Jason Reitman's live read of American Beauty at last years TIFF (staring Brian fucking Cranston as the lead!) blew my mind, and ended up being my favourite thing I saw at the festival.
So, when it was announced this year that Reitman would be bringing his live read again to Toronto, me and my brothers were so excited, and placed getting tickets to the event as our number one top priority.
The way it works is that you buy tickets without actually knowing what the screenplay being read is going to be, or who the actors taking part will be. You have faith, and you bust out your credit card.
In the days approaching the read, Reitman dropped hints (and then eventually announcements) on his Twitter. This was the first clue:
Me and Alex immediately thought Pulp Fiction. But then it was announced: BOOGIE NIGHTS! Definitely not my favourite film, but one that lends itself well to a live read: good dialogue and multiple roles. Also, I started gossip dreaming about who the leads could be: Clooney as the creepy Burt Reynolds character, Kate Winslet as Julianne Moore's character, James McCavoy as Dirk Diggler!
But then the tweets came, and it was a god damned nightmare: Dane Cook...Olivia Wilde (who can't even act authentically like a pretty 20something in most of her roles despite being a pretty 20something)...Josh Brolin...WHAT THE FUCK I thought-all of my most hated actors (although I do admit I supported the Josh Brolin casting from the get go-who to play an old sleazy porn producing dick better than him?) This is gonna be a disaster! And then the bomb dropped:
Jesse Eisenberg is not only an insufferable prick (see here in case you don't know-oh god so cringeworthy!), he is literally the least likely porn star of all time. Him? HIM? Oh god, we were NOT excited about this. I was actually nervous, b/c I didn't want to be embarrassed for Reitman, for the fest, for TIFF.
BUT, I will be the first to admit that I was completely WRONG. The casting worked so well (perhaps this is why Reitman is a successful director and I, unfortunately, am not). Reitman, while introducing the film, told us that he first saw Boogie Nights at a test screening at the mall in Toronto as a teenager (and that it was the best thing he's ever seen!) How he, as a young teen, got into this movie is beyond me!
He also introduced the cast, and Jesse Eisenberg specifically as the "first Jewish Dirk Diggler."
The wonderful thing about these live reads is how funny they are. Boogie Nights is not a funny movie at all, but I was literally dying laughing (as was the crowd) the entire time. Hearing lines like "that is a huge cock" delivered by Olivia Wilde in front of her fiancé Jason Sudekis and a live audience is beyond hysterical. And the acting was bang on (pardon the pun).
It really is incredible to witness live acting talent. The raw talent that everyone on stage (Olivia Wilde included!) is astounding, especially considering that this is completely unrehearsed and most actors probably only had time to maybe read the screen play over once before hand. This performance again solidified the fact that comedians and comedic actors can really do no wrong. Dane Cook, who played multiple parts, was fantastic. So was Jason Sudekis. And Olivia Wilde was really good too (why this doesn't ever come across on screen I don't know). You could really really see why Josh Brolin has had such a long career as well--he out-performed most of those on stage, and seemingly effortlessly.
My favourite parts were when Jesse sang the shitty songs that Dirk Diggler records in the studio, and when Jason Sudekis, playing some crazy drug addict, sang whole verses to some 80s song. Amazing.
Great writeup!
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