Particles of Truth Screening
Los Angeles Film Festival
June 14, 2003

JenR's very detailed, very long,
but hopefully not too boring report...

~ Particles of Truth Official Site ~
~ Los Angeles Film Festival Official Site ~

Well, since I'm so slow getting this done, many people probably already know most of the details, but for those who don't - important stuff first... Gale was there, he's absolutely... ahhh... ummm... gorgeous doesn't do him justice. And I touched him! LOL. Just his arm - no place too exciting (or overly invasive of his privacy). ;-) Also in attendance were Scott Lowell, Peter Paige (who had a 'friend' - Dan Lipman's word, not mine - with him), Dan Lipman, obviously, and Ron Cowen. Of course Jennifer Elster was there. Crickett and some of the others said Faye Dunaway was there, but I didn't see her myself. I met up with Crickett and SuzQ at Crickett's house, and Crickett... well, she got us to the theater in one piece. ::grin:: Love ya Crickett. We met up with Linda, and later with Tracie (MFB), Jude, Leslie, Cathie, and eventually Dawn... I know I'm forgetting people, but it was my first time meeting all of them, and wow is my brain fried. LOL Too much happening in too short a time. Anyway, Jennifer Elster got there early and was just hanging out in the lobby, so we (okay, Crickett mainly) went over and talked to her for a minute or two. She was quite bothered by the fact that she forgot to tell people at the Tribeca Film Festival to vote for the movie. In fact, she herself forgot to vote for it! LOL So she was asking us to please vote - and she repeated that plea twice during the Q&A afterwards. Next spotted was Peter Paige. I didn't try to go over to meet him - it was pretty crowded by this point. I think Scott Lowell was spotted shortly thereafter, but things were starting to happen fast now. We were fairly close to the front of the regular ticket holder line, and the press, industry and Fast Pass line was right by us. All of a sudden (it seemed to me anyway), Gale was right there talking to some people in the next line. Right by us. Like... barely more than an arm's reach away... so I was dumbstruck for a few minutes, then I noticed some of the press were taking pictures of him (no doubt lots of fans too, but I did see a press person taking pics), so I whipped out my camera and took a quick shot. If I was going to take a picture of him, I'm glad I did it then and not later - he was really mobbed afterwards, and once outside specifically asked people to stop taking pictures of him. Shortly Gale headed over to where Peter, Scott, Ron & Dan were - greetings and hugs followed, of course. So, into the theater. Crickett is the person to go to things like this with. Without even realizing it, she chose for us to sit right behind the two rows that were reserved for the VIPS. No, Gale didn't sit right in front of me. I didn't recognize anyone in the row immediately in front of us, but the QAF gang were all two rows in front of us. Gale was sitting between Scott and one of the other actors from the film, but got up and went to the back of the theater as soon as the movie started. Just as well... I would have been watching him as much as I watched the movie if he'd stayed, and I would have missed parts of an excellent film. I'm not going to get into too much detail about the film, because 1) this is getting too long already and 2) other people are better at that than I am. I will say that it had an excellent mix of truly funny moments and absolutely heart - and gut - wrenching moments. And though it goes without saying that Gale was incredible in it... I'm saying it anyway. Absolutely fantastic. The range of emotions his character goes through is incredible, and he once again shows his talent for saying so much just with his body language. His character is a germophobe (Jennifer Elster's word), and there's a scene where Morrison (Gale's character) is in the subway (what worse location could there be for a germophobe), and I think it really hits him that he's down there and that he's okay... Really a fascinating character - almost as opposite from Brian as you can get - and Gale did an incredible job of bringing him to life and giving him a depth that was so necessary for the film. The Q&A afterwards was great. Jennifer is incredibly articulate and funny and seemed to really enjoy answering questions about the film. I think she would have liked to keep the Q&A going longer, but they had to clear the theater out for the next film. Gale was also up on stage for the Q&A, as well as several other people that I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to... LOL Jennifer's husband was one of them though - I remember that. :-) Only one question for Gale - how he got involved in the project. He said he was fortunate enough to read the script, and contacted Jennifer about the role. They ended up reading through the entire script over the phone (because Gale was in Toronto at the time, of course). Later they got together in person, and he said she made him read through the whole thing again with her... he seemed think that was rather humorous or maybe he was teasing that it was sort of an insult that he had to read for the part twice. LOL He spoke for a couple more minutes, but I can't remember exactly what else was said... Oh! Peter Paige asked Jennifer about the budget, because he had 'heard that Gale was only paid about a nickel for it' - to which Gale replied - 'no, it was 7 cents.' Cute exchange. Jennifer didn't give specifics about the budget other than to say it was a day to day worry. Very small budget. Gale: "Less