DEATH OF A PRESIDENT
ASSASSINATION FILM TRIGGERS
A RANGE OF EMOTIONS

Equal Opportunity Offender: With his controversial new film Death of a President, Gabriel Range has managed to infuriate both Republicans and Democrats. Before they've seen the movie.

Range's fictional movie is set in the near future and depicts the assassination of President George W. Bush. Employing real and reconstructed archive footage, actors, computer-generated imagery, and testimony, the film is intended as a documentary-style commentary on post-911 America. And American nerves have been touched.

Senator Hillary Clinton called the film “despicable", adding that someone attempting to profit on such a horrible scenario makes her sick. Gun control advocate Sarah Brady is the wife of James Brady, who was shot and disabled during John Hinckley, Jr.'s attempt on President Ronald Reagan's life in 1981. Speaking on CNN's Showbiz Tonight, Brady called Death of a President's “horrific” subject matter inappropriate, and noted her opposition to the film's violence transcended any negative feelings she has about the Bush administration. On Townhall.com, Jeff Jacoby wrote a column entitled "A New Low in Bush Hatred". Even actors got into the criticism game. Kevin Costner, weighing in from this year's Toronto festival, expressed that such a movie would be hard for Bush's family to take. “There's a certain thing we can't lose as human beings,” he said, “which is empathy for maybe the hardest job in the world.”

Range might be thinking that it's he who bears that cross at present. When the 32-year old writer-director telephoned moviesforbreakfast.com recently to discuss his film, he admitted he hadn't quite expected the response he's had.

“I rang a friend of mine in New York when I decided to make this film and she said ‘you're crazy. They're going to hate you. It's going to be a firestorm should you do this,” recalled Range. I kind of chuckled a little bit. But I guess I didn't quite imagine the upset it would cause."

Range reserved his angriest retort for the US Senator touted to be the Democratic Party's candidate in the 2008 presidential elections.

“I think it's extraordinary that someone like Hillary Clinton is prepared to condemn a film she hasn't seen. I mean, it's rather chilling actually. I think that that initial reaction was based entirely on the mistaken idea people had that this was some kind of exercise in wish fulfillment, that it was a kind of Liberal fantasy. It is not what you think. Judge the film for yourself.”

Range said he felt that the Toronto International Film Festival, which awarded D.O.A.P. an international critics prize, nailed it when they described his movie as distorting reality to reveal a greater truth.

“I was really thrilled that they would say that,” said Range, adding that he considers the film a thriller, or whodunit. “I've used that genre to invite some introspection, really, about the way the politics of fear have affected America in the last five years and affected the media and society as a whole.”

As if to head off at the pass any criticisms of the sort that dogged John Lennon when, as a Liverpudlian living in Manhattan, he was pressured to butt out of USA affairs, Range, a Welshman who lives in London and has resided in New York, sought to justify his involvement in a film set in America.

“Of course there are Canadian and British troops on the ground in Afghanistan. George Bush and Tony Blair are always very happy, the pair of them, to remind us that we're all in this war on terror together. What I wanted to do with the film was examine the way in which that message has been used, in the sort of sense that the battlefield is here and now.”

The closest Range has come to his film's target was in Chicago, when his crew filmed some of the Commander-in-Chief's speeches for Death of a President. What struck him, he said, was how compelling Bush was in front of a live audience. “Apart from that being something that Karen Hughes and David Frum certainly believed, I think it happens to be true. I suppose for me personally, President Bush came across in a very different way to that which I expected.”

When asked about the legal ramifications of using technology to affix images of the actual man's head onto an actor's body to realistically depict the person's murder, Range explained that the archive was obtained as with any documentary: the crew proceeded with considerable caution and considered the legality of the exercise.

“We have been careful that this film is not only, I hope, balanced, but in no way an incitement. I think anyone who goes to see the film expecting to have some sort of cathartic experience in watching President Bush being shot is in for a shock because it's not what you think.”

Regardless, The Hollywood Reporter's Kirk Honeycutt said in his review of the film that it was unpleasant to “envision the murder of a person who, whether you like the man or not, is still very much alive.”

