I’ve been in the presence of famous entertainers for three evenings so far this week, which has been lotsa fun, even without meeting any of them
Monday night I caught the A Mighty Wind show at the 9:30 Club. It was great, and just about everyone was there — at least, all of the well-known actors who played musicians in the film were there, and then some. They even had Bob Balaban in character as Jonathan Steinbloom, warning people not to touch the stage because there were so many wires running across it, and wondering if rain might seep in through the roof and electrocute somebody
No Fred Willard or Ed Begley Jr., but we got to see most of the New Main Street Singers, as an octet instead of the usual neuftet (but even Parker Posey showed up!), all three of the Folksmen (Harry Shearer still in drag, as per the film’s epilogue), and Mitch & Mickey (during a quiet moment between songs, someone shouted out a request for “God Loves a Terrier” from Best in Show; Eugene Levy responded, “I think that He
Tuesday night it was a Randy Newman concert at The Birchmere. I’ve always liked the Randy Newman stuff that I’ve heard, but he’s one of those ’70s-era seriocomic singer-songwriters that I’ve never spent much time listening to (same with guys like Harry Nilsson and Harry Chapin). But he’s been a big influence on musicians I do listen to (like Adrian Belew), and I’ve always wanted to hear more — it’s just never been a priority.
He still has a scathing wit, and was ready to point it at himself, particularly in a piece decrying formerly-talented old hack musicians who don’t know when to quit, called “I’m Dead But I Don’t Know It.” He played just about all the Randy Newman material that I already knew, like “Short People” (which I first heard on The Muppet Show) and “Political Science” (which I first heard from my high school English Lit. teacher, who liked to pass around the Whole Earth Catalog in class), and even some of the apparently original templates for songs made famous by others, like “You Can Leave Your Hat On” and “Mama Told Me (Not to Come).”
He, of course, played his hit from the first Toy Story movie, “You’ve Got a Friend in Me,” But he didn’t play the song I was hoping for the most, which requires a moment of explanation
Last night, I caught a screening of a new independent film at the Bethesda Landmark theater (incidentally, the Landmark chain was just purchased by Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and former CEO of broadcast.com; he told the Pho List earlier this evening that “We are going to be vertically integrated w our other companies….and
not play by the rules”). My friend James said he might show up for the film too, but he ended up bailing to stay late at work, of all things
The film was Pieces of April, starring Katie Holmes, Oliver Platt and Patricia Clarkson. It was written and directed by Peter Hedges, the guy who wrote both the novel and screenplay forms of What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. Both Hedges and Platt attended the screening and gave a Q&A session afterward. The film itself was great — it may make my top 10 list for the year. And the “A” parts of the Q&A session contained quite a bit of valuable info, particularly on the logistics of making a quality film with well-known stars for less than half-a-million bucks. I hope it becomes the most profitable film ever made. (I guess it’s not really a “film” since it was shot with handheld digital video cameras, but the word still feels right.)
As they were wrapping up the Q&A, they said they would take one more question, so I raised my hand and Oliver Platt pointed at me (at second-row-center, I was hard to miss). So I asked him: “Oliver, is there any way you can please steal the role of Ignatius Reilly away from Will Ferrell?” He politely brushed it off with “Let’s work on that together,” and said that they could take one most “last” question
A bonus: the Pieces of April screening let out early enough that I was still able to catch American Splendor for the third time.