than 5 million." Yeah. :-) One of the last questions was 'do you have a distributor for the film?' Not yet, but Jennifer was emphatic that they will and it will be coming soon to a theater near us and she'll see us there. Totally positive about it. She just has that energy about her. Yikes, I'm writing a novel here. But this is so I'll have a written account of the event for myself too, and being an anal-retentive perfectionist, I have to get every detail in. ::grin:: So... Q&A is over, so naturally quite a few people headed towards the stage to congratulate Jennifer and Gale and the rest of the cast and crew that were there. I'll admit to trying to head that direction myself, but didn't get very far. But soon they were herding us out of the theater, and I was walking out with Cathie (zcatgirl) and Scott. We were standing in the lobby just outside the theater, and Scott looks right at me, smiles, and says hi. Well, hey... give me an opening like that and even a shy person like me can take advantage of it. So I shook his hand and introduced myself, and since Cathie was standing there I mentioned being a friend of hers (okay, we'd only met for the first time that night, be we've exchanged plenty of emails). I guess she had been introducing several people as her friends, so Scott made a joke about her having her own little group - FOC - Friends of Cathie - and that we should have buttons made up. I asked for an autograph, and he was sweet enough to oblige. You know how people always say Scott is much, much better looking in person than he is as Ted... well, I always figured people were kind of just saying that because he was nice or whatever... okay, it's totally true, and I'm officially a major Scott Lowell fan now. He was so kind and friendly and cute and has the best smile... anyway... Peter had taken off pretty quickly, but as Gale was coming out of the theater and standing with Scott, Ron & Dan, Cathie, myself and several others, Peter yelled across the lobby to say goodbye to Scott and Gale, and made a motion that looked like he was heading out to get some dinner. Makes sense - it was probably between 6 and 6:30 pm. Everything got kind of chaotic from there. Gale was signing autographs for people, so I decided - since this was probably going to be my only chance - I had to at least try and get one. It took a little while, with all the crowds and with him trying to go one way or the other to talk to other people. But... finally it was my turn. It was so quick - he didn't ask my name or anything - he really wanted to get out of there at that point, and I don't blame him and so I didn't say anything to him really other than 'will you sign this?' or something. As often happens, he almost didn't give me my pen back, but then it turned out the next girl didn't have a pen (and guess who that 'next girl' was?? Fanfic writer extraordinaire Morpheus! Go read her account of the event here), so I stayed for a minute and let him use mine again (for all the good it did... it was running out of ink). Then he did remember to give it back to me. The pen! I just realized that pen is now a souvenir too... LOL Anyway, that was the last I saw of Gale. I'd had my minute and didn't want to bother him anymore. I turned around, and Dan Lipman was right there, so I asked him for an autograph too. He said something like "No one ever wants my autograph" to which I simply replied "well I do." He says what he's writing as he writes it... "I'm going to sign this 'thanks for being a QAF fan... Daniel Lipman." I told him 'addict' was a more accurate word, which he thought was just great. More wandering around, and I find Jennifer Elster again, so I got her autograph and told her all of us had voted for the film and she said thanks. (If you're looking at the autographs, no, the "XOXO" wasn't from Gale - darn it! - it was from Jennifer.) That was it for me. Tired... I knew Peter was already gone - darn it - and I didn't see Ron Cowen around at the moment. I heard later that Gale was still being mobbed once he got outside the building, and finally just flat out told people to stop taking pictures of him and that he needed to leave. Dinner at Louise's Trattoria was fabulous. I can see why the gang always chooses that restaurant - we got the best service. Great food too. Bringing up Crickett yet again... for some reason she decided that me being there was a special event or something, and had to announce to everyone who I was and that I was there. We had people at 5 tables, but there were other tables around with total strangers sitting at them. I'm sure they appreciated the introduction. Anyway... people clapped. That was the freakiest thing that has ever happened to me. Not that I didn't appreciate it - it was so nice of everyone. It was just the surreal topping to an extremely surreal day. It was weird to meet all these people who knew who I was from my wallpapers and Randall's graphics and stuff. And everyone was so nice. Just an incredible night. And I want to thank Crickett especially for just taking charge and making sure we were where we needed to be when we needed to be there and knowing all the right people to make it that much more fun and exciting. You're the best, babe! So, for those of you crazy enough to read this entire epic, I hope you got to live vicariously through me for just a little while. Heaven knows I've spent years living vicariously through others, and I love reading the detailed reports other people have given of various events. Please don't repost in part or in whole anywhere without my permission. That said, if you ask me, I'll probably say yes.