France to go

Monday night, Evan and I went out to Universal CityWalk to a special IMAX screening of The Dark Knight and an interview with the sound designer, Richard King. It was great to see the movie again — when we saw it during the summer, it was at a theater in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and we were dealing with a major foot odor issue (ours) that was a bit distracting.

The movie was incredible in IMAX, on the gigantic screen, though I felt the ferry scene lacked all the suspense it had on the first viewing and also brought down the feeling of suspense and urgency during the concurrent scenes. I also didn’t find it nearly as scary, probably because I knew what was coming around each corner. I did get to appreciate the performances and the story more.

The interview afterward was interesting. We learned about some of the different sounds used in the movie and about putting together the sounds for some of the long scenes without music, like the truck chase in the underpass. We also learned about how Richard sometimes finds sounds by accident — like by running his shoe over the end of a treadmill — then starts playing around with the sound to build it into the film.

After the movie, we stopped by Comme Ça, a new restaurant and bar on Melrose, for a drink. Evan had been there before, but it was my first time at the beautiful place decorated with lots of dark wood bookcases, small quirky mirrors, and white chairs and benches. We took a seat at the bar, and looked through the drink specials. The place specializes in prohibition-era cocktails, and there’s a nice selection of alcohols from smaller distilleries, and a very inventive drink mix. I tried out a gin-based drink called The Last Word, and Evan was going to have a Sloe Gin Fizz, but since they were out of Sloe Gin, he had a variation on the drink made with Apple Jack Brandy.

Watching the bartender — really, mixologist — mix the drinks is a treat in itself. He pours out measurements from beaker-like flasks, hand-chips ice, and shakes everything up in a martini shaker before pouring it into a frosted glass. Our bartender, Eugene, also spent a lot of time talking to us about the different drinks on hand, and he even let us sample and compare a few different whiskeys, brandies and bourbons. We also learned about his favorite tequilas (4 Copas is high on his list) and gins (for peppery, he likes Miller’s, for fruity, Junipero).

Since we arrived toward the end of the night — and on a Monday — the bar and restaurant were pretty quiet. I’ve read that it can get pretty busy and noisy in Comme Ça, but for us it was quite a quiet and calm experience. And since the bartender wasn’t overwhelmed, we got a lot of individual attention and really got to see how our drinks were being made.

For round two, we let Eugene pick our drinks. Evan got an Old Fashioned, which was a bit too bourbon-heavy for me, but he liked it; I got one of Eugene’s specialties, a drink with lemon, basil, honey and whiskey. It was delicious. He said another bartender calls it the Melrose Smash, but he’s working on a new name.

We’ll definitely be back to Comme Ça soon. Next time we’ll have to try some of the food — it’s supposed to be delicious, though unfortunately it doesn’t look very veggie friendly.

Sorry I don’t have any photos to share — the movie was supposedly high security (it wasn’t) and they asked us to leave our phones/cameras/etc in the car. I left mine at home.

Note: This post somehow disappeared from my blog, so I’m reposting it. Seriously, it’s a total mystery to me what happened that would erase the whole post from last night to today. Apologies if you’ve seen this twice now.

We’re still getting the apartment set up, but it’s been sort of slow going because we’ve been having too much fun. Friday we went to a late screening of Quantum of Solace after getting Martinis with some friends. I’m not normally a big Bond fan, but I enjoyed the movie quite a bit. It’s action sequences were pretty amazing and covered close to every mode of transportation, from cars to boats to planes to feet to hanging from the ceiling by ropes.

There was also a point in the movie, when Bond is at a party in Bolivia, that one of the voices sounded exceeding familiar. I leaned over to Evan and said, “That sounds exactly like Guillermo (Del Toro),” and he said, “Oh, it is him! I almost missed it!” Apparently Guillermo Del Toro and Alfonso Cuaron both have voice cameos in Bond. I was pretty proud to have picked that up, even without knowing.

Santa Monica

Saturday we got up late and went down to Santa Monica to meet up with my friend Terri, her two little kids, John and Lexi, and some of her friends. We walked along the beach, ate some french fries and then walked down the pier to take the kids on some rides. Johnny absolutely loved them and just kept waving at us and smiling and enthusiastically driving his mini bumper car, airplane or jeep.

