A Night at Caren's with Gondry

gondry
Originally uploaded by 416style

I messed up previously laid plans when I was offered preview passes to Mos Def and Jack Black's new flick Be Kind Rewind. The clincher was the Q&A with director Michel Gondry. Gondry's well-known in film for directing The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind but it's his unique style directing music videos for the White Stripes and Bjork that gets my attention. Bad news is I got to the screening (right on time) and all the seats were filled (yeah, apparently there's a disclaimer you're supposed to read) so my friends and I had to change course. We headed to Caren's Wine Bar across the street (158 Cumberland) since I'd heard they had some swish mac and cheese and a tasty fondue too.

We sunk into our seats upstairs and I noticed that Richard Crouse, the easily recognizable host of Rogers Television's Reel to Real, was seated near to us. Hmmm...I wonder who he's dining with in Yorkville. Sure enough it's Michel Gondry, having a glass of red before ducking into the theatre to begin a round of questioning.

I wanted to give him my two cents too, tell him that my photo of him is used in his wikipedia profile, but best we could do was "So you couldn't get into the movie either?" He seemed rushed and faked a laugh, but he seemed to be doing that a dinner with his guests too. Solemn and reserved; not at all what I'd expect. Shouldn't you be a people person as an accomplished director? Maybe not. This is the guy, after all, that developed what's now called "the bullet technique", made famous by The Matrix. Oh well, I guess he's a technical guy. I can appreciate that.

We missed our chance with him and we missed the Q&A, instead we sat at Caren's waiting forever for food and drinks to have overly formal staff bring us overly mediocre food. (And, hey, shouldn't you have a decent selection of wines if you want to call yourself a wine bar?)

Besides good company the night was a bust - but hey, I did get another movie pass, to try and get into the movie another time.