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The Shaun Sages Chronicles Wednesday,
September 25th Tickets
for the Opening Night screening of About Schmidt cost $30-dollars, but
they might as well cost $10,000-bucks because purchasing a pair is damn near
impossible. These tickets are reserved for filmmakers, investors, and other such
big names. To see the film two days early, for free, and intact was such a kick
I had to arrive two hours early, to ensure great seats. Jamie advised to hit the
waiting line two hours prior to showtime, and he was right; there were already
people standing ahead of us! But time breezed by due to an overabundance of
anticipation and this being my first day at the NYFF. Jamie
had prepared some business cards for us on his computer. I snickered upon seeing
him hunched on the floor gluing them together. What it is, basically, is a
formal business card, with our contact data in the front. The back, however, has
a glued picture (a still from his short film Triumph of the Will Part II)
of an actor with his back to the camera roaming through an empty refrigerator.
Some of the cards’ backside feature psychedelic colors that were some sort of
printing accident. They look like static television reception, but with rainbow
colors instead of fuzzy grayness. Anyway, this was cool because I never had a
business card to distribute. I felt…well, authentic. Not like some hack critic
who writes about movies on an amateurishly designed web page (which, in a few
weeks, will be revamped!). But… We
chatted with a few fellow critics. At around 1:50 pm, the doors to the Walter
Reade Theatre were open and everyone huddled inside to snatch their seats. I
picked up a digital press kit for the film, which contains some colorful
production stills. Jamie spotted Entertainment Weekly critic Owen Gliberman, who
must have missed Schmidt while in Cannes. A staff member announced that
we would be seeing the film in the exact format as everyone who attends the
premiere will: montage, short film, trailer, and feature. Excellent.
The montage was to commemorate the festival’s 40th anniversary and
was somewhat weak, mainly because it kept on showing clips from Pulp Fiction.
But it got me pumped to see just how many great movies - - Miller’s
Crossing, Melvin & Howard, Stolen Kisses - - had premiered
at this festival. 40 years of film…and now, About Schmidt. The
short film, Tick, was an amusing 7-minute tale about a New Zealand
slacker forced to justify to his boss why he shouldn’t be fired. But in the
end, the slacker awakens in an emergency room and we discover he was really
justifying his existence to God. The trailer wasn’t for the upcoming feature,
but to promote the NYFF. Standard promo clip. Ando so,
the film began. -Copyright
2002 by Shaun Sages |
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