The Oscars red carpet

I walked on it the other day. Yes ma'am. It's pretty soft. Very carpety. I thought it would be more like a thin fabric, instead it has real texture, like 1/4 of an inch hair length. You could feel the depth, even from underneath a sea of cellophane. It looked like a freaking serial killer's dungeon in fact, every single Oscar was being suffocated. Exhibit A.

It was pretty clear from the get go that something was up. If you didn't know better you would almost say that a bunch of celebrities were about to go through. The whole lot in front of the building was blooming with pop up sheds, eight wheelers and satellite dishes the size of my dining room table, like a huge film production was seconds away from shooting the most expensive scene in movie history. The valet parking at the mall had been shielded with a velvety huge red curtain and to find a spot for our car we had to go all the way down to the center of the earth to parking level 5 where a Balrog was luckily pulling out so we could take his place.

I was curious to see what goes on around the area a couple of days before the event. It's my first Oscars in LA you know. I've had a bunch of firsts in the past year but this one is like EPIC. I've grown up watching the Oscars from 2 - 6 am on a school night by myself, every year, it was the closest I could get to Hollywood on the other freaking side of the world. Then when you live here you want to play it cool and pretend like you're used to this stuff, that you see it everyday. This is what Angelenos do and it's a pretty contagious behavior. I was like that, for a split second, riding the escalator to the Kodak theater and then I set foot on the carpet and it was MAGIC. I can't even explain the rush I felt but maybe some can understand. It was like being sprinkled with fairy dust and then finally hitting your happy thought and start flying. But taking off was hard, from street level it basically looks like a county fair.

It is fascinating as kind of a mystery, like a very elegant woman who doesn't show too much of herself. And overall very mystic. Happy and sad at the same time. Especially when I climbed up the Hollywood and Highland passageway and I had the full disclosure on the lady parts.

It was enthralling to see what they were doing down there, like being privy to some kind of ritual. They were probably briefing people that will direct the flow tomorrow, maybe hypnotizing a bunch of bystanders into joining Scientology, I don't really know. But all the same it was painstakingly hard to watch. Me, me, me. Me too! I was screaming while falling off the ledge and out of the cruel, ephemeral bubble that I like to call fucking blind ambition. No briefing, no stroll, no nothing for me. So I snapped a pretty picture of the pretty view and took off to Sephora where I have drowned my sorrows in a gallon of tinted moisturizer.

The pretty view!

By the way I got one of the employees of Sephora practically admit that they close the store at 2 pm on Oscar day and then just stay in there to watch the street go on fire. An this is their position from the hair products section. A little black uniform suits me, ya think?!

At the end of the day I came home to my cozy gas-less stove and stuffed myself with 300 gr (that's 0.66 lbs for those of you who still like to defy logic) of Gelson's roasted chicken and some left over salad. Which was supposed to be a healthy kind of meal and instead took me 48 hours to digest considering I gulped down quantities that would make a truck driver blush.

This is just half of the chicken by the way.

Rome Film Festival Diary - Friday

It was a busy pumpkin in Cricci Land.

Second day at the Festival started at a time which is not represented on my watch, namely 6.30. Usual hour underground ride to get there and 9 o’clock screening of John Landis’ new movie: Burke & Hare. Nothing & Special. The man himself was also there to share some of his undoubtedly fine but equally uptight sense of humor with us mortals. He was somewhat patronizing with the translator and his phone even rang during the conference. It was me calling to ask for a job. No. It was someone who got the wrong number. Swear to God. Imagine that, you dial your mom to make sure you got the right grocery list and you get a freaking Hollywood director. Still it was very unprofessional to keep the thing turned on, although he did mention he was out of it due to jet lag mayhem. He was also very crafty at making it look funny, as it was indeed kind of a smirky-ish situation. Plus he’s John Landis for Eddie Murphy’s sake, you can’t just go and overlook that. That’s to say that I’m largely still wondering if the episode, or the interview in its entirety, bothered me or not. Big questions in life.

John Landis talking to us, not the phone, on the left. John Landis taking picture of us like animals in a zoo on the right.

Day turned to night and it was time for the big “La scuola è finita” premiere. I got to meet with everybody from the crew after a year and a half and that would have been just about good enough. But the director had other plans and called the producer on the phone bequeathing him the pleasure of telling us to meet him at the top of the red carpet, because we were walking it down with the cast as a follow up to the previous day protest. Say what?! I wasn't prepared at all. When has the moment I was ever the least prepared for a red carpet been? That was precisely it!

But you know it’s a tough job and someone’s gotta do it. So we all unveiled our secret weapons and our biggest smiles and we started marching.

It was pretty fun. Nerve-racking but definitely entertaining. We were certainly not up front and personal with the engaging flash bulbs or the curious fans at the railings, whom I bet didn’t even notice we were there. But we were slowly pacing behind Valeria, donned in a dreamy moss green gown that truly belonged on the red velvety stream. And when I say Valeria I mean Valeria Golino, probably the most notable and productive Italian actress of the last two decades. She was in Rain Man, just to give you an idea. She is the sweetest, most educated, well spoken and elegant human being I’ve ever met. Totally weird from someone born in Naples, like my mom. If I were to pick one word for her it’d be grace. Graceful on the job, graceful with colleagues, graceful during lunch breaks when she would recount of that time she was being directed by Sean Penn or acting with Steve Buscemi, graceful with journalists and the public, graceful with me, whenever I meet her. I couldn’t have asked for a better debut actress-wise and she knows, I’ve told her.
So escorting her, or rather being escorted by her, in this brave new ride down the carpet was a big fat ruby cherry on top of a cupcake, with icing, and sugar, and a little chocolate chip sprinkle. Unstoppable artery clutching heart attack. That kind of sweet!

Starting the flood. Can you spot Valeria? 

Red Carpet face!

Once inside we got to our exquisite seats, couple of rows in front of the actors, one ahead of the Festival’s jury’s President (so I turned around a lot to have a look at his reactions during the screening. Some of them screamed "bored!" unfortunately), in the midst of the action, and of the clapping, and of the feeling very important for once.

I had already seen the movie the previous day so no surprises there. But it was nice to find out that the production had organized a little party afterwards. We had no choice. We danced the night away.