying to get your attention.
We choose a place called Goldfingers, a charming little place whose logo
is a fist with the middle finger raised defiantly. As soon as I sit down the
bartender offers me a drink and a twenty-five dinar bill inscribed with a
picture of Saddam Husien. I have never seen one before so I pay him 200 baht
(about $3 Canadian) for it. The music is loud, the dancing girls
expressionless, and frankly I find the whole scene kind of sad. It’s not
decadent so much as sleazy, and I began to find the forced conviviality of the
staff kind of annoying.
I get separated from my friend, who I think has left without me. No
problem. The seediness of the place is depressing to me and I leave a full beer
on the bar and decide to shop in the street market. This is where I learn to
bargain. Like so many North Americans I usually just look at the price tag, and
decide to buy or not. I would never think to ask for a discount. Here you are
expected to bargain, and no price is set in stone. When a watch seller asks
2500 baht, you can always get a better price, and several times as I walked
away from a booth I would hear, “Alright 1000… 750… 500… 300… OK! OK! 200!” As
the night wore on the sellers were almost giving their goods away. I ended up
buying a really ugly tie for 60 baht, a small travel bag for 100 baht, a
decorated gift box for 200 baht (bargained down from 550) and a bootleg of the Kill Bill DVD for 100 baht. I was
curious about the DVDs. Apparently the police are cracking down on the
bootleggers, but you would never know it from my trip down Pat Pong. Kill Bill hasn’t come out here yet, and
the number one movie in North America that day, Elf, was also on sale.
I made my way back to O’Reilly’s bartering with street vendors and
pushing my way through the drunken crowds. The Beatle cover-band had finally
shown up and were near the end of their last set when I got there. They are
four Thai men who are closer in age to the Paul and Ringo of today, but dressed
in the white shirt, black tie style of the Beatles’ early Cavern period. The
instruments are authentic, right down to “Paul’s” Rickenbacker bass. This was a
real example of east meets west; of western pop culture insinuating its way
into the fabric of Thai life. I didn’t get a chance to speak with the band, but
from what I could make out from their between song patter they didn’t speak
English very well, but when they sang it was without a trace of an accent and
with perfect pronunciation. I can only imagine the slavish devotion these guys
have given the Beatles records they apparently love so much.
After O’Reilly’s I was on my way home. It’s about two am, and there are
hundreds of people on the street and the usual hellish Bangkok traffic so I
decide to walk part of the way back to the condo even though I’m not exactly
sure where I am. I got here on the BTS, and while it is closed now, one of the
great things about having an above ground train system is that you can follow
the tracks and retrace your steps. I also have a secret weapon, a homing device
that should lead me right to the front door of the condo – the address of the
place written in Thai.
I wait till I get to an area where the traffic has thinned and grab a
cab. I show him the note and he takes me to a street corner that I don’t
recognize. He doesn’t speak English, and I can’t get him to understand that
this isn’t where I need to be. No matter, the cab only costs a couple of bucks,
so I pay him and flag another. I show the second guy the note. He nods and
takes me on a ten minute drive depositing me on a side street I have never seen
before. Turns out my secret weapon, my address note is worth about as much as
the Saddam Hussien dinar I bought earlier I the night… that is to say, nothing.
By this point it is getting quite late, and the city is pretty much
pitch-black. Electricity is very expensive here so buildings do not leave their
lights on at night as they do in North America. I am in the dark, both
literally and figuratively. I can’t see any of the landmarks that I am so
familiar with in the daylight hours, and I try and use my cell phone to phone a
friend who lives here, but it has gone dead.
I am stranded and while I’m not getting panicked, Bangkok is a pretty
safe city, I am getting very frustrated that I can’t find my way home, and that
I can’t seem to make anyone understand where I need to go. I walk in the dark
for about an hour. The streets are in pretty bad repair, so I was trying to
keep an eye out for something – anything – that I recognized AND keep one eye
on the sidewalk so I didn’t fall. Infuriating. It didn’t improve my mood at all
when I fell into a pothole and banged up my leg.
Eventually I limp home, accidentally stumbling across the right side
street. I must have looked frightful to the man at the front gate as I hobbled
past with my torn pants and a sour expression on my face. Luckily he recognized
me and let me in, giving me the customary salute. The guards at the gate of the
condo are all ex-military and are very formal, saluting and clicking their
heels every time a resident passes.
It’s well after three am when I push the key into the front door lock.
It’s been a weird exasperating night and all I want to do is take a shower and
go to sleep…
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 20,
2003
I get a slow start to the day. My knee hurts, my cell phone is dead and
my secret homing device, my address note written in Thai, is useless. My
mission today is simple: First, get someone I can trust to write the address in
Thai. Second, juice up the cell phone. Third, get a get revenge on all taxi
drivers in Bangkok. OK, I know it wasn’t the cab driver’s fault that I didn’t
know where I was going and my written instructions were wrong, but dammit, I’m
still not happy about being stranded in the middle of a giant darkened city
where I don’t know my way around. Of course the only person I have to blame is
myself, and I will come around to that way of thinking eventually, but right
now I’m unhappy and my leg is throbbing.
My girlfriend calls from Toronto to tell me the self scooping kitty
litter box is broken. Great. Thanks for the call. Now I can look forward to
coming home to great big mounds of cat poo. The day is not improving.
It is ungodly hot so I decide to stay close to home and do my errands in
the shopping plaza next door. It is huge and looms large in the neighbourhood
and I have been using it as a landmark. Last night, however, it was completely
dark, like it had an invisible cloak slung over it and completely useless to me
as a marker.
On the way out I have the concierge of the building write detailed
location information in Thai for me. I will not get stranded again.
I don’t do any real sightseeing today, just poking around in the shops
and picking up some souvenirs. When I get back to the condo I decide to have a
look at the Kill Bill DVD I bought
last night. It is pretty good quality – although the picture is grainy and the
sound occasionally goes slightly out of sync – and has “Property of Miramax”
stamped onto the letterbox portion of the picture. It comes with a variety of
subtitle options – Thai, Malay, English, and Chinese – and scene selection. I
hadn’t expected so many special features from a bootleg. This clearly has been
copied from an industry screener – the “Property of Miramax” scroll which runs
the entire length of the film is a dead give-a-way – but I have to wonder how
it ended up over here. I haven’t watched the entire film, but the scenes that I
have watched seem to be somehow unfinished, as though this is a work print of
the movie. In some scenes there is no music, and there are sync problems, which
there simply wouldn’t be if this was a straight copy of the finished film.
Much has been made in recent months about bootlegging, and the origins
of the copies. In the last year the major studios have instituted a policy of
doing security at their press screenings, and while I can see their point I
don’t think it is the film critics that are clandestinely pirating the movies.
Clearly, as my Kill Bill DVD
demonstrates the copies are being made long before critics or the public get a
chance to see the films. It smells suspiciously like an inside job to me.
Perhaps the industry should take a harder look at themselves and stop searching
my bags every time I go to a screening.
As I soak up some air conditioning I take some time to reflect on the
trip so far. Despite the familiarity of many things – the small Nissan trucks
that seem to be everywhere, the English billboards that dominate the skyline,
the Mrs. Fields’ Cookie booth in the grocery store next door, Bangkok is an
exotic, strange place. I like the fact that Thais like to share everything.
Beer is typically served in large quart bottles meant to be split among a group
of people. Ditto with the food; splitting platters of food is the common
practice.
The traditional greeting, the wai – which consists of the palms being
pressed together and lifted towards the chin – is much more complicated than I
originally thought. It is loaded with complexities of class, gender and age.
According to my guide book each of these factors determines at which height the
hands must be held at. Certain people you do not greet with the wai, children
and street vendors for example. I have chosen to simply mirror whatever
greeting I receive, and so far have not run into too many problems.
The national anthem is played not only before all performances in
theatres and at the movies but also twice a day through the radio and in public
parks. At 8 am and 6 pm it is polite to stop and stand still for the duration
of the song. To not do so is seen as disrespectful to the King and the country.
By the way, Thais will not stand for any criticism or defamation of their royal
family. Disrespecting the King can lead to jail time.
There is a lot to absorb here.
We had dinner at a place in Nana called Woodstock. It is in The Plaza, a
dodgy looking three story complex of girly bars. As we walk up the stairs to
the bar we are accosted by women who are looking for our business. Inside
Woodstock is an oasis of normalcy. There is a pool table, a large wooden bar, a
good sound system that pumps out American tunes from the 60s and fully clothed
waitresses. In the corner a large screen television is tuned to a soccer game.
We have a quick bite – enchiladas and burgers – before worming our way back to
the condo through the busy streets. There is always lots of activity,
especially after night fall, but tomorrow we have a trip planned to Pattaya,
the infamous destination of US marines on R&R during the Vietnam War, so
despite the temptations the dark has to offer, I opt for an early night.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 21,
2003
The Pattaya trip has been delayed until tonight so I have some
unexpected time to continue roaming around Bangkok and checking out the sights.
There is a high tech looking food court in the shopping mall next to the condo
I have been wanting to check out, so I began my day there.
From the outside it looks like an upscale food court that you could see
in any mall. Two things set it apart – the spectacular view of Bangkok from the
wrap-around windows and a unique bar code system of payment. When you enter
they give you a card with a bar code on it, every time you order something they
swipe your card which registers your barcode number at the cash register. When
you are done they pull up your account and you pay one cashier instead of
paying each vendor individually. I tried to explore the whole place and ended
up with a bizarre variety of lunch foods – dim sum, a pizza slice, a small
noodle soup and a Caesar salad.
Fuelled up and ready to go I set out for the first grand ad venture of
the day. I have heard about the Grand Palace, and caught a glimpse of it from a
cab last week, but it is really far from where I am staying and so far I
haven’t had the courage to try and navigate my way over there. I had a Buddhist
tell me the other day that I have long ears – just like Lord Buddha – so I will
have a long and happy life. I am trusting her instinct on this, and assuming
that everything will go well on my journey to the Palace. I start the trip on
the BTS, transferring once and ending up at the National Stadium. From there I
have to get the number 47 bus which should take me right to the Palace.
It sounds really easy, but there are 93,000 busses in Bangkok, some of
them make regular stops, others are express busses. Express busses take longer
runs and don’t stop at every bus stop. If you’re not careful you could easily
find yourself on the outskirts of town, lost and traumatized. The other thing
to note is that while there is ridiculous traffic everywhere in Bangkok, the
bus drivers seem to have been trained at some Nascar racing school and drive as
though they are being chased by a herd of wild elephants.
I get on the first bus with a 47 on the side and ask if it goes to the
Grand Palace. The fare collector has no idea what I am talking about, so I give
her some money – about ten cents – and sit back for the ride. The buses are
large, with wooden floors and no air conditioning. Apparently there are busses
with air con, but they are more expensive and they haven’t caught on with the
hoi polloi. Traffic, or the rotit mak mah is extreme, but the driver seems to
be able to keep the pedal to the metal and keep us careening forward. We cross
several bridges, turn down dozens of side streets and motor on for about
twenty-five minutes. I’m getting concerned (and a little sea sick) so I get off
when I see some royal looking golden buildings in the distance. I figure I can
walk there and get my sea legs.
The buildings that I thought were the Grand Palace aren’t even remotely
royal. My fear has become reality. I am lost in some weird neighbourhood in
Bangkok. It’s hot, so I decide to sit and try to figure out what to do. I buy a
bottle of water from a street vendor. She didn’t have any ice and it was so hot
the water was almost boiling in the bottle. I wish I had a tea bag. In the
distance I see another number 47 bus weaving down the crowded street. I flag
down the bus, and the guy barely even slows down. I am determined to get out of
here so I run and jump from the sidewalk and make it on the back platform of the
bus. Someone pulls me in and I get a seat. I feel like James Bond. The fare
collector this time assures me I am almost at the Grand Palace, and I pay her
ten cents.
As we pull up in front of the palace I see why it is called “grand.” It
is a complex of dozens of buildings, mostly gilded with jade and gold.
Intimidating armed guards with sub machine guns are everywhere. As I walk
toward the entrance, which is jammed with people coming in and out, an
attractive woman approaches me with her hand outstretched.
“I’m from the Grand Palace, and I wanted to let you know that we are
closed today,” she said in perfect English.
“Really,” I said, “then why are all those people going in and out of the
gates.”
“They’re Buddhists,” she said, “only Buddhists are being allowed in
today. It is a holy day. Perhaps I could arrange a tuk tuk tour for you
instead.”
This clearly is a scam to sell tuk tuk rides. Just then I see a bus of
German and English tourists pull up and enter the gates.
“Are they Buddhists?” I ask.
“They must be,” she replied, and realizing she was caught kind of
scurried away.
The palace is
spectacular. Established
in 1782 it houses not only the royal residence and throne halls, but also a
number of government offices as well as the renowned Temple of the Emerald
Buddha. It covers an area of 218,000 square meters and is surrounded by four
walls, 1900 meters in length.
The center piece of the whole complex is The Emerald Buddha. Enshrined
on a golden traditional Thai-style throne made of gilded carved wood, known as
a Busabok, in the ordination hall of the royal monastery, the sacred image is
clad with one of three seasonal costumes (summer, rainy season and winter). The
costumes are changed three times a year in a ceremony presided over by His
Majesty the King. The Emerald Buddha is in fact carved from a block of green
jade and was first discovered in 1434.
Now I have to get back. I figure if I just go in reverse, that is, take
the number 47 bus on the other side of the street, I’ll be fine. I wait, and
wait for about an hour until the right bus comes along. Same deal, no air con,
wooden floors and a driver who seems to be on a race against time. The traffic
is thick and so is the air. You can actually see the smog hanging in the air
today. It looks like a low hanging blue cloud that envelopes the street. I
develop a sore throat from the pollution on the ride back to National Stadium.
Once safely in an area I am familiar with I was able to find my way
home, stopping first for some delicious noodles at a street vendor. The whole
meal, with noodles, chicken and a drink cost me about one dollar Canadian.
That night we went to an English pub to meet some ex-pats who have lived
in Asia for decades. Each of them told me a similar story. They had all come to
Asia to work for a year or so on contracts and never left. One man, originally
from Toronto, had just moved to Bangkok after almost twenty-five years in Hong
Kong. He was asking me about Yorkville, and if there were still coffee houses
there. The hippies moved out decades ago I told him, and the only coffee houses
there anymore are Starbucks. We stayed at the pub until eight o’clock, just
long enough for the traffic to die down. It never goes away, but it will be
lighter now.
The designated driver got the car and off we went to Pattaya. Well, off
we went around the corner. It took us almost an hour to round the corner to get
on the highway. I’m told the traffic here is really unpredictable, and part of
life in Bangkok is planning your day around how long it will take you to get
places. Apparently everyone is always really late or really early for
everything. No one is ever on time. I can understand why. We were stopped at
one red light which didn’t change for twelve minutes. Then when it did, it only
went green for about two minutes. In the two minutes we managed to move forward
about two feet.
Once we got on the highway the driving was easy breezy, and in two hours
we were in Pattaya. After checking into the Hard Rock Hotel we took a walk
downtown. Did I mention that Pattaya was a favourite spot for American GIs to
go and blow off steam during the Vietnam War? It is a still a pretty wild
place, with hundreds of open-air go-go bars lining every street in the downtown
core. It is pretty intense. There are hundreds of bar girls who approach you as
you walk down the street, grabbing you and trying to get your attention, and
they will follow you for blocks if they think you are interested.
Occasionally you see a go go bar that is indoors. If what I am seeing
outside is any indication I can’t even imagine what happens behind closed
doors.
We finally find a place that looks reasonable and order two beers.
Almost immediately a street vendor approaches me and tries to sell me a cage of
small live birds. No thanks. By the time we were ready to order another round
people had tried to sell us jewellery, ornate traditional Thai hats, postcards
and a Lemur (small monkey-like animal). The Lemur was cute, and I believe,
endangered, but there was no sale.
We stay until the end of the night, and make our way back to the hotel.
I’m staying in the Beatles Room, and have large portraits of John Lennon and
Paul McCartney hanging over the bed. It’s been a long day – the kind of day
that would kill an ordinary man – so I crash out under the likeness of Lennon
and dream of Lemurs.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22,
2003
Saturday is spa day! For the next eight hours or so I plan to lounge by
the Hard Rock Hotel pool in a rented cabana, sipping refreshing fruit cocktails
and soaking up the sun. It’s really hot, so I’m staying in the shade, but I’m
sure I’m getting a suntan through the thatched roof of my cabana.
The pool is massive, with a man-made sandy beach all around it. On the
other side of the pool is today’s “entertainment,” a lounge band from Malaysia.
They drone on for an hour or so, massacring everything from Sultans of Swing to Something Stupid. Their show coincides with the beginning of the
final World Cup soccer game. From the bar inside you can hear cheering and
shouting for the game, which at some points thankfully drowned out the band. At
the end of their set the singer thanked us for listening (like we had a choice)
and mentioned that “we’ll be in the lounge tonight…” I know I WON’T be in the
lounge tonight.
My idea of hell used to be an endless loop of Britney Spears singing a
duet with Barry Manilow. Now I know who the back-up band would be.
I have heard a lot about Thai massage and wanted to get one, but most of
the places in Bangkok looked like brothels disguised as massage parlours so I
took a pass. Here at the Hard Rock I felt comfortable, and it is my spa day…
The massage is unbelievable. It took about an hour and cost the
equivalent of $20 Canadian, but is worth so much more. I haven’t been pulled
and stretched like that every before. The woman giving me the massage looked
like she only weighed ninety pounds, but she had hands like vice grips, and at
one point was crawling around on my back like a spider. After we were done I
tingled for the next couple of hours. I haven’t felt this relaxed since 1982.
The idyllic spa day in Pattaya came to an end when the sun went down at
six pm. Hopped in the car and drove back to Bangkok. I have to pack as I am off
to Hong Kong in the morning. Somehow I seem to have more room in my bags for
the trip home than I did when I arrived. Don’t know how this is possible, when
I have been buying things left and right. Dirty clothes, I guess, don’t take up
as much room as clean ones…
For my last night in Bangkok we have decided to go to a place called
Admakers. It’s not far from the condo, has live music and is open late for
food. The place is packed when we get there, filled with Thais drinking and
eating, waiting for the headlining band to begin. It has been so hot that
mostly I have been drinking juices and beer, but tonight I felt like a gin and
tonic. When I ordered it the waitress asked if I would like a bottle. In
Thailand it is customary to buy an entire bottle, and if you don’t finish it,
they will put your name on it and keep it until the next time you come in. The
people next to us were working on a sixty ounce bottle of Johnny Walker, and
putting quite a dent in it. My friend is a regular at the bar, so when I
declined to buy an entire bottle of gin he and the server decided that it would
be OK to give me the bottle of another regular and they would settle up later.
Apparently I’ll be drinking some stranger’s gin.
The band were taking the stage just as a group of English soccer fans
came in. England won the World Cup earlier, and they were out celebrating. In
tribute the all-Thai band played We Are
the Champions by Queen, although they pronounced “champions” like the
French word for mushrooms. No matter, the Brits were happy to be the
“mushrooms” of the world.
Later the band played a note for note cover of Bohemian Rhapsody and a long passage from The Wall. If you had closed your eyes you would have sworn (except
for the occasional lapses in lyrical accuracy) that it was 1978 again, and you
were at an all-star classic rock concert.
The band were still head banging when I left, off to bed to get some
rest before an early morning flight to Hong Kong.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 23,
2003
It’s too early to be awake, and the car I hired to take me to the
airport is late. Quite late. Repeated phone calls to the Airport Associate car
agency don’t seem to be helping, so I have to resign myself to the idea that
the car will arrive when the car arrives, and if I miss my plane, I’ll just
have to get another one later in the day. I sit outside the condo waiting and I
can hear lizards crowing and birds sounding-off. Bangkok is almost relaxing at
this time of morning before the hustle and bustle of the day starts.
When the car arrives the driver assures me we will make it to the
airport on time. Much like the bus drivers I had earlier in the week, this guy
was apparently looking to set a new land speed record for driving in the city,
and we seemed to get to the airport in mere minutes.
I’m kind of back on schedule, which is good, because Bangkok airport is
chaos. So much for the relaxing sounds of lizards and birds. Now I am
surrounded by confusion, crowds and crazed travellers. There are line-ups
everywhere, none of which seem to go where I need to be. I spot an executive
class wicket with no line-up, and give them my ticket. Soon everything is good.
Someone comes and grabs my bags while another helps me find my way through
customs and to the Thai Airways Royal Orchid Lounge. I’m going to make my
flight, and I have time to chow down. I grab some tea and a weird assortment of
dim sum and sandwiches and wait.
The flight is packed, but whizzes by and soon we are in the Hong Kong
International Airport. It is a massive place, probably the biggest airport I
have ever been in – you have to take a train from customs to the baggage
carousel – but also one of the best designed. It’s very modern and quite
beautiful, despite the large photos of martial arts legend Jackie Chan that
seem to be everywhere.
I take the high speed train to Kowloon, it takes about half and hour and
costs a fraction of what a cab would cost. From there I transferred to a free
shuttle bus that dropped me off in front of my hotel, The Sheridan in Kowloon.
I’ve stayed in a lot of hotels, but I have never seen a bathroom like
this one before. All the fixtures (except the toilet, thankfully) were made of
see through glass. The sink was transparent, so was the counter and the tub.
Very cool. The room also had speakers wired throughout the place so you can
listen to music or the television no matter what room you are in. I need that
at home. This hotel room is way nicer than my house in Toronto.
I loved Hong Kong. It felt like New York to me, only amped up about
twenty times. I didn’t do anything special, just walked around and took some
photos of the hundreds of signs that hang over every street, overlapping one
another. It looks like a giant movie set.
Buying some postcards almost ended up being a traumatic experience. I
turned down a small alley toward a vendor selling souvenirs. As we did our business
I notice more stores further down the alley. When I get down there I see even
more stores up ahead. I explore and poke around. Do you remember the giant maze
in the movie The Shining? That’s kind
of what this strange underground mall was like. Hundreds of tiny little stores
and booths situated in this mind bending maze that went on forever. I got lost
for quite a while, and just when it seemed like I was never going to see
daylight again I exited into a smelly lane lined with garbage cans and populated
by mangy looking cats who were feeding on the trash. I ran the gauntlet toward
the street, avoiding the swipes and hisses of the street cats.
I haven’t been feeling well for a day or so, ever since my bus ride in
Bangkok where I breathed in enough toxic pollution to make Keith Richard feel
queasy. I head back to the hotel and transparent fixtures to get ready for
dinner. I’m just grabbing a quick bite from the buffet in the hotel restaurant.
I’m not even particularly hungry, but I should eat something. Here’s where Hong
Kong and Bangkok differ. In Bangkok I could grab a bite to eat for next to
nothing, in Hong Kong my buffet and a green tea cost almost $70. It was good,
but after spending so much time, and so little money in Bangkok it was kind of
a shocker.