When asked why, given the subject matter, he had rendered the President a likable person in the film, Range sounded like he was bristling with exasperation on the other end of the line.

“George W. Bush, regardless what you think of his policies, he's a human being and the assassination would be a horrific event. I can understand why this would be a sensitive issue to some people, not least the Bush family,” he continued. “The film is provocative, but I think the provocation is justified. I think there are times when film should be outrageous.”

Range said the best he can possibly hope for his film is that the audience comes away feeling that they have had a greater truth revealed to them about the years post-911.

“I guess what I wanted to do was offer a different perspective on some very serious things that are happening in our name in the last five years.”

Speaking to the way the US administration sought to pin the 9-11 terrorist attack on Saddam Hussein, Range said he believed those connections that have been proved to be falsehoods have caused an enormous amount of hurt and upset for servicemen and their families.

“They are very serious issues. I suppose one of the things that struck me as being remarkable was that President Bush was reelected in 2004, even after a good deal of those falsehoods had been revealed to be just that. I think that these things shouldn't fall out of daily conversations the way that they have. There was a sense in 2004 of resignation almost. But it does matter. Of course it matters. The long term effects of that are incredibly corrosive. Those are the things that are worth exploring.”

And how does the White House administration feel about that?

“What they actually said was, ‘We're not going to comment because the film does not dignify a response.' Feel free to interpret the grammar of that statement,” suggested Range. “Who knows? You can't help but think that that might be a hint as to the source of that comment.”

- Death of a President opens on Friday, October 27. -

The critical scene from Death of a President (courtesy Maple Pictures)

WHO: Channing Tatum
WHAT: Step Up
WHEN: Now
WHERE: Vancouver theatres
WHY: Because, well, have you watched this guy do his thing?

Behold: the face of a man who can be trusted with your $12 million film

SAN FRANCISCO—“Jesus Christ! This guy is smoking!” That exclamation about Channing Tatum on a TV.com message board pretty much sums up the sentiment surrounding the 26-year-old nowadays. It happens when you walk around shirtless for much of your early career. An athlete and former model whose first entertainment gig was in Ricky Martin's “She Bangs” video, the broody actor with the trademark buzz cut most recently caught moviegoers' attention as the sensitive soccer striker given to wearing dangerously low-slung sweatpants in the Vancouver-shot She's the Man. He would have shot here again, as the kickboxing Gambit in X-Men: The Last Stand, until that character was cut. In his new film, Step Up, which reaped nearly double its budget and trounced World Trade Center at the box office in its first week of release, Tatum tugs on the wife beater to play a young offender recruited by a Baltimore ballerina (Jenna Dewan) as her partner in a performing-arts showcase when she finds out he can dance. In a nutshell, Tatum has the brawn thing down.

“I'm looking forward to doing a role that is very intellectual, but I don't know if I'm there yet in my career,” he told me last month during a promotional tour. “I am very physical. I move a lot; I can't hardly stay still. I can hardly wait to be challenged in that.”

Although Tatum is practical about his future—“It's a long road ahead of me and I'm sure I'm going to fall on my face a bunch”—he has yet to be, in his words, “trashed” for a performance. To the contrary, the six-pack-and-pout factor is paying off. Variety's review of A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, an ensemble film that won the special jury prize at this year's Sundance Film Festival, said “Tatum creates a powerful study of a self-destructive street guy trapped with no good options.” But it was recalling Rolling Stone's weighty comparison—“Shirtless and oozing physical and sexual threat, Tatum stalks his turf like Brando in Streetcar”—that had the actor on the verge of turning as pink as his dress shirt.

“It was one of the happier days of my life,” he said. “To even be compared to a movie that he's done would be enough. But to be like him in a movie? I could stop now. Just to have that quote being said in a really respected magazine was, God, heaven.” Marlon Brando, however, is not Tatum's main influence. That honour goes to Paul Newman and Robert Redford. Oh, and the late, iconic TV comedian Jackie Gleason. Jackie Gleason?