Johnny on the bumper cars

Earlier in the day we were surprised how clear it was despite all the nearby fires, but by late afternoon, we started seeing a lot of ash in the air and the sun was an eerie pink-red as it was setting, creating a very fiery reflection on the water.

Saturday evening, my parents came over to the apartment for happy hour — bruschetta, cheese and crackers, and wine — then we all went out to Bel Air to see the McGill Jazz Orchestra play at an alumni event (both my parents are McGill alumni). We drove on a very windy mountain road to a beautiful home and drank more wine and ate hors d’ouevres outisde in the warm night. When it was time for the jazz to start, my parents snagged front-row seats, and we sat just feet away from the high-energy band.

There were plenty of impressive solos from piano, guitar, trumpet, saxophone and trombone players, a guest performance from an alumnus, and an incredible sight reading session where the band was handed new music — it was even new to the conductor — and started playing and even improvising solos on the spot. There was even an tuba solo! My dad started a standing ovation at the end of that song and the rest of the audience joined in, then he started yelling for an encore. The band obliged and ended with “Gonna Fly Now” from Rocky, which nearly deafened us since two of the trumpet players stood in the front row.

We met some of the students in the band after the concert and it turns out they had also been having fun in Santa Monica earlier in the day.

The top of a “burning trash can” table

Last night, Evan and I went to the Hellboy II The Golden Army DVD release party (boy, that’s a mouthful). It was quite an event, and it looks like quite the Blu-ray DVD, with tons of special features, a 2 and a half hour documentary on the making of the movie, a director’s notebook, lots of commentary, a comic book creator and a “goggle view” that lets you see the movie in various stages of visual effects. We can’t wait to get our hands on one and check it out with our new Blu-ray player, which is still in the box.

The party was a major production, which transformed the club Element into a scene from Hellboy, complete with monsters, burning trash cans, and actors from the movie.

Evan and me with a monster

Evan and I had fun taking photos with the monsters who did an incredible job in their elaborate costumes. We’re pretty sure they couldn’t see a thing, and saw quite a few of them being led around the room slowly by hand. Some of their costumes were huge, too, and Wink’s mouth and hads were radio-controlled making him unbelievably life-like.

Evan and me with the enormous Wink

Guillermo Del Toro also gave a presentation about the Blu-ray’s special features, making sure to rib on the cast and costumes in his typical fashion. He’s also hosting the first-ever in-Blu-ray live chat on Sunday, November 23, 2008 at 6 p.m. PST, which anyone can join by signing up at UniversalHiDef.com and submitting questions via the “Directors Chat” tab in “My Account.”

Guillermo Del Toro introducing the Hellboy II DVD

There was also a rather funny panel discussion with Selma Blair, Jeffrey Tambor, Doug Jones, Mike Mignola, a Dark Horse exec and Guillermo. We learned that Guillermo liked to call Jeffrey Tambor “Jeremy” and Guillermo said that Selma and Doug “learned everything they know about handling a weapon from Charlie’s Angels.” The actors confirmed that and Selma added that when using her fake gun, she would say “Bang bang,” when it was supposed to go off, and she had to be reminded to keep quiet during her close-ups. Doug talked about the elaborate costumes he got to wear during the shoot since he played three characters, and they all talked about their favorite monsters — most were partial to the incredible Angel of Death.

Selma Blair, Jeffrey Tambor, Doug Jones, Mike Mignola, Dark Horse exec whose name I can’t remember, Guillermo Del Toro

After the party, we went to an Italian restaurant next door to the club with the DVD producer, Javier, and his girlfriend Orso (the ones we baked the cake for), a concept artist, Francisco, and a few other people. We didn’t get DVDs, but we did get Golden Army toys and a big hug from Guillermo.

See the rest of our photos in Evan’s Facebook album.

Tonight Evan and I went to the Hellboy II DVD release party. It was great — they turned the Hollywood club Element into a scene reminiscent of the Troll Market in the movie, complete with plenty of monsters, like Wink and the Butcher Guards, and tables that looked like burning trash cans covered with Hellboy II-branded plexiglass. Guillermo Del Toro made a presentation to show off some of the new Blu-ray DVD’s features, like the goggle view, which allows you to see the movie as it was shot and in two stages of temporary visual effects, and he also showed some behind-the-scenes footage from the set. Then there was a panel, with Guillermo, Hellboy creator Mike Mignola, Jeffrey Tambor, Selma Blair, Doug Jones and a Dark Horse exec, which had some funny moments, mostly from Doug and Jeffrey.