After dinner I bought some cold medication from the pharmacy across the
street, loaded up on codeine and watched some TV.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 24,
2003
That’s it. The trip is over. All I have to do now is get home. Getting
from the hotel to the airport is easy, it was just everything else that seemed
really hard. I knew there was going to be big trouble in little China when I
tried to check my bags through to Toronto, only to be told that I only had a
ticket as far as Vancouver. Don’t get me wrong, Vancouver is beautiful, but I
didn’t want to get stranded there.
To buy a ticket from the west coast to Toronto was going to cost about
$2000, which was more than I wanted to pay. After several phone calls to the
airline it is discovered that it was them who made the mistake. I’m told not to
worry about it.
“Great,” I said, “let’s check my bags through to Toronto.”
“Well, we can’t actually do that for you,” I’m told. “We’re not sure
when you’ll be leaving Vancouver.”
At this point I realize that I should be worrying about the latter half
of my travel plans, but the plane is about to take off. I get onboard for a
thirteen hour flight, not sure if I will be stranded in Vancouver or on my way
home on the other end.
I decide to enjoy the flight as much as possible, after all there is
nothing I can do now but wait. After some artery-clogging pasta I sleep for a
time, watch several movies, have snacks, read and try not to think about the
frustration that lies ahead.
We land in Vancouver. I speak to the inappropriately named courtesy desk
people. They refer me to another desk about twenty-two miles away. Remember
what I said about the Hong Kong airport – how well run and well designed it is?
Well, the opposite is true of Vancouver. It is a rat’s nest of corridors and
ill conceived design. I find the desk, and after a really annoying conversation
with the attendant I manage to get a ticket for the flight I was supposed to
have been on all along.
On the final leg of the journey I let my mind drift back over the past
ten days. Asia was everything I hoped it would be – chaotic, exotic and
stimulating – and several things I didn’t expect it to be – highly Westernized,
hotter than blazes and strangely serene. I learned a lot and took hundreds of
photos, but now it is time to return to real – or maybe that should be reel –
life.
SHAKEY
TOWN: THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT JUNKET
JANUARY
10 – 12, LOS ANGELES
SATURDAY, JANUARY 10, 2004
It is freezing
in Toronto. Minus sixteen degrees, but with the wind apparently it feels like
minus thirty-five. If it feels like minus thirty-five isn’t it actually minus thirty-five? I don’t
understand. All I know is that it is cold. I swear I saw an old woman freeze
solid and snap in half just off of Bloor Street on Friday.
I mention the
weather because I am in a warmer place, a place where the ground shakes
occasionally and a latte at the corner Coffee Bean will set you back six
dollars, but at least it is sunny. Los Angeles. As I’ve written before it is
not my favourite place but right now I am so desperate for warmth that
yesterday I briefly considered lighting one of my cats on fire for the heat.
Saturdays are
never busy at the airport but I gave myself lots of time to check-in, clear
customs and security. I have been reading about recent changes at the border
and I’m not sure if I’m in for a rough ride or not.
Not, as it
turns out. I left my house at three-thirty and with the twenty minute drive to
the airport I get checked-in and checked-out by customs and security in less
than ten minutes. Because I am ahead of schedule and have lots of time the
plane is late and we leave half-an-hour behind schedule. Luckily because there
are no headwinds tonight we’ll still get in on time at eight-thirty.
The flight is
uneventful – I kill time eating chicken with a mysterious red sauce (should
have had the pasta), watching Finding
Nemo and part of Matchstick Men,
reading the new Elmore Leonard novel and listening to the new Danny Marks CD True.
I recently got
a set of BOSE headphones and a portable CD player. The headsets are
specifically designed for air travel. When they’re not hooked up to a CD player
they can be used to listen to the audio channels on the plane or, best of all,
they can also be used to block out sound. They create a cone of silence that
blocks out the crying babies, airplane noise and sends the message to the
person next to you that you don’t want to talk about politics, the weather,
sex, George Bush or anything else. They make all sound disappear. Too bad BOSE
doesn’t make something that would block out bad airplane smells.
Despite getting
a late start we arrive at LAX early and by nine pm I’m checked in to the Four
Seasons in Beverly Hills. I decide to take a walk and stretch my legs after the
plane ride. I brought a light jacket with me, but don’t need it as it is
sixty-five degrees. Coming from the deep freeze that is Toronto that seems
pretty warm to me, but I see the locals wearing toques and scarves. I notice
one guy in the lobby of his apartment building bracing himself for the cold. He
puts on a woolly hat and scarf, and pauses to check his look in the window. He
walks out the front door, across the sidewalk, gets into his car and then takes
the hat and scarf off! Good thing he had the hat and scarf. That might have
been a chilly ten second walk otherwise.
It is a
beautiful night, despite what the bundled-up locals might tell you. The
neighbourhood is lovely, a mix of those cool little 1930s stucco cottages and
mansions. Apart from the odd person going to or coming from their cars I don’t
see a soul. The night is clear and the moon is full, illuminating the Hollywood
Hills. It’s really nice, but there is always something about LA that I find
off-putting.
As I walk
around my mind wanders… Canada is not a country that tends to celebrate its
heroes, whereas Los Angeles is all about self-congratulation. As I drove in
from the airport I passed the Howard Hughes Parkway and the Avenue of the
Stars. Granted we have a Mike Myers Boulevard somewhere in deep dark
Scarborough, but we’re not generally in the habit of making grand statements to
celebrate our achievers. Where is Peter Gzowski Park? The Margaret Atwood
Atrium? Maybe Geddy Lee has a library named after him somewhere, but I doubt
it. We’re simply not a showy people. As a result we tend to admire our
celebrities rather than worship them. LA is such a celebrity culture that even
John Tesh has a star on the Walk of Fame. John Tesh. Go figure. Perhaps it is
the staid Canadian in me that that finds LA to be a little too much, a little
too shallow and a little too quick to say “Look at me!” or maybe I just spend
too much time alone thinking about this stuff…
I spend and
hour or so walking, making it all the way to the Sunset Strip before heading
back sufficiently tired to fall asleep.
SUNDAY, JANUARY 11, 2004
Up early to
grab a bite before the interviews for The
Butterfly Effect. I’m scheduled to start at 9:40, but I hear Ashton Kutcher
is running late. There’s a surprise. I load up on big American breakfast food
and wait.
At 10:15 I get
in a line to speak to Amy Smart. She has appeared in a wide range of films from
the good – How to Make the Cruellest
Month – to the bad – Campfire Tales
– to the ugly – Dee Snider’s Strangeland.
You’ll also remember her from the teen flick Varsity Blues, starring opposite James Van Der Beek. In The Butterfly Effect she plays the same
character four different ways: as a downtrodden waitress, a junkie prostitute,
a preppie frat girl and as a granola eating hippie chick. We discuss the film
and I tell her she is one of the few people I have met who was actually born
and raised in LA. She tells me that growing up here gave her a good grounding
for working in the film business. Living here she has seen it all – the ups and
downs – and has a good grip on life in Hollywood. I liked Amy Smart, she was
nice and lived up to her last name.
Ashton, as it
turns out, arrived while I was in with Amy. I didn’t see him come in, and
before you ask, Demi Moore was no where in sight. He was late, not because he
was goofing off, or out punking someone, but because he was downstairs doing an
interview with Access Hollywood.
When I get to
the suite Ashton is talking heatedly with one of his people about the merits of
Barry White vs Al Green. Ashton, who is dressed in a style I like to call
Hollywood homeless – uncombed hair, expensive jacket over an old white collared
shirt – prefers Al Green over Barry White.
I sit down and
am told the cameras are rolling and the clock is ticking. They have a lot of
interviews to do today and each one is timed carefully. Ashton doesn’t
acknowledge me, despite me having said ‘hello’ and sitting two feet across from
him. The White vs Green debate rages and my time with Ashton is running out and
we haven’t actually spoken to one another yet. Finally he finishes his point
and wordlessly turns to me. Half my time is gone.
I start to talk
about the theme of the movie and how random events can have side effects many
years later. He stares at me. I elaborate. More and more of my time is slipping
away, and Ashton doesn’t seem to have a clue what I am talking about. Finally I
say something that triggers a comment and he rambles about “self
responsibility” for the remaining time of the interview.
Times up. I
extend my hand to shake his and thank him (although exactly why I’m thanking
him is a mystery to me). He shakes my hand, but doesn’t say anything. I leave
the room not sure what to make of him. Like many pretty boy actors who are
trying to make the switch to dramatic roles he wants to be taken seriously. The
messy hair and aloof attitude are sure signs that Ashton the pretty boy has
been supplanted by Ashton the thespian. It’s a tricky transition and for every
Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp who has made the leap from pretty face to pretty good
actor there are many others who discover that high cheekbones can only take you
so far. The verdict is still out on Kutcher, but if The Butterfly Effect is the full extent of his dramatic skills
don’t be too surprised in a few years to find him taking gigs on that great
b-list dumping ground – the celebrity reality show.
I gather my
tapes, throw everything in my room and head downtown for a day of shopping and
sight seeing. It’s another beautiful day and in a quick phone call home I’m
told that a sleety, rain-like snow is covering Toronto. I’m happy to be away.
LA might be kind of ugly and not have any culture, but I’m willing to ignore
that and soak up as much sun as I can.
On the way out
of the hotel I have the first street celebrity sighting of the trip. Lara Flynn
Boyle is driving an SUV on Doheny Drive, dressed all in black, she is waving a
cigarette around like a baton. I can’t get a good look at her, but it appears
that she has an enormous head. I have heard that one of the keys to success on
the big screen is having a large head. If this is true I’m surprised she’s not
a superstar.
By midday I’m
at the Hollywood and Highland complex, home of the Kodak Theatre and the center
piece of the gentrification of downtown LA. There are five floors of stores and
restaurants connected to a courtyard designed to look like a soundstage on one
side and Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on the other. I grab a quick lunch at Johnny
Rockets. It’s a chain of retro burger joints that was, apparently at one time,
Billy Wilder’s favourite place to eat. I order the kind of greasy, deep-fried
food that killed John Wayne. My cheeseburger is topped with deep fried onion
rings! Heart-clogging goodness! It takes a brave and courageous soul to eat
like this…
On the way back
to the hotel I walk past many sidewalk patios on the Strip. I try to image what
this area must have been like in the 1960s before it went high-end. I picture
hippies and go go bars, surfers in their Woodies and people in tie dyed shirts
holding protesting the war in Vietnam and talking about free love. All that is
a long distant memory now. The free love has been replaced by The Hustler Store
where you can buy “love toys” but they certainly ain’t free. The only tie dye
in sight is in the window of the Dolce and Gabbana store and probably costs
more than a vintage VW Westphalia van and a bong put together.
My little
nostalgic reverie is broken by a homeless man who has approached one of the
restaurants. He is yelling at the Gucci clad diners, miming holding a gun. He’d
line up an imaginary shot, yell BAM! and laugh maniacally. He was no threat,
but it was unsettling.
A few minutes
later I am walking past a strip mall and have lost track of the homeless guy.
Suddenly someone grabs me from behind. My heart jumps and I assume it is Mr.
Bam! from the patio. I quickly turn and was quite shocked… it was my friend
Stefan Brogen on a break from shooting Degrassi:
The Next Generation. We get caught up, trade some gossip and then I’m on my
way. I have been out walking around for almost seven hours and my dogs are
barking. Despite having loaded up on grease at Johnny Rockets I’m hungry again
and order some food to my room. Eight giant prawns and a Cobb Salad later I
settle in for a night of VH1 and Queer
Eye for the Straight Guy.
MONDAY, JANUARY 12, 2004
I don’t like
getting up early. I am a night person, and usually avoid the early hours like a
kid avoid homework. Having said that, the three hour time difference actually
works in my favour when getting ready to go back to Toronto – six am is
actually only feels like nine am, still odious, but doable.
LAX is usually
a bit of a zoo even on slow days, so I’m giving myself lots of time. When I get
there I see line-ups everywhere, except at the American Airlines counter. This
could either be a good thing or a really bad thing. Turns out to be a good
thing – once I had checked in, had my bags examined, all I had to do was clear
security. That’s the problem. The security check at LAX is located, I think, on
the Seventh Level of Hell. To get there you must first shuffle through a
maze-like series of line-ups, fighting demons all the way. OK maybe they aren’t
real demons, but I think the people they have running this whole operation only
have one purpose in mind, and that is to make it devilishly hard for you to get
through the maze without screaming.
Once I got past
the spirit-destroying chaos of the security check it was clear sailing. The
flight is one time, and Joyce DeWitt, Janet from Three’s Company, is sitting a couple of rows ahead of me. I saw her
at the departure lounge and she looks good. She does, however, have a normal
sized head which might explain her lack of roles post Three’s Company. She still has the Janet haircut and doesn’t look
much older than she did when she was on television every week.
I was amused by
an announcement from the Captain. It was usual kind of thing right up until the
last line. He began by telling us about the flight, then about the weather in
Toronto and our approximate flying time. Then he added that the flight crew
working this flight were the best on the planet. This became funnier as the
flight progressed. I heard one of the “best flight attendants on the planet”
tell one customer that they had run out of tea bags, and in future if she
really wants to drink tea when she flies she should bring her own bags. Another
managed to bump into virtually every seat each time she walked down the aisle.
When I asked another one what kind of pasta there was I was told penne,
although she pronounced it “penny pasta.” If this is the pick of the litter I’d
hate to see the b-team.
I pass the time
watching the in-flight entertainment. I haven’t seen the movie, so I kill
almost two hours watching Denzel Washington race against the clock toward a
ridiculous conclusion in Out of Time. It’s not a very good movie, and I think
my time might have been better spent giving some etiquette lessons to the
flight attendants. Maybe next time.
We arrive on
time, and I watch Joyce DeWitt and playwright Brad Frasier joke and chat in the
customs line. They are one or two lines away, stuck in a slow line. Lately I
have somehow developed an uncanny knack of being able to always choose the best
customs line. My line buzzed along and I was out the door and getting into a
cab I’m sure before they were even halfway to the front. If I could bottle this
line-choosing ability I’m sure I could make a fortune from frequent flyers.
Home. It’s cold
and has snowed while I was away, but it feels good to be back. LA might have
the sun and surf, but can you build a decent snowman there? I don’t think
so.
GANGS OF NEW YORK JUNKET ON-LINE DIARY – NEW YORK DEC. 6 – 7
Friday
December 6, 2002
My horoscope
for Friday says, “Life looks a bit grim today.” I have a long day of
travelling, seeing movies and running around today, and I refuse to accept that
particular celestial prophesy. So I check another paper. “If a partnership is
not working out the way it should…” This one isn’t shaping up very well either.
I’m willing to read every newspaper and magazine on the airplane until I find a
horoscope with some good news. OK, I check the Toronto Star. More bad news. What am I doing on an airplane? It’s
not like I really believe in horoscopes, but I do occasionally read them, and
I’m just surprised that all of mine are so negative. I didn’t think they’d tell
you really bad things… Anyway, I finally find some hope in the pages of Vanity
Fair. “Just because you are experiencing a little retrograde blip in your 3rd
solar house…” (WHAT!) I won’t share the whole new agey thing with you, but to
sum up, it basically says everything is going to be OK, which is good because
it is my second trip to New York this week, and I’m tired and grumpy.
Luckily I’m not
superstitious, (despite my little freak-out about the horoscope) because if I
was I would never have gotten on either of the out going planes from Toronto.
On Monday I left from Gate 13. GATE 13! I didn’t know they had Gate 13s. I
assumed that they wouldn’t, just as most hotels don’t have 13th
floors. Then today I scheduled to leave at 1 pm, or 13:00 on the 24 hour clock.
Seriously, I know people who would have let this get the better of them. Not
me, I bravely forged on and got on the plane, mostly because I had a First
Class ticket, courtesy of my friend Teri Hart who wheeled and dealed us into
the pointy end of the plane with the bigger seats and decent food.
On Monday, as I
reported in an earlier diary, I flew American Airlines with disappointing
culinary results. This trip was a vast improvement with a light lunch of cold
chicken, pesto pasta shells, some brie and a spinach salad with roasted garlic
and chive dressing. For dessert there was Lindor chocolates. I have eaten
better food for sure, (Air France still takes the award for best in-flight
food) but at least this was a bit more substantial than the packets of pretzels
they heave at you on other airlines.
Our flight was
on time, which I found surprising considering that New York had just been
buried in snow. I left last Tuesday and it was cold, but still quite pleasant.
On Wednesday they got more snow than they had all of last winter. By the time I
arrived on Friday most of it was gone, but travelling by car was still a
take-your-life-into-your-hands kind of proposition. We got stranded at
LaGuardia (located in the aptly named town of Flushing, NY) for a while because
there simply were no cabs to be had. None. There was a huge line, and every ten
minutes or so one lone cab would come by, pick up the first person in line and
the rest of us would shuffle a couple of inches towards the front, like cows on
the way to the slaughterhouse. Then a slightly sleazy looking man named Larry
approached us and asked if we wanted to take a limo downtown. He’d give us a
lift for fifty bucks, which is about twice would it would normally cost, but
the option was to stand in line and slowly grow old, or get downtown before my
next birthday. We took the limo. What he didn’t tell us is that we would be
sharing it with seven other people. It was starting to feel like a shady deal, but
we really didn’t have a choice, now that we had left the line whatever progress
we had made towards the front was lost, and we’d have to start all over again.
So we hop in with the other passengers – five elderly ladies from Alabama and a
father and daughter from Richmond Hill, Ontario.
It was cramped,
with one old woman virtually sitting on my lap. Her name was Kathryn and she
hails from Jacksonville, Alabama. In the course of the trip we learned that she
agrees with “that Canadian woman who called Bush a moron,” has an “unmarried 36
year-old son named Brendan,” has been married twice, and has a Chihuahua-Jack
Russell terrier mix named Little Patches. She was hysterical, with a lovely,
sing-songy Southern accent. Little did I know at the time that save for
travelling companions, she would probably be the nicest person I would speak to
over the course of the weekend. More about that later.
Get to the
hotel in time to check in, drop off my bags and leave immediately to see Gangs
of New York at the AMC Empire Theatre in Times Square. The Essex House is a
fine-looking old art deco New York hotel with a great view of Central Park – I
can see the skating rink from my window, and hear the clomping of the horse
drawn carriages – and very central. The hotel is just steps away from Carnegie
Hall, Columbus Circle and shopping on Fifth and Madison Avenues. Close-by is
Saks Fifth Avenue, Museum of Modern Art, Radio City Music Hall, St. Patrick's
Cathedral and Rockefeller Center. Too bad I’ll be too busy to actually see any
of this stuff…
It’s dark by the time we get to the theatre, but Times Square is so lit
up it seems like mid-day. The theatre is huge, with twenty-five screening
rooms. Never have I seen so many escalators. We worm our way through the maze
of hallways and escalators – it kind of looks like that famous M.C. Escher
painting of the interconnected stairways – until we get to theatre number
seven. The seats are like large leather airplane seats, which is good because Gangs of New York clocks in at almost three
hours. I grab some popcorn, some pretzels with a dipping sauce and two cokes
($15.50 USD) to share with Teri. We’ve been talking about the French Onion Soup
at the Essex House all day. She claims it’s the best in the world, but we
didn’t have time to have any. Maybe later, for now we’re stuck with fake
cheese, fake butter, popcorn and pretzels.
I have been curious about Gangs of
New York for some time. I know that Martin Scorsese originally wanted to
make this movie about twenty-five years ago, but it kept getting shoved to the
back burner. Even in it’s most recent incarnation it seems to have taken some
time to get to the screen. Leonardo DiCaprio has been circling around this
script since he was seventeen, well before his success with Titanic, and
in fact he told me he actually even changed agencies to make himself more
available to Scorsese. The director always takes a long time to edit his films,
sometimes as much as a year-and-a-half or two years as in the case of The Last Waltz, but Gangs has been so highly anticipated, that the delay raised doubts
in people’s heads. I have been hearing rumblings from people that the constant
delays and changing release dates signify that the movie isn’t any good. That
if they had a winner they wouldn’t have done re-shoots. Well, that’s all just
conjecture. I’ve seen it, and while you’ll have to wait for the whole review
later this month on Reel to Real,
rest assured, Gangs of New York isn’t
Martin Scorsese’s Heaven’s Gate.
Daniel Day Lewis hands in a great performance as Bill the Butcher, leader of
the Nativists and the supporting cast of British and Irish actors are
impressive. It’s a good movie with plenty of Scorsese’s trademark visual
flourishes and an interesting story. Tune in to find out more.
After the movie we make our way down the maze to a chartered bus that
will take us back to the Essex House. I finally get to have my French Onion
Soup, although by this time it’s edging up to mid-night. Soup, a couple of
drinks in the bar and its bedtime.
Saturday December 7, 2002
What has happened to E! News?
It’s absolutely terrible. I got up early this morning to the music of clomping
horse hooves in Central Park, switched on the television and was assaulted by
the most lamebrain, empty headed drivel I have seen in a long time. Is this
what now passes for entertainment journalism? I could only watch a couple of
minutes before my disgust got the best of me and I changed the channel.
After my shower, as I am loading up my travel case with all the little
soaps and shampoos from the room – the Essex House has particularly nice ones –
I am still marvelling at how insipid that show was. Little did I know I was
about to spend the rest of my day with people exactly like the ones I turned
off the TV to avoid.
My first interviews of the day were for a film called The Pianist. I missed seeing it in
Cannes this year, where it deservedly won the top prize. I haven’t liked the
last several Roman Polanski films, but I saw The Pianist a week or so
ago in Toronto and was very moved. It is an incredible film, with a beautiful
lead performance by Adrien Brody.
The interviews are running a bit late, so I have a bite to eat in the
hospitality suite. It’s the usual stuff, eggs, bagels, bacon, home fries, and I
strike up a conversation with one of the American junketeers while I am eating.
“I just came back from doing the interviews,” he said.
“How’d they go?” I asked.
“Fine,” he said, “but I didn’t know Thomas Kretschmann was German. I
would have asked him all kinds of different questions had I known.”
I don’t bother to point out to him that the last name alone might have
been a give-away. Or perhaps that he plays a German in the film, or even that
if he had bothered to read the press notes that we were all given that the
first line of Mr. Kretschmann’s biography reads, “Thomas Kretschmann, born in
East Germany…” Instead I sat there quietly with my eggs marvelling that this
guy has the nerve to call himself a journalist. I wonder how he has managed to
hang onto his job, when even the simplest tasks, like doing some research, are
clearly beyond him. Later in the day I hear a story about another junketeer who
asked George Lucas “whether Dark
Vader was a good guy or a bad guy.” Honestly, it’s enough to make a hungry guy
like me loose his appetite.
Anyway, my interview with Adrien Brody is first. He’s an impressive
young actor who began acting at age twelve. He’s one of those guys that you
probably would recognize, but not necessarily know his name. Movie buffs will
recognize him from strong performances in Harrison’s Flowers, Bread
and Roses, Liberty Heights and The Thin Red Line. He may be
one of those “I know the face but not the name” guys now, but that will change
with the release of The Pianist. He’s in every frame of this movie, and
hands in a memorable performance, one that will probably be recognized when it
is time to hand out the Oscars. He’s quite thin, but very intense. We talked
about the responsibility of playing a true-to-life character, and working with
Roman Polanski, one of cinema’s greats. He felt a great deal of pressure to get
it right because part of the story is based on Polanski’s experiences in the
Warsaw Ghetto. See the rest of the interview on Reel to Real later this
month.
