I'm finally back from LA . The Secret Meetings went well, but like many of these things, I won’t know more until later. As much as I’d love to have that “I like the cut of your jib, son, let’s do this deal”, that’s not the way these things work.
I even got some good news about another Love and Capes related project, but not anything to do with the one that I came out to Los Angeles for. That’s another thing that I’ll hear more about later, but it was nice to have happen while I was out there.
Wow, nothing like talking about things I can’t talk about, huh? Well, let’s move onto something I can talk about.
I’ve gotten to know Matthew Atherton, Feedback, the winner of the first season of Who Wants to be a Superhero? I was hanging out with him at Mid-Ohio-Con, and when he found out I was coming to LA he made sure to get me to promise to call him to get together.
So, Tuesday, he and I and the lovely Mrs. Feedback went to the Sci-Fi Channel premiere of Tin Man. Being a Sci-Fi guy, Matthew’s on the list for such things. So they picked me up and we went to the Arclight theatre (dangerously close to the Amoeba Records of Credit Death that I’ve been known to frequent, but the Lunchbox Incident managed to keep me away from there) to see the first part of the three-part retelling of Wizard of Oz.
First off, the miniseries, at least the first part, is decent. Neal Mcdonough and Alan Cumming are very good. The production values are quite good, and it does a great job of not looking like Vancouver. I really liked the density of the story, too. A lot of miniseries seem to have that languid “why bother getting to the point, we’ve got six hours to kill” pacing. This one avoided that trap. I mean this next statement in the best possible way: When I was in the theatre, I wondered if they were going to show all six hours, it was so thick. In this age of decostructed storytelling, it’s nice to see something tauter.
Now, there are some clunky bits, which you’re going to have in something this plot driven. There’s one performance (and, no, I won’t say whose for reasons which I’ll get into later) that’s pretty uninspired. It won’t set the world on fire, but I’ll definitely be setting the ol’ TiVo to grab the other two parts.
The premiere itself was a trip and a half. There was a red carpet, well, a yellow brick carpet to walk down. We didn’t get to walk down it, but it was just cool to be on that side of the fence for once. There were free drinks and popcorn Junior Mints and Redvines and all sorts of stuff. I’ve never seen a film at the Arclight, but it’s quite an experience. Super huge screen, comfy seats, stadium seating, great sound and all that. The movie/show was digitally projected, and the colors really popped. It was a great way to see a film.
Then there was an after party, which we also got to go to. More free food and drinks, and a lot of networking. Matthew brought me there, in part, because he knew it’d be a great place to hand out a few cards. I really appreciated that.
Some of you may remember my brief meeting with Neal Macdonough. You can read about it again here. But, basically, he pulled up along side me and a couple of my friends in our rented PT Cruiser Convertible to ask us how we liked the car.
“Yeah, I bought one for my Mom. Why?”
“About a year and a half ago you came up to us...” and then I recounted the story.
His wife (or girlfriend or companion or sister, I don’t mean to guess) said “Wow, you’ve got a good memory.”
“Not really. I don’t get accosted by many actors asking for car buying advice. Does tend to stand out.”
I got to meet a few people. There were some other actors there, too, in addition to the cast. Kevin Sorbo was there, as was Kari Matchett from Invasion, ER, 24 and a five episode stint on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Of course, for people like me, the behind the scenes guys are more important to trade cards with. The problem is that I don’t know what many of those people look like.
Fortunately, as a party favor, they had a green screen set up so that we could get our pictures taken in front of the Yellow Brick Road. One of the photographers had a cheat sheet, so he’d know who were the VIPs. I got to use that to figure out which person was Craig Van Sickle, the co-writer of Tin Man, as well as The Pretender and Alien Nation and a few other shows.
So I went over and introduced myself, and we talked for a bit. That was pretty nice. And, yeah, I carded him, too.
We got some gifts, too. ATin Man souvenir book. the Yellow Brick Road picture, and a Tin Man cookie. And, there may have been a box or two of Junior Mints that made it out with us, too.
On top of that, I got to have dinner with some friends on Wednesday night. Add to that the constant coolness that is spending time with Eugene and his family who could not be more welcoming if they tried, and it was a good trip.
Now, let’s wait and see what comes out of it.