More to come about the event tomorrow, but for now, check out our swag. Unfortunately we didn’t get our own Blu-rays, but we did get Golden Army toys.

Monday night, Kacie and I went to the premiere of Flash of Genius in Westwood, courtesy of Spyglass Entertainment. The movie is an underdog fight-for-your-rights piece based of the true story of Robert Kearns, the man who invented the intermittent windshield wiper — and then had his invention ripped off by Ford. As the tone of the movie quickly goes from excitement and optimism about the new invention to disillusionment and rage at the Ford Motor Co., you follow Kearns’ long, obsessive quest to protect his patent, which tears apart his family and puts him on unemployment.

Greg Kinnear, playing Kearns, gives a sensitive portrayal of a man who gets under the skin of the bullies and will not give up on what he believes despite the prospect of losing everything. His determination to prove his point is almost frustrating at points — many times I felt compelled to agree with his wife and his lawyers that he should just settle and move on instead of forging ahead with his much-postponed lawsuit.

But despite all the lucrative settlement offers Kearns receives, there would be no real payoff for him, or for us as viewers, if he didn’t go to court, representing himself against Ford’s corporate attorneys. For those familiar with the story, you’ll know how it turns out; for me, I was left guessing which way it would go until the very end.

Though the film had some slow points and the story followed a predictable arc, I enjoyed watching it unfold and ultimately learned a little something about what went into making the intermittent windshield wipers we all have on our cars.

Me and Kacie across the street from the theater– you can see “Flash of…” in the back right. This is what happens when you aren’t looking at what you shoot…

In case you haven’t noticed (we hear there’s quite the publicity campaign going on), Hellboy II is now out in theaters. Of course we think it’s great — Evan worked as the first assistant editor — but we’re happy to see that lots of critics have agreed, too. So take a couple hours to go check it out, and let us know what you think!

Well, as you may have been able to tell from my lack of blogging, it’s been a busy week. I’m still busily pumping out the celeb gossip, fashion and music stories over at Sugarscape (finding budding YouTube stars has become a new favorite passtime), I’ve also been busy in the evenings.

Monday I hung out with my friend Jess, who I’ve known since we went to summer camp together when we were 12. We went to a pub, then to Pacifico for a nice Mexican dinner — I really like their fajitas, and my experience was much better this time, going on a quiet Monday night than when we went on a Friday and had to wait for hours in the packed place for a table.

Tuesday, I got to meet up with Charlotte, one of my editors as Entrepreneur, who is actually responsible for this first story in the print magazine, “Talk to Me,” about Joe Badame and Martha de la Torre, who run the LA-area Spanish-language media empire, El Clasificado. Martha was a wonderful woman to talk to, and I only wish the article could have been 1500 words instead of 150. Sorry to digress. Tuesday, Charlotte and I met up at the Red Lion, then went to Imli, an Indian tapas place on Wardour Street, which was great. The only complaint there is that they don’t have one of my favorite Indian staples — naan. But the meal was flavorful, with lots of spicy and sweet notes, and eating tapas-style, it was fun to get to sample a good array of the inexpensive dishes on their menu.

Wednesday and Thursday night, I was at film screenings — Forgetting Sarah Marshall and What Happens in Vegas (which I’m not allowed to write about until the week the movie comes out). I know I didn’t really write about it on here, but last week, I also went to the 21 screening, which wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but didn’t have a very convincing story.

I also managed to meet up with the Londonist folk at a pub on Wednesday, though because of all my activities this week, which kept me out of the house until the late hours, I didn’t write any posts for them. I did also meet Gordon Butler from Fancyapint?, and he was happy to learn that I’d used his site just the day before.

Wednesday night I went to a bloggers’ Forgetting Sarah Marshall screening. I loved The 40-Year-Old Virgin, quite liked Knocked Up, and think this is another win for Judd Apatow and crew. The movie got a lot of big laughs, a few cringes and had a pretty shocking amount of male nudity — apparently Jason Segel likes taking off his pants and doesn’t mind showing all his bits to the world.