Next up was Thomas Kretchmann.
He has a small but pivotal role in The Pianist, and we talked about many
things, and he asked about my last name. I explained that Crouse is a German
name, but when my great-great-Grandfather came to America he didn’t speak any
English and the customs people changed the spelling from Kraus to Crouse, and
we have used that spelling ever since.
The rest of the day was spent waiting… and waiting… to interview the
cast of Gangs of New York. As the day wore on it became painfully
obvious that the situation was out of my control. There were a lot of press
there and everyone was vying for the interviews with Cameron Diaz, Martin
Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio and Daniel Day Lewis. My interviews were supposed
to start at 3 pm, but by the time I actually sat down with Lewis, it was well
past dark, and the talent was tired, and so was I. At 4:30 I heard one of
Lewis’ people ask how many interviews they had left. Keep in mind they had been
going since 9 am, and the day was almost over. “Not too many,” said the
handler. “Only about 23 more.” Wow, it’s amazing to me that the actors have
anything left to say after doing 50 or more interviews on the same day. At one
point Lewis came out of his suite and hung out in the hallway. “I’m going to
stretch my legs,” he said. “It’ll be better in the long run… I’m turning into
the shape of a chair.”
I was concerned about the Daniel Day Lewis interview. I don’t know why
but I had the idea that he would be very difficult, but just the opposite was
true. He was very relaxed, and when he found out I was from Toronto he wanted
to discuss Bowling for Columbine and the famous scene where Michael
Moore goes door to door and finds many of them unlocked. I told him my door is
always locked, and while Toronto is safer than many American cities we still have
our own problems. He’s very good in Gangs, and I felt very lucky to
speak to him, as he doesn’t make very many movies and doesn’t often speak to
the press.
More waiting… then Cameron Diaz… be still my beating heart. She’s funny,
lovely and a good interview. When Harvey Weinstein, the head honcho of Miramax
poked his head into the suite to say hello she sat up and yelled “Pappy!” When
I left I congratulated her on the film. She said she’s very proud of it, and
even though there are a lot of interviews scheduled today, she’s more than
happy to talk about a project she really believes in.
At this point, after a long day of waiting around I’m told that the
Martin Scorsese interview isn’t going to happen. I’ve spoken to him before, so
I wasn’t too upset, but I would have liked the chance to speak to him. He’s one
of the best filmmakers going, and a very interesting guy. There is an energy to
him that I have rarely ever seen before. He has a very domineering personality,
a strength that comes through in his work. In the end though, it would have
driven me crazy to only have a couple of minutes to chat with him. I’ll wait
for another time when there is time to have a proper conversation.
More waiting. Everyone is getting edgy. Leonardo DiCaprio is my last
interview of the day, and he is getting burned out. A long day of talking to
the press has taken a toll on him, and all he wants to do is stand in the
hallway and smoke cigarettes. Can’t really blame him, but I need this
interview, so I struggle on. I finally get him, two and a half hours later than
originally scheduled, and he put on a good game face. We discussed his
character, and the fact that he has been attached to this project for a very
long time. See the whole interview on Reel to Real later this month.
I have what I need, finally to do a story on Gangs of New York,
and make my way to airport. The snowfall of a couple of days ago has made
travelling in the city difficult, and when I finally get a cab, it is quite
late and I’m in danger of missing my flight. It’s only seven miles from the
hotel to the airport, but it takes about 40 minutes to make the trip and cost
about $20 US. When I get to the airport there is no one there. It’s a ghost
town. I thought maybe something had happened and the place was shut down.
Actually, though, because it was late Saturday night there are very few
flights, so I breeze through check-in and just make it to the plane.
The plane is empty, so I catch so sleep, and land in Toronto just in
time to make it home and catch Saturday Night Live. Funny to run from
one city to go home and watch a show shot in the city I had just left.
When I get back I check my
e-mails and discover that I am booked to do one more trip to New York next
Friday. FRIDAY THE 13th! As I said earlier, it’s a good thing I am
not a superstitious person.
Talk to you soon,
Richard
NEW YORK ON-LINE DIARY:
OCTOBER 2 – 6, 2003
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2003
It doesn’t seem
to matter what time my flight is, 5 am or 5 pm, I always find myself scrambling
to get to the airport with a ticket in one hand and a packed bag in the other.
On Wednesday night I decided not to pack because my flight didn’t leave until 2
pm on Thursday. You would think that should give me loads of time to get ready.
Wrong. Once again I found myself in the back of a cab, shoving rumpled clothes
into a suitcase and wishing I was better organized.
The flight is
on time (even though I’m not) and I barely make it on the plane. As the big
steel door shuts behind me and I take my seat a little rush of anticipation
washes over me. I’m off to one of my favourite places, New York, at my
favourite time of year and I’ll be seeing Kill
Bill. Not bad for a Thursday.
Here’s just a
bit of a rant about LaGuardia airport. Like so many places the washrooms don’t have
paper towels to dry your hands with, just hand blowers. I guess environmentally
it makes sense, but when the dryer only has the wind power of an asthmatic
kitten breathing lightly on your hands it isn’t very effective. I always forget
about this when I’m there and invariably end up with dripping wet hands at the
baggage carrousel…
In keeping with
the hurried spirit established earlier in the day I arrive in New York behind
schedule and don’t have time to check into the hotel. I leave my bags with the concierge
and rush down to Loew’s Kips Bay Theatre on 32nd Street to catch an
early screening of In the Cut, a new
film from director Jane Campion. I missed it at the film festival this year,
and although it received mixed reviews, a number of people whose opinions I
trust said they really liked it.
This is a press
screening so there is only a handful of people in a giant theatre. A handful of
people… and one tiny little mouse. It is amazing how something so small, so
harmless can hold a group of otherwise sensible people hostage. You could tell
where the mouse was by the gasps and the screams of “Kill the mouse!” that
would erupt from random corners of the house. Being more Buddhist in nature I
yelled “Live free or die,” as the little critter scurried past me, and my pal
Teri who was sitting next to me reminded those who decided to leave rather than
deal with the horrors of the tiny rodent, that the mouse wasn’t going to chew
through their shoes, so they should just relax.
Those of us
brave enough to expose ourselves to the demonic rodent settled down once the
movie began. Starring Meg Ryan and Mark Ruffalo, In the Cut is a dark crime drama based on the best selling novel by
Susanna Moore. It reminded me of the gritty New York dramas of the 1970s that
were about the soft underbelly of the city, films that portrayed NYC as a
great, but failed social experiment, populated by alienated outsiders searching
for some meaning in a city that was running out of control. This is not the Meg
Ryan New York of When Harry Met Sally,
this is a place filled with existential dread, where every alley is menacing
and danger is woven into the fabric of everyday life.
Everyone is
making a fuss about the risky nature of Meg Ryan’s performance in this film.
Sure, she’s naked and has some pretty racy sex scenes, but let’s not forget,
this isn’t the first time she has appeared nude on-screen. By her own count it
is the fourth time she has doffed her clothes in front of the camera. At this
year’s Toronto International Film Festival she admonished one reporter who
asked her about doing her first-ever nude scene for this film. “I’ve appeared
nude in other films,” she said, “apparently I wasn’t very memorable in those.”
Also, In the Cut isn’t about the sex
scenes; it’s about relationships and trust.
At any rate,
anyone who isn’t easily distracted by Ms. Ryan’s exposed skin will notice that
the performance to watch in the film is Mark Ruffalo as Detective Malloy. It is
his most ambiguous role to date, and despite a cheesy moustache he brings a
Brandoesque passion to the part. This is the kind of character that we don’t
get to see very often in the movies anymore, a real anti-hero who rides the
line between being a compassionate man and a total creep.
After the
credits rolled I went to the lobby and grabbed some food then turned around and
went back inside to eat a quick dinner with the mouse and see Elf. It’s
a very different view of New York City than the previous movie. Will Ferrell
plays a human adopted by Santa’s elves who travels to NYC to meet his real
father. The NYC of Elf is awash in Christmas lights and as sweet as a
candy cane. It’s as frothy as an eggnog latte at Starbucks, but also very
funny. Will Ferrell is very winning as Buddy, and it is his performance that
keeps the movie on track and prevents it from becoming sickly sweet or
manipulative. It’s the kind of film that could slip into easy sentimentality,
and with an over-the-top Robin Williams or a lesser comic in the lead role it
certainly would have, but Ferrell makes it work. See the full review on Reel
to Real in early November.
After the movie
we went to the Toys R Us store in Times Square for a reception – fancy snacks,
gingerbread cookies and Elf martinis. A couple of vodka candy cane
specials later and it was time to check into the hotel and crash.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2003
Woke up early
to prepare for a long day. As I unpacked everything I realised I had brought
way too many clothes for a four-day trip. I have nine or ten ties alone, and
have brought so many shirts I have to order up more hangers from room service.
Note to self: Next time don’t pack in the cab.
The day began
with the Elf interviews at the Regency Hotel in midtown. I spoke with
Zooey Deschanel first. She was holding a large teddy bear and spoke very loudly
for some reason. Next was Mary Steenbergen who I have interviewed a number of
times, most recently at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. She
told me the funniest on-set gag was watching James Caan trying to maintain his
focus and not laugh when Will Ferrell was doing his thing in the giant elf
costume.
I was a little
nervous about speaking to James Caan. One of the first films I saw on my own at
the theatre was Rollerball when I was eleven or twelve, and I have
admired his work ever since. I’ve also heard that he can be a difficult
interview, and is a no nonsense kind of guy. I guess that makes sense from
someone who spent nine years on the rodeo circuit and has a black belt in
Karate. Instead I found someone who was eager to talk, and was very funny. In
the film he plays a hard-hearted publisher of children’s books, and I asked him
he if based the character on anyone in particular. “You,” he said, “I looked
you up on the internet and based the character on you…” You’ll see more of my chat
with James Caan in early November.
I also wasn’t
sure what to expect from Will Ferrell. His comic persona is so over-the-top
that I have expected to walk into his room and find him wearing only his
underwear and a dunce hat. To my relief he was fully dressed and very sedate.
He greeted me warmly and thoughtfully answered each of my questions. Near the
end of our chat I asked if he considers himself to be a serious person. Tune
into Reel to Real to hear his answer.
I was really
looking forward to the last two interviews of the morning – two classic TV land
actors, Ed Asner and Bob Newhart. You can’t help but envision Lou Grant when
you meet Asner, and as I was talking to him I couldn’t help but think of some
of the legendary moments from the Mary Tyler Moore Show. My favourite moment
comes from the very first show of the series. “You’ve got spunk,” Lou Grant
says to Mary. “Why thank-you,” she replies. “I hate spunk!” he barks. It made
me laugh then, and makes me laugh now.
When Asner
found out I was from Toronto he told me that he had spent a lot of time in the
city, and once guest edited the Toronto Sun. As a thank-you they sent
him a red Toronto Sun newspaper box filled with booze.
Just before
lunch I spoke with Bob Newhart, my last interview for Elf. When I was a
kid one of the first records I remember was a comedy album called The Button
Down Mind of Bob Newhart, and I had always enjoyed his shows. We talked
about the use of forced perspective rather than computer generated special
effects to create Newhart’s elfin appearance in the North Pole scenes. He told
me that he was always placed eight to ten feet away from Ferrell so they could
be in the same frame but appear to be of different sizes. We’ll use more of
Newhart on the show when the movie comes out in November.
After lunch
(pasta with tomato sauce and chicken parmesan) I hoofed it over to the
ritzy-ditzy Mark Hotel on Madison Avenue at east 77th Street to do
the interviews for In the Cut. On the walk over it seemed that every one
I passed on the street was wearing very expensive clothes and walking a small
yappy dog. I managed to navigate around the old ladies with dogs and large
shopping bags and arrived at the hotel early with the hope of starting my
interviews before my scheduled time. No such luck. The schedule was out of
whack because Meg Ryan had decided to pack it in early. The rumour was that she
was tired of answering questions about the nudity in the movie, and on that
level I don’t blame her for leaving, but I was disappointed not to be able to
speak with her.
Jennifer Jason
Leigh plays Meg Ryan’s sister who lives above a strip joint in NY’s East
Village. She’s the daughter of actor Vic Morrow (who was tragically killed on
the set of The Twilight Zone movie) who once said, “I could never play
the ingenue, the girl next door or the very successful young doctor. That would
be a bore.” Her choice of parts reflects her penchant for quirky roles, and In
the Cut is no different. Her Pauline borders the line between needy and
obsessive that subtly hints at mental illness without resorting to histrionics.
It is her best and most substantial role since 2001’s The Anniversary Party.
We talked about shooting in the 100 degree humid weather of New York in August
and how the sticky, steamy atmosphere influenced her work.
I enjoyed
talking to her, but was completely distracted during the interview by the loud,
weird breathing of one of the cameramen. It was so loud that I thought he was
going to blow a lung and keel over. She didn’t seem to notice, or maybe she was
just used to it, but I was totally thrown off by it.
Next up was
Mark Ruffalo. We had spoken at the recent Toronto Film Festival for the movie My
Life Without Me, and I find him to be an easy going and interesting
conversationalist. In Toronto we spent most of our time talking about my watch.
It is a Tissot Touch watch like Lara Croft wore in the movie Tomb Raider 2. I’ve had mine for a
couple of years so the novelty has kind of worn off, but when I showed him how
it had sensors in the face crystal which turn the watch into a compass, a
altimeter, an alarm clock, and how it tells the temperature he was blown away
by it. I forgot to check this time to see if he was wearing one…
We chatted
about his research, and how he rode with New York City cops for a time to
prepare for the film. I mentioned the clothes he wore, which seemed perfect for
his character, and he told me they bought all the costumes from a recently
cancelled television show called The Job for $400.
I had a
substantial wait after the Ruffalo interview, so I hung around in the
hospitality suite and talked to some of the other reporters. It’s usually a
good place to gather some gossip, and today was no different. I picked up one
juicy tidbit, but I’m not really at liberty to reveal exactly who it was about
so I’ll use the old gossip columnist’s anti-defamation trick of giving you some
obtuse clues and letting you figure out the identity for yourself. Here we go…
One very famous actor who has made a career of appearing politically aware and
compassionate, but is actually a giant pain was overheard ordering his flunkies
to pick up a birthday present for his actress wife. Apparently he didn’t really
care what the present was, just so long as it was expensive. In the end after
several suggestions a Prada jacket was selected. Just as the gossip was
starting to get good, I got called away…
The last
interview of the day was with the Jane Campion. The New Zealand-born Academy
Award winning director (she won for Best Screenplay for The Piano) and I
spoke about adapting the popular novel into a film, and her decision to change
it locale from the west side of New York to the east. She wanted more of a
feeling of claustrophobia and the East Village offers a funkier (read: rundown)
ambiance than the more upscale West. You’ll see more with Leigh, Ruffalo and
Campion on an up-coming Reel to Real.
The workday was
finished, but I had managed to weasel my way onto the guest list for a party on
the 80th floor of the Empire State Building for nine o’clock. In all
my trips to NY I have never bothered to check out the building, and this party
offered not only the chance to see one of NYC’s landmarks up-close, but to also
grab gratis drinks and food at the same time. The party was thrown in honour of
the Hollywood Foreign Press who were in New York to see Elf. The Hollywood Foreign Press are the voting body of the Golden
Globes, and because of that they tend to have pretty good parties. There were
not only Elf martinis and finger
foods but the actual elf himself, Will Ferrell and the rest of the cast.
I didn’t
realize the cast would be there until I noticed James Caan standing next to me
at the bar. Wow! It’s Sonny Corleone. Then I spied Ed Asner, Bob Newhart and
Jon Favreau. Wow again. It’s Lou Grant, Dr. Bob Hartley and the guy from Swingers. Will Ferrell showed up by
himself and immediately started chatting and hanging out with people. There was
no VIP room at this party.
I chatted with
Ferrell for quite a while, and we were just dishing some dirt about some of the
ridiculous things some of the other reporters had asked him that day when a
little girl came up to him with a question. She was about seven years old and
had just come from a screening of the film. In the movie once Buddy (Ferrell)
gets to the big city he continues the elf tradition of putting maple syrup on
everything he eats. The little girl wanted to know why. “You don’t put maple
syrup on spaghetti,” she said, “only on pancakes and omelettes.” Ferrell
laughed, but tried to keep a straight face as he explained that elves like
different food than everybody else. It was a nice moment that demonstrated what
a nice, down-to-earth man he is. He’s really good with kids, and when I
mentioned that he told me he and his wife are expecting in March.
Next I had my
photo taken with Favreau, Bob Newhart and Ed Asner. That’s one for the
scrapbooks. Once everyone’s eyes adjusted to the flash Favreau and chatted
about the film, and I mentioned that I thought it was really cool to have used
Dynamation pioneer Ray Harryhausen as the voice of one of the stop-motion
animated characters. He told me they literally stopped him on the street,
explained what they were doing and used a mini-disc player to record his one
line right there and then. They didn’t even bring him into the studio.
It was a great
party, but it got late really fast, and after a quick look around on the 86th
floor observation level I hot-footed it back to the hotel and fell into a coma
like sleep.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2003
This is a light
day, and it’s a good thing too. I’m feeling a bit tired from last night’s
party. I sift through the billions of ties I have with me, and realize that
although I brought a lot of neckwear along for the ride, none of them really
match the shirts I have with me. How is that possible? I choose one that I
think looks OK, but later when I ask Teri if it is too much she politely says,
“It’s not awful, but you’re knocking on that door…”
I had already
seen The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
before leaving for New York, and while I’m not usually a fan of re-makes, this
one is really scary. At the screening in Toronto I sat next to Teri who was
wearing a turtle neck sweater. By the time we left she had screamed out loud
not once, but twice (a first for me, I’ve never heard anyone yell in fear
before at a movie) and her sweater was stretched out of shape from pulling it
up over her eyes. I didn’t scream or cover my eyes, but I did consider sleeping
with the light on that night.
We’re doing the
interviews for The Texas Chainsaw
Massacre at a gallery / warehouse space in the Meat Packing District called
Eyebeam. The gallery is a not-for-profit new media arts organization
established to provide access, education, and support for students, artists,
and the general public in the field of art and technology. That makes it sound
a whole lot nicer than it actually is. This is basically just a large open
space that was clearly once used for some sort of industrial work. Nonetheless
it is a cool space, and one of the upcoming shows sounds really quite wild.
“Robot” is a four-day festival featuring a robotic talent show, exhibition,
workshops, presentations, party and massage parlor. Do the robots give us
massages, or are we expected to rub their backs?
While I’m
waiting to shoot one of the other reporters tells me a joke. (If you haven’t
seen The Texas Chainsaw Massacre you
need to know that the villain’s name is Leatherface because of his habit of
making flesh masks out of the faces of his victims.) This guy was telling me
that if this version of the film does well they’re going to do a Peta approved
sequel. The bad guy’s name in that one? Pleatherface…
New Line has
set up a Texas Chainsaw Massacre
evidence room for us to shoot intros and extros while we wait to do our
interviews. It’s a good idea. They are shooting in black and white, with a
strange strobe effect on the camera so it looks like an old cheapo horror film
from the 50s. I take advantage of the set-up and shoot some material for our
up-coming Halloween show before being called away to do the interviews.
Jessica Biel is
first. The last time I interviewed her it didn’t go very well, so I didn’t know
what to expect this time around. I spoke with her last year for the film The Rules of Attraction. The interview
was only four minutes long, but after two minutes I had asked her four or five
questions and gotten four or five yes or no answers and a couple of nods.
Nothing else. We sat in silence as I stared at her trying to come up with
something to say that might grab her, and finally after thirty seconds or so I
said, “Those are great shoes,” and she talked about her shoes and where she got
them for the remainder of our time. Needless to say that interview never went
to air.
This time she
was much more willing to talk. Who knows what was going on last time… everybody
has a bad day occasionally, and unfortunately I think I hit hers the first time
we spoke. She described to me her love of horror movies, and how she loves the
feeling of being scared. There was no dead air during this interview, and after
it was done I complimented her on her shoes and left the room.
Next up were her co-stars Eric Balfour, Erica Leerhsen and
Jonathan Tucker all grouped together. When they found out that I was from
Toronto they all piped up with Toronto stories. The guys had done lots of work
here (Balfour lived at Spadina and King for a time) and Leerhsen had visited
the city. It’s
difficult to interview three people at once, particularly when you only have a
few minutes, but each of them had their say and all seemed like interesting
people that I’d like to chat with again, one on one. If I had more time I’d ask
Eric Balfour about his role on Six Feet
Under and get him to tell me about Blessed With Soul, a band he had with
Brittany Murphy in the early 1990s. I’d ask Jonathan Tucker about his father,
Paul Hayes Tucker, who is the world's foremost authority on Claude Monet and
French Impressionism and I’d get Erica’s thoughts on celebrity from the point
of view of someone whose father, Charles Leerhsen, was the longtime editor of
celebrity publication US Magazine. That will all have to wait until next time. This
time we talked about the physical demands of shooting an action / horror film,
and I discovered that although Balfour broke his wrist while making the movie,
he did it while goofing around on a basketball court and not while in
production. He wore a specially made removable cast while shooting.
With
a couple of hours to waste before the Kill
Bill screening at seven o’clock I walked around lower Manhattan,
sightseeing and shopping. I dropped by the famous Chelsea Hotel (222 West 23rd
Street) to check out the art in the lobby. It bills itself as a “rest stop for
rare individuals” and in it’s almost 100 year life as a hotel has seen enough
action to inspire a hundred movies and a hundred more novels. A who’s who of
bohemia has called the place home, everyone from William S. Burroughs to
Tenessee Williams from Mark Twain to Sid Vicious. Even Julius Robert
Oppenheimer, the “father of the atomic bomb” spent time there. Rumor has it
that Ethan Hawke currently resides there after his break-up with Uma Thurman.
It
is a true landmark, although the front desk staff could use a lesson in
hospitality. When I asked to buy one of the hotel’s t-shirts the man behind the
desk, who looked like he had been awake since 1960, glanced in my direction and
said, “I don’t think so.” I wasn’t sure what he said, so I politely asked him
to repeat himself. This time he said a little louder, “You’ll have to come back
during the day.” When I pointed out that it was only 4:30 pm he told me that
all the merchandise was locked up and he didn’t have a key, then, without
another word he turned around and continued watching a small television propped
up on a table behind the front desk. It was clear I was never going to get my
shirt. I had to wonder if the crusty old guy behind the counter had been there
since the days when Mark Twain frequented the place because it looked like the
only bags he was capable of checking in were the bags under his eyes.
From
there it was a quickish walk over to the Loew’s theatre on 34th
Street to see a sneak peak of Kill Bill.
