USA,
2006, 106 min
Shown in 2007
CREDITS
- dir
-
Tom DiCillo
- prod
-
Robert Salerno
- scr
-
Tom DiCillo
- cam
-
Frank G. DeMarco
- editor
-
Paul Zucker
- mus
-
Anton Sanko
- cast
-
Steve Buscemi, Michael Pitt, Alison Lohman, Gina Gershon
- source
-
Peace Arch Entertainment, 4640 Admiralty Way Suite 710, Marina del Rey, CA 90292 FAX: 310-728-1720. EMAIL: rbodner@peacearch.com.
- premiere
-
West Coast Premiere
-
COMMENTS
Tom DiCillo and Alison Lohman attended screening.
OTHER
Les Galantine is a man with a single-minded sense of purpose: “Shot heard round the world—that’s what I'm aimin’ for.” Slithering along the muddy bottom of the celebrity food chain, on the prowl for sightings of New York’s glitterati, this dissolute paparazzo is consumed by a Grail-like search for an exclusive celebrity photo. Enter his foil, a charming, dumpster-dwelling homeless youth named Toby Grace, whose childlike naiveté and unspoiled optimism are as luminous as Les is dark. Reluctantly offering to let the kid crash in his cluttered closet, Les signs Toby on as his assistant, and together they stalk the streets in the elusive shadows of the stars. “Think big, get big” Les asserts to his young protégé. The guys score a coup when they spot and shoot Chuck “The Beef” Sirloin exiting a penile surgery unit with his doctored member in full view. But fate, in the form of teen-queen starlet K’Harma, steals Toby away to fame and fortune of his own, leaving Les behind, bitterly abandoned in the (star)dust. Indie favorite Tom DiCillo’s hip and urbane take on the buddy-movie genre stars Steve Buscemi, (brilliantly playing Les as if he were Ratso Rizzo) and Michael Pitt (last seen channeling Kurt Cobain in Gus Van Sant’s Last Days) as the dreamy Toby, with Alison Lohman as pop starlet K’Harma and Gina Gershon as Dana, the sultry talent agent who lures Toby onto the proverbial casting couch. Nice cameos by Cinqué Lee (as a reality television director) and Elvis Costello round out the cast of this buoyant tale of life in today’s celebrity culture.
—Karen Davis
FACTOID #147
The Coppola clan (Francis, Eleanor, Sofia and Roman) is the family with the most filmmakers represented at the Festival. Films screened include Apocalypse Now (1990); One from the Heart (1990); Lick the Star (1998); The Virgin Suicides (2000); CQ (2002); and On the Set of CQ (2002). (And that’s not even counting onscreen appearances by cousins Nic Cage and Jason Schwartzman.)
