tonight i went to the first night of the weekend’s academy salute to hal ashby. elaine was generous enough to invite me and it was a fantastic night! i didn’t really know what to expect as i hadn’t seen ‘harold and maude’ before.
first off, the movie was great. i loved it. it was perfectly charming, hilarious in parts, so sad in others. i can see why ‘harold and maude’ is the favorite movie of many of my friends. the prospect of seeing a great movie was wonderful on its own, but i wasn’t aware there was going to be a panel discussion and…a live performance by yusuf (formerly cat stevens)! according to the academy president peter bart, it was one of the first performances by yusef in the US for thirty years. he was unbelievably good – such an effortlessly smooth and rich voice. it was just him and a guitar. it was so intimate and you could feel the emotion in the room.
the night was hosted by peter bart and cameron crowe, and the panel members were judd apatow, diablo cody, seth rogen, jon voight, haskell wexler and yusuf. each person shared their memories of hal, or how his films had influenced their work or touched their lives. cameron crowe read a note from vivian pickles (who played harold’s mother) and then, right before the movie began, peter bart told everyone to wait afterwards for a fun surprise. and it was…bud cort! he talked about how he had campaigned for the role and some general behind-the-scenes stuff. very cool.
i love living in los angeles.
What a wonderful evening!
I had never seen this film because I was living in Madrid Spain under the Franco dictatorship. It was a treat to see San Francisco in 1972, the hairstyles, clothes, makeup, the crushed velvet, the VW bugs, it was just a blast! So funny. Ruth Gordon was marvelous. I didn’t realize how much the music of Cat Stevens was incorporated into the soundtrack or that Ruth Gordon would sing “If you want to sing out, sing out.”
As the event began, the deaths of Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett and Ed McMahon were acknowledged as they were part of the entertainment community.
Yusuf performed the classic Don’t Be Shy, now covered by Eddie Vedder and heard over the credits of Michael Moore’s “Sicko”. Then he played “Miles From Nowhere” which can be heard in the movie out now, “The Brothers Bloom”. Finally someobody provided him with a stool to sit on and he sang a song Cameron Crowe had requested, “Trouble”, which he said he doesn’t play much but hoped he remembered the words to. He was given a standing ovation.
Hal Ashby was inspired by the music of Cat Stevens while making this movie, as many of us were in our lives when we were young….
Ruth Gordon stole the show of course. Bud Cort’s appearance was a treat and I though it was poignant when he said he and Cat Stevens became great friends (and then you disappeared – and I missed you – and Ringo Starr wants to know what happened to that drum solo he recorded for you in Denmark).
We were lucky to be in that audience last night and I look forward to seeing the other films in the series, especially Coming Home and Being There.