I have been waiting patiently for Quentin Tarantino to make another movie since
Jackie Brown in 1997. There was
gossip that he was working on an epic Second World War drama; word spread that
he was giving up directing to focus on his acting career and there were other
rumors that he had flamed-out and simply couldn’t pull it together to do
anything. I had heard many tings about the movie, both good and bad. People
were complaining about the violence, to which Tarantino replied, “Sure, Kill
Bill's a violent movie. But it's a Tarantino movie. You don't go to see
Metallica and ask the %&*($#@ to turn the music down.” Others whined that
there was no character development.
What
they are missing is that Kill Bill is
a thrilling, samurai sword swinging romp that shows Tarantino working at the
top of genre busting game. By taking elements from all the grind house movies
he grew up watching – Samurai movies, revenge dramas, kung fu films, spaghetti
westerns – and artfully blending them together he has created a new kind of
genre film with one foot reverently in the past while the other mercilessly
kicks you in the head. It’s a bloody (apparently he used over 100 gallons of
fake blood in the last scene alone), excessive and exhilarating ride. Oh yeah,
and Uma Thurmond wears a tight yellow jumpsuit just like the one Bruce Lee wore
in his last film Game of Death. When
it was over I wanted the projectionist to rewind the film and start it again. I
haven’t been that jazzed at a screening in a long time.
After
the movie I went back to the hotel and over drinks and food discussed the movie
with the other reporters before calling it an early night.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2003
A
beautiful day in New York, and happily enough, a day off with no interviews or
screenings. My pal Teri and I meet in the hotel lobby at ten o’clock with the
plan to walk around and sightsee. Our successful experience with the Empire
State Building excursion brought out the inner tourist in both of us, so we
headed down 6th Avenue in search of A. a Starbucks, and B. touristy
fun.
Once
fully loaded with caffeine we headed downtown. Our first stop was The Strand
book store at Broadway and 12th Street. I love this place. The
original store opened in 1927 on 4th Avenue when that stretch of
property was known as the Book Row of America. Most of the other shops are gone
now, but the Strand lives on in its new location (since 1958) with all its
musty, cluttered charm. They advertise that the store contains 8 miles of
books, and I don’t doubt it. Books literally spill off the floor to ceiling
shelves and are piled on tables and on the floor. It’s a mix of new and used
with the largest rare book collection in New York City. I pick up a copy of
Steve Martin’s newest novel, The Pleasure
of My Company.
After some more
window shopping, and a confirmed Michael Stipe sighting (he was walking on
Broadway with a plastic shopping bag in his hand) we had brunch at The Noho
Star (330 Lafayette Street). I’ve passed this place a million times and have
never gone in, but I had always heard they had really great homemade ginger
ale. I didn’t have any on this visit, but I will go back. My Eggs Chiapas
(Crisp Tortilla, Sunnyside Eggs, Guacamole, Cheddar, Bacon and Refried Beans)
were unbelievably tasty and the service was very good.
From there we
wandered down to Canal Street. There is nothing quite like Canal Street’s loud
and dirty street mall. If you can navigate through the crush of humanity that
congregates there on the weekends you can buy everything from knock-off Gucci
bags for $30 to miniature turtles for $3 to watches and belts for $10. If you
feel like bartering this is place to be. Each of the tiny little stores has
pretty much the same thing, but at wildly different prices. Prices will drop
faster than ^&*(&(*)__*()&&^%$ if you mention that you can pick
up an item cheaper at a stall a few doors away. I don’t much like crowds, so
after a cursory look around I had seen enough.
Back up
Broadway and over to the Bowery, with a quick side trip to CBGBs. This is the
legendary punk rock club that spawned the careers of The Ramones, Blondie, The
Talking Heads and Patti Smith. I have seen several shows here, and although the
floor squishes under your feet and the smell of stale cigarettes will probably
never go away, (even though smoking was banned in NYC last year) this
claustrophobic sweatbox has a certain punk charm about it. It has remained
virtually unchanged since its heyday in the late 1970s, although apparently
they have fixed the leaky ceiling that used to rain foul water down on the
stage and the customers from the flop house above.
After a quick
walk through the East Village it was time to head back. We had spent seven
hours walking in circles through the lower part of Manhattan, and although it’s
early I plan to stay in tonight, order some food to my room and read up on Kill Bill.
MONDAY OCTOBER 6, 2003
Today is the
day I get to meet Uma. I wish I had ties that matched my shirts. Damn.
Quentin
Tarantino has cancelled on us. Apparently he is sick after traveling all over
Europe in the last week to promote the movie. That’s disappointing, but we’re
still getting Lucy Liu, Daryl Hannah, Vivica A. Fox and, of course, Uma.
The interviews
are divided up into two sections. Lucy, Vivica and Daryl in the morning and
then we come back and speak with Uma in the afternoon. My flight out isn’t
until 7:45 pm, so no matter how far behind they are running (and they will be
running behind) I won’t be in any danger of missing my plane.
Lucy Liu is
first. In the film she plays O-Ren Ishi, a cold blooded assassin who becomes
the first female head of the Japanese Mafia. She’s perfect for the film,
possessing physical grace, presence, strength, personality and as Roger Ebert
pointed out, “the ability to look serious while doing ridiculous things.” We
talked about the background of her character. “I think she’s a good person,”
she said. “Quentin didn’t want to make a specific protagonist / antagonist
stereotypical idea of what the bad guy should be. He gives her a backstory and
the animation [which explains O-Ren’s violent past] which gives her a feeling
of warmth, and hopefully you don’t think she is completely cold blooded at the
end.”
Next I spoke
with Vivica A. Fox. She has the smallest role in Volume One, but who knows, she
might be back for Volume Two. We mainly spoke about her role’s physicality and
how she trained seven hours a day for three months to prepare for the part. She
also had high praise for Tarantino. She told me she didn’t know what to expect
when she saw the film for the first time. “When I saw the final product I
thought ‘Wow, there is a reason why Quentin is a director and his films are so
successful.’”
Like some many
of the people I spoke to over this week-end in New York, I had just interviewed
Daryl Hannah a few weeks ago in Toronto. Last time we spoke for a much
different kind of move, Casa de Los Babys,
a quiet John Sayles film about American women in an unnamed South American city
waiting to adopt babies. In Kill Bill
she plays assassin Elle Driver, a character inspired by a legendary Swedish
revenge flick called They Call Her One
Eye in which Christina Lindberg plays Frigga, a young victim of white
slavery who is raped, mutilated (hence the eye patch) and beaten throughout
most of the film. She then rehabilitates herself and seeks revenge on those who
did her wrong. It was the first film to ever be banned in Sweden, and was
described by TV Guide as a “totally
vile and obnoxious action film.”
“I’ve never
played a full-on villain before,” she said. “I played a villain in Blade Runner, but she had a quality of
vulnerability and innocence. This character has none of that. She’s just evil.”
Uma Thurmond
gets angry to play The Bride in Kill Bill.
She has sworn revenge on the group of DiVAS (Deadly Viper Assassination Squad)
who raided her wedding and killed everyone, leaving her for dead. The action in
the movie begins when she wakes from a coma four years after her ill-fated
wedding day. One by one she seeks payback on the sexy killers who tried to do
her in.
Tarantino and
Thurmond first discussed the story at a party during the shoot for Pulp Fiction in 1994. Over drinks they
created a revenge fantasy, with Uma playing a Bride hell-bent on retribution.
Nothing came of the idea until many years later when the two reconnected at the
Miramax Oscar party in March of 2000. Uma mentioned the story and Tarantino
promised to write her the script in time for her thirtieth birthday which was
just three weeks away. He missed that deadline, but in the next year-and-a-half
cranked out a 222 page script that would eventually become Kill Bill Volumes One and Two.
In person Uma
is very tall, (about six feet), lithe and yes, very beautiful. I had never met
her before, although I once saw her on the street at the Cannes Film Festival
and remember thinking that she almost glowed. I have since read that
cinematographers like lighting her for film because her skin reflects 40 % more
light than most other people. Today she is wearing jeans, sneakers, a white
shirt, a denim jacket, and it should be noted for you gossip hounds, a giant
wedding ring.
I reminded her
of a quote I had read about her time spent working with the fight masters who
taught her the moves she uses in Kill
Bill. She said that the most important ting she learned from them was how
to learn. “I almost felt like I was a baby, which I really was,” she said,
thinking back to her training. “It was humbling to look at this mountain of
expertise and work that was set out for me. I had to get very, very small and
jut work on the tiniest things at a time. At first you would have thought I was
going to learn [simple moves] like one, two, three, four. I can do that, but
[this was going to be difficult with] with the amount of battling that I have
and Quentin’s improvisational style and how he made the movie.
“The clicking
part for me was when I realized that there was not going to be any ‘one, two,
three, four.’ It was going to be improvisational and they were going to invent
new fights on the spot and say, ‘Now you’re going to 5, 7, 12, 15…’ They were
just going to make it up and it kind of re-wired my nervous system because it
is so terrifying. That’s what I finally understood that I had been set up to
do. To achieve this film I had to be able to synthesize all this new
information and execute it on the spot. I guess it is the difference between
learning a dance and knowing how to dance.”
That was it. My
last interview of the weekend and it was only 3 o’clock. I’m not booked to
leave until 7:45 pm, but I’m itching to get home so I take my chances and head
out to the airport. There are seats on the 5:10 flight, so with a mountain of
interview video tapes and 500 ties, I get checked in and leave several hours
early, anxious as always to get home and sleep in my own bed.
LOS
ANGELES ON-LINE DIARY: Austin Powers In Goldmember Interviews
Friday July 12, 2002
The garbage
strike is over! Hooray! Last night I saw a rat the size of a Buick on my street
rooting through the trash. Mister Rat and I had a bit of a stand-off, but when
he realized that I wasn’t interested in his garbage, and I realized that he
wasn’t interested in giving me rabies we went our separate ways neither the
worse for wear.
Up early on
Friday to get ready for the trip to Los Angeles to interview the cast of Austin
Powers in Goldmember. Of course I
never plan very far ahead and was folding laundry straight from the drier and
packing it as the cab pulled up to take me to the airport. Along the way I had
him stop at my dry cleaner to pick up some pressed shirts and finished packing
in the back of the taxi. At least I remembered my passport. As we pulled into
Terminal Two at Pearson I was finally ready for the trip.
I gave myself
two hours to check-in, clear customs and security, and as is always the case
when you give yourself more than enough time you get banged through the whole
system in about four-and-a-half minutes. Security was less than tight. At the
X-Ray machine a guard asked me to turn on my cell phone, presumably to make
sure it wasn’t a bomb, but turned away from me before I turned it on and waved
me through without a second look.
With time to
kill at the airport I bought a couple of magazines (great article on Michael
Ovitz in this month’s Vanity Fair)
and some ketchup potato chips. The first time I interviewed Mike Myers I asked
him what he missed most about Canada. His reply? Ketchup chips. Now he can
afford his own ketchup chip factory or maybe to have them flown in from Canada
on a daily basis… but just in case, I thought I’d bring some.
Met Seamus
O’Regan, host of Talk TV and
occasional host of Canada AM (and
frequent guest on R2R) at the
departure gate. Soon more Toronto media types gathered – Teri Hart from TMN,
Dan Duford from CITY-TV and Bonnie Laufer from Tribute TV – and we discussed
maybe all going out for dinner on Saturday night. Food, it’s all about the
food.
Anyone who read
my last on-line diary will be familiar with my obsession with food while on the
road. Here’s a list of the culinary delights on Air Canada flight 799 to Los
Angeles:
- About 40 minutes into the flight we
were given a 14g bag of Krispy Kernel’s Pretzels. They’re small, but you
get 21 ½ in each bag (I counted).
- One hour and twenty minutes in the
flight attendants started roaming the aisles yelling “Chicken or Pasta!”
The guy next to me ordered the chicken so I had the pasta.
“Enjoy your
meal,” she said with the tone of someone who has said that phrase
1,000,000,000,001 times.
“Impossible!” I
thought as I poked at the lukewarm lasagne she had just placed in front of me.
I think in the dictionary next to the definition of airplane food there must be
a picture of this meal. The lasagne had apparently been stored on its side as
all the filing (wilted spinach mostly) was at one end. The limp salad came with
balsamic vinaigrette (how chic!) and the dessert tasted like sugary air. Not
one of the more successful airplane meals I’ve had this year. It’ll be awhile
before I can bleach the memory of Air Canada’s lasagne from my memory and my
taste buds.
Arrived on
time, bagged was there and headed to the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills to check
in, then went to the hospitality suite to get my interview times for Saturday.
Nice suite, good food. Had grilled vegetables, pizza and a cookie before
checking out the Austin Powers game room across the hall. All sorts of Austin
Powers games, including backgammon and a very cool pinball machine. Now pinball is the only sport, (yes, I do
think pinball is a sport), I’ve ever been any good at. I racked up 62 MILLION!
Points and won a free game before Beyonce Knowles showed up for a photo op with
the game. I took off, let Beyonce have my free game and headed to my room.
Shared the
elevator with Seth Green, (who had just finished a day of interviews), and his
people. His friend joked, “Your homework for tonight is to come up with fresh
answers for the question, ‘What’s it like to work with Mike Myers?’” Seth
laughed and said he used to be quite obnoxious in interviews, but now he has
mellowed and finds that giving solid honest answers is the bet way to deal with
the press. “People like that more,” he said.
My room is
beautiful. Large with a king sized bed, marble topped desk and a balcony that
overlooks the Four Seasons’ garden. Lovely. Oh, and in addition to the Bvlgari
shampoos, conditioners etc in the restroom, there is also a television so you
can watch the news while you shower. I could get used to this.
At 5:30 there
was a poolside party at the hotel before we were to leave for the screening of Goldmember. Foxxy Cleopatra look-a-likes
mingled with the 75 or so reporters from all over Canada and the United States.
Bartenders pumped out Shagadelic cocktails while we snacked on cheese fondue
and guacamole. Left the party for a few minutes to shoot some footage in “The
Shaguar,” the Jag that Austin Powers drives in the movie with the Union Jack
painted on the hood and sides. Very nice car, and got some cool footage we can
use on the show.
At seven
o’clock we were loaded onto an authentic London double-decker bus and carted
over to the AMC Beverly Connection multi-plex to see Austin Powers in Goldmember. Dozens of cars honked and waved as we
drove through Beverly Hills.
You’ll have to
watch Reel to Real to see the review,
but I will share one joke from the movie. Keep your eyes peeled during the news
broadcast, running along the bottom of the screen are headlines, one of which
will appeal to Canadian audiences, particularly Torontonians. “Maple Leafs win
Stanley Cup…” it reads. I wonder whose idea that was?
After the movie
I headed back to the hotel to prepare for Saturday’s interviews. Passing
through the bar there were several celebrity sightings. Verne Troyer (Mini-Me)
was at a table with two tall blondes, and Eddie Griffin (Undercover Brother) was on the patio. I should say STILL on the
patio, as I had seen him at the same table six hours earlier on my way to the
pool party.
Back at the
room I noticed that the maid service had been through, turned down the bed,
replaced the towels I had used, left fresh fruit and tidied up. I like it here…
Talk to you on
Saturday,
Richard
Saturday July 13, 2002
Woke up early
and took a shower. It is a huge bathroom, with a spacious tub and a large
shower head. I revved up the shower, stepped inside and was almost blown
through the back wall of the stall. Holy water pressure Batman! I braced myself
and had a long, hot and thoroughly enjoyable shower.
From there I
went to the fourteenth floor of the hotel to check into the hospitality suite.
I had to kill an hour or so before my interviews started, so I had some
breakfast. I know it sounds like the thing to do, and I am obsessed with food
while on the road, but breakfast is my least favourite meal. It’s going to be a
long day though so I tuck into a load of scrambled eggs, bacon, fruit, hash
browns, pastries and freshly squeezed orange juice. I know it sounds like a
lot, but the pastries were very small. But like everything else at the hotel so
far, they were 10% better than any pastries I’ve ever had before…
Here’s a few
words about junkets, the studio funded trips we take occasionally to do
interviews. I am often conflicted about doing junkets because on one hand they
offer the chance to interview stars and A-list directors, but on the other hand
I refuse to feel beholden to the film company who has paid for my flight and
put me up for a couple of days. I do very few junkets, preferring the longer
form kind of interviews we can do when the stars come to Toronto, but will occasionally
do ones that interest me. Just last year I travelled to New York to do Lord of the Rings and Gosford Park, two really good movies,
and Pearl Harbour, a really bad
movie, which despite having spent five days in Hawaii chatting with the cast
and director I still savaged on the air as one of the worst movies of the year.
So the bottom line is that a trip to Los Angeles of New York doesn’t buy a good
review.
There is also a
certain kind of uneasiness to a junket, no matter how well it is arranged. The
actors are often on their guard and not as open as they might be in another
situation. I don’t blame them. Today each of the actors will do 52 interviews.
That is on top of the 30 or so they did on Friday and the 40 or so they will do
on Sunday. And that’s just here in Los Angeles; soon they will travel to Europe
and do this all over again for the international press. It must get dull
answering the same questions over and over, particularly when they are of the
“Of all your leading ladies who was the best kisser?” variety. One woman from
Miami proudly told me today that she had asked Beyonce to do a promo for her
television station. The woman had written new lyrics for Beyonce’s hit song Survivor… “My name’s Beyonce/ I’m in
Goldmember/ You’re watching blah blah on blah blah blah…” It’s no wonder the
actors don’t respect half the people that come through when people ask them to
do stupid, insulting things like that.
My interviews
start roughly on time, although my first one, Beyonce Knowles, is late by a few
minutes. She’s worth waiting for. She may be one of the most beautiful women I
have ever seen in person. She’s wearing a bandana, a straw fedora, jeans and a
peasant shirt with her bare feet tucked up underneath her. I think maybe she
has just gotten out of bed, as she has a dewy “I wish I was still in asleep”
look about her. It’s not hard to see why she is a star. Not only is she lovely,
but she has a real charisma that shines through, even though she is bleary
eyed. We had a nice chat. Tune into R2R
to see the whole thing.
Next up was
Seth Green. We had met briefly in the elevator the day before when he had been
joking about the kinds of questions he has been getting asked in this round of
press interviews. He was in a good mood, complimented me on my suit and
answered each of my questions as though it was the first time he had ever heard
them, although I’m pretty sure he had heard some of them before.
My clothing
sponsors at Bertoni will be glad to hear that the suit I wore – black ridged
pants, a black snake-skin embossed jacket and a white shirt – was a big hit. In
addition to Seth Green, Fred Savage, Mindy Sterling, Jay Roach and Michael York
all commented on how much they liked the jacket.
Meeting Robert
Wagner was a trip. He’s been making movies for 50 years and is one of the few
old Hollywood stars who still works regularly. He is gracious and takes a
couple of minutes off the top of the interview to ask me about my show and
where I am from. When I say Toronto he tells me a story about a friend of his
who has a home there, and how much he is looking forward to visiting the city.
I hear the next interviewer after me telling Mr. Wagner that he is from
Chicago. “My favourite city,” says Wagner, sounding quite genuine. That’s the
old school Hollywood training at work. Try and charm your interviewer, and
he’ll do a better story on you.
Next up was
Mike Myers. (In the interests of full disclosure I should say that I know Mike
socially and have been very good friends with his brother Paul for many years.)
“This is surreal,” said Mike as I walked into his suite. “This is one of my
brother’s best friends,” he told the crew. Before the cameras rolled we got
caught up, and I gave him the ketchup chips I had brought for him. Tune into
the show for the whole interview.
Verne “Mini-Me”
Troyer is even smaller than you think he is going to be. At two feet, eight
inches he is barely half my height. We discussed his new-found fame and how he
tries to disguise himself when he goes out in public by wearing a hat and dark
glasses, although because of his diminutive stature he is still mobbed
everywhere he goes.
Michael York
was a bit jet lagged, having just flown in from Prague to see Goldmember and do these interviews. Even
though he was tired, he was still congenial and told me a great story about
improvising an entire scene with Liza Minnelli in Cabaret. He also liked my jacket…
Fred Savage is
26 years old and has been acting for 21 of those years. He plays a spy who
infiltrates Dr. Evil’s organization – a “mole” in espionage parlance. Oh, and
he also has a giant, honkin’, hairy mole under his nose that Austin Powers
cannot seem to ignore. He loved working with Mike, and told me he hopes there
is a part four.
The last
interview of the day was with Jay Roach, Goldmember’s
director. I really like talking to directors because they approach being
interviewed differently than actors. They are not performers so you generally
tend to get a more honest interview from them. Roach was no exception. He told
me that Dr. Evil is his favourite character because they are so much alike.
Both have grandiose plans which are always thwarted by something beyond their
control.
After the
interviews I headed downstairs in the hotel to shoot some “stand-ups” on the
Austin Powers Shagadelic set. “Stand-ups” are the introductions that frame the
reviews and interviews on the show. The set is very cool with a series of Andy
Warholesque prints of Powers and some very groovy 60s bachelor pad furniture. I
shot the opening to the show with the help of three go-go dancers dressed in
Beyonce inspired 60s garb.
That being
done, I’m pretty much finished for the day and it is only 2 pm! I change out of
my suit and take a stroll around West Hollywood. Several of us from Toronto and
Montreal have made reservations for tonight, but I have a few hours to kill.
Los Angeles is
a weird place. The weather is beautiful. Since I have been here it has been 75
– 80 degrees during the day, and then it cools down nicely at night. Compared
to the hot, humid days we’ve been suffering through in Toronto this summer, (I
have my air conditioner on so high you could hang sides of beef in my living
room), the climate in L.A. is very agreeable. But there is no downtown.
Everything is so spread out that you can walk for hours and not actually see
that much. And there is no one on the street. Near the Beverly Center I saw a
few people milling around, but I’m fairly sure they were walking to their cars.
The streets are
beautiful, with flowers everywhere and tall palms trees lining the road. I have
to wonder how they get all the palms the same height and line them up so
perfectly.
There’s an old
joke about Los Angeles verses New York. In New York in August it is 110
degrees, the joke goes, while in Los Angeles it is only a pleasant 78 degrees.
New York in December is minus 20 degrees compared to L.A.’s average December
temperature of 78 degrees. Year round in New York there are 1,000,000
interesting people to talk to, while in L.A. there are only 78 truly
interesting people. I met one of those people on my walk.
On North La
Cienega Boulevard I passed a costume shop called Jeran Couture. I stopped to
check out the incredibly detailed Dr. Hook and Marie Antoinette costumes in the
window and started talking with Randy McLaughlin, the store’s owner and
designer. He is quite a character and no stranger to self promotion. “I’m one
of the biggest designers in Hollywood,” he said with a straight face even
though his store looked as though it had seen better days.