“Everyone finds that one weird for some reason,” Tatum said, “but he can do the swaggery, cool roles too. He wasn't always funny. That's what I liked about him. He had a presence about him that you were definitely nervous about too. He was a big guy. He was a dark guy. The movie business has changed so much that it's hard to have him as a role model. But just to watch his charisma is definitely inspiring.”

How sweet it is right now for the Alabama-born actor. Initially, however, the self-taught Tatum said the filmmakers were seeking a professional dancer they could coach to act for the role of Tyler, which he eventually won.

“It all worked out ultimately, I think, because Tyler is just a street dancer that basically learns from what he sees on TV, just like my story,” Tatum reckoned, “and then he got introduced to this world, and that's exactly what I did.” Still, he had misgivings about merging his street style with that of formally educated hoofers, like leading lady Dewan, who'd toured with Janet Jackson and P. Diddy as a backup performer.

“I was nervous in the beginning,” Tatum admitted, “but every one of them was so nice and they held my hand throughout everything. If I needed to go over it again, they would come over and do it with me until we were blue in the face. I was just drenched in sweat by the end of the day. Always.”

Contrary to Internet rumours, Tatum said the hand-holding with Dewan isn't carrying over off-screen. (“It's definitely not.”) But he was recently spotted teaching the B-more Bounce to a female urban-weekly-newspaper writer in a San Francisco hotel room. Okay, that was me. When asked if he'd show me a dance move—I wanted to verify he didn't need a body double—he jumped off the sofa and guided me patiently through a routine from Step Up involving elbows bouncing off knees, a turn and jump, and, to close, an impromptu hip-hop solo by a grinning Tatum. He's the real deal, all right. I stunk, but my choreographer still bestowed a parting hug. Tatum's people really ought to take their bankable star aside and explain that raw talent doesn't need to charm anyone into writing a flattering article.

Published August 10, 2006 in the Georgia Straight. Read the review of Step Up in the Georgia Straight.

WHO: Jenna Dewan
WHAT: Step Up
WHEN: Friday, August 11
WHERE: Vancouver theatres
WHY: Because the 5'3" dancer can catch a 100 lb. man in the air

SAN FRANCISCO—At 5-3 and tucked neatly into a pink, spaghetti-strapped frock and five-inch white heels, Jenna Dewan is sugar, spice, and everything nice and dainty, no? Yeah, right. Exhibit A suggesting otherwise is the scene in her new movie, Step Up, in which the petite 25-year-old, playing Nora, a prima ballerina attending a performing-arts school, catches a male dancer with nary a muffled oomph. Surely the man was a computer-generated image. Or on wires? Or something.

“No, I did it all myself! But, please, he was like 100 pounds!” Dewan exclaimed, laughing, when I met her last month. “So it was easy for me. At that time we were training so hard I was a lot stronger, so I could do it.”

Dewan rehearsed 10 hours each day for three months to perfect the film's meld of classical, modern, jazz, and hip-hop choreography. When it came time to shoot, however, the avowed Dirty Dancing fan (“I love that they did their own dancing”) said that most of her nonverbal performance was freestyling. Dewan and dance go back two decades. The daughter of a “Jane Fonda aerobics freak” who kitted her out in her first unitard at age five, the Connecticut-born, Texas-raised Dewan started her training early, studying ballet, jazz, hip-hop, and clogging. Countless music videos followed, and she later toured as a backup hoofer for Janet Jackson and P. Diddy. Earlier this year, she appeared with Antonio Banderas in Take the Lead.

In veteran choreographer Anne Fletcher's directorial debut, Dewan's character exhibits as much emotional as physical might. After her regular partner is injured, she stubbornly forms an alliance with the unlikely Tyler (Channing Tatum), a street-taught dancer. When Tyler threatens to mess up her dream, the ambitious dancer will have none of it. Nora's rage didn't seem coaxed out of Dewan by her director.

“It comes easy,” Dewan admitted, laughing. “I guess I consider myself a sweet person, but I've always had a very fiery, snappy thing because I know what I want. To me, knowing what you want is really being a good professional woman.”

Dewan hopes that girls watching Step Up will relate to and be empowered by her character's independent streak.

