All Neon Like
Life has been hectic this past month, hence the lack of bloggage.
The big news is that the Varsity opened on Thursday 6th April to a capacity crowd, with all the usual paraphernalia. I didn’t have my camera with me, and to be honest I missed most of the fun stuff because I was busy changing into respectable clothes, but we had the Things We Like jazz trio on the roof of the box office playing to our guests as they walked up the red carpet and the Mad Cow String Band on stage.
Sinisa and Jon stood up, gave quick speeches and then called me on stage to introduce my documentary. I forced out a few words and then parted the curtains so my movie could run. It seems to have gone down very well. People laughed in all the right places, and even at bits that I didn’t expect to be so amusing. Afterwards I was nudged back on stage to take a bow. As I stood up I realised my buttocks had been clenched for the entire twenty minutes.
The main feature was well-received too. Thank You For Smoking is a smart, sharp comedy starring Aaron Eckhart, Katie Holmes and Robert Duvall. It looks and sounds like a satire, but the comfortable ending, (“Michael Jordan shoots ball, Charles Manson kills people, I talk. Everyone’s good at something.”) which neither endorses or refutes the protagonist, is too laissez-faire to be real satire.
The next day I was back at the Varsity as an assistant manager. The money is a little better than the coffee shop, and I get to run the projector. It’s been a lot of work for everyone getting the business running but things are starting to drop into place. Annoyingly we’re running Thank You For Smoking for an entire month to keep the distributor happy, but next we have Tsotsi, a film about a Soweto thug who gains a conscience, which should appeal to fans of the awesome Brazilian crime drama City of God, of which I’m one.
Huzzah! Fantastic stuff. I’m so glad it all went well and all your hard work has been rewarded. Let’s hope the Varsity goes from strength to strength – I’m sure it will. Good luck, anyway.
Shame you won’t be able to make it to Blighty this year (I assume that’s still the case?). I really must get my arse in gear with regards to keeping in touch; I do apologise. Take care of yourselves.
I have no idea if I’m coming home this year. I’d love to, but it probably won’t happen this summer due to the pressures of work, and the fact I haven’t any money put aside for fun.
Still, something may happen.
You parted your curtains in public… again?
Tsotsi I’ve not seen, but it has an absolutely amazing poster.
If you don’t manage to come over, what are the chances of you having enough time to play host for a short while? Just wondering :)
If it’s during our long, hot summer then there’s every chance. Any time when Courtney’s not working her arse off is best. The ideal time would be early September because we’ll have moved to a two bedroom place by then and Courtney’s term still won’t have started, but most weeks in the summer will work.