In a few short
minutes I had learned pretty much everything about Randy and his work. The red
sequined gown that Joan Collins wore on her 1983 Playboy cover took 700 hours to make. Connie Selleca commissioned
Randy to design her wedding dress when she hitched up with John Tesh. He has made
all the women’s clothes on The Price Is
Right for the last 18 years. “I’m a household name with people who watch
that show,” he said. The list goes on… Loni Anderson is coming in next week
with an Italian film crew to do a story. He once dressed a respected L.A. NBC
news anchor up in a pink Shirley Temple dress, complete with blonde wig for a
news story that was apparently so popular “they ran it 27 times on the news.”
Like so many
people you meet in L.A., and in fact, like the city itself, there is a faded
kind of elegance to this guy and his shop. Things chance quickly here. One
minute you’re on top, the next you’re telling strangers on the street about all
the great work you used to do.
I liked Randy,
but decline his offer to come inside and listen to his CD of show tunes. “Next
time I’m in town,” I said, and you know, maybe I’ll actually go back.
Back at the
hotel I hung around the pool for a few minutes, talking to Seamus O’Regan and
Bonnie Laufer. It was very hot, but waiters kept strolling by with fresh fruit
popsicles, frozen grapes or fruit smoothies to keep you cool. The lemon
smoothie was the big winner of the day for me, although Seamus preferred the
frozen grapes.
At 6:30 met the
other Canadians at the Café in the Four Seasons. We booked a large table
outdoors. There were ten of us in total, and I’m hard pressed to remember when
I’ve had a better time at dinner in recent months. We stayed until 12:30 – six
hours of wine, stories, crab wrapped in avocado, gossip, foie gras that melted
in my mouth, cigars and some very delicious bourbon.
Celebrity
sightings at dinner included Grace Jones, who appeared to wrapped head to toe
in black lace; Liam Neeson, who was looking younger than the last time I saw
him and Kate Mulgrew. Mulgrew’s table was close to ours, and we were “treated”
to a loud recitation of bad beat poetry by one of her younger dinner guests.
Bad poetry is one thing, but bad pretentious poetry being yelled at you while
you are paying $50.00 US for a steak is almost sadistic.
We outstayed
the “poet” and enjoyed sitting outside until it was time for bed.
Speak to you on
Sunday,
Richard
Sunday July 14, 2002
Up early. Check
out and grab some tea and muffins in the lobby. Split a cab to LAX with some
others who have early morning flights. Of all of them I am the only one who has
their bags opened and checked by security. They took everything out, examined
it and did a gunpowder smear. I guess I looked like trouble. It was difficult
explaining what a Dr. Evil Wacky Wobbler nodding head doll was to the very
serious security guard. He didn’t seem to get it, or understand why I would
want such a thing. But once he realized that I couldn’t possibly hurt anyone
with it, (only amuse them), he let me through.
Air Canada
flight 760 from Los Angeles to Toronto was on time, and fairly uneventful. As
usual the main meal was underwhelming. We were given a choice between an
omelette and an egg McMuffin. For reasons that I’ll never understand I chose
the egg McMuffin. It had been nuked to such an extent that the cheese had
simply liquefied and evaporated, leaving only a thick sludge on the bottom of
the plate. That coupled with the “ham” that looked more like minced insects
than any pork product I had ever seen made me very glad I had something to eat
at the First Class lounge at LAX.
The meal may
have been disappointing but the snacks were excellent. They distributed a
seemingly endless supply of Chris and Larry’s Clodhoppers, a chocolate dipped
vanilla fudge graham wafer cluster with cashews made in Winnipeg. The bag says
they are “highly addictive” and they ain’t lyin’.
Back in Toronto
there is less garbage on the streets than when I left, although it is just as
hot. When I got home I cranked on the air conditioning and unpacked, glad as
always to be back home.
Talk to you
soon,
Richard
CANNES ON-LINE DIARY
By Richard Crouse
MONDAY MAY 13th
Welcome to my on-line Cannes diary. Over the next eleven days I'm going
To give you a blow-by-blow account of what happens both personally and
professionally at the biggest, craziest and most respected film festival
in the world.
Leave Toronto at 7:20 pm on Air France. The flight is on time, and after
a lay-over in Paris, a connecting flight to Nice and a half-hour cab ride we
should be in Cannes by 3 pm on Tuesday. The flight is uneventful, although the
food was uncommonly good, and not just by airplane food standards. I get a
little obsessive about food while I'm on the road... especially airplane food.
It has always seemed to me to be cruel and unusual punishment to strap someone
in a seat for eight hours, make them line up for the bathroom, charge them a
fortune, make their ears pop and after all that serve them crappy food. I scope
out the menu (yes there is a menu...) and choose an appetizer of lobster
accompanied by mango salad with lemon and cocktail sauce, followed by a palate
cleanser of different cheeses, a main course of duck a l'orange with basmati
rice, Chinese broccoli and a carrot and
spinach flan. Others had the lobster followed by an herb crusted Mahi
Mahi. I chose not to have the Mahi Mahi because I'm convinced that’s just a
nicer name for Dolphin, and I'm not eating anything that is almost as smart as
me. The duck was delicious, filled with ducky goodness, and served on china
plates with only the plastic knives in our cutlery bundles serving as a
reminder of heightened security concerns. Followed dinner with a cognac, and a
very quick nap... I have trouble sleeping on planes for some reason.
After the all too brief nap I decided to watch a movie... Of course I've
seen them all -- several times -- so I pass the time watching "For A Few
Dollars More" in Portuguese, and I realize that Spaghetti Westerns
work in any language -- even if you don't understand the dialogue. If you don't
understand what they are saying, you can certainly understand what they
are
doing. The same can't be said for my second choice,
"Serendipity," with John Cusak. I chose to watch this one in Spanish,
and the absence of any
understandable dialogue actually improved the movie for me. Take away
the
insipid script and all that's left is the beautiful Kate Beckensale....
Next was "Le Famille Tenenbaum," still funny, even though my
grasp of
French is limited...
The stop-over in Paris was long and painful. Not long enough to actually
leave the airport and do something interesting, just long enough to make
us tired. I love to travel. I like to walk on the beach, meet new people, see
new things, as much as the next guy, it's just the getting there that I find
insufferable. It's the waiting around, the bad airport food (see I'm on about
food again), the guy in front of me who always has to put his seat all the way
back so I have only 1/2 inch of leg room...
Charles deGaulle Airport Sightings: Serious looking soldiers with
machine guns. A store that sells $500 sunglasses, and herds of poodles... well
maybe not herds, but more than you usually see in airports...
After four and a-half soul destroying hours spent waiting around the
Paris airport we caught a flight to Nice. Uneventful flight, followed by
a harrowing high speed taxi ride from Nice to Cannes. We arrived safely,
But our cab driver was quite obviously the retired NASCAR champ of
France or something... Spent the rest of the day chasing stories for the
upcoming shows, getting our press credentials in order and picking up cell
phones.
Went to bed early, after having been up for about 34 hours... I was too
tired to even dream, which is appropriate because I had been dreaming of
sleeping all day....
Talk to you tomorrow....
WEDNESDAY MAY 15th
No jet lag! The secret is not sleeping when you arrive. I always stay up
until 11 or 12 o'clock in whatever time zone I'm in, no matter how tired
I am, get a decent night's sleep and the next day I always feel adjusted.
Apparently not everyone is so adaptable. At the press lounge jet lagged
reporters from all over the world are walking around like half-dead
zombies, desperately chugging coffee trying to stay awake. I keep such
erratic hours anyway that I seem to be able to adjust to any time change.
Spent Wednesday morning and afternoon trying to set up interviews for
R2R's upcoming shows. The real chaos hasn't started here yet, so I
didn't have to wait long, although at one office I had to stand in a dank, dark
hallway for almost an hour before anyone could find time to speak to me. It's
busy here, but the expected throngs of press and tourists will arrive over the
week-end. Then the bad craziness starts. You can't move on the streets, people
line up for screening hours and hours in advance, restaurants and cafes are
full to capacity... just trying to walk down the street becomes a hellish,
hectic experience. But right now the weather is beautiful, there are stylishly
dressed people from all over the world everywhere... I love walking twenty feet
down the street and hearing twenty different languages being spoken, it's a
mind broadening experience. On the downside, security is very tight this year.
I have been frisked, poked and prodded everywhere.
This is a new development from last year, but given the shaky world
political climate, I guess it has to be this way.
I spoke with Michael Moore on the street today. I'm a big fan of his
work, and have just finished reading his latest book, "Stupid White
Men." Most people will remember him from his award winning documentary
"Roger and
Me," although I really liked his later film "Canadian
Bacon" with John Candy, and his television show "The Awful
Truth" which should be required viewing for people who trust corporate
America. Moore is in Cannes to promote his latest film "Bowling for
Columbine," a bitingly satiric look at the gun trade in the United States
after the Columbine school shootings. He's a cool guy, who had very funny
things to say about the last time he was in Toronto and his appearance on
Canada AM. If all goes well I will be interviewing Mr. Moore later this week
for one of R2R's Cannes shows.
Woody Allen's "Hollywood Ending" opens the festival tonight.
Our camera man Mark shot a press conference with Woody this morning, which will
be used on the first show. also shot some footage of a press conference with
the jury of this years festival, including David Lynch, Sharon Stone and
Micelle
Yeow. Stone has a cold, and needed to blow her nose. "It would be
nice if somebody had a handkerchief for me," she said. Lynch, sitting next
to her offered her his hankie. "I do," he said. "But it's
used." She declined.
Shot the first Cannes special show here today in a variety of locations
around town. Shooting here is difficult with the noise and crowds everywhere.
On top of that we had MASSIVE technical difficulties, but managed to get the
show done, and shipped back to Toronto for editing. Also met some people from
Toronto, two young women who went to school here, and have come back to check
out the festival. They stood in the same spot for over 5 hours in the
blistering sun to get a glimpse of the red carpet, and hopefully see some
stars. They were hoping for Harrison Ford or Tom
Cruise and seemed slightly disappointed when I told them that it was going
to be Woody Allen on the red carpet that night...
Went to a party for DDA, one of the world's largest publicity firms.
Nice little soiree on the beach, with plenty of wine and beer for everyone. Had
a
snack and a couple of Stella Artois and continued on to the Canadian
Pavilion to finish shooting for the day. The Canadian Pavilion is
Located on the beach in the International Village next to Pavilions from
the
US, Holland and dozens of countries from all over the world. Nice layout
inside, but the beautiful patio right on the beach is the main draw. Met
Canada's trade ambassador there and I'm sure to be spending more time there as
the week goes on.
Anyway... one show is done and shipped back to Canada, only three more
to go. Have loads of interviews lined up, and will likely start doing them on
Friday...
Talk to you soon,
Richard
THURSDAY MAY 16th
Woke up with a start today. Disoriented. Didn't know where I was. Late.
Slightly crazed feeling. I think I must have had a really deep, almost
coma-like sleep last night. Shook off the weird sleepy feeling and headed off
to see "Bowling for Columbine," the new documentary from director
Michael Moore. On the walk down from the villa to the main drag I noticed that
overnight the festival seemed to make the leap from merely busy to confusing
and chaotic. Loads of people must have flown in last night, and then in the
morning it seemed like all them were going to see the same movie as I was... I
started to play a game to pass the time on the walk. I try and count the number
of people on the street that a) don't have a cell phone glued to their head,
b.) don't have a cigarette in the hands, c) doesn’t have a small yappy dog on a
leash or d) some combination of all of the above. I counted two people...
I saw Eartha "Catwoman" Kitt outside the Carlton Hotel today.
I have always thought she was the greatest Catwoman (move over Julie Newmar and
Michelle Pfeiffer), and her song "I Want To Be Evil" should be
required listening for anyone who has ever wanted to get a nine to five job and
settle down in the suburbs... She looks great, at least twenty years younger
than her reported age of 75.
The Troma circus has rolled into town, although chief rabble rouser
Lloyd Kaufman doesn't arrive until Monday. Then, I imagine the Troma
Team will really start to terrorize the town. They are a fixture here at
Cannes, every year providing mayhem up and down the Croisette, usually parading
the cast of characters from their movies -- The Toxic Avenger, Mad Cowboy and
Dolphin Man to name a few. They ALWAYS get into trouble. Last year I saw one of
them get arrested for indecent exposure on one of the nude beaches that line
the main drag. I know, I know, it's hard to get arrested for indecent exposure
on a nude beach, but this guy was only wearing a slight thong to hold in his
300 pounds... Not a pretty sight and I think the police arrested him on
aesthetic grounds as much as anything else. I saw Lloyd on the street just
after it happened and told him one of his guys had been arrested. "Not again,"
he said. It seems everywhere Troma goes strong men weep and chaos follows. They
have found a new home after getting kicked out of the swanky Carlton Hotel last
year, after having their offices there for almost 20 years. Now they are just
behind the Carlton. I don't know, but if I ran the Carlton, I would want these
guys where I could keep an eye on them...
Had a rather frustrating afternoon. Checking with publicists is a daily
ritual. You pop your head in, say hello, make nice and hope that they give you
the interviews you have requested. Today yielded interviews for an American
movie called "Scorched," Most of the cast is confirmed, although the
biggest star is "being difficult" (the publicist's words, not mine),
and is unsure as to whether he wants to do interviews. I can't tell you who it
is, but if you're interested go to IMDB.com and look it up. I don't think it
will come as much of a surprise...
Interviews for television are hard to come by here, particularly for
Canadians. "Ah, the Canadian confusion..." one publicist said as I
tried to confirm an interview I had booked in Toronto before I left. Seems some
paperwork has gone missing, and now those spots are in jeopardy. So now, as
unbelievable as it seems my interviews with Canadian directors Atom Egoyan and
David Cronenberg probably aren't going to happen as expected. It's too bad
really, I like both their new movies, and would love the chance to speak to
them Canadian to Canadian while I'm here... I'll keep you posted on what
happens here...
That is just the fluid nature of the Cannes Film Festival. Arrive with a
plan, but be prepared to change it every five minutes or so. It can bend your
head if you let it.
More about the food. Didn't really have time to eat on Wednesday,
although I grabbed a salad from a kiosk on the beach -- even the fast food here
is great -- arugula, mozzarella and tomatoes. Delicious and not too expensive
at 5 euros (about $7 Can.). On Thursday breakfast didn't happen until about
3 pm when I grabbed some uber-tasty pastries at the Geraldine Chaplin
press conference at the grand old Carlton Hotel.
Chaplin is in town to launch "The Chaplin Collection," a set
of DVDs featuring all her father's legendary comic movies, and rare outtakes
and home movies added as bonuses. With her was Warren Liederfarb from Warner
Brothers, the man they call "the father of DVD," and the French
distributor of Chaplin films for the big screen Marin Karmitz.
I interviewed Ms. Chaplin one on one after the press conference. She's a
deeply tanned, elegant woman who reminded me of an older, but well
preserved Audrey Hepburn. She's small and birdlike, but smiles easily and is
fluent in both French and English. When I first spoke to her I commented on her
shoes, which were red and metallic silver runners. "They're cheaper than a
facelift," she said, "because everybody looks at the shoes and not my face."
She spoke lovingly about her father, and told me about the difficulties
involved in getting all of Charlie Chaplin's 8 kids to agree on the best way to
preserve and make available their father's films. If I appear distracted during
the interview it's because an obnoxious European reporter was tapping me on the
back throughout my conversation with Chaplin, trying to push her way into the
action. I ignored, got my interview and went on my way. So did Ms. Chaplin and
the other reporter went away empty handed. I didn't feel particularly sorry for
her...
At 6:30 I did a live television interview via satellite with CBC's
Newsworld in Canada. The studio I shot it in is a spacious multi-room
flat, overlooking the Croisette, and the Grand Theatre's red carpet. I saw
Sharon
Stone, and think I saw Jack Nicholson, but was too far away to tell.
While I was waiting to go on a couple of us sat and watched "Loft
Story" on television with the sound turned down. It's a reality show, a la
the
Canadian production "The Lofters." Not really sure what it was
all about. It's a huge hit in France, but just seems to be about three girls in
Thongs mopping the floor and washing their hair. I'm not complaining, I
just
didn't really understand the story. The CBC interview went well,
although the satellite cut out midway through.
That's about it for today... early day tomorrow with screenings in the
morning and interviews in the afternoon.
Good night, talk to you on Friday,
Richard
FRIDAY MAY 17
Here's what I take with me everyday when I leave the villa: a map of
Cannes, my cell phone, 10 - 15 pages of research, a lighter (all the
cute French girls smoke), several pens, including one that lights up for
writing in the dark and the latest edition of Daily Variety. Here's what I
usually come home with: 3 - 4 Beta tapes, about 50 pounds worth of press
releases and magazines (OK, maybe I exaggerate, but not by much), 2 or 3
promotional T-shirts, and several promotional ball caps. Today someone gave me
a box of cigars. It's no wonder that my back aches and I think I'm developing a
hunchback.
So far the best swag item has been an Evian "Brumisateur," a
water pump so I can spritz myself frequently while walking around in the
blistering heat.
There are movie posters everywhere. On almost every square inch of
available space on the streets, plastered on the sides of the hotels...
everywhere. So far the strangest one I have seen is for a movie called
"Citizen Jury." I recognized Christopher Lambert from the poster...
not hard to do as the guy always has at least one cheesy movie at Cannes, but I
struggled to see who the other star was. "Looks like Jerry Springer,"
I laughed to myself. When I stopped chuckling I realized that yes, MAN OH MAN,
it is Jerry Springer, looking very serious, and if I may say, almost
respectable. The movie's slogan is: "Watch, Vote and Execute... All in the
name of justice." I'm thinking to myself they should add something about
transvestite taxi drivers with unnatural lust for poodles to attract some of
Jerry's core audience... It's all about the marketing.
Saw a movie called "Scorched" this morning. It stars Woody
Harrelson and Rachel Leigh Cook (you'll remember her as Josie in "Josie
and the Pussycats). I'm not allowed to review the movie as yet; there is an
embargo on reviews until after they have found a distributor. I can tell you it
is a
story about four separate people all of whom decide to rob the same bank
on the same day.
After the movie I went to the splashy Noga Hilton on the Croisette to do
interviews for a film called "Intacto." It's a fascinating film about
the nature of luck, why some people have and others don't. It's a very
complicated, slow moving picture by Spanish first time feature film director
Juan Carlos Fresnadillo. I had the great pleasure of sitting with Max Von
Sydow, a man I consider one of the great screen actors of our time. Who could
forget him as killer-for-hire Joubert in "Three Days of the Condor,"
or as Father Merrin in "The Exorcist," not to mention his work with
legendary director Ingmar Bergman. He's a large man, who walks slowly, but that
is the only hint that he is in his mid-seventies. He is a lively
conversationalist, witty and not at all like the stone faced serious characters
that he usually plays on film. He talked about many things, (the interview will
air next week), including how much he loves Toronto. He was there in 1983 to
film "Strange Brew," and fondly remembered the look of the city,
especially how old and new buildings co-exist, and while the glass paneled
skyscrapers look very modern, somehow the mixing of old and new works. He is a
charming man, and it was a real treat and honor to spend some time with him.
I also spoke to the film's star Leonardo Sbaraglia, a Spanish movie
actor with many films and awards to his credit. Cool guy. Didn't speak English
very well, but we had a translator and we had a nice talk. Also spoke to
director Fresnadillo, who spoke perfect English, and was able to articulate
some of the heavy concepts contained in his film.
After the interviews I left the Noga with its beautiful panoramic view
of Cannes, and visited some publicists, trying to line up more interviews. More
luck today than yesterday. It looks like several of the interviews that were in
jeopardy yesterday are going to happen. I just have to keep my fingers crossed,
and keep harassing the PR people. That seems to be the name of the game here in
Cannes. The bigger the pain in the butt you are, the more they cooperate with you.
Daily food update: After my meetings with the publicists I headed over
to the American Pavilion down by the ocean. They have guest chefs coming in all
week. Today was Mario Batali from the "Malto Mario" television show
on The Food Network. For lunch I had Prosciutto San Daniele with Black Pepper
Fett'unta and Baby Spinach Salad. It was great -- I have yet to have bad food
here -- and tasted better because I sat on the beach and ate it. Lots of food,
and only 10 Euros (about $14 Can).
The interviews for "Scorched" turned out to be scorchers, as
they were held on the pier at the Majestic Beach. Rachel Leigh Cook was lovely,
although she's very, very, very small and has the tiniest feet I have ever
seen. I was concerned that she might fall over during the interview... We
talked about "Josie and the Pussycats" and why it didn't do more
business in the theatres. She tells me there are no plans for a sequel, so
don't expect to see "Josie and the Pussycats In Space" anytime soon.
She also told me she loves Toronto, and that her mom is obsessed with Honest
Ed's, the enormous bargain store on Bloor Street West. Also spoke to the film's
director Gavin
Grazer and Marcus Thomas, the actor who plays Cook's love interest. The
final interview of the day was with Paulo Costanzo, a Toronto-born actor who
has recently had success with "Road Trip" and "40 days and 40
Nights." It turns out that we have a mutual friend. My literary agent has
known
Paulo's family for years. Paulo also told me that he wanted to turn down
"Road Trip" because he thought it was such a terrible script. It was
ridiculously hot on the pier, but everybody was in good spirits and the
interviews went well.
After that went to the opening night party at the Canadian Pavilion. As
with all good Canadian parties, it was packed, everyone was standing at the
bar, and there was more than enough beer and wine for everyone. Met some cool
people, and had a long and very funny conversation with the director of a new
movie called "Eve," which is billed as "An Exotic
Adventure." Also at the party was Bruce Kirkland from the Toronto Sun and
"The Young and the Restless'" Tonya Lee Williams.
On the way home I saw some bizarre stuff... The street performers are
out in
full force, there are mimes, jugglers, buskers and some guy painted gold
who poses like Buddha.... But tonight I saw an older lady dressed like a clown
SCREAMING at a mother and her baby. Yelling at the top of her lungs in
French, and even though my grasp of the French language is tenuous, I
could pick out the profanities from her tirade. It's no wonder everybody hates
clowns. That poor baby is going to be scarred for life. Also saw two guys
dressed head to toe in old soda cans... hundreds of them attached to their
clothes. They walked in rhythm, making a sound that reminded me of what it
might be like if you filled up several oil cans with marbles and rolled them
down the street. Noisy, but hilarious.
Also saw Academy Award winner Randy Newman on the street. He was much bigger
than I expected he would be (he kind of looked like Sullivan, the big blue
creature John Goodman voiced in "Monster's Inc.), I stood next to him on
the street, and noticed that he was humming "That's What Friends Are
For," the cheesy Elton John / Dionne Warwick tune. It actually sounded OK
coming from Randy....
As I write this I am sitting on the balcony of the “Reel To Real” villa
with a view of downtown Cannes and the ocean. Tonight is clear and warm and
there is a display of dancing lights in the sky. It's beautiful. They have 40
or
more klieg lights shooting upwards from the beach, and swaying in
rhythm... it kind of reminds me of the old laser light shows at The Planetarium
in Toronto... A nice image to take to bed.
Goodnight, I'll speak to you on Saturday...
Richard
SATURDAY MAY 18
I have a tan! I rarely ever spend enough time in the sun in Toronto to
get any color at all, but I seem to have picked up a tan... rather a sunburn
just by walking around.