“I really, really hope that they can see a real person in Nora and go, ‘Wow! She knows what she wants, she goes for it, she has dreams, she has a vision, she has morals that she lives up to.' I want kids to have that. You know yourself so well that the drugs and the drinking and the bad boys go second to going after what you want.”

The actor-dancer keeps her own counsel now, but it wasn't always that way. “The worst advice I was given,” she said, “was someone told me that I should do more sexy men's magazines with little to nothing on so I could get a fan base. And I was like, ‘That's not me, though.'?” Step Up, featuring Dewan catching the guys her own way, sometimes literally, opens in Vancouver on Friday (August 11).

REVIEW >> JON LOVITZ
at the River Rock Show Theatre (July 8)

Sing it, Jon: "Bob Saget isn't gay, the sky isn't blue, the grass isn't green, and I'm not a Jew"

The ugly American in him dissed rock 'n' roll icon Red Robinson for a perceived slight a night earlier, and he flipped the bird at the empty seats in the back of the River Rock Show Theatre ("fuck you!"). He was outrageously disrespectful to the love lives of men, women, and goats. And he bandied about the word 'vagina' more times than my doctor has over years of pap smears. Apart from that, comedian Jon Lovitz was an utterly endearing muddle of whimsy, self-effacement, rage, pomposity, sexual fixation, and proud Judaism as he padded around the stage at his stand-up comedy gig on Saturday night. Whether imagining a debate on the merits of Scientology and the Jewish faith, musing on Lance Armstrong's remaining testicle and its opinion of the Tour de France winner's retirement, or educating us on the meaning of chutzpah ("If Adolf Hitler moved to Israel and then asked 'why is everybody picking on me?' That's chutzpah"), Lovitz was fearlessly funny, at times shockingly so.

'Old news' riffs on George W. Bush's idiocy, the US vice-president's hunting faux pas, and gay marriage felt tired. And when Lovitz occasionally plugged his opinion hole by swigging from a water bottle, the energy in the room almost completely dissipated. The man has an artful verbal delivery that trumps his physical stage presence, which can work to his detriment. Nevertheless, Lovitz only fleetingly looked as though he were staring down Dick Cheney's gun barrel.

Lovitz's opening acts were mischievous local cut-up Erica 'spy-baby' Sigurdson and bald, potty-mouthed Asian advocate Joe Koy. It was just last year that Lovitz joined the stand-up game, yet the Saturday Night Live alum proved during his easygoing, one-hour plus gig that even without an ensemble troupe or the supporting cast of High School High, he's a Class A gut buster. Speaking of which, Subway's new pitchman, while never in a league with Jared, has lost considerable spare tire tubage himself. "75 pounds!" he boasted onstage, "over 20 years." Yes, despite donning the billowing white slacks, aloha shirt, and beige plimsoles of a man looking ready for a toddle through a retirement community with Seinfeld's TV parents, the deeply tanned Lovitz appeared as tasty as a freshly toasted whole wheat bagel. If we are to believe his shtick, he's also got a penis so big that, while he was on stage in Richmond, his dick was simultaneously cutting a deck of cards at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. So much for that recent #15 ranking Lovitz rated on thephoenix.com's list of the 100 ugliest men in the world. Fifty bucks says most women in Saturday night's audience would slot Lovitz into the funny and cute category. The men, well, they might still be squirming. The heavy joke artillery Lovitz hauled out to finish the show was a sequence of graphic, musical ditties in which he sought, through singing temporary lyrics to familiar tunes, to dispel rumours that straight chum Bob Saget is a homosexual. Imagine the Moody Blues' tune reworked into "Bob in White Satin", throw in Jon warbling some colourful, up-the-bum imagery, and you've got it. The end indeed.<< 

Movie P.S.
After soaring through an hour of stand-up comedy, Jon Lovitz endured half an hour of sit-down gravitas, patiently signing autographs and posing for photographs with jubilant fans. Sidling up to the seemingly deflated wisenheimer after the show, moviesforbreakfast asked Lovitz about his upcoming flicks.The 48-year-old actor, who smelled strongly of cough drops, said his next roles (“little parts”) include performances in Donnie Darko writer-director Richard Kelly's futuristic thriller Southland Tales and Amy Heckerling 's romantic-comedy I Could Never Be Your Woman. Does he get the girl? “I play Michelle Pfeiffer's husband," he announced quietly, omitting to add that actor Paul Rudd plays a dude who lures her away. According to the Internet Movie Database, Lovitz will also voice a character in the mockumentary Farce of the Penguins. The movie's writer-director? None other than the object of Lovitz's merciless, singsong savagery: Bob Saget. Way to promote your boss, J.Lo!

