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Saturday, September 14, 2002

By Ron Weiskind, Post-Gazette Movie Editor

TORONTO -- Reeling about at the Toronto International Film Festival:

	Director Paul Thomas, left, and star Adam Sandler have a good time at a press conference for the movie, "Punch-Drunk Love," after Sandler shared an elevator ride with Post-Gazette Movie Editor Ron Weiskind. (Bill Wade, Post-Gazette)

Unplanned celebrity encounters: I walked into an elevator at the Four Seasons Hotel and found myself standing next to Adam Sandler. I had just seen his latest film, "Punch-Drunk Love," directed by Paul Thomas Anderson of "Magnolia" fame. They were about to conduct a press conference about the film, which is where I was headed as well. I was perspiring a little because I had walked briskly to the hotel -- the section of the Toronto subway I had planned to ride was briefly shut down. Sandler looked at me and said, "Going back to the gym?" With my gut, I figured he was bring sarcastic. But I also knew, as he did, that the hotel's fitness center is on the same floor as the room for the press conferences. I replied, "No, I just hurried back from seeing a movie with someone who looked just like you." I only wish I'd thought to sing a few bars as Opera Man ...

I attended a public screening of Paul Schrader's latest movie, "Auto Focus," about the life and death of Bob Crane, the "Hogan's Heroes" star who was murdered in 1978, in all likelihood because of his secret life as a pornographer and sex addict. As I waited for the film to begin, I noticed a woman being escorted to her seat by a pair of festival volunteers, which is hardly normal practice. It turned out to be Whoopi Goldberg, who sat in the row in front of me, surrounded by the hoi polloi. She chatted a little with a woman in the next seat before the movie started. During the film, she laughed noticeably at one scene: Crane, played by Greg Kinnear, is begging his agent to find him work. He'll even take a game show. "What about 'Hollywood Squares?' " he says. That's when Whoopi whooped it up -- she recently gave up her stint as the center square on the latest version of that program.

Critical mass: At a studio screening of Joel Schumacher's next film, the thriller "Phone Booth," Roger Ebert asked if the seat next to mine was open. That was nice of him, because I would imagine Ebert can usually sit anywhere he wants (but not always, as we shall see). He reaches a national TV audience, he owns a Pulitzer Prize for criticism and he writes for the Chicago Sun-Times.

After a few minutes, we mutually decided to leave a seat between us. It wasn't because we didn't get along -- we've sometimes been at the same table in the Academy Awards press room. No, it is because we are both ... well, large critics, and I'm not referring to ego. However, I can only wish I had his stature in the industry in terms of influence, audience and respect, all of which he has earned on merit.

I do have this in common with Ebert -- neither of us got into the jam-packed press-and-industry screening for Todd Haynes' new film, "Far From Heaven," starring Julianne Moore and Dennis Quaid. The movie, a drama about suburban life in the '50s that won high praise from critics who did see it, may have been the hottest ticket in town.

It also generated some of the hottest gossip. People were buzzing about Ebert throwing a major snit when he found out he wouldn't get into the screening, and the Toronto newspapers were quick to pick up on it. But they also reported Ebert denying that he pitched a celebrity tantrum over the incident. It just reinforces the festival's strict adherence to a first-come, first-serve policy at screenings.

Ready, aim ... : Actually, there was one ticket even hotter, in a literal sense, than "Far From Heaven." When studios offer interviews in conjunction with their festival films, they often have to schedule additional screenings to make sure participating journalists see the picture beforehand.

MGM/United Artists booked a small screening room to offer several showings of Michael Moore's controversial film "Bowling for Columbine," which explores America's penchant for violence and its gun culture.

It was certainly incendiary on one particular night. A small fire broke out in the screening room during the picture. No one was hurt and no real damage was done, except to various schedules. With all the delays, it took about four hours to finish the screening, forcing those in attendance to readjust their screenings and causing the studio to cancel one of the two screenings of the Pierce Brosnan movie "Evelyn" that were supposed to be shown in the same room later in the evening -- fortunately, not the one I went to.

Pittsburgh north: You can't go anywhere without running into people with 'Burgh connections, some of whom even advertise the fact. At a press conference for the movie "Standing in the Shadows of Motown," Pittsburgh native Bob Babbitt, one of the Funk Brothers who played the music on so many of the label's hits, wore a Pirates jersey.

After interviews for her upcoming film "Laurel Canyon," I asked Frances McDormand about spending some of her teen-age years in Monessen. She began living there when she was in seventh grade and graduated from high school there, although she had trouble pinning down the exact year (not from vanity -- she readily admits she's 45 years old). She attended Bethany College in West Virginia and then Yale Drama School.

"I have really good memories from Pittsburgh, actually, when I did 'Wonder Boys' because I spent time when I was shooting there. And I got to hang out with my sister (who still lives here -- she's a chaplain in a prison), and my son was with me, so he got to see family. I love the area, it's a great area. I've got really good friends who are still there."

When I was interviewing Forest Whitaker for "Phone Booth," I reminded him that he had been to Pittsburgh more than a decade ago to shoot the HBO movie "Criminal Justice," in which he played a man accused of murder. He remembers going through the booking process and actually being thrown into the psych ward without advance warning as part of his preparation for the role.

And I made the inevitable Susan Saks sighting early on. The former Churchill resident, an indefatigable devotee of film festivals, was of course standing in line for a screening. But now she's also running her own festival. A resident of Florida for the past few years, Saks is now chairwoman of the Palm Beach Jewish Film Festival. So she was there as much on business as for pleasure.

So was I. No film festival in the world is more accessible to the man on the street, and that's part of what makes it fun for the rest of us.

The inn crowd: Some of my most, ahem, memorable hotel stays have occurred while attending the festival. Two years ago, the fire alarm went off in my hotel at 3:30 in the morning of my last night in town. The guests had to evacuate and stand in the street while the fire department determined it was a false alarm.

This year (at a different establishment) the employees were threatening to go on strike and even left fliers under the door requesting that we move to another hotel, which would not be easy with the festival on. At 7:30 in the morning on my last day in town (is this a pattern?), a drum started beating loudly outside. I looked outside and saw people marching in a circle in front of the driveway. At least they waited until now, I thought. By 8:30, they were back inside at work. Apparently, they mounted these demonstrations every so often to express their displeasure with management, but weren't ready to hit the bricks just yet.

"Will you be back with us next year?" the desk clerk asked as I checked out. I thought about asking her the same thing.