Did several interviews this morning. Jean-Marie Poire, the French
director who is best known in North America for "Just Visiting" was
first up. He is promoting his latest French language farce "My Wife
Maurice," and was a delight. The movie is very funny, and will probably play
very well in
Europe. We talked about the failure of "Just Visiting" to find
an audience in North America, and he explained that the final version of the
film was not the movie he intended to make. He didn't have final cut, and felt
the movie wasn't as funny as he wanted it to be. But he was philosophical about
his Hollywood experience. "I've made 50 films, and only two haven't been
successful, so I can't complain too much," he said with a laugh.
Next we searched for the elusive location of our next interview.
Confusion! Mega-Triple-Double-Dog-Dare-Ya Confusion... After getting a
variety of directions, and lugging a metric ton of equipment all over the
place, we found our spot... only it was closed for lunch. After some
negotiations we found another spot and spoke to the makers of a film called
"Japon." The director and director, Carlos Reygadas, based this story
on an old family friend, Alejandro Ferretis, who plays himself in the movie.
They both spoke very good English (that is a real concern over here when dealing
with international actors and filmmakers) and were very entertaining; I just
wish I had more time to spend with them.
Next up was the usual barrage of phone calls to publicists while I ate a
Cobb Salad Wrap at the American Pavilion... remember, I said food was very
important to me, and I have been missing far too many meals since I've been
here. The calls were fruitful, and I booked interviews for "Spider"
and
"Ararat," both of which I thought had gone south. Then a visit
to the Troma
Office just behind the Carlton Hotel. Oh Lloyd, what have you wrought? I
met this kid from Madrid who had traveled at his own expense to be in
Cannes, and work for free with the Troma Team. "Wouldn't miss it
for anything," he said. He also invited me to a Troma sponsored yacht
party. "Get there early if you want to drink," he warned me,
"the Troma people like to hose back the booze..."
I took a pass on the Troma drunk-a-thon, choosing instead to go to the
Hong
Kong In Cannes party on the Carlton Beach. Despite a slight drizzle of
rain the place was packed. So far they win for the complete excellence of the
food, and the unique way they displayed it. Four large food trees, which
canapés for branches were the centerpieces, but were surrounded by food
stations with salmon, dim sum, and a food area. There were four bars, two
inside and two out. Also another very cool thing they had was a small
attachment that hooked on to the side of your plate to hold your glass of
champagne. Excellent idea, as it keeps your hands free and your drinks close. I
think it must be a rule in France that when the champagne is free you have to
have at least three glasses... I hate to break the rules...
The show at the Honk Kong party was amazing. On stage they had
traditional Chinese musicians, a Kung Fu demonstration, a 20 foot dragon that
danced and winked, a host of Hong Kong stars, including Maggie Cheung, two of
Honk Kong's biggest actors, both named Tony Leung, and several Asian directors.
Almost saw my first fist fight of the festival. Cannes is notorious for
the in-fighting that happens between photographers who are all vying for the
same shot. I haven't seen too much action in the scrums this year until tonight
when two photogs bumped into one another, and BOOM, it was World
War Five in photographer land. The fight was mostly verbal, but one guy
did take a swing, missed and was then escorted out by a security guard. I was
hoping the Kung Fu masters would become involved. That would have been a show.
Went to bed at midnight after the party. Have to be up early to see
"Punch Drunk Love," directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, and starring
Adam Sandler. I loved Anderson's last two movies "Magnolia" and
"Boogie Nights," so I'm curious to see this one.
Later,
Richard
SUNDAY MAY 19
Lists. Cannes is all about lists. I have a black notebook that never leaves my side. In it are my contacts phone numbers, hastily scribbled notes, show ideas and lists and lists and lists of things to do. Each list usually starts with: 1.) Check list... I need all the reminders I can get...
First movie today was Paul Thomas Anderson's "Punch Drunk Love" at the Grand Theatre. It's the largest of the festival's movie houses holding upwards of 1000 people. As I wrote last night I loved "Magnolia" and "Boogie Nights," but unfortunately lightening has not struck a third time. "Punch Drunk Love" I think, was an attempt by Anderson to pare down the epic length movies he is known for and make something simpler and more linear. He has accomplished that, cutting the running time down to one and a half hours from his usual three, but in doing that has sacrificed character development. I was hoping this would be Adam Sandler's entry to adult roles, and while he is almost there, he displays no ability to grow and develop into a believable character. His Barry Egan is a distributor of novelty items (like plungers with dice on them for use in Casinos), with a severe anger management problem. He falls in love with Lena (Emily Watson) while at the same time becoming involved in a phone-sex extortion scam. Not a bad premise, but when the main character is hard to identify with it makes it difficult for the viewer to feel sympathy or any connection to them. Sandler stretches his usual teen-movie shtick a little bit, but not enough to satisfy. After the movie there was a small smattering of applause rather than the usual ovation given for the "In Competition" films. Watch “Reel To Real” for a full review.
Next up was an interview I had been trying to set up since the day I got here. Three members of Andy Warhol's Factory family are here to promote the screenings of a trio of cult films -- "Flesh" "Heat" and "Trash" – produced by Warhol and directed by Paul Morrissey. I sat and spoke with Morrissey, Joe Dellessandro and Holly Woodlawn at their elegant apartment on the Boulevard D'Alace. Morrissey has been called "America's most undervalued and least shown major director." As Andy Warhol's right hand man he ran the factory, put together and managed The Velvet Underground and directed the films that Warhol presented. Dellessadndro starred in many of the films, including the three being shown here, as well as "The Loves of Ondine," "Lonesome Cowboy" and "Blood for Dracula." The photo of him that graces the cover of the "Flesh" DVD, dressed in a black t-shirt and headband staring menacingly into the camera is one of the iconic photographs of the 1970's New York art scene. He has continued to work in both mainstream and art films. Holly Woodlawn (born Harold Danhakl) also performed in many of Warhol's movies, but is probably best remembered as the subject of Lou Reed's song "Walk On the Wild Side." Remember the opening line? "Holly came from Miami FLA... hitch-hiked her way across the USA... plucked her eyebrows on the way, shaved her legs then he was a she..." Apparently Holly is still walking on the wild side, as she was rather hung
over from the Vanity Fair party the night before. Morrissey was great... he's a provocateur who isn't afraid to make statements like "Andy couldn't read or write..." or refer to Lou Reed as "that AWFUL Lou Reed." An interesting interview with three of the major figures in underground filmmaking. I particularly like Morrissey, maybe because he said I was "charming and informed."
On the way back to the Croisette I saw Hayden Christenson on the street.
He's probably having one of the most surreal weekends of his life, with "Star Wars: Attack of the Clones" opening all over the world. When he wakes up on Monday morning, and the box office results are in his life is going to be changed forever.
By midday we were at the Martinez Hotel to do interviews for the still in-production "Bulletproof Monk." (It's shooting in Toronto until July.) Getting into the hotel was a bit of a trail as Adam Sandler was trying to leave the hotel as hundreds of fans were swarming the entrance. We got in and saw an 11 minute roughly cut excerpt of the movie. Interesting to see it in its unfinished state with very little music or sound effects and very rudimentary special effects. Having had just a taste of it, I have to say it's kind of like eating a cake before it has been baked... the dough is OK, but could be better. I think it's going to be an eye-popper when it is finished.
Jamie King (she's no longer James King) is beautiful. I have interviewed her before for "Pearl Harbor," but her whole look has changed. Last time I met her she had short blonde pin curls, a real 1940's glam look, now her hair is a more grown-up long and a reddy-brunette. She kind of reminded me of
Sharon Tate. She was staring in my general direction, so I looked behind me to see what was going on. "No, it's you," she said. "You have really great hair." Seann William Scott (from the "American Pie" movies was very nice, had lots of nice things to say about Toronto, and called me "Dude" several times.
The final call of the day was the Telefilm Party at the Savoy Hotel. It seemed to be the day to interview beautiful women. I spoke with the Canadian producer, publicist and director of "Eve," a breathtakingly hypnotic journey of a young woman searching for her soul mate in a time before time as the first day dawns. (She's looking for Adam, get it?) They were all great, but the star, model Inger Ebeltoft, the former Miss Norway and current Miss Cannes It Girl was beautiful, smart, and funny. Her photo call on the beach earlier in the day dressed in her "Eve" bikini almost started a riot... Tomorrow is an interview with Michael Moore in the morning, so I'll sign off so I can prepare...
Later,
Richard
MONDAY MAY 20
Busy day today, although a good chunk of it was spent waiting around to
do interviews. Arrived at the Majestic Beach at 10:30 am after making my usual
rounds of all the publicist's offices. My call time for the Michael Moore
"Bowling for Columbine" interview was 10:50, but as soon as we
arrived we were told that they were running at least an hour late. "Just
ask him one question and you'll get a twenty minute answer," one publicist
told me. Moore likes to talk, and was giving every media outlet his full
attention, so the schedule was blown out right away.
We waited, getting more sun burnt by the minute until it was our turn at
12:10. It was well worth the wait. In person Moore is as engaging and
funny as he is on his television show "the Awful Truth," or in his
documentary movies. He remembered me from our chance meeting on the Croisette
earlier in the week, and answered each of my questions with long detailed
replies.
When the publicist came by to break up the interview, he waved her off
saying, "Hey, these guys came all the way from Canada and have been
waiting all morning. I'm enjoying this." Then he turned to me and said,
"Ask me some more questions..." We continued for another 10 minutes
or so, while he talked about how much he likes and admires Canada, hates Mike
Harris and thinks we should take the Queen off our money. This one was
definitely a highlight... I could have talked to him for hours.
Next was lunch at the American Pavilion with the crew, Bryan, my trusty
cameraman Mark and my special guest host for the Cannes shows Denis Seguin.
Denis is a reporter for Screen International, and has made frequent radio and
television appearances. He is in Cannes writing for Screen
International, Canadian Business and doing a radio piece for CBC's
Definitely Not the Opera. After some salads and Mexican food we headed off to
Casa “Reel To Real” to shoot reviews for "Ararat,"
"Spider," "Punch Drunk Love," and "Bowling for
Columbine." He was great -- nice insights to the films, and we didn't
always agree, so I think the reviews are lively and entertaining.
No star sightings on the street today, although I did get to interview a
young Canadian actor named David Alpay, the lead in Atom Egoyan's
"Ararat." He's a U of T science student who auditioned for the film
on a lark thinking he might get some work as an extra. Instead he got the
lead... We spoke at the Alliance Atlantic office on Rue Mace, with a brass band
playing in the street below. He's a nice guy, level headed and very smart.
Enjoyed meeting him, and I think he will be offered more screen work when
people see his work in "Ararat."
Following that interview we headed for the jaws of hell. Don't ever let
anyone tell you that covering a film festival is glamorous easy work. It's not
as I was reminded on Monday night. We were asked to cover a red carpet event
for the film "Gangs of New York," which was happening at a restaurant
called Baoli down by the water. We arrived at 5, ready to set up our equipment,
but were asked to stand back and wait until the organizers arrived. Keep in
mind it's about one million degrees here... we waited until it was time to be
herded like cattle into a cordoned off area next to the red carpet. The idea is
that the stars walk by and you can ask them a few questions before they head
off to dinner. We waited. And waited. Then waited some more. They booked too
many media outlets, so everybody was crammed into this tiny space, hoping to
get a couple of minutes with Cameron Diaz, Leonardo D'Caprio and Martin
Scorsese. At 7:30 we heard police sirens which announced the arrival of Mr.
Scorsese's limo. Mega crush time in the media pen as everybody surged forward
to get a few words from the famous director.
He spoke to Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, E! and... Reel To
Real before moving along and going inside. Cool, one down and two more
to go. Leonardo was next, and chatted with the American press first, and just
as I got his attention, and had half of my question out his personal publicist
hauled him away. Ditto for Cameron Diaz. Now if I had the choice of any of
these people I would take Mr. Scorsese, so that part was satisfying, but we
waited over three hours in the blistering sun for these people to show up, and
then left with just a few minutes of tape. Not glamorous. Not pretty. I feel
like sending Cameron Diaz a bill for the medicated aloe cream I had to buy for
the sunburn I got while waiting around for her.
I'm over that little blip now, but I am feeling slightly crazy from the
heat... a long day of standing around that yielded some cool stuff, Michael
Moore and Martin Scorsese, but I think I may have fried my noodle a
little bit. Time for bed.
See ya on Tuesday...
TUESDAY MAY 21
No early appointments today but I just can't seem to sleep in. I hate
that.
Woke up at the ungodly hour of 7:30 am and wandered around the
apartment, trying to figure out the rest of the day...
We had to Fed Ex another load of tapes back to Canada at 11:30 am, so we
decided to hit the Croisette and shoot the "tops and tails" for each
segment of the second show. As I mentioned a few days ago shooting outside is
tough because of the noise and the crowds. Here it is doubly difficult given
the large wandering herds of people who tend to wander in and out of camera
range, and the sounds of traffic in the background. But we got downtown early before
it got too crazy and banged off enough footage for the second show.
Lunch! I love lunch! Today Mark and I went to a little cafe just off the
main drag and had pasta and very strong caffeinated drinks. Got a call from
Jesse Rosensweet a Canadian short film director who is showing his movie
"The Stine of Folly" in competition here. I think he was
sitting right behind me at the same restaurant. We made arrangements to do an
interview on Wednesday or Thursday.
Then it was back to Casa R2R to get more equipment for the remainder of
the day's shooting schedule. Several interviews booked, and we're running out
of Beta tape. We brought more tape with us this year, but have shot three times
as much stuff this year as last... Bryan has spent most of the morning trying
to track down tapes for us to use...
It's still really busy here, although there seem to be fewer people
around on Tuesday. Last night, sitting on our balcony we could hear the chimes
of cell phones from the street as hurried reporters ran from screening to
screening, taking calls and talking loudly... It was a long week-end here which
added to the crush of tourists who clog the streets here, stargazing.
But most of them seem to have left now, and it is a little easier to get
around... but only a little easier. There is fluidity to covering Cannes that
takes a few days to get used to. Interviews are scheduled. Interviews are
cancelled. Then they're back on, but on a different day and time. Of course
this new time always conflicts with something else you have already set up, so
then you have to make a series of phone calls to publicists to try and convince
them to juggle their schedules to accommodate yours. Nothing and I mean
nothing, runs on time... but after a while I began to enjoy the challenge of
working within the Cannes chaos. As they say: The only constant is change...
that should be the motto of Cannes.
The final interviews of the day are for two highly anticipated Canadian
films -- "Ararat" and "Spider." These have been difficult
to arrange, and both the publicists and the interviewees have been very
co-operative. First was Patrick McGrath, the English-born writer of both the
novel and screenplay for "Spider." He's a big blustery man, and not
at all what I expected. I thought he would be a scowling Goth type, dressed in
black with tattoos and skull earrings. Instead I am presented with an outgoing
multi-talented guy who has written horror novels, thrillers, children's books
and literary works. I asked him about why he chooses to explore the themes of
mental illness in his books, and he told me about growing up on the grounds of
a mental hospital that his father ran... It's a good story, but you'll have to
tune into the show to hear it...
Next I zipped over to the Toronto Film Festival party at the Gray
D'Albion Beach. I could only stay a few minutes, but saw Piers handling and the
rest of the film festival staff who are here scouting movies for our
September festival. Also Michael Moore stopped by to say hello. Then it
was off to the Grand Salon of the Carlton Hotel to interview Arsinee Khanjian,
the lead actress in "Ararat." We talked about many things, and I
reminded her that years ago when I was a waiter at Southern Accent she came in
one night, and while trying to show someone her wedding ring, accidentally
tossed it over the patio and it disappeared into a flower bed. I ran and got a
flashlight, and after a 20 minute search we found it... She vividly remembered
that night and we had a good laugh about it.
Here's an interesting aside... Arsinee is married to
"Ararat's" director
Atom Egoyan. The Cannes film festival this year coincided with the run
of a play she was doing in Toronto, so rather than have her miss the opening
night of the film at the Grand Theatre, Atom and his partners bought out the
play for the days she was to be away...
After speaking with Arsinee I hoofed it over to the Alliance Atlantis
office just off the Croistette to interview Atom Egoyan. Due to the
"Canadian confusion" I spoke about a few days ago a number of Canadian
media outlets were left off the list to interview Mr. Egoyan. Since his
schedule was already packed there didn't seem to be a way to fit any of us in.
Now, remember earlier when I was talking about the interviewees being very
co-operative? I'm thinking of Atom Egoyan. He spent eight hours doing
interviews; one right after the other, in seven different languages, under hot
lights the night after his film received a fifteen minute standing ovation at
the Grand Theatre. He probably just wanted to go out and celebrate, but instead
agreed to meet with the Canadian press for another round of interviews... He
was tired, but gracious and I appreciate that he helped me and my show out.
Out to dinner afterwards... pizza at an outdoor cafe, and then off to
Casa
R2R to write, and plan the shows we have to shoot on Wednesday...
Talk to you soon,
Richard
WEDNESDAY MAY 22
Finally a slack day! Of course it is also the worst weather we've had
which caused us some problems as we tried to shoot parts of the show. The howling
wind prevented us from shooting for most of the morning – you just can't get
good sound with wind whipping by the microphone at one hundred miles an hour...
We spent the day shooting "b-roll," some beauty shots of Cannes to be
used in montages and exploring the old part of the city.
Got an alarming phone call from our editor Vince. Seems none of the
tapes we sent yesterday have arrived. The courier has misplaced them... all
thirty of them. We tracked them and discovered they are in Paris, so at least
we know where they are, but it means show number two will be late by a day. The
missing tapes contain pretty much everything we've shot -- all the interviews,
the parties, the b-roll and the reviews with Denis Seguin -- four shows worth
of stuff. I hope and pray they show up in Toronto on Thursday.
The porn festival is moving into town. Each year at the end of the
regular festival a porn convention starts just outside of town, and you can
really see the difference. Today we saw a woman on the street dressed (?) head
to toe in a sheer see-through outfit and nothing else... The porn festival is
well attended, just not very well reported. Each year the mainstream film
business brings in about $4 billion, while the porn industry is almost double
that. So they come here and spend loads of cash and are welcomed by the local
merchants and hotels.
As the festival winds down to the closing day you can really see the
toll it is taking on everybody. Security, who used to greet you with a
"Bonjour," now simply look at you with contempt as they frisk you and
check your bags.
Reporters are all talking about going home and how much they are looking
forward to it, and the nice woman in the media lounge is looking tired and
isn't as friendly as she was earlier in the week. It's a burn-out job covering
any festival, but this one seems to really take it out of you. The confusion,
the heat, the waiting around... it's very draining.
On Thursday we have to finish shooting the shows regardless of the
weather. I spent the night preparing material and getting ready, and praying
for sunshine.
Talk to you on Thursday,
Richard
THURSDAY MAY 23
Rainy, windy day... not great for shooting, but we'll have to make do. Found a spot in front of the Canadian Pavilion that was protected from the crappy weather and shot the remaining "stand-ups" for the fourth show, and then stood in the rain to shoot stuff for the hour-long special.
Had an interesting conversation with the producer of "Spider" at the Canadian Pavilion. He tells me the reaction to the film over here in France has been very good, and foreign sales of the film are doing well. It's a very European feeling film, so I'm not surprised that sales are brisk.
The final story I wanted to cover over here was a movie called "Only the
Strong Survive," a documentary by legendary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker.
In the Sixties Pennebaker made one of the best rock and roll movies ever,
"Don't Look Back" about Bob Dylan. "Only the Strong Survive" is a look at the soul singers of the 1960s – Sam Moore (of Sam and Dave), Carla Thomas, Wilson Pickett, The Chi-Lites, Ann Peebles and Mary Wilson -- and what they are doing now. So many didn't make it -- Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Jackie Wilson, almost all of The Temptations... the list goes on and on. Those who did survive and thrive after their turn in the spotlight frequently have inspiring stories, and that's what this movie is all about. Sam Moore is a prime example. In the late 1960s he and singing partner Dave Prater placed a handful of hits in the Top Ten, including the classics "Soul Man," "Hold On, I'm Coming," "When Something Is Wrong With My Baby," "I Thank You," and "Soothe Me" under the name Sam and Dave. After the hits stopped Moore and Prater went their separate ways, had failed solo careers and developed serious drug habits. In 1978 the success of The Blues Brothers re-recording of "Soul Man" saw Sam and Dave briefly reunite. Personal differences and drug problems seemed to doom the duo to a life of semi-obscurity. Fortunately with the help of his wife Joyce Moore has been clean ever since 1982, and it is his story that provides the "soul" of "Only The Strong Survive."
I met Moore and his wife on a patio overlooking the ocean at the American Pavilion. Moore looks fit and trim, with the grin of a man who has been there and back, and is happy to have made it through. In the interview I asked him to explain soul music. Why is it different than pop music? He sang part of his answer. "It's all in the phrasing and the attack," he said, before singing a line from a pop song, then bending and caressing the notes the way he would sing it. It gave me goose bumps to sit next to one of the great soul singers of the 60s and have him sing just for me... Also a couple of other revelations from Mr. Moore: He doesn't like being called a soul singer; he likes Celine Dion and doesn't care for his biggest hit "Soul Man."
Also spoke with D.A. Pennebaker and his partner Chris Hegedus. He's a seminal figure in the world of documentaries and his work (now in collaboration with Hegedus) is still as vital and exciting as it was almost 40 years ago when he pioneered "cinema verite." He's a self effacing man who allows his wife Chris to do most of the talking. He tells me he doesn't care for labels, and doesn't think of his work as "cinema verite," just good movies. They are an interesting couple who have managed to work together and keep a relationship going for almost 25 years. That's almost unheard of in the film world.
They were the final interview of the trip, and I was feeling pretty good about the work we had done -- loads of interviews, lots of tape to sort through back in Toronto -- certainly enough to put together 4 half-hour shows and an hour special. Then Vince, the voice of doom called from an editing suite in Toronto. The tapes finally arrived at the station after the courier had "misplaced" them, but all of the trailers we had dubbed from Pal to the NTSC format were unusable... The company we had hired in Cannes blew it and the audio was sped up on all of them. "Everyone sounds like chipmunks," Vince told me on my cell.
My head nearly exploded. The last ten days had gone well... really well... almost too well. We were really busy, and had gathered great material and had hit all our deadlines. To have a technical glitch bugger up ten days of work was almost more than I could bear. We had to gather all the tapes again, and have then re-dubbed by someone else and Fed Ex'd overnight to Toronto so we could make our next deadline. The 2nd show probably won't make it to air on time, but if everything works the way I am planning we'll only be one airing late.
This news kind of ruined the high I had been riding on, thinking we had pulled this off... At least Vince called after dinner (roasted red peppers with chevre, filet of beef with a pepper sauce and seasonal vegetables with a bottle of wine, followed by Marquees au Chocolate) so he didn't spoil my appetite.
Unfortunately I'll be traveling all day on Friday, and won't be reachable until 6 pm Toronto time, so I won't know if the situation is really fixable... you gotta know that's driving me nuts.
