Bruckheimer's Seat

So yesterday Chad was about 15mins late picking me up. I don’t really care except for the fact that it was really cold out. Chad’s friend Jameson drove us to the theatre and steak house. We listened to right wing radio the whole way there. I guess it’s a new thing they do. Strange. Whatever. We get to the place and Chad thanks Jameson for the ride and asks him if he wants to try to get in. Chad RSVP’d the invite that only two were coming; but maybe they made a mistake? We walk around this complex trying to find this Morten’s stake house. We come around a corner and find it. We didn’t find because of any sign or anything like that. No, we found it because we found a person. We found Chris LaMont, Founder and Director of the Phoenix Film Festival, of whom we have a tangled past with. He was genuinely surprised to see us there. We stopped outside the steak house and talked with him for a while. Our talk consisted of him trying to find out just why we were there. See, we always seem to crash Chris’s party at the strangest of times. We talked about school and stuff and then we left Chris and went to check in. at the table they had this list with names and the number of people each reservation had. Chad gave his last name. They looked on the list and low and behold he wasn’t there. But strangely enough this wasn’t a problem. They just wrote down his name and he said he had a reservation for 3 and Jameson got to hang with us. Now Chad and I were dressed fairly nicely. We had collared shirts and slacks. Jameson on the other had was wearing ratty jeans, flip-flops, and a grey faded hooded sweat shirt. Everyone else was in suits. It was awesome. We went into the steakhouse and found out quickly that this was not dinner, but a mixer. There were probably 200 people crammed into this little restaurant. We looked around for someone we knew, Maybe a professor from ASU or something. I recognized a lot of people from the Phoenix Film Festival and Phoenix Film Project, but nobody I felt comfortable walking up to and saying high. After awkwardly standing around for a bit we went back out side to talk with Chris. We talked about Lord of the Discs and he had some interesting things to say about the movie. I debated with Chad on weather or not to tell him about my feature freshmen. It was a coin toss on weather or not he’d think it was a good idea. When I wanted to do Discs, before we had even started pre-production, Chris told me it wasn’t a good idea. He had good reasons but I wanted to do it anyway. Chad and Jameson decided to go track down a convenience store and buy some cigarettes. I stayed with Chris and kept talking to him about my movie and stuff. He told me that I should build my reel, write my feature, shoot a scene from my feature, and use those materials to try and get funding for my feature. I asked him if he thought it was a good idea, if the movie was cheep enough, to just do it on my own with my own producing team. He said he was totally for that. I still hesitated to let him know that I had 2 of the 3 requirements he laid down done. I’ll tell him eventually but only when the time is right. So Chris then had to go and mingle with the people so I stayed outside and waited for Chad. It got cold so I decided to go in and circle the steak house and see if I can see anyone I recognize. As I went through I past Jerry Bruckheimer, who was being crowded by a lot of people. He was a lot shorter than I thought. My height actually. Probably 5.5, 5.6 max. He was looked tired. I went back outside and stood by the door and continued to wait for Chad. There was a group of girls probably 27-37 giggling next to me. I couldn’t believe it. They kept talking about Josh Lucas and Charles Barkley (who apparently was there but I didn’t know what he looks like). I saw Josh Lucas come out from the steak house and the girls next to me went wild and were pointing and giggling and screaming like they were on TRL with Carson Daily. People started to file out of the steak house and head up to the theatre. Bruckheimer left, then Chris with some large black guy. When they passed me the girls to my right screamed “we love you Charles Barkley!” the guy turned and sheepishly said thanks. Chad came and we headed up to the theatre. We got in line, the end of the line; literally we were the last people in line. When we entered the theatre there was no where to sit. No where. The place was full. Except for a roped off session. After standing around a bit Chad went up to one of the ladies sitting in the roped off section and asked if anyone was sitting there. She said no so we stepped over the rope and took a seat in the best seats in the house. A microphone came on and some guy up at the front of the theater introduced himself as the coach of the basketball team at ASU. He then introduced Jerry Bruckheimer who introduced the actors. When they were done introducing everyone there was about a 2 minute wait, maybe technical difficulties. Finally the movie started. The movie, “Glory Road”, was ok. When it was done we left and the actors were talking to people in the lobby about the movie. They were signing autographs and taking pictures. It was kind of weird and I felt bad for them because they looked uncomfortable. I didn’t want to bother them too much so I shook Derek Luke’s hand and told him I liked the movie (which was half true) and then we kind of stood around. Jerry Bruckheimer was standing around by himself in the lobby. Nobody wanted to talk to him it seemed. Probably cause nobody really new who he was or what he did. I didn’t recognize anyone after the screening. Not even Chris was there. All the filmmakers must have left before the screening. I decided to take this opportunity and say high to him. I walked over stuck out my hand. He smiled at me and shook it. “I just wanted to shake your hand.” I said. “What’s your name?” he said smiling. I introduced myself and told him I was the president of the AFA and that our school had just gotten a film major and that we were very excited. He said “Oh nice” and then I told him I just wanted to thank him and then I left. Jameson informed me that as I turned away from him he made a face. Maybe he wanted someone to talk to and was mad I left quickly, or maybe he was mad I didn’t ask for his autograph. As we walked back to the car Chad and Jameson told me that we had taken his seat in the movie. Apparently the basketball couch sat next to Chad after he introduced every one and the 2 minute wait was because they were trying to find seats for Bruckheimer and the actors. Chad said that Bruckheimer starred at us in the reserved section while the Harkins staff tried to find him a seat. When they couldn’t the actors and Bruckheimer retired to the lobby and they started the movie. Maybe that’s why he made a face? Because we took his seat. But the only thing I could think about the whole night was how short he was. I just thought he was taller. Huh.