Needless to say, I spent a lot of yesterday getting cozy with my rental car. My first task was to pick up my press credentials at Hollywood & Highland, Oscar’s new location. Shouldn’t have been too hard to get there, right? After all, the venue is named for its location–two very big streets in the center of town. I turned up the radio, put on my sunglasses and headed to Sunset Boulevard, which I thought would be the most direct route. Apparently, other people thought that, too. On Sunset I sat, and sat, and sat. Finally, I called a friend, who quickly steered me off the street and served as my own personal GPS.
But as I got closer to Hollywood & Highland, new problems came up that even my navigator couldn’t solve. Due to the event on Sunday, many streets around the arena have been closed off to traffic, causing much congestion and confusion. (It’s also led to a lot of grumbling from local businesses and talk that the Oscars could go back to the Shrine Auditorium next year.) There was so much traffic backed up, I ended up parking and walking the last 15 minutes. On the way, I waded through hundreds of tourists and excited gawkers, who have started to gather across the street from the Kodak Theater and were taking pictures of the empty bleachers and the just-being-laid red carpet. When I finally arrived at press check-in, it turned out to be the easiest thing I did all day. Despite the additional security provisions, I was in and out in 10 minutes.
Too bad my next drive took another hour. I had been invited to a nominee reception for this year’s Independent Feature Project, which will give out the Spirit Awards for the best in independent film this Saturday. The party was held at the home of Lawrence Bender, producer of “Reservoir Dogs” and “Good Will Hunting,” in the car-unfriendly Hollywood Hills. Along the way to Bender’s house–with only a faxed map for directions–I got lost, I got angry and (worst of all!) my cell phone cut out half a dozen times. But don’t think I didn’t appreciate where I was going and what I was doing. I took a moment to call my mother in Florida. “Not only am I talking to you on a cell phone in a car on Sunset,” I said, laughing. “I’m talking to you on a headset on a cell phone in a car on Sunset.” Her not-so-fascinated response, “Please be careful driving, honey.”
Bender’s affair had valet parking–yeah!–and was filled to the max with indie-movie heavyweights. Under the stars (I’m talking real ones–you don’t exactly see them in Manhattan), the world’s foremost renegade filmmakers smoked, schmoozed and scouted for work–“pressing the flesh,” as one astute publicist put it. Christopher Nolan, director of “Memento,” was there, as was Scott McGehee, codirector of “The Deep End” and Sandi Simcha Dubowski, whose documentary “Trembling Before G-d” is still gaining momentum around the country. And just I was leaving, the man who reinvented the modern indie–Quentin Tarantino–walked in.
I should have stayed a touch longer to get a quote from Quentin. But I was meeting a friend for some late-night sushi. Half an hour later, I got to the restaurant, where there were no celebrities, no flash bulbs and no idle chit-chat. But parking was a snap.