I have to be up at 4:30 am, so I'll sign off now...
FRIDAY MAY 24
Went to bed at 10:30 pm on my last night in Cannes. I had to be up at 4
am
(note to self: get a new travel agent) to drive to Nice, catch a flight
to
Paris and then another to Toronto. Today's going to be a long day and I
want to be at least semi-rested, but I couldn't sleep last night thinking about
all my interviewees talking like chipmunks to one another...
Here's something I didn't need to see first thing in the morning, after
only a couple hours of sleep... Someone (Mark the cameraman or Bryan the EP)
left the round wall mirror with the magnified side facing out. Oh, I know it
sounds like a little thing, but literally the first thing I saw this morning
was my enormous tanned head, magnified to three times its usual size. I wasn't
quite awake and thought perhaps over the night I had grown and swollen to
become some kind of gigantic freak. What if I don't fit into my plane seat?
As soon as Mark and I walked out of the apartment door with our luggage
and made our way down to the waiting cab the trip was over for me. The rest is
just an endurance test -- making flight connections and killing 4 hours at
Paris airport, then an eight hour flight to Toronto.
I'm a facts and figures kind of guy... so here's a list of some
information you need to know about “Reel To Real”'s 2002 trip to the Cannes
International Film Festival...
1. Number of tubes of Sour Cream and Onion Pringles consumed by R2R
Team: 2
2. Estimated liters of water I drank each day: 5
3. Best food at a party: Hong Kong At Cannes bash on Saturday. I'm still
dreaming about the dim sum...
4. Hours spent waiting in the blistering sun for Martin Scorsese: 3
5. Number of times a day I was told "It's not possible" by
someone connected to the festival: 7
6. Most elegant interview subject: Max Von Sydow
7. Smallest interview subject: Rachel Leigh Cook. She's lovely and
smart, and I liked her very much, but she has the smallest feet I have ever
seen...
8. Funniest interview subject: Michael Moore
9. Number of hours spent in Cannes: 231
10. Number of interviews: 29
11. Number of hours spent waiting for interviews to begin: 31
12. Number of Stella Artois consumed: Not telling...
13. Number of bad Adam Sandler movies I saw: 1... I seem to be the only
person in Cannes that didn't like "Punch Drunk Love"...
14. Number of souvenirs purchased in Cannes: 0... I had no time...
15. Number of people we met who inspired a classic rock song: 1... Holly
Woodlawn was the inspiration for the Lou Reed tune "Walk On the
Wild
Side"...
My plan was to sleep on the plane from Paris to Toronto, get a decent
rest and feel good once I got home... of course it didn't happen... It looked
good right up until about a minute before we took off. Mark and I get our
seats, and they're nice, spacious and there's NOBODY sitting around us.
Perfect. I'm looking at my watch, and as we get closer to departure time I'm
thinking that the plane is undersold and we're going to have all this space to
ourselves... One second before we took off a large extended family --
grandmothers to infants -- come rolling in and fill up all the seats around us,
including grandmother who has never flown before sitting next to me, and a
newborn sitting right behind me. Eight hours of wailing and crying... and that
was just me complaining about the noise this family was making.
Anyway, it wasn't a restful trip.
Got to Toronto roughly on time, and then took two hours to get downtown.
Mobs of people everywhere... hard to get a cab. The hardest part of getting
home was actually the last journey from the airport to my house... Dropped off
my luggage, and tried to answer as many of my 22 voice messages as I could
before passing out. I had been up since 10 pm (Toronto time) the night before
and it is now midnight...
I'm tired, but I think it was worth it. We got to interview loads of
people, including a few I had always wanted to talk to like Max Von Sydow,
Michael Moore and Martin Scorsese, see some great movies and bake in the sun
for almost two weeks... Hope you enjoy the shows...
Talk to you soon,
Richard
HOLLYWEIRD: LOS
ANGELES, AUGUST 8 – 10, 2003
FRIDAY, AUGUST
8, 2003
Why is it that
strange things happen to me every time I get off a plane at LAX? It’s almost
like I start to hallucinate. I begin to see odd things, and the going gets
weird. Perhaps I go crazy from the heat, but I don’t think so. I’m reminded of
a quote from Mark Twain wherein he says, “It’s no wonder that truth is stranger
than fiction; fiction has to make sense.” I was in LA to see the movie Secondhand Lions and interview its
stars, Robert Duvall, Michael Caine and Haley Joel Osment. Sounds simple
enough, but it took a turn for the weird on Saturday.
I arrived on
Friday after a long day. We had a connecting flight in Dallas which added a few
hours onto the usual flying time. Dallas airport is no place to get stranded.
The food court doesn’t exactly look hygienic, and the young woman working at
the Seattle’s Best looked at me like I was a dog with two heads when I asked
what kind of teas they had. In the departure lounge I sit next to a guy with a
long braided beard, cowboy hat and “straight from the hills accent” who is
talking on his cell phone to his “Mama.” I now have a deeper understanding of
the movie Deliverance.
The weather in
LA is beautiful. It’s not my favourite city, but I do have to admit that just
stepping off the plane into the sunshine put me in a pretty good mood. Ditto
the hotel. We’re staying at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills, and I defy
anyone to be in a bad mood while staying there. The food and service are great,
and the lobby smells like orchids. I have a lovely room looking south towards
the Hollywood sign and a television in the bathroom. I can shower and watch VH1
all at the same time. It’s good here.
I head down to
the bar for some food and spot Robert Duvall having tea with a friend. After a
quick bite (three mini burgers: one portabella, one sirloin and one turkey,
$17) we head over to the Beverly Hills AMC to see the movie. The movie open
until late September, so you’ll have to wait until then for a review, but I can
tell you it is a family movie about an introverted boy (Osment) left on the
doorstep of a pair of eccentric great-uncles (Caine and Duvall), whose murky
backgrounds and exotic remembrances stir the boy's interest and re-ignite the
men's lives.
After the movie
we headed back to the hotel. On the outside patio I hear a woman tell her
friend, “He’s going to have to come to grips with his childhood trauma
sometime. I’ve told him what he should do is write a screenplay about it. It
would be so therapeutic, and it would be totally castable.”
We also spot
Tori Spelling and Tara Reid, who seem to be having the kind of fun that only
young, rich girls are able to enjoy. Because I am not a young, rich girl I go
to bed early and read my press notes. It’s been a long day.
SATURDAY AUGUST
9, 2003
I have a 10 am
start time for my interviews. After some breakfast (fruit, scrambled eggs and a
bagel) I am called away to speak to Haley Joel Osment. It’s 10:01 – things are
running efficiently. As I am walking down to the room I see Osment and Michael
Caine ahead. When they meet they embrace warmly, genuinely happy to see one
another. I guess the chemistry I saw in the movie last night between them was
real.
Once in the
room with Haley Joel, I am impressed at how composed he is. He’s like a 50 year
old man trapped in a 15 year old’s body. His answers are thoughtful and lucid,
and he’s very articulate. He keeps a busy schedule and I asked him if he ever
takes time out from being a movie star to be a kid. He told me he goes to a
regular high school, has a good group of friends that don’t treat him like a
Hollywood star and that he is learning to drive. I thought it was funny that
after all this boy has achieved in his life that he is just learning to drive
now. He seems so much older than his 15 years.
Next was
Michael Caine. I interviewed him at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival,
and found him very easy to talk to. Before the cameras start to roll I ask him
if I should call him Sir Michael (he was knighted in November 2000) or Mr.
Caine. He says, “Please call me Michael.” I have a hard time with that for some
reason, and end up referring to him as Mr. Michael Caine instead of one or the
other. I tell him that I asked Richard Attenborough the same question a number
of years ago to which he replied, “Call me Dickie!” Caine added to my story,
“I’m sure he called you Darling, because he can’t remember anyone’s name.”
I asked him
about the Academy Awards show of a couple of years ago when he singled out
Haley Joel Osment for praise in his acceptance speech. He told me that he got
two jobs out of that Oscar night. When Secondhand
Lions director Tim McCanlies saw Osment and him together on the red carpet
before the ceremony it gave him the idea to cast them as nephew and uncle in
the film. Director Phillip Noyce was also watching that night and was inspired
to cast Caine as Thomas Fowler in The
Quiet American. He’s a pleasure to speak to, and you can see the whole
interview on Reel to Real when it
airs in late September.
Sometimes I am
shocked by the level of professionalism of some of the other “reporters” on
these junkets. In the hall outside of Mr. Caine’s room I spoke with a
television interviewer from Miami who was going in after me. As she was opening
the door she looked at me and asked, “Michael Caine, he’s British isn’t he?”
“Only the one of the great British film actors,” I wanted to say, “a man who
was recently voted fifth all-time greatest British actor of all time.” Instead
I looked down at her and replied, “Yes, I think so…”
The last
interview of the day is Robert Duvall. This would be the third time I’ve
interviewed him this year, and I was determined to finally ask him about one of
my favourite films of all time – Apocalypse
Now. He remembers me from the last couple of interviews, but can’t remember
where I am from. I tell him Toronto, and that I met him at the festival last
year. He went on to praise the festival and specifically Piers Handling, the
director of TIFF. We discuss Secondhand
Lions and working with Caine and Osment. With just a couple of minutes left
in the interview I ask him about Lt. Col. Kilgore and the famous scene on the
beach where explosions are bursting all around him, yet he seems like he’s
unaffected by it all, and doesn’t even blink. We’ll air his answer next season
on Reel to Real in a new segment
we’re planning on great movie moments.
That’s it, less
than an hour after sitting with Haley Joel; I’m done for the day. I go back to
my room, change and head out for a walk. Nobody walks in LA except tourists and
the homeless, but it was a beautiful day and I thought I’d take in some of the sights.
Left the Four Seasons at 11:45 am and walked for the next six hours. The last
stop was Hollywood Boulevard and Cahuenga, a name I can’t figure out how to
pronounce, but I imagine it sounds like someone sneezing. The conversation back
at the hotel would go something like this:
“Where did you
walk to?”
“Cahuenga…”
“Bless you…”
The walk
started with a celebrity sighting just a couple of minutes from the hotel.
Steve Martin was sitting in the patio of a restaurant called Barefoot on Third
Street. Dressed in a t-shirt and shorts, he was sitting by himself making notes
in a large bound book. Instead of raving at Mr. Martin about how much I liked
his last book and that The Jerk is
one of my favourite movies, I leave him in peace and continue walking.
From there I
criss-crossed the city, meandering down from Doheny Drive in Beverly Hills to
Melrose Avenue, across the little side streets lined with pink stucco houses
over to Sunset Boulevard and down to the Sunset Strip. Along the way I stop to
have a look at a 1920’s vintage Spanish style house on North Crescent Heights
Boulevard. It is a classic small LA house, the kind of place you could imagine
Raymond Chandler calling home. I looked through its 2461 square feet, three
bedrooms and 2 ½ baths. Took in the Italian tile in the hallway and imagined
giving dinner parties in the octagonal dining room. The sales agent, a nice
fellow named Mike told me the place was on sale for one week only, reduced in
price to a mere $899,500. My pipe dream of living in my own little Spanish casa
near the Beverly Center evaporated as the words were coming out of his mouth. I
thanked him for his kind offer and moved on.
On the Sunset
Strip I take a walk to the Chateau Marmont (8221 Sunset Boulevard). It’s known
as the most discreet hotel in LA – you can pull off the Sunset Strip into the
hotel's garage in a split second, and be lifted straight from the garage to
your room via private elevators. Everyone in Hollywood has stayed here at some
point or another. Greta Garbo lived there in the 1930s; Led Zeppelin rode
motorcycles through the halls in 1968; recently Colin Farrell was seen in a
heavy make-out session with Britney Spears on his penthouse balcony and before
he was famous Warren Beatty was tossed out for not paying his bill. One person
who never had the chance to get kicked out of the hotel for misbehaving was
John Belushi, who died in one of the hotel’s bungalows. Because of the discreet
nature of the place many stars have used it as a place to hide out or behave
badly. Harry Cohn, founder
of Columbia Pictures said, "If you must get into trouble, do it at the
Chateau Marmont.”
I’m not looking
for trouble, so leave the hotel and stop by Mel’s Drive In (8585 Sunset Strip)
for a bite. It is a family-run chain of restaurants based in San Francisco,
famous because the original Mel’s was used as the diner where the kids hang out
in American Graffiti. The original is
long gone, demolished shortly after the filming of the movie, but in the late
nineties Mel’s son took over the business, building new restaurants all over
California.
The one on the
Strip is in the location of the famous Ben Frank’s Coffee Shop. Ben Frank's was
a Sunset Strip institution, becoming legendary as a hip after hours hangout in
the 1960s and 1970s. The Rolling Stones and Andy Warhol used to frequent the
place and apparently Louis L’Amour liked to make notes for his cowboy novels at
the counter at Ben’s. Mel’s is a pale imitation of Ben’s, but the 50’s style
architecture appealed to me, as did the chance to sit in air conditioning while
I ate.
After a quick
Cobb Salad ($8.95) and loads of iced tea I headed for Tower Records (8801
Sunset Boulevard). Axl Rose used to work here in the early days of Guns and
Roses, and it has the reputation of being then best music store in town. I
prefer the Virgin Megastore (8000 Sunset) for its selection and helpful staff,
but the Towers does have a certain kind of dirty charm. The rocker dudes that
work behind the counter aren’t particularly helpful, but they sure do look cool.
The lengthy
walk continued down Sunset and over to Hollywood Boulevard. I follow the long
line of Walk of Fame stars on the sidewalk to the heart of touristville.
(Here’s some trivia for you: The 3000 memorialized celebrity names take up
almost 5 acres of sidewalk space.) I’m fine with cheesy tourist attractions,
and even stop at a store to have my photo taken in front of a pseudo Hollywood
sign while posing with a cardboard cut out of John Wayne. The girls next in
line after me don’t know who John Wayne is, and ask if they could have their
photos taken with cut outs of the Olsen Twins. Later I see a life-size
representation of John Wayne made of dryer lint at the Ripley’s Odditorium.
What befits a legend most…
I’m kind of
riveted by this fabulously sleazy part of LA. It’s busy, with thousands of
tourists stopping to have their photo taken at the site of their favourite
actor’s star, but it is also kind of bizarre down here. I see an off duty
Charlie Chaplin impersonator, in full make-up, but wearing jeans and a t-shirt,
yelling at a younger boy. “You have got to be careful young man,” he said,
looking the spitting image of the gentle tramp character, “or your life is
going to swirl down the toilet bowl.” It’s a surreal moment in Hollyweird.
Just a few feet
away someone dressed as Crocodile Dundee gives me a coupon for discounted
cheesecake at a nearby restaurant. His friend, a man in a Jedi robe, assures me
that the cheesecake is “the best in the galaxy.” I wonder if these guys, who I
assume are out of work actors, ever imagined when they moved to LA that they
would become cheesecake shills instead of movie stars.
I duck into the
Frederick’s of Hollywood. The famous purple and pink lingerie store has been a
fixture on the Boulevard since 1947 when its owner Frederick Mellinger became
an overnight star and earned the gratitude of millions by inventing the push-up
bra (originally known as the “Rising Star”). Such is Frederick’s contribution
to Hollywood that November 8, 1989 was declared Frederick’s of Hollywood Day by
Mayor Tom Bradley. To mark the occasion Frederick said, with tongue in cheek,
“Frederick’s has always been a strong supporter of the community.” Over the
decades Fredericks has kept abreast of the latest trends, and continues to
dress major stars so that they may look good when they undress.
I’m here to
have a look at the fabled Lingerie Museum located at the back of the store.
Many exhibits were lost in the 1992 LA riots when looters ransacked the place,
but there is still lots to see. It is a crash course in the history of
underwear, beginning with a Missiles and Snowcones display, featuring 1951’s
Pointette, described as “stitched four section cups designed for projection and
separation.” Think Madonna in her pointy bra phase.
There are
amusing slogans, like “Flats fixed here,” and “Beauty and the Bust,” from
Frederick’s famous lingerie catalogue sprinkled throughout the displays, which
feature bras with names like the Daring Deceiver (“Utilizes all possible
cleavage!”) and Double Exposure.
Of course this
is Hollywood, so no display would be complete with out a selection of celebrity
undergarments. In the Lingerie Hall of Fame one can marvel at Milton Berle’s
padded bra and sequined gown from his television show; an unusual bra used by
Phyllis Diller that resembles nothing more than a strip of material marked with
the instructions “This side up;” and a selection of undergarments worn by the
likes of Judy Garland, Cher, Mamie Van Doren and Zsa Zsa Gabor. I left the
store with a new appreciation of nipple pads and falsies.
I try and
imagine 50 years ago when this was a glamorous part of town, when the showbiz
elite would pop down to The Musso & Frank Grill (6667 Hollywood Boulevard)
for shrimp cocktails and champagne. The Musso & Frank Grill is still here,
but the only stars you’ll see are embedded in the sidewalk.
I see Bennett
Cerf’s star in front of a store that sells Eminem bobble head dolls. I wonder
if in 30 years the name Eminem will be as forgotten as Cerf’s. (FYI: Bennett Cerf
was a humorist who was one of the founding editors of Random House.) I see the
star for Zasu Pitts, the silent screen actress and inspiration for the animated
character of Olive Oyl in the Popeye
series, in front of a store that sells ridiculously high platform shoes with
clear plastic heels. I go in and ask the girl working the counter if she knows
who Zasu Pitts is. She ignores me and I leave. At least one older star hasn’t
been forgotten. Elvis Presley’s star had fresh cut flowers on it.
Robert Vaughn’s
star is located at the choice corner of Cherokee and Hollywood Boulevard. Just
a few yards away, Charlie Chaplin’s star is covered with construction hoarding
and I thought this was a might unfair. In the last decade Vaughn’s major
contribution to the world of cinema has been a supporting role in Pootie Tang and those dreadful “Have you
been injured in an accident,” commercials for Mark E. Salemone, and yet his
star is much more accessible than Chaplin’s, the first great genius of the
cinema. It doesn’t seem right, but then on the other hand, both Chaplin and
Zasu Pitts have been immortalized on stamps, and I don’t think Robert Vaughn
will ever be so honoured.
In fact, images
of Chaplin are everywhere, second only to murals and images of Marilyn Monroe.
Want a Marilyn keychain? No problem. How about a bottle of Norma Jean Merlot
for fourteen dollars? If you’re a big spender you can pick up the name brand
wine, the Marilyn Merlot for thirty bucks. How about a Marilyn license plate?
Only $15. You can buy all that stuff that seems like a good idea at the time,
but then ends up in the back of your closet after the vacation is over.
It’s getting
late in the day, and I have just one more stop on my quick LA day trip –
Grauman’s Chinese Theatre (6925 Hollywood Boulevard). Filled with exotic art
from China and covered with a 90 foot high jade-green bronze roof, it is
probably the most famous movie theatre in the world. In front of the theatre is
the famous “Forecourt of the Stars.” The official story about this Hollywood
landmark is that silent screen actress Norma Talmadge slipped into some wet
cement in front of the newly built movie palace in 1927. Owner Sid Grauman
recognized a good bit of publicity when he saw it, and left the footprint
enshrined in cement, beginning a Hollywood tradition that over the next few
decades saw over 200 stars leaving their imprints in front of the theatre.
The actual origins of the famous forecourt are a
little less glamorous. Jean W. Klossner is the man who built Grauman’s.
According to him nobody "slipped" or "fell" into wet cement
there was no wet cement to fall into. It was all a carefully planned out
publicity stunt.
The footprint and hand print idea came from Mr.
Klossner's family in the early 1800's. As three generations of Klossners
completed work on the Notre Dame Cathedral, they signed their work by pressing
their hands in the fresh cement. Jean Klossner brought this idea over with him
from Europe and used it on all the buildings he completed with the Meyer-Holler
Construction Co. in Los Angeles. When it was time to finish Grauman’s, Mr.
Klossner pressed his hand in the fresh cement out front of the theater's
right-hand poster frame, where it remains today, almost 80 years later. When
Sid Grauman saw him do this, the two developed the idea to embellish the
otherwise plain forecourt.
It’s packed at the Forecourt, but I still manage to
wedge myself in and stand in Jack Nicholson’s footprints. I’m guessing he wears
a size 10 as his feet were much smaller than mine. I hang around and watch the
other tourists for a while, before grabbing a cab and heading back to the Four
Seasons.
We have reservations for 8 o’clock on the patio of the
Four Seasons, and after my six hour walk I need to chill for a few minutes.
At dinner I discover that the rest of the Canadians
spent the day hanging around the pool. When I hear that Rosanna Arquette was
also at the pool I regret not popping by to say hello. It’s nice up there, the
waiters bring frozen grapes and fruit smoothies to keep you cool, and there is
generally some pretty good star gazing.
It’s a beautiful Southern California night, and we
have a choice table for people watching. We see an older man dressed like Elvis
pull up in a $500,000 car, many Rolls Royces and Gary Busey. Remember earlier
when I said that strange things always happen to me when I come to LA? Well,
tonight would be no exception, and it would be my second strange encounter with
Mr. Busey. (Caution! Dropping names ahead.)
On a hot June evening in 1992 I had dinner at a
Wolfgang Puck restaurant in Malibu called Granita. We scored a great table on
the patio, and were seated between Johnny Carson, who had just retired, and
Gary Busey, who was celebrating his birthday. The meal was relatively peaceful
until Busey started opening his gifts. He insisted on showing us each of his
presents, which was fine, but he had a lot of presents, and we were trying to
eat. Eventually we stopped commenting on the gifts and tried to enjoy our meal.
It was then that I felt a bread roll hit me in the back of the head.
“Hey! Tell Wolfgang we’re having a food fight,” Busey
hollered as he winged another roll in my direction.
I didn’t know
what to do, and didn’t really want to get involved, but the rolls kept coming,
so eventually I threw one back at him, hitting him in the chest. I’m sure Mr.
Carson was impressed with my aim. Thankfully someone at the table (I think it
was his mother) got him to stop, and we never progressed past the rolls into
throwing hot entrees at one another.
I didn’t see
Busey for another eleven years, and much has happened in the intervening years.
He has worked steadily, mostly in straight to video movies that earn a
“Terrible,” or “Appalling” user rating on IMBD; he had a plum sized tumour
removed from his sinus cavity, has been arrested and become a born-again
Christian. Most recently he has been starring in I’m With Busey, a reality show a la The Osbournes. I think the show’s tagline says it all: “Somewhere,
between reality and insanity, Is Busey.”
He is sitting
inside with a group of people, including a friend of mine from Toronto. At one
point Busey decides that he wants to smoke one of his large Cuban cigars, and
comes outside to our table. Actually he looms over the table, sitting on a
ledge above us, with his feet resting on one of the chairs. Introductions are
made. I tell him I am from Toronto.
“I have made
ten movies in Toronto. Ten in Vancouver and three in Montreal,” he says loudly.
“I must have
missed those,” I’m thinking, but say nothing.
