You Ain't a Beauty But Hey You're Alright
Note to the world: GO TO A MOVIE PREMIERE!
Last night I tagged along with my friends Ming and Melissa and their cool show business friends and attended the New York premiere of Gracie, an empowering, coming of age story about a girl who breaks the gender barrier and tries out for an all boy's soccer team. This is a movie I normally would have heard about, but completely ignored because it's targeted for younger audiences and well, to paraphrase Bruce Springsteen, maybe I'm not that young anymore. However, like the song continues, I should have had a little faith, because there WAS magic in the night.
Some of you might remember Andrew Shue as I do--the dim character Billy from the epic Melrose Place. Andrew Shue has not been on my immediate consciousness since 1995, but I got a little thrill to see him approach the front of the theater. However, I was not prepared for the emotional back story of this film that he supplied--that the story is actually based on the actress Elisabeth Shue's real life experience of overcoming her beloved older brother's tragic death, by becoming the first female soccer player in an all boy's team--a team her brother Will had been the star of. It was understandable that when Andrew Shue began speaking of the film and uttered the word "Family" he had to stop himself from crying. He spoke of the inspiration of his older brother William and of the ten years it took to get this film made. He also spoke about how emotional it was for them to make it. Then, if that wasn't enough, he turned over the mic to the director, who turned out to be Elisabeth Shue's husband. He then talked about his "amazing, talented, strong, beautiful, pain in the ass wife" and said that he made the movie for her. I don't think there was a dry eye in the house and the film hadn't even STARTED YET. I can tell you that when the end credits were rolling, which displayed the Shue family photos, EVERYONE was sniffling.
I can tend to be pretty critical with movies. Another word might be HARSH or DISMISSIVE. This is a movie I might have had such tendencies toward, but the fact that I watched it through the lens of knowing all the love and emotion and history and effort it took, I was very moved by it. When I see movies I never get all that went into it and so I lose the journey in the art I am watching. I never think about what directors and producers were TRYING to do in a movie. It was a very different movie watching experience. I want everyone to try it.
Then afterwords, we all spilled out into the lobby, and I embarrasses one of the stars by calling out, "Hey, you were DREAMY!" He blushed and covered his face and RAN AWAY. Geez, I don't know why, it's not like I am almost TWENTY years older than him or anything. And we got to go the after party, which was at my favorite restaurant in New York, and I sat talking with really wonderful people, who also are best friends with people like Roseanne Cash and who share lawyers with Paul Simon. Just another typical night in New York, people. I couldn't believe they let me in.
Last night I tagged along with my friends Ming and Melissa and their cool show business friends and attended the New York premiere of Gracie, an empowering, coming of age story about a girl who breaks the gender barrier and tries out for an all boy's soccer team. This is a movie I normally would have heard about, but completely ignored because it's targeted for younger audiences and well, to paraphrase Bruce Springsteen, maybe I'm not that young anymore. However, like the song continues, I should have had a little faith, because there WAS magic in the night.
Some of you might remember Andrew Shue as I do--the dim character Billy from the epic Melrose Place. Andrew Shue has not been on my immediate consciousness since 1995, but I got a little thrill to see him approach the front of the theater. However, I was not prepared for the emotional back story of this film that he supplied--that the story is actually based on the actress Elisabeth Shue's real life experience of overcoming her beloved older brother's tragic death, by becoming the first female soccer player in an all boy's team--a team her brother Will had been the star of. It was understandable that when Andrew Shue began speaking of the film and uttered the word "Family" he had to stop himself from crying. He spoke of the inspiration of his older brother William and of the ten years it took to get this film made. He also spoke about how emotional it was for them to make it. Then, if that wasn't enough, he turned over the mic to the director, who turned out to be Elisabeth Shue's husband. He then talked about his "amazing, talented, strong, beautiful, pain in the ass wife" and said that he made the movie for her. I don't think there was a dry eye in the house and the film hadn't even STARTED YET. I can tell you that when the end credits were rolling, which displayed the Shue family photos, EVERYONE was sniffling.
I can tend to be pretty critical with movies. Another word might be HARSH or DISMISSIVE. This is a movie I might have had such tendencies toward, but the fact that I watched it through the lens of knowing all the love and emotion and history and effort it took, I was very moved by it. When I see movies I never get all that went into it and so I lose the journey in the art I am watching. I never think about what directors and producers were TRYING to do in a movie. It was a very different movie watching experience. I want everyone to try it.
Then afterwords, we all spilled out into the lobby, and I embarrasses one of the stars by calling out, "Hey, you were DREAMY!" He blushed and covered his face and RAN AWAY. Geez, I don't know why, it's not like I am almost TWENTY years older than him or anything. And we got to go the after party, which was at my favorite restaurant in New York, and I sat talking with really wonderful people, who also are best friends with people like Roseanne Cash and who share lawyers with Paul Simon. Just another typical night in New York, people. I couldn't believe they let me in.
posted by Summer Pierre at
9:28 AM
3 Comments:
I'm going to bet that your favorite restaurant in NYC is not wildly or obscenely upscale. But nonetheless, this entry conjured up a specific memory for me: walking with a friend many years ago, as he raged against rampant consumerism & materialism, with special scorn reserved for people who are concerned with their image and "BEING SEEN IN A RESTAURANT!!!" (His voice then rising to a crescendo of righteous indignation). At the time, his rant resonated very deeply with me, for at least a couple of reasons: 1) I hated upscale restaurants, and 2) I had no desire to see or meet celebrities or "scenesters" of any type. O.k., maybe I thought I might end up meeting a famous scholar or two over my lifetime -- but I never pictured myself trying to hobnob with Hollywood types, famous or underground artistic geniuses, musicians or novelists, or any of that ilk.
In retrospect, I have the feeling that my friend's anger was not nearly as strong as I thought, even then; he seemed to turn around and decide that *I* was the flamingly unrealistic idealist, not HIM -- he had NEVER spouted radical venom against excessive materialism, etc. I had just made that all up, in my own head.
But I can not say that I have a good idea what that friend thinks these days, at any rate -- as we've lost touch.
To contrast the previous comment, this comes from Hollywood. We did the sound for that movie at my studio. They are nice guys. Did you you know that Davis Guggenheim, the director, who is of THE Guggenheims (now I'm name dropping), also directed An Inconvenient Truth? And he was here then to do Al Gore's voiceover for that film, which was awesome. I loved meeting Al Gore, it was different than meeting a movie star. He has the best handshake I've ever had. And then there was Davis winning an oscar for Inconvenient Truth, it was weird. Now I'll go see Gracie, though. All I knew about it before was that it was about girls' soccer or something.
People in restaurants: I heard a little story here that reminded me of the comment I'd posted here awhile ago. My father saw Jodie Foster in a NYC restaurant a couple weeks ago. He also saw Sinaed O'Connor pour her drink on a guitarist with whom she was touring, at a restaurant called Cafe Alegro in Pittsburgh, PA, some ten years ago. The reason this came up recently, is that Sinaed just played a set at a free music festival in Pittsburgh, over the weekend. Lord knows why, but the only three cities in which O'Connor is playing on her current tour are NYC, LA and the 'burgh. (? O.k. the 'burgh does have excellent college radio... could that be part of the reason? I really don't know).
Another thing I could have mentioned here is that my husband has teased me with the "... hey, you're alright" song just about every time I have made any comment about how I feel like I'm getting old...
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