SCHWARTZMAN UNLIMITED

It's been a great weekend. Last night, we had killer Indian food and then went to see Wes Anderson's new one, THE DARJEELING LIMITED. I enjoyed the first couple of acts but then everything really kicked in for the third and really impressed me. And hey, India. But when we bought our tickets, there was a small little sign on the box office that said COME MEET JASON SCHWARTZMAN AFTER THE 7:15 SCREENING SATURDAY. Sign us up. We woke up, ate La Madeleine and caught the new ELIZABETH flick (decent, until the ridiculous finish, memorable only for the improbable return of that white horse that's been missing ever since disappearing from Sarah Palmer's living room 16 years ago)(turns out he can swim) and MICHAEL CLAYTON, which was pretty tight and right, even though they probably could have sold even more tickets if they'd gone ahead and called it GEORGE CLOONEY and that would've been a little closer to the mark. Tom Wilkinson did tear it up.

Anyways, it's obviously movie season. We rolled back up to the Arbor after dinner and got to catch Max Fischer himself do an entertaining Q&A with the audience. He talked about the process of writing the movie with Anderson and Coppola, how even he didn't know why Anderson made him go barefoot for 4 months of filming, and how great India really is. Also told a story about Bill Murray knocking on his door at 10 at night, Schwartzman's already in his PJs and has a 6AM call, Murray's going over to eat dinner with all these Janes, S is like No no, I can't go, then Murray gives him a hangdog look and Fischer's like, That's fucking Dr Peter Venkman, what's WRONG with me? so throws his clothes on and stays out until 3. Paid for it the next long day of shooting, but it was worth it, of course.

A funny part was the people rolling in for the 9 o'clock showing, a few clearly buzzed, all quite surprised to see one of the film's stars holding court down in front with a microphone.

Then the mob descended for autographs and photo opps. He could not have been nicer, there was no kind of line or anything, just a crowd of people horning their way in, but he kept it civil and joked around with everybody, stayed past the time just so no one would be disappointed. I brought my RUSHMORE VHS tape and it turned out that it still had the original ticket stub from '99 in there, so that was quite cool to get signed "THANK YOU SO SO SO MUCH!" Super-nice guy.















On the way out, we even got to shake hands with Harry and Quint from Ain't It Cool. Harry moderated the event. Good vibes all around. We were still out in the lobby bullshitting with them about movies and comics and then Schwartzman came out and told Harry what a great great time he'd had, was still rapping with Harry when we left. I got a picture for you, Stew.







So yes, friends, Max Fischer is one of you. And he promises that FANTASTIC MR. FOX, Anderson's next project (with freaking Clooney as Mr Fox) will be the best thing anyone has ever seen . . . ever.