AFI fest

The last two weekends in LA were full of highlights! On Saturday we volunteered for the AFI (American Film Institute) Fest. This film festival is a young one, it has the common competitions of feature, documentary and short, but it also hosts some glamourous red carpet premieres. One of them, the "centerpiece", was the 4 hour movie CHE (2 parts à 2 hours) with Benicio del Toro playing Ernesto Guevara. It took place in the legendary 'Graumann's Chinese Theater', the central building on Hollywood Blvd. Lena and I had to usher people to their seats inside the theater. It was exciting because the cast and crew of the movie was there, of course. We did not follow the speach by Steven Soderbergh, the director, because we were too busy working. It became very difficult to fill the last spots here and there in the dark correctly when people kept arriving and the movie had started. It was all in Spanish with English subtitles. But I had seen that the documentary about Gogol Bordello (the band I'd seen at the Detour festival) screened in another theater and that Elijah Wood might be there! So Lena convinced me that this was the chance and we arrived there just in time. The film had just started, we could use our ticket vouchers we had from volunteering and - Elijah Wood sat right on the first seat when I entered the small cinema. I realized that his girlfriend sat next to him and that she was actually in the BAND (!), a dancer and kind of go-go-girl, but very witty (she was interviewed in the documentary) and beautiful. After the screening she answered questions from the crowd and when she and Elijah stood in front of the theater for a long time, chatting with friends, I just talked to him again and asked him if he remembered me from the shooting in Prague. He did, after a while. People don't understand why I am so crazy about that small guy. But I was happy and that was it.

The next weekend I volunteered for AFI once more, this time at the premiere of "Last Chance Harvey", a Hollywood comedy with Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson. This time it was much more relaxed work and I got to see the whole movie. Dustin Hoffman clowned about instead of giving a speech before the screening... :-) Maybe he's sick of those things.

But before that a lot of things happened... see next post!

There's still much to tell. Yesterday I was at the Walt Disney Hall. It has a breathtaking architecture, that alone is worth a visit. Leonora and I saw a very very American program, performed by the LA Philharmonics under a young conductor: Appalachian Spring by Copland followed by Britten's Violin concert starring Midori and rounded off by La noche de los Mayas by Revueltas (you don't ususally hear that in German concert halls). Short and pleasant for lovers of picturesque music.

The other night we saw a musical - for me, it's a must whenever I stay in big cities. In this case an indie rock musical called "Spring Awakening", based on Wedekinds novel "Fruehlingserwachen". I liked the music at once, it was quite progressive and young but that was fitting the topic of troubled adolescence. The singers were very young and all the more it was amazing that they gave such a dynamically differentiated performance. I still have one song stuck in my head. They displayed the sexual things rather openly, with "first time sex" halfnaked on stage and masturbation and everything. I thought that was not necessary and very unamerican, but alright.

Alien film

So that was the Hollywood Halloween!

What a Halloween Weekend! It's spinning faster and faster around me, I am meeting more and more people. I have a feeling that will go on until it apruptly comes to an end on November 13th when I have to leave this beautiful country.
We started Halloween on the 30th with a very rare event: the long promised visit to the spooky Villa in the Hollywood Hills, that was built by Charlie Chaplin and inhabited by the Rolling Stones and Marylin Manson thereafter. Patrick, the German AFI directing student - who lives an extremely bohemian life complete with a lot of women, drugs and odds like writing his screenplays in a strip club every night - threw a gigantic party around the pool and in the house. There was a band playing and the craziest costumes around. We arrived late because we had seen the screening of "Malibu Song" (directed by two very nice people that we met at the tea invitation at the Schoenbergs') at the Goethe Institut. It was a fantastic and witty documentary about the last Hippie Colony in Malibu/Topanga Canyon that has been destroyed by the State Park. The paradox was that they forced them to move and pulled down their houses in order to "make the nature available for everybody" by restoring that State Park to "its original state". This film is just so important! The people in the film were all there to do Q & A afterwards and they had sooo much to tell. A lot of artists' roots lay in that little spot of the world. Anyway, so we forced ourselves into the costumes while in the parked car and headed to that Villa where we also met our friend Timo. Much fun! But only until about 2 when the cops arrived and ended the party by sending everybody home.

The Halloween parade on Santa Monica Blvd. on the 31st was a crazy experience as well. Just beautiful to walk and watch people's creativity. The costumes ranged from Christmas tree and carrot over to giant penis and furry monster. Extremely popular where film figures like Charlie Chaplin, Queen Elizabeth, Joker in Batman, Teletubbies and other odd things. A lot of pirates, cowgirls and -boys, Playboy bunnies and many many drag queens were seen. some people didn't have a costume and used their working clothes (uaaa..), so a lot of hospital staff, soldiers and sportsmen around. The current issues in politics where also picked up, so one saw driver's licenses, Sarah Palens and McCains. I used my Burning man grape costume again, I was too lazy to make more costumes. Lena sported a fantastic self-made crow/witch costume with wings from some art project that somebody left in the office. We both wore violet and black, so it matched perfectly and every now and then we got asked to be in pictures with people, just like many of the very cool costumed people.
After the parade we were to meet a friend at a private Halloween party in Hollywood that kinda turned public because it was in a garden right next to a liquor store. It was a comedian's party, so there where a lot of funny people. We didn't meet that firend but made new friends, a Tarzan and a playing card from Alice in Wonderland. We hung out a little at the playing card's place and then tried to go to this other party but it was over by the time we got there - which was about 5.