When I don’t
take the bait he starts spouting Buseyisms, which are basically acronyms of his
invention which contain his philosophy on life.
“Do you know
what FEAR stands for?” he asks me.
Not sure where
this conversation is going, I say no.
“FEAR… False
Evidence Appearing Real,” he says. “F-E-A-R.”
Wow.
“Do you know
what LIGHT stands for?” he hollers.
Before I have a
chance to answer, he says, “LIGHT! Living In God’s Heavenly Thoughts…
L-I-G-H-T.”
I have a
feeling this is going to go on for a while, so I order another drink.
They came in
quick succession… GOAT! Get Over Adulterous Tendencies! BIBLE! Beautiful
Instructions Before Leaving Earth!
Then, to make a
peculiar scene even more bizarre we were joined by one of Busey’s friends, Sal
Pacino. No, that’s not a typo, I said Sal
Pacino, father of Al. Sal is in his eighties, but has a strong resemblance to
his famous son. He was wearing a very cool belt with the letter “S” on the
buckle, and didn’t say much. He didn’t have much of a chance to, as Busey
holding court, sucking up all the air on the patio.
I wondered if
it was just me who didn’t really know what Busey was on about, but later read a
quote from his son Jake, who said, “He’s always telling stories about monkeys
and toads and rockets… I can never understand what he’s talking about.” Good,
even his blood relatives can’t comprehend him. I think if I could identify with
what he was saying then I would have something to worry about.
Anyway, as
quickly as he joined us, he was gone, leaving nothing but perplexed looks and a
cloud of cigar smoke. It was definitely the oddest celebrity encounter I have
ever had.
Strange as he
was, Busey was entertaining, and after he left the party seemed a little less
interesting. With my head full of Buseyisms I went to bed, no wiser, but a
little more amused than when I woke up today.
SUNDAY AUGUST
10, 2003
Up early to
head to LAX. I hate to leave, and as I walk past the patio I half expect to see
Busey still there, preaching to a new group of people.
I arrive two
hours before my flight only to find huge line-ups. The line to check in started
outside and wormed its way through the terminal. Forty-five minutes later I get
my boarding pass, only to have to go outside again and get in another line to
have my bags X-Rayed and go through security. Time is ticking, and I want to
get on this flight because it is the only direct flight to Toronto today. If I
miss this one, I’ll have to fly through Chicago and won’t get home until almost
midnight.
With just a
couple of minutes to spare I sprint through security, grab a bagel at Starbucks
and make it on the plane. Four-and-a-half uneventful hours later I am in a
Toronto cab on the way to my house. It’s good to be home. The little pink
bungalow on North Crescent Heights Boulevard will just have to wait…
DETENTION &
GOLDIROCKS SET VISITS
ON-LINE DIARY
Monday August 12, 2002
New York.
Cannes. Los Angeles. Hamilton… Hamilton!? I’m off to Hamilton, Ontario, steel
capital of Canada, to visit the set of the new action adventure film Detention, starring Dolph Lundgren.
According to
the press information the movie is set in a tough inner city high school where
“drugs and guns are part of the unofficial curriculum.” Actually the high
school is the not-so-scary Glendale Secondary School, a fairly average looking
facility in the suburbs of Hamilton… but back to the story. Sam Decker (Dolph
Lundgren) is a teacher who is disillusioned with the school system and wants
out. It’s his last day as a teacher, and he has been assigned to oversee a
detention class after hours. In his class is a pregnant teen named Alicia
(Danielle Hampton), Willy (Dov Tiefenbach), a bitter student confined to a
wheelchair, Mick, (Corey Sevier) a skateboarder with attitude, the foul-mouthed
Tee Jay (Mpho Koaho), the street-wise Hoagie (Chris Collins) and Charlee
(Nicole Dicker) a troubled teen. Of course that alone wouldn’t be much of a
movie, so it’s at this point we discover that some generic Eastern European bad
guys are planning on taking over the school and using it as a base for their
nefarious operations. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Decker is a former U.S.
Special Forces unit leader. Sit back and watch the bullets fly; it’s like The Breakfast Club with bazookas.
We arrived
on-set at 11:15 few minutes later than planned. I’ll let my poor navigational
skills take the blame for that. North, south… I get very confused when trying
to read maps. I have two Tissot watches, one has a compass, and one doesn’t. I
must remember to always where the one with the compass when travelling
anywhere… even when just taking the streetcar uptown. I literally have no sense
of direction. Anyway, we arrive to find that things are running slightly
behind. This is pretty much status quo for any film set, so we occupy ourselves
by setting up an interview area in an abandoned classroom. I don’t know about
you, but I still get the willies when I am in a high school classroom. The
smell of the chalk, the desks, and the stacks of textbooks reminds me of a
lifetime ago when ruler wielding teachers always seemed to be yelling,
“Richard! Report to the principal’s office right now!” Those feelings of dread
passed by the time we started to set up.
While we were
waiting for the first interview of the day I passed the time by chatting with
the prop guy Andrew. He showed me the wide variety of fake guns used in a
production like this. There are rubber pistols used for clubbing the bad guys
over the head, realistic looking plastic machine guns that pop when you pull
the trigger and electric guns that produce authentic sounding gunfire. He’s
very protective of the props. The guns are quite expensive, even the small
rubber pistol costs about $300. He also had an array of American text books
(the movie is set in the US), portraits of George Washington, bullet proof
police shields, squibs, and bows and arrows.
The first
interview was with the star, Dolph Lundgren. He’s a huge man. I’m almost six
feet four and he towered over me, and is very pumped up. He looks the same as
he did in Rocky IV, although he doesn’t really speak with the thick Russian
accent. He’s actually from Sweden, although his accent sounds more American
than anything else. He came to us directly from the set, so he was in costume,
with dirt smudged on his face, with a tourniquet on his leg. He’s an imposing
guy, which, I guess, is why he’s done so well in the action genre.
After meeting
him, I realized that people’s perceptions of him have very little to do with
reality. His on-screen image is just that, an image. In person he is soft
spoken, funny and introspective, a far cry from the gun totin’ ex-Marine or
superhero that he usually plays on the screen. He came to the United States in
the early eighties to finish his Masters degree in Chemical Engineering. The
acting bug bit him while he was attending the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology on the Fulbright Scholarship. When I asked why he left the world of
academia to become an actor he said, “I got tired of shaking test tubes.” I
pushed the issue with him a bit, and tried to discover a link between his
academic studies and his work as an actor. He joked that as an actor the only
thing his science background helped him with was “counting large sums of
money.” He was funny and charming and answered each of my questions thoughtfully.
When he left the room he thanked me for asking him interesting questions.
Next we waited
as one by one the rest of the cast came into the classroom for their
interviews. We were grabbing them between shots, and as this was the last day
of shooting the schedule was pretty crazy. First up was Dov Tiefenbach, a young
Toronto actor who has two movies at the Toronto International Film Festival
this year, and will also be seen in the soon-to-be-released Vin Diesel film Knock Around Guys. He plays the
wheelchair bound Willie in the film, and is a very funny guy. I didn’t so much
interview him as sit through his six-minute monologue on everything from the
ringing in his ears caused by the gunfire to how to manoeuvre his huge
wheelchair from scene to scene.
Another Toronto
up-and-comer was next, Mpho Koaho. He went to Clinton Street Public School, and
has recently been seen in Salton Sea
with Val Kilmer and the television show Doc.
He told me the best part about working with director Sydney J. Furie was the
amount of improv the actors were allowed to do, and since this was an action
movie he didn’t have to watch his language. When this movie plays on TV look
for a lot of beeps during Mpho’s performance.
By this time it
was about one o’clock and we took our meal break with the cast and crew. As
regular readers of my on-line diaries will know I always write about the food.
As we sat in the school cafeteria at long tables I had an urge to yell “Food
fight!” and see if I could get something going, but I think that was just
another flashback to my school days. Lunch was very organized and tasty. Two
long tables with many choices of salads, hot and cold entrees and desserts. I
had roasted potatoes, broccoli salad, beets, roast pork and a delicious peanut butter
cookie. Dolph didn’t eat with us. He told me he was in training for this film
and had to be very careful about what he ate. After seeing the great shape he’s
in I felt badly eating the cookie. Not badly enough to not eat it, but…
Back at the
classroom things were slowing down a bit. We had to wait a long time between
interviews while they were shooting action scenes in the hallway. It was a
little unnerving sitting inside the classroom and hearing screaming and very
loud gunshots just outside the door. Visions of Columbine were floating through
my head, and I had to wonder what Michael Moore, director of the anti-gun
documentary Bowling for Columbine
would have had to say had he been there.
On a quick
break from shooting we were able to grab three more of the actors. Danielle
Hampton plays the pregnant Alicia. She looked familiar to me, but I couldn’t
quite place her. A quick look at her resume reminded me that she had been in Ginger Snaps, a movie I really liked
from last year, but I knew I knew her from somewhere else. Then she told me she
used to work at Sassafraz Restaurant where we shoot Reel to Real. She was followed by Corey Sevier a busy teen actor
who was recently nominated for Best Supporting Actor in a Dramatic Series by
the Los Angeles Youth Awards. He plays Mick the rebellious skateboarder, and is
destined to become the heart throb of the group. Next was Chris Collins, hot
off the set of Bulletproof Monk,
another action film shot in Toronto over the summer. In fact, he worked on Detention and Monk at the same time for several weeks. I asked him if he had been
injured during the course of shooting, and he showed me a gash on his nose. He
took a punch to the face a few days ago and got cut. That has healed, but to
keep continuity make-up artists had to recreate the cut everyday.
I really
enjoyed meeting all these young actors, although by the end of the day I was
feeling really old. Most of these kids were born in the eighties. I have socks
older than some of these guys.
More waiting
around. Did I mention that there was no air conditioning? The lights from the
film crew were sucking so much power they had to shut down the air con to keep
from blowing fuses.
Finally we were
down to our last couple of interviews. Kata Dobo is a Hungarian actress living
in Los Angeles. She has a list of European films and television shows to her
credit, although North American audiences would have last seen her in Rollerball. In Detention she plays one of the villains, and came into the room in
costume – thigh high leather boots, bright pink wig and tight fitting black
body suit, carrying her prop gun. “If I don’t like your questions,” she said
pointing at the gun, “I might have to use this.” I asked her about how she
prepared for her role. “I tried to make her sexy,” was her reply. Whatever she
did, it worked.
The other
villain, Viktor, is played by Joseph Scoren. Aside from Detention, you’ll be able to catch Joseph in two movies that will
be open in Canada within the next year, Who
Is Cletis Tout? With Christian Slater and Chicago: The Musical. We talked about playing villains, and he told
me that it was important to find some core of humanity in the role, no matter
how ruthless they might be, otherwise nobody will believe the character.
With the
interviews done we shot some behind-the-scenes footage, and watched director
Sydney J. Furie at work. He didn’t want to be interviewed, and that’s a shame
because he has been making movies in Canada and Hollywood for forty-five years.
He’s helmed dozens of films, including Lady
Sings the Blues with Diana Ross and Billy Dee Williams, The Ipcress File with Michael Caine and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace with
Christopher Reeves. At age 70 he still works steadily directing two films a
year. I would have loved to pick his brain, but he was too busy and couldn’t
spare the time. It was impressive to see a journeyman like him at work. He
stayed calm and collected, even as intricately choreographed action sequences
were being shot by four cameras. Add to that gun fire and stunts and it is a
pretty high pressure scenario, but you never would have guessed it from
watching him. He was the model of composure.
We left the set
at six pm for the sixty-two kilometre drive back to Toronto. It had been a long
day, but we got some great footage, which will be on Reel to Real in late September, just after our Toronto Film
Festival coverage wraps up.
Tuesday August 13, 2002
Another on-set
visit today, but for a very different kind of movie. There isn’t a gun or open
gushing wound to be found on the set of Goldirocks,
a new independent rock and roll movie written and directed by Paula Tiberius.
When we arrive
for the shoot Lee’s Palace on Bloor Street is buzzing with activity. It’s the
last full day of shooting and they have to be out of Lee’s by 6 pm so the
night’s band can do their sound check. There’s a great deal to be done and
Tiberius looks a little stressed but is still in good humour. It’s her first
feature film after making a series of well received shorts. The four week shoot
has gone well, and amazingly they are still on schedule, but today is still a
pressure cooker.
The film is
about 19 year-old Goldi, an oversexed rock and roller with an affinity for
musicians. She meets an indie garage band who invite her to join them as lead
singer. The three musicians – one too hot, one too cold and one that seems just
right – kick her out of the band when they decide they don’t want to share the
spotlight with their new charismatic singer. Disillusioned, she is about to
give up until her feminist friends buy her a guitar. She then realizes that
real success “means becoming your own rock and roll hero.”
Tiberius has
cast unknowns in the lead roles, although the music is supplied by a who’s who
of the Toronto music scene. The film features performances and music by Robin
Black and the Intergalactic Rock Stars, The Chickens, Sticky Rice, Cheerleader
and Blurtonia. Lead actress Sasha Ormond also contributes a cover of the
Teenage Head classic Let’s Shake.
We steal Paula
for a few minutes and chat on camera. She tells me that shooting during the
heat wave in Toronto has probably been the biggest problem they’ve had so far.
Actors sweating on-camera is not a pretty sight, so the make-up people were
working overtime. People warned her not to shoot in August, and now she knows
why. Next time she’ll shoot in November she says. She also told me they plan to
have a rough cut of the film ready in time to submit it to the Sundance
Festival in October.
Before shooting
resumes I take a few minutes with Sasha Ormond who plays Goldie. She’s a former
dancer who has been acting for about nine months. With her blonde dreadlocks
she’s a perfect fit for Goldi. She has strep throat, a result of the long
shooting hours, but is high spirited and funny. She enjoyed singing in the
film, and is contemplating starting her own band once production has wrapped. Shooting
started shortly after my conversations with Paula and Sasha, so we stayed to
shoot some behind the scenes footage. I was flattered to be asked to be an extra
in a bar scene, and spent the next forty minutes sitting at the bar, pretending
to drink beer and chatting with Skydigger’s
singer Andy Maize. As I watched several scenes being shot it wasn’t hard to see
why Tiberius cast Sasha in the lead role. She’s funny and playful with the
right kind of energy for a rock and roll fable.
Reel to Real’s story on Goldirocks
will air in early October.
Talk to you
soon,
Richard
LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS JUNKET ON-LINE DIARY: New York City,
Dec. 2 – 3, 2002
MONDAY
DECEMBER 2, 2002
I’m not a
morning person, and I don’t really understand people who are. My friend Andrea
gets up early and is always trying to convince me that I’m missing “the best
part of the day.” Well, let me tell you about “the best part” of Monday
morning. My flight to New York wasn’t until 12:45 pm, but I had a few things to
do before I go, so I get up early, pack and go out to do some banking and run
some errands.
First up, the
bank. I have to get a money order, and figure it won’ t be busy at 9 am. I run
to the bank on the corner. Of course it doesn’t open until 10 am. The security
guard glares at me as I try and open the door. Strike one. I leave the bank and
go to the post office. On the way someone spits and almost lands a large gob on
my pant leg. Not pleasant. Strike two. Get to the post office and suffer
through a long line-up. I pick up my parcel, and am out in about twenty
minutes. Not bad, maybe things are looking up. I leave the post office and
narrowly avoid being thrown up on by a random passer by. What is it with people
and their disagreeable bodily functions? Strike three. At this point my natural
inclination was to run home and go to back to bed to wait out “best part of the
day,” but I had a plane to catch, and decided to leave right away for the
airport. I turn down the street to my house, and while I have been gone several
large Hydro trucks have moved in and completely blocked the street. I’ll have
to grab my luggage and get a cab on the street. Strike four. I stand on the
street, freezing cold until the cab arrives. While I’m there I read newspaper
stories about someone getting kicked to death at a restaurant in the East end,
and a bar on College Street that blew up the night before. As the cab pulls up
I feel a sense of relief that I’m going somewhere clean and safe – New York
City…
The cab ride to
Terminal 3 at Pearson was thankfully uneventful. I guess the “best part of the
day” was over. You don’t realize how many Americans come to Canada to visit
friends and family on Thanksgiving until you try to fly to the US on the Monday
following the holidays. The long, long, long line-up to check-in was followed
by equally long line-ups to clear customs and go through security. Security
seemed a bit tighter than the last time I flew to America. I was grilled at
customs, searched at the security point and just before boarding the plane
there were random checks. I missed getting pulled aside, but one of the other
reporters from Toronto was thoroughly checked. Good thing too, she looked kind
of shady…
The flight left
on time, and despite AA’s nickname of “American Scarelines,” the flight was
quick, safe and without incident. The food service, however, was disappointing.
We were offered a bag of Tiny Twist pretzels and a beverage. That’s it.
Arrive on time,
and grab a cab to the Drake hotel in mid-town Manhattan. I love New York. The
city bristles with energy, and after dozens of trips there in the last few
years, I still get excited about going there.
The Drake is a
grand old hotel just off of Park Avenue. As we drive there we pass Bergdorf
Goodman, Gucci, Fendi and Burberry. I guess I’ll have to go elsewhere if I plan
on doing any shopping while I’m here. After checking in I check my schedule and
discover that I have several hours before I have to see Lord of the Rings:
The Two Towers. Here’s my confession -- the story of my weird obsession.
(Don’t worry this will all make sense soon enough.) Twenty years ago I was
working in a restaurant in the Eaton Centre. Starting at the end of November
for eight hours a day I was forced to listen to an endless loop of the sappiest
Christmas music ever recorded. It drove me mad, and I decided to try and find
some better Christmas tunes. The first records I found were some James Brown
45s with names like Santa Claus Goes Straight to the Ghetto and Let’s
Make Christmas Mean Something This Year. There are both incredibly funky,
with the latter being, in my opinion the Stairway to Heaven of Christmas
tunes. It’s great stuff, and it got me hooked on collecting unusual holiday
discs. I vowed to never again listen to the appalling Stars on 45
discofied version of Frosty the Snowman. The memory of this song still
haunts my dreams. Since then the collection has grown to enormous proportions
and gets bigger every year. For the last few years I have found myself in New
York around Christmas and make a point of hitting the record stores to see
what’s new and unusual. Last year on my annual NYC Christmas hunt I found some
very rare stuff – an old Bob Seger recording of Sock It To My Santa and
the like. This year I spent Monday afternoon at Virgin Records in Times Square
and several other smaller shops hunting through the racks.
At Virgin I
found a comedy record by Bob Rivers called White Trash Christmas. Rivers is a
radio DJ who has released several Christmas records. This one contains the
soon-to-be classics Have Yourself an Ozzy Little Christmas, Osama Got
Run Over by a Reindeer and What if Eminem Did Jingle Bells. Pretty
funny stuff, although it doesn’t exactly fill one’s heart with Christmas cheer.
My next stop was the Colony record store on Broadway. This place has been here
for a million years, and is one of my favorite stores in NYC. The staff is
really old, I imagine that most of them have worked here since the stone age,
and they are foul tempered and not very helpful, but for some reason I like the
abuse. It seems so New York to me, that in a strange way I find it charming and
funny. This time I enter the store and ask the first salesperson I see where
the Christmas section is. No response. I ask again. He just stares ahead, lost
in thought and completely ignores me. I try one more time. “Excuse me, where is
the Christmas section?” “I HEARD YOU THE FIRST TIME,” he grunts, suddenly
coming to life. Begrudgingly he takes me to the back of the store, where I find
another Bob Rivers CD called Chipmunks Roasting on an Open Fire. The
title of one of the songs, The Carol of the Bartenders appeals to me so
I pick it up. The last stop was a small store near the hotel. I find ‘Tis
the Season for Los Straitjackets! 13 Rockin’ Christmas Instrumentals. I’ve
been looking for this one. Los Straitjackets are a Mexican wrestling mask
wearing quartet from LA that play stripped-down surf-punk guitar tunes that
rock like crazy. This one is a mix of traditional and original tunes. Pretty
good haul for one day. Now I have to get back to the hotel, grab a bite and go
see the movie.
Have dinner
with Teri Hart from TMN and Amy Lerman from Movie Television on CITY-TV. We
went to Q56, the restaurant in the hotel. They had soup and salads, and by this
time I realized I hadn’t eaten anything at all today so I hammered back a
delicious French Onion Soup and a steak (medium rare please!) with root
vegetables and white asparagus ($43 USD).
The movie was
at the Regal Theatre on Second Avenue. It’s an old tri-plex in midtown that
seems like it could use a bit of a facelift. I sat in the balcony, and the rows
of chairs were so close together that I had to have my legs hanging out in the
aisle. Otherwise I couldn’t sit up straight. Also there were ashtrays on the
backs of the chairs. I can’t remember when I have seen that in recent years.
The movie is
three solid hours, and will definitely blow people’s minds. The battle
sequences are unbelievable, and there are lots of new characters. For a full
review check out Reel to Real.
On the drive
back to the hotel I took in the Christmas lights at Bloomingdales and was glad
I was in New York at Christmas. It’s beautiful, and almost looks like a movie
set.
Before I go to
bed I check my schedule for the next day. My first interview isn’t until 1:30
pm, so I can sleep in and possibly miss the “best part of the day” in NYC.
TUESDAY
DECEMBER 3, 2002
I got up at a
reasonable hour and checked out of the hotel. Overnight the temperature dropped
about a million degrees and it’s quite cold. Some of the other reporters from
Los Angeles are complaining that they have to walk five blocks in the cold to
get to the interviews. My Canadian constitution kicks in, and I don’t even do
up my jacket as I walk up Park Avenue.
The interviews
are at the Regency Hotel on 61st street. Very elegant, and very
expensive. I make my way up to the hospitality suite, and am greeted by every
hotel employee with a “Good morning sir,” as I walk to the hotel. I get tired
of saying, “Fine thanks, how are you?” I’m glad everyone is so pleasant, but I
think I was “greeted” 10 times in the 45 second walk from the door to the
elevator.
At the
hospitality suite I have a bite to eat from a buffet set up for the reporters.
It’s an orgy of eggs, bacon, bagels and pastries topped with sugary icing. I
scarf back as much of this stuff as I can, washing it back with several cups of
tea. It’s really hard to get a good cup of tea in the US, but the more upscale
hotels seem to understand that the basic ingredient of tea is boiling hot
water. Clearly someone at the Regency is on top of this.
There are nine
sets of interviews to do today, so it’s going to take a while. Each interview
is only 5 – 7 minutes long, but it’s the waiting around that takes the time. I
start late, at 2:30, with John Rhys Davies, a veteran actor who was in the
Indiana Jones movies. The term gregarious might well have been invented to
describe this guy. Despite having done a whole day of interviews the day
before, and a morning of them before I got to him, he was ion very good
spirits. In The Two Towers he plays Gimili, the warrior dwarf and does
the voice of Treebeard. The former role is very physical, so I was surprised to
see him walking with a cane. He explained that he was recuperating from an
on-set accident (on a different movie) where he had injured his leg and broken
his hand. We had a lively chat, which you will soon see on Reel to Real.
| 
