One of the things I like most about
Midnight Madness is that even its fancy is scrappy. Take last year's
screening of Takashi Miike's Sukiyaki Western Django, for example. A bunch of
us waited on the red carpet to meet stars Yusuke Iseya (Blindness;
Casshern) and Yoshino Kimura (also Blindness)
who were missing out on the Tokyo premiere to be there with us. And
while it was great to meet the actors and let them know how glad I
was they were there?and tell Kimura I liked her boots?it was even
better when I noticed that the red carpet itself is the exact same
kind available on a spool at any hardware store. I mean, right now I could have a red carpet in front of my apartment building keeping
that festival feeling alive all year long. Any of us could.
And it gets better. All us red carpet
fans were seated in the reserved area. But again the best part was
that reserved seating was roped off with masking tape and marked with
signs printed off a bubble jet printer. Those signs went so well
with director Takashi Miike's signs in his now notorious
special
message to the Midnight Madness audience. And that's what makes it for
me?from the masking tape to Miike's filmed message, from sitting in
a college auditorium to Colin pulling out his laptop to read an
email from
Donnie Yen (Flashpoint, SPL) on how the
future of fighting in film was Mixed Martial Arts, from Sasha Baron
Cohen (
Borat) as Borat ?examining? Colin during a
projector malfunction to Colin holding up his cellphone so Tony Jaa (
Ong-Bak) could hear us, from Sammo Hung's (
SPL)
first international premiere to the last film (
Undead) ever shown
in Toronto's landmark
Uptown Theatre, shortly before its
2003
collapse. Midnight Madness is made from masking tape, parts
available at any hardware store, and scrappy, scrappy love. And I
love the scrappy.*
*No, I do not mean that
goddamn dog.
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