The story’s premise is simple enough: guy gets dumped by his TV-star girlfriend and goes to Hawaii to try to get her off his mind. As fate would have it, the ex and her new beau are also vacationing at the same resort and all are too proud to leave. This recipe for awkward situations stands up quite well, and watching Jason Segel go from heartbroken slob to something closer to happiness as he makes new Island friends, meets a girl and tries to get over his ex is almost as sweet as it is funny.

Jonah Hill, Jack McBrayer and Paul Rudd all show up in funny supporting roles, but Russell Brand, the British comedian who I’m guessing most Americans, like myself, have never heard of, gives the standout performance. He’s smarmy and gross, yet intriguingly fun and likable. A little Jack Sparrow-esque, his too-cool, free-loving rock star character steals all the scenes he’s in, with plenty of exaggerated eye-rolling, hair flipping and suggestive singing and dancing.

The women don’t fare quite as well. I don’t know if it’s because I have typecast Kristen Bell and Mila Kunis as teens in my mind that they just don’t quite work as the adults they’re playing, or if it’s because though they have pretty big roles, they’re really secondary to the male characters. They don’t get as many laughs, and while they have some sincere moments, they seem more like caricatures of women than the real thing. Of course, all the characters in the comedy are  stereotypical, so maybe I’m just being a bit oversensitive.

The film also takes some funny jabs at the Brits, has a Bubba Gump-like bartender who likes to list things like names of fish, and even includes a short but traumatic pig-slaughtering scene. And its gorgeous Hawaiian scenery, which is replete with sappy newlyweds to torture the main character, made me really excited for my trip there this summer.

I’ll probably be going back to the theater to see this again since Evan hasn’t seen it and I know he’ll love it. It’s definitely a movie to see in a theater full of people, whose laughs only add to the hilarious two-hour experience.

Thanks, Annie Mole, for inviting me along!

Sunday, Evan and I finally made it back to the National Portrait Gallery to see the rest of the exhibits, including the Vanity Fair special exhibit.

The museum is consistently great — even on my third trip, I felt I was still learning things and being introduced to new people. And I was still interested in reading more. I think my favorite room was the large room with glass dividers on the first floor — it just had some really interesting people as well as really innovative portraits.

The Vanity Fair exhibit, however, put me off a bit. While I was interested in seeing the then-to-now photos, I wasn’t interested in being crammed into a small room with hundreds of other visitors, all moving at a snail’s pace, obscuring the photos and bumping into me repeatedly. I just couldn’t enjoy myself when so physically uncomfortable. I noticed that as we were leaving, the room was getting close to empty, though — I should have just waited, though we went in when it was our time slot.

There were plenty of iconic photos, many of which I’d seen before — it is Vanity Fair — and plenty more photos that weren’t really all that impressive. A lot of the older photos seemed to not have fared well over time or had very low contrast. The exhibit was also especially crowded for the first half of our tour, making it hard to get close to and enjoy the older photos. It also didn’t help that these were all much smaller than the more contemporary photos, too.

I really wish I could have just walked through without the crowds and enjoyed the exhibit on my own terms.

Last weekend, Evan and I saw The Orphanage. I’m not a big fan of scary movies because, well, they scare me a bit too much, and I felt The Orphanage really went a bit above and beyond when it came to creeping me out. Though I think it was in a good way.

The story itself is great — it plays by its own rules, weaves the human and supernatural, and has a plot twist that makes you rethink the whole movie — basically, it has all the elements of a classic and cohesive scary movie. It always leaves you guessing what’s real and what’s imagined and you really feel attached to the main characters. It also has some incredibly eerie imagery.

The boy in the homemade sack mask that looks like it’s melting off his face (not a spoiler, he’s on the poster), is reminiscent of the twin girls in the shining, but scarier — the kind of character you imagine follows you home and could be hiding down any dark hallway or around any corner. At least I feel like he’s stayed with me since I left the theater. Honestly, I just decided against putting an image up here because I just don’t want to look at it. IMDb it if you must.

And I did like that once I got past the initial shocks in the first half of the movie I was able to relax a bit knowing that the scariest bits were most likely over and that it was heading toward a resolution.

So I suppose this is my cautious recommendation — it’s worth watching, but bring someone whose hand you can hold.