Cronenberg & Fiennes at press conference
(WireImage)

Spider Photocall (WireImage)
Gabriel Byrne, Miranda Richardson, Ralph Fiennes

 

above and below, Aaron Pearl signing autographs before the screening

Jeff Porter stops to sign autographs

 

My only exterior shot in which you can *almost* see Elijah. That's the back of his head in front of the gentleman in the dark jacket and white shirt...

This is the shot I would have gotten had I waited 2 minutes longer instead of freaking out that I would forfeit my seat... (photo courtesy of Mark)

Photos below taken from the rooftop bar of the Hyatt, sometime after midnight...

The night before, I'd heard that they expected there to be tickets available for "Try Seventeen" in the morning. So, it's up at 6 to be in line at 6:20 for the 8AM box office opening at the Uptown. I'm the second person in line--the first is a woman from, I think it was, Florida, who hadn't managed to get most of the tickets she wanted despite buying the pass, so she was having to get in line daily to exchange for the tickets she actually wanted. This day, she wanted "Spider," as did I, and of course we had all the time in the world, so we talked. A lot! I talk her into using one of her tickets for "Try Seventeen" (score one for me). And a man came by trying to sell his ticket to "Spider," which I happily took, so at least I couldn't forget to try for one in my haste to get "Try Seventeen" tickets.

Waiting, waiting, waiting. At about 7:30 or so, the staff start to arrive, and the board goes up with the names of the films being screened at that theatre that day, and how many tickets (if any) are available for each. Woo hoo! 26 tickets for "Try Seventeen." Since my new friend only needs one, that means Anne and I have no worries. I'm in and out of the box office by 8:05 or so, and straight into line for the 9AM screening of "Spider," once again in the big theatre.

What can I say about "Spider"? I hadn't seen any Cronenberg in quite some time and I still think of him in terms of "Scanners" and "Videodrome." I was expecting something violent and in-your-face, so it took me a while to get with the actual movie I was seeing, and figure out just exactly what is going on. This is another recommendation from me--Ralph Fiennes gives an Oscar-calibre performance in this role--you will never look at that odd man shuffling down the street and talking to himself in *quite* the same way again. All the supporting cast, from Gabriel Byrne to Miranda Richardson to Lynn Redgrave to John Neville, are also uniformly brilliant (if all in Ralph's shadow).

So, back to the hotel, shower and change, Anne arrives. We got in line before 7 for the 9PM film, with only 2 people ahead of us. I immediately left Anne to hold my space while I went to stand with the people trying to get photographs and autographs. Small group then--much larger and less friendly by movie time (the concept of "dibs" needs to be introduced here!) Stood there, patiently, in my high heels, for about two hours, getting pushed and shoved by the crowd. Finally, when we had heard that Mandy and Franka weren't coming, and everyone else had arrived (including some celebrity guests like Wes Bentley) had arrived, the ticket line was almost all done and I decided I had better go in or risk losing my space. So of course JUST after I left, he arrived...

I couldn't get a shot of his arrival at all. It was total pandemonium, with people screaming and pushing and they stopped letting people enter the theatre so we were stuck in the midst of the chaos. I could get an occasional distant glimpse of him, but nothing to shoot and not even a long enough look to describe him. I found Anne inside easily enough and we got to talking, and just AS he passed I realized we had missed Elijah walking in. Dammit! My timing absolutely sucked. He sat maybe 10-12 rows directly behind us--we were in the second row to be sure we could get close photos--in fact, we were so close that between the lack of distance and the low light, my autofocus wouldn't work and I had to rely on manual (and my vision isn't up to that).

So, anyway, Jeff Porter does a brief intro and the movie starts. You can read my summary of the movie here, and I should also have a review up eventually. Suffice it to say that it was MUCH better than we expected. Lots of laugh-out-loud moments (including a scene with Elijah's hand in his shorts that reminded me of recent discussions about similar scenes with Billy and Dom). I'd have been interested to see how Elijah reacted to watching the wet dream sequence that can't be fun in a large crowd....

Elijah has love scenes with all 3 leading ladies--the Deborah Harry one is a very hot fantasy sequence (Jeff Porter said she thought she could have gone even farther with it--I can get behind that feeling, and I rather wish she had!), the Mandy Moore is more of an awkward she's-taken-him-by- surprise scene, and the scenes with Franka are of increasing intensity until the actual sex scene, which was very well done (and had implied nudity, but not all that much actually on view). We do get a couple of bare chest shots, including when Deborah Harry rips his t-shirt off him--he looked definitely a bit chubbier in the movie than he did in Toronto, which was possibly intentional (to look more like 17). He'll not make a centerfold, but I'm not into either musclemen or hairy chests, so that's just fine by me.

So, more on that later. Afterwards, Elijah and Jeff did a Q&A, and Anne got in two questions--I hope she'll post those herself. I had one, which would have been next when they decided to end! ARGH! Did my timing still suck? Actually, no. When they cut off, we went up to Elijah and were two of the 6-8 people who actually managed to get close enough to not get swept out by security. There were two people who got autographs before us, then Anne and I were up. Anne got an autograph for her twin daughters, and while he was finishing that, I told him that I had kept my premiere record intact, that I had been to Tribeca and seen Ash Wednesday. He said that he hadn't seen it yet, and asked me if it was good. I, of course, said that it was brilliant and that I hoped it found a distributor. I *meant* to then ask him about working with Ed Burns, but just as I finished the first sentence he handed Anne her autograph, looked up and smiled, and every thought in my head made an immediate departure. Luckily I had my issue of Flaunt in my hand, so I remembered to ask him to sign it, and said that Viggo had told me to have him do so. He did, saying "that bastard!" with a smile. I then asked if he had as much fun making Chain of Fools as it looked like he did, and he said it was a blast. Anne said she had just seen it because I made her a copy, and I said Shush, don't tell him I copied it! He smiled, and I said that I was one of the few who could get it because I have a multisystem DVD player. He said "Oh, brilliant!" with another of those huge smiles (melt, swoon) and we decided to be good girls and tear ourselves away so the other folks could have their turn.

We then spent the next several hours getting totally pastered, talking about everything in the universe, periodically punctuatated with "we met Elijah Wood!" When the bar at the Four Seasons closed, we moved over to what quickly became our favorite hangout, the rooftop bar at the Hyatt. We end the evening by having a waitress take our photo--she asks what we're celebrating, we tell her, and she tells *us* that Elijah had lunch there that afternoon!

My photos and Anne's from the Q&A can be found here. There are also photos by Mark and WireImage.