WHO: Adam Sandler
WHAT: Click
WHEN: Now
WHERE: Vancouver theatres
WHY: Because the self-described moron loves his dad and his new kid

LOS ANGELES—In the past few years, Adam Sandler has both lost a father and become one. When you know this, the hugely popular comedian's new pro-family film, Click, acquires an emotional resonance deeper than that afforded by passing wind, getting the cute girl, and stretching his larynx around a range of peculiar voices.

In Click, Sandler plays a workaholic architect whose supernatural universal remote control fast-forwards him into old age and remorse. The spiritual consequences recall “message” films like It's a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Carol —had Jimmy Stewart and Alastair Sim employed farts and fat suits. Attending an L.A. press conference alongside costar Kate Beckinsale to promote the movie, Sandler told journalists it's the heaviest film he's made to date.

“The stuff where I had to be the heaviest was about my father, and I'd lost my father a couple of years ago so it was very fresh,” Sandler said. “I had a different relationship with my real father than I did in the movie. My father in real life, I wanted him to be at my house all the time. When he would go away, I'd be like, ‘Ah, goddamn it, I want to hang out with my father today.' I never thought my father was a pain in the ass like my character does. But the actual finding out if your father's sick or your father's dying or he's dead—that was easy as an actor to play because it was very fresh.”

Sandler is supported in Click by Beckinsale as his exasperated wife, David Hasselhoff as his sleazy employer, and Christopher Walken as the bizarre stranger who presents Sandler's character with the magic remote. Sandler also interacts with his two movie children, a dynamic that in retrospect could be seen as dad practice: on May 6 of this year, Sandler and wife Jackie Titone became the parents of their first child, daughter Sadie Madison .

“The baby situation is fun. It's great. I love that kid,” Sandler said happily. “Every day I get more and more excited and feel comfortable with her. I just want her to feel comfortable with me. I'm a klutz. My arms aren't perfect for the kid's head when I hold her. I gotta grow the boobs.”

In announcing Sadie 's birth on his Web site Sandler had cheered: “Kid is healthy!! Wife is healthy!! He's still a moron, and that's all that counts!!!” Curious, I asked him if it's getting more difficult to be a moron the older he gets.

“Ahhh, I don't seem to be getting much smarter, so no,” he answered with a smile, “I like being a moron. I've been called a moron since I was about four. My father called me a moron. My grandfather said I was a moron. And a lot of time when I'm driving, I hear I'm a moron. Coraci never calls me a moron,” he added, referring to Click director and college buddy Frank Coraci, who also helmed Sandler's The Waterboy and The Wedding Singer .

However endearing the term is to Sandler and company, it's this persistent ‘moron factor' that has turned off some moviegoing women, regardless of how cute the actor was in The Wedding Singer. While I was prefacing the next question by noting how numerous men and boys who adore Sandler sometimes have to drag their girlfriends into the theatre to see him because the women might prefer, say, James Bond, Sandler cut me off.

“Now wait a minute,” he interjected, laughing. “Every one of your questions has had a little something weird on top. You're half an asshole,” he growled, pretending to be the interviewer, “when you decided to become a big asshole…”

“...what would you say to those women?”

“To the women that hate you!” Beckinsale offered gleefully, grinning at a bemused Sandler.

“I don't bump into too many ladies who walk up to me and say, ‘I hate you! I was forced to see your movie,” responded Sandler, now thoughtful. “If a woman wants to come to the movie, I think she's gonna have a good time. This movie in particular is romantic. It's sweet. It's a love affair. It's about a good marriage that goes bad and, luckily, there's another chance to make it work.”

