“Do you really have to be the ice queen intellectual or the slut whore? Isn’t there some way to be both?” – Susan Sarandon
Wow am I tired. I’m missing like 98 percent of the films I want to see, in part because Saturday was hijacked by Susan Sarandon. I’ve admired Sarandon and her career for years. Pretty Baby is a fantastic film (troubling as it was for Brooke Shields), and as a former goth girl, I’ll always have a special place in my heart for The Hunger. I even was affected by her breakup with Tim Robbins in a way I’ve never been by a celebrity couple. The Banger Sisters aside, there certainly are worse celebs to stalk for a day.
So we did. I attended the Thelma and Louise screening with two former Film Studies students, Gretchen Klein and (of course) Adrian, which made me giddy. While waiting for the film to begin, I asked Gretchen if she had seen it before.
Gretchen: “Yes! What kind of a woman do you think I am?”
Me: “Well, Adrian has never seen it.”
Gretchen: “What kind of a woman does Adrian think he is?”
Touché. The film holds up well, aside from the soundtrack, but the theater sound was terrible. Gretchen mentioned it first. Adrian then asked if they were projecting a DVD. I felt all warm inside knowing my former students had become exactly the kind of annoying cinephiles I’d wished them to be all along.
Sarandon arrived a bit late post-screening, so local film critic Gino Salomone got stuck entertaining the audience for a good 10 minutes, which gave Gretchen and I plenty of time to hit the loo. Our return to the theater was perfectly timed with Sarandon’s arrival. She strode through the Oriental lobby, a small entourage in her wake, as iPhones emerged from pockets in epic proportions. She signed a poster at the bottom of the stairs where we were standing. She is beautiful and charismatic — regal, really — and Gretchen summed up the experience perfectly in eight words: “It’s kind of like going to the zoo.”
During the Q&A, Sarandon seemed more excited to talk about her activism than her character motivation though she mentioned several times that she treats every film as a love story. Regarding Thelma and Louise, she noted that everyone went into it somewhat naively, believing they were just making a cowboy movie with women. The fact that it was empowering — perhaps especially to rape survivors — came as a surprise after the film’s release, but one of which she seemed proud. One man mentioned that to people under 25, Sarandon is perhaps best known for her interest in ping-pong and her role in Andy Samberg and Justin Timberlake’s “Mother Lover” video (the follow-up to “Dick in a Box”). She explained that her son encouraged her to do the video and added, “I’m not really that good… at ping-pong.” She is no less graceful and charming than her fans would expect, and it showed on the faces of every Milwaukee Film employee; they all had smiles on their faces and were looking at her like they were in love. Congrats, Milwaukee Film!
In the lobby after, local filmmaker Xav Leplae was being photographed in anticipation of his Rasmalai Dreams screening, in 3-D. (I’m psyched to see it Friday at the North Shore.) We had to bail for food before heading to SPiN for more Sarandon stalking. Angela Catalano took us to the hospitality suite for a meal that made me hum I was so happy eating it! Fall veggies in peanut sauce with fresh spring rolls — yes, please! Monica McElroy-Denisson, the president of Milwaukee Pulse, was the woman behind the deliciousness! Well done, lady. Also, can you please open a restaurant?
We picked up Tami Williams, drove Downtown, and literally ran six blocks after Adrian got a phone call that Susan Sarandon was waiting for him! (You run when Susan Sarandon is waiting for you.) Inside SPiN, he blended with the photographers immediately, so we went to the bar. It was an eclectic crowd — not a visibly hip or even wealthy crowd — and we began to wonder how the invites were distributed. I expected to see beautiful people I had never seen before, but all of them seemed to have been flown in from other places. I was particularly taken with one woman who, while wearing a classy white suit and heels, played the hell out of a ping-pong game. I was less struck when the emcee, a great looking guy with short, swirly orange hair, told the audience to pay attention while models played. I’m supposed to be impressed that pretty girls can play table tennis? Sorry. Checking out now.
The high point of the evening for me, aside from meeting Janine Sijan Rozina of RDI Studios and running into friends Jessica and Paul Stender (whom I simply don’t see enough), was the dance contest. Tami eagerly volunteered, and if anyone can bring it on the dance floor, she can. Tami has years of dance team under her belt and just enough outrageousness to risk back injury to entertain Ms. Sarandon. And she did. Of the six contestants, she was the first to jump **on** the ping-pong table but was (unjustly, I think) eliminated from competition in the first round. The winner was a guy (Steve?) who did the splits over the net. Still, it’s a good evening when your friend makes Susan Sarandon smile.
