MetLA

Once a year, the DGA brings the nominated directors to speak about the craft. Yesterday, I got to see Ang Lee, Steven Spielberg, Bennett Miller, Paul Haggis, and George Clooney speak about directing. Goerge saved Bennett when the crowd gave him a hard time for shooting "Capote" in Canada. Paul Haggis cursed a lot, but I'm not sure why. The moderator lavished attention on Spielberg. And I was a George Clooney fan before, but now more than ever when he said he circumvented the maddening insurance process by telling the bond company "Fuck you, I'm rich!" I love that guy. Also Ang Lee, when asked what the theme of his film is, said "The theme of my movie is don't beat up gay guys."

Kyle had to work on his portfolio yesterday, so I took the opportunity to camp out at the Arclight all day and watch movies. I can get in free with my DGA card right now, so I went nuts. 1st up was "The Matador", which was a whole lotta fun. The tone is a tricky one to pull off - funny, morbid, tragic, satirical...but the writer/director Richard Shephard did it. So did the actors - I loved seeing Pierce Brosnan loosen up and go wild. He and Greg Kinnear had the best chemistry since Heath & Jake (ok, not in THAT way). And I have a new theory - no matter how small or crappy the role, Hope Davis will do something special with it.
Next was "The Producers". I kinda missed the first part because of all the latecomers to the theater, due to the epic lines in the lobby (more on that later). Some Russian couple couldn't find their seats, and with no trusty usher handy they handled it by yelling at each other in Russian and for some reason shouting "Mazel Tov" to everyone. Whaaa? Anyways, the film was kinda flat, and not that funny. We saw the original cast on Broadway on New Year's Eve 2003, so it's hard to top that. I left after the "Springtime for Hitler" number.
My last film of the day was "Match Point". Brilliant. It got me in the mood for London. I'm shocked that Woody Allen directed this - it's not like his typical film at all. The story is dramatic and tense, and the actors are terrific. Thumbs up.
So the Arclight was jam packed. Maybe it was because of the Holiday, maybe the rain, but damn, films were selling out hours before the start times. I've never seen the place like that. It seemed to make people pretty unhappy, I saw lots of fights.
I think I have to make the Meta Film Festival an annual event!