Does This Count As A Degree?

Oh my...where to start? I was planning on writing up the whole festival experience after next Friday, so that I'd be able to share my reviews of the films I'd seen and make my recommendations. But I had to write about my close encounters now...while I'm still reeling from the excitement and absurdity of it all.

Last night I went to see the world premiere of "Haven" with Ada. Yes, there was an ulterior motive for my choosing of the film (Orlando), but the story was also interesting. So, the two of us were in line waiting to go in. There were some people in front of us who started screaming, but that was because they were listening to the radio and Canada had just scored to make it 3-2 (I think). Then, I kept hearing sporatic screaming from further off. As the line moved closer, we could hear the ridiculous chanting ("Or-lan-do! Or-lan-do!"). And then the screaming, and people running into the path of oncoming traffic, and flashbulbs lighting up the street. The guy behind us was asking his female companion why they were going nuts. I turned around and said that it was probably because Orlando Bloom had just arrived, and the guy looked at me with a mixture of complete incredulity and disappointment and said, "Aw, MAN! Is HE in this movie?!" Hmmm...looks like he wasn't the one who bought the tickets. As we passed the red carpet area on our way in, we tried to look at the commotion but it was really quite blinding and chaotic.

As we sat and waited in the theatre, we noticed that the people in the front had started standing up, looking towards the back and taking photos. We looked ourselves to see who they were looking at, but it took us several minutes to figure out that Kevin Bacon was about 20 feet away from us. He was wearing a leather jacket and glasses, and Ada kept saying "It doesn't look like Kevin Bacon!" until he stood up to greet someone and took off his glasses. He's not in the film, but he's here to promote his own movie ("The Woodsman") and I realized later that he was probably there to support his good buddy Bill Paxton.

There were many more highlights but I'll save that for the final review later. After the showing and the Q&A, the stars fled out the back door while we went out the front. There were STILL people on the other side of the red carpet with their cameras and pens. Honestly. They're not going to come back out the front door. We continued towards Yonge, past the line of people waiting for the Midnight Madness movie to start, when we noticed the line of limos on the side of the road. Then there was a crowd of people being stopped by security, and suddenly we realized we had stumbled across the "back door". The security guys opened the car doors and there, not two feet in front of me, the whole cast was getting into the limos. Bill Paxton walked right by me and thanked the crowd for coming out to support the film. That was...moderately thrilling. Still doesn't top the Fran Drescher/Kim Cattrall moment from last year, but it's a very close second.

This morning, my mom (pinch hitting for my dad, who wasn't feeling well) and I went to see "Beyond the Sea". While we were in the theatre, people were whispering excitedly and craning their necks to look at the back corner. There was Kevin Spacey. To my mom, she was kind of amazed at how people can pick out and identify "just another white man" in a dark corner of the theatre. I laughed and said, "Yeah, they all look alike to us, don't they?" She asked me if I was going to go over there to ask for an autograph, and I said no way, I'm not weird like that. It wouldn't have worked out anyway, since a couple of girls were stopped by the large bodyguard before they could get near him. I was just impressed that he was there at 9 in the morning, since the movie had screened the night before at Roy Thomson. But he was there and he answered questions at the end and everything.

So, four brushes with celebrity in two days. Three films down, five to go.

"And someone's sneakin' 'round the corner, could that someone be Mack the Knife?"