One diehard female fan is wife Titone who, said Sandler, influences him when it comes to choosing what films to make. That includes his next dramatic role, in Mike Binder 's Empty City , scheduled for a 2007 release, in which Sandler portrays a man devastated by the deaths of his family in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 .

“I was scared to do it,” he admitted, “and my wife read it and encouraged me. She said she thinks I can do it. I just try to do stuff that I think is gonna be a good movie…and looking to be as good as I can be. That's about it. The fact that I got to try a few dramas, I like testing myself a little bit.”

And, no, having a baby hasn't changed what kind of movies Sandler intends to make.

“More that I don't want my kid to hear any of the albums I've made,” Sandler said, grinning. “I believe in what I've done in the past and I hope my kid enjoys the movies I've made and enjoys some of the movies in the future. I don't think she's gonna dig 'em until she's maybe 14 or 15, but I know I'll show her. ‘Watch daddy now! Does it affect you the way it affected all of America ?'?” Fifty bucks says Sadie will be grooving on pop's flatulence jokes by age five, which isn't a bad thing given Sandler's stated preference for his particular style of comedy over drama.

“I don't like sitting in my trailer being depressed all day. I'm glad when it's over. It feels like a relief. If I did the best I could do, I feel a huge sense of accomplishment, but I'd rather go to work and fart in Hasselhoff's face.”

Mr. Hasselhoff was unavailable for comment.

Published June 22, 2006 in the Georgia Straight. This is a longer version.

WHO: Kate Beckinsale
WHAT: Click
WHEN: June 23, 2006
WHERE: Vancouver theatres
WHY: Because Hollywood can apply scarlet lipstick to her kisser, but it can't blot out her one-liners

LOS ANGELES—Sometimes we can't see the forest for the trees. In the case of Kate Beckinsale, however, we couldn't hear the comedian because the siren was too loud. And to think, all along, beneath Underworld's skin-puckering, vampirical black leather, Pearl Harbor 's slash of scarlet lipstick, and Click's skimpy pink jammies, lurked Kate Beckinsale the cutup.

In a Los Angeles hotel room to promote her thoughtful new dramedy, Click, in which she plays beleaguered wife to a workaholic (Adam Sandler ) whose universal remote control actually fast-forwards or rewinds him through life, a winking Beckinsale tossed off one-liners like a striptease artist flinging nylon stockings.

Whether rejecting the opportunity to rewind to an earlier period of life—“I'm British; it's all been such abject misery”—or dishing about being hitched to Sandler's character—“I thoroughly enjoyed it; I didn't have to take him home”—Beckinsale dazzled with more than her Hollywood dental work.

She's the straight man on-screen. But throwing her lot in with Sandler and director Frank Coraci (The Waterboy and The Wedding Singer) is a positive omen for fans of Beckinsale's verve. It signifies her return—after sober cinematic incarnations as a vampire, a drug mule, and Ava Gardner—to her lighthearted Cold Comfort Farm and Much Ado About Nothing film roots.

“And there were more fart jokes this time,” she noted.

Making the gaseous Click was also a coming home of sorts for the English actor, who lives in California with her seven-year-old daughter and, allegedly—there are rumours to the contrary floating around on the Internet—her husband, Underworld director Les Wiseman. Her father, Richard Beckinsale, was a well-known star of popular British comedies in the 1970s. Beckinsale the younger said she was attracted to the genre because she'd grown up on it.

“But I think I also slightly tried to steer clear of it because I didn't want to tread on anybody else's patch. I wanted to be on my own patch.”

It was while filming on Sandler's patch that the actor turned a year older than her father was when he died. “It was very liberating,” said Beckinsale, “I made it to 32, and I'm on a comedy, and everybody's being real nice. It was just like a blissful and lovely sort of blossoming moment for me.”

In addition to inheriting the comedic gene that allowed her to pick up the punch lines where her dad left off, it was having four brothers who routinely gave her wedgies that helped the Oxford-educated actor hold her own with Sandler and his cronies.

“I really did think, you know, that I might just be this sort of roaming pair of breasts that wouldn't quite fit, and everybody would be watching sports, and I'd be kind of tolerated, and then I might bend over and it might be an event. You know what I mean? It couldn't have been less like that. I was so bummed out when it was over. I'd do it again in a shot.” Here's hoping a savvy lawyer puts a line in Beckinsale's next contract stipulating that she's the one who gets to fart in a sequel.

Published June 15, 2006 in the Georgia Straight.

WHO: ROBERT REDFORD
WHAT: Unique Lives & Experiences
WHEN: June 8, 2006
WHERE: The OrpheumTheatre, Vancouver
WHY: Because even though the man doesn't like Paul Newman's salad dressing, he's planning to make another movie with his The Sting and Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid co-star.

“It is the first time in 14 years that we welcome a man to the series…or should I say the man?” enthused the Royal Bank of Canada representative in her introduction, at which the appreciative, mostly female crowd roared. Redford was greeted as if he were first stripper up at a Ladies Night for the newly single. It was Tom Jones without the undie-flinging. Any mention of Redford's films was met with frenzied applause. One audience member confided she'd paid over $225 for her ticket.

Given that Redford was wearing a light-coloured suit, I could, by squinting just so from my balcony seat, imagine the 69-year-old actor looking exactly like Hubbell in his naval uniform. Alas, from the 5th row of right centre, lower balcony, his face was more Jon Voight. Still, on the audience question cards handed out by the ushers, and in the grip of Redford fever transmitted by my sisters-in-film-fandom, I scribbled the burning question: “Will you marry me?” You know how that turned out.

The luckiest woman in North America this night, and one of the few that could tell if Redford has capitulated to Botox pressure yet, was Tara McGuire. QMFM radio's popular morning host hunkered down with the Sundance Kid in his and hers armchairs for a 90-minute interview. She'll never be the same. Perhaps neither will he. A class act, McGuire had clearly boned up on Redford's career, she injected levity into the proceedings when appropriate and, from the way she seductively rotated her sandaled feet, looked to have treated herself to a pre-show pedicure. More importantly, McGuire coolly posed the questions we wanted answered by this still handsome, intensely private, California-born son of a milkman and stay-at-home-mom. Here's just a sample of what the audience learned:

On what it's like to live with Robert Redford: “Amazing.”

Did he really make that jump off the cliff in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid?
“The first half.”

On the trend towards "cartoon” movies like Superman, and action films loaded with special effects: “I think it's fine. But I think the more humanistic side of cinema might be lost, atrophied because of that.”

On how today's actors differ from Redford and his The Sting and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid costar Paul Newman: "When we went into a film, we approached the parts as actors instead of personalities. There was no winking at the audience."

On whether he and Newman will work together again: “Yeah. That is something we're talking about.”

Will you tell us about it? “Nope.”

On Newman 's Own salad dressings and pasta sauces: "They're not very good.”

On the success of Sundance: “Sundance Films began to compete and challenge films with five times the budget. Then the merchants, the celebrities, fashion, and paparazzi came, and then you end up with Paris Hilton.”

A Sundance highlight: “Eight years ago at our documentary lab, we had an Israeli and a Palestinian [filmmaker]. It was tense in the beginning. It was really about the work and sharing. A beautiful thing happened. When they came out of the lab, they agreed to work on a project together.”

On whether films can change the world: “I think films can affect fashion.”

Meeting Richard Nixon as a teenager: “I got this incredible dark feeling from the man. I thought, ‘what a fake.' ”

On whether he'll enter politics: “No. The films I made tell what I think about politics. I think politics is a place for politicians. And I don't think we've got any qualified ones.”

On the current American government: “I think it's a combination of arrogance, incompetence, and dishonesty that's finally come together. It's kind of like a spoiled rich kid. If things don't go their way, they take their ball and go home.”

His biggest legacy: “The thing that gives me the greatest joy is the creative work. The other is an offshoot. In the end, the idea that you can create something that satisfies your own art ability and have it appreciated is the greatest reward.