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What a lively month its been peeps! Having given the now almost defunct Venice Film Festival a miss this year, I flew to Toronto for the International Film Festival 09. (TIFF) Now well established as one of the best film festivals in the world. My love affair with Toronto shows no sign of fading. This year as always we had a glittering array of stars in attendance to plug their new cinematic ventures. Well dear readers, I did tell you last month that I'd bring you all the goss from the Toronto film festival. I wasn't expecting to BE the gossip of the festival. I kind of covered it the 'wrong' way round this year.
Myself by the CN Tower 'Taking a break'.
I mean, my job is to syndicate the pictures I take worldwide, so that as many newspapers, magazines and websites use them for publication. This year, well, it was me -with Mr Farrell- that ended up in the pictures around the world. If you were living in a hole at the time -sorry Hackney- oblivious to the daily news coverage then here goes. I was covering the premiere of Colin Farrell's new flick Triage, a film funnily enough about the psychological effects on a war press photographer, based on the novel by war correspondent Scott Anderson. The premiere took place at the Elgin theatre -AKA Winter Gardens- a very small venue for this kind of event. I mean, the area for the red carpet is very small and cramped for the size of the media entourage. Having had our media positions allocated a few colleagues and I went for dinner to kill time before the premiere. Once back, we waited for the 'talent' to arrive. On this occasion the 'talent' only comprised of COLIN FARRELL. So the word -talent- was a tad ambiguous to say the least. However, arrive he did and as he made his way along the red carpet there was a woman ahead of him blocking our view. This is a common occurrence at all film premieres, I have to inform you. So we were all shouting for the gal to move along and get out of the way. We are not going to sell pictures of a complete unknown. She was acting like a busy body PR/publicist, who ALWAYS get in the way. I certainly didn't fly for seven hours to shoot the back of the head of a stranger on the rouge carpet. We kept shouting for her to 'get off the carpet' but the woman just wouldn't budge, and she was still blocking Colin. So I just went for it and growled: "GET OFF THE CARPET!" as loud as Tarzan. (Who has just discovered Jane in bed with his best gorilla friend.)
Farrell and I on the front page of the Sunday Sun in Canada.
This seemed to bother Colin who came up to me face to face snarling angrily to not shout at his sister like that. I said to him: "Sorry I didn't know she was your sister" and said that she was in the way. He carried on repeating himself, and that fired me up more, I retorted: "We've been asking her to move for the last few minutes". She can't be deaf surely. Some of my colleagues were taking pictures of us remonstrating but it soon died down. Colin was staring at me angrily, like I gave a stuff. I carried on taking pictures and was even better for me as I got the perfect eye-line from him. In all honesty, it was quite entertaining and it made it a less boring, run of the mill premiere. Tell you something, Claudine -Colin's sister- did move quite quickly off the carpet after my 'request' and we all in the end got the 'uncluttered' pictures we were after. The funny thing was having a quasi-gypsy -he's said similar about himself- with a history of drink problems and public disorder, trying to tell me to behave. Hilarious! No one got hurt, and everyone won, because the news wires went live with the story and it went global! We were front page on the Sunday papers in Canada, and made the New York Times, LA Times, Daily Mail, The Mirror, Metro, Standard, London Lite, The Daily Express, The Independent, Sky News, E Entertainment, mainstream TV, Radio Networks and even more papers and magazines in Canada, USA, UK, France, Spain, Denmark, Russia, India, Australia, Norway, Germany, Italy, just about all the showbiz and news websites on the net -even Yahoo!- ran it front page. If you search on Yahoo! or Google: 'Joe Alvarez Colin Farrell' there are 169000+ web reports/articles/results of our shenanigans. Colin wins because he and his film were promoted globally for free, so was I, big time, The TIFF 09 got the most publicity they have ever had and even the deaf? Claudine Farrell was heavily publicised. It turns out after all that she WAS indeed Colin's PR!! A public relations dream indeed. Trebles all round!! Three days later, Colin and I 'patched up' at the end of the press conference for his new flick. As he was leaving he walked by me and said "Hi Joe you all right?" I said "yeah, fine" and he stopped -with a big smile- to let me take more pics of him as I'd asked him to. That's showbiz folks!
As for Claudine Farrell? She's quite cute, I would definitely giver her one, of my erm 10% discounts off a studio shoot. That's how kind I am.
By the way, my glasses are Marc Jacobs, for all of you who keep asking!
Colin asks me where I bought my glasses from.
- Photo courtesy of Matrix, as seen in the Daily Mail and worldwide -
COLIN FARRELL smiling.
MEGAN FOX.
DEMI MOORE and ASHTON KUTCHER.
Other celebs in attendance plugging their new -and not so new- releases in Toronto included: MATT DAMON, GEORGE CLOONEY, DREW BARRYMORE, DEMI MOORE with ASHTON KUTCHER, JULIANNE MOORE, OPRAH WINFREY, MARIAH CAREY, KEANU REEVES, JENNIFER GARNER, NICOLAS CAGE, NATALIE PORTMAN, MICHAEL DOUGLAS, PENELOPE CRUZ, EVA GREEN, MEGAN FOX -front cover- et al. Worst dressed on the red carpet by far was -uber cougar- ROBIN WRIGHT PENN who turned up at the premiere of her own film looking like a PROSTITUTE.
ROBIN WRIGHT PENN.
NATALIE PORTMAN
PENELOPE CRUZ
MATT DAMON
She couldn't possibly advertise more the fact that she is now about to be single. She is divorcing SEAN PENN. -Or he is divorcing her judging by that dress!- I have never seen a more inappropriate, ill chosen, ugly, crass attire on the red carpet. She must be desperate, advertising herself like that. But hey, if that's her new modus operandi she could do with a generous boob job as well. SEAN PENN is a lucky man now. He will not have to endure such dress sense ever again. If you want to see real 'wow' factor on the red carpet the winner had to be NATALIE PORTMAN. She looked fabulous and a real lesson to ROBIN WRIGHT PENN. Runner up was the gorgeous MEGAN FOX. She didn't win my best dressed award as she wore a nice though black dress on the red carpet. Everyone knows -apart from celebs- that you do not wear a black dress/frock on the red carpet if you want to 'wow' the crowds. It simply does not stand out and its too safe. Besides, Megan also wore a black frock in London for the premiere of Transformers. Come on girl!
MARIAH CAREY.
KEANU REEVES.
DREW BARRYMORE and ELLEN PAGE.
JEFF BRIDGES.
Penultimate in the fashion stakes had to be OPRAH WINFREY. Proof that money can't buy everything! It can't buy you being thin. She wore a maroon cover all -thank god- dress. This is the same woman who had a 'fitness' video out once. Unbelievable. MARIAH CAREY on the other hand looked yummy in her safe but sexy black dress. Although not good enough to win of course. Mariah has always had a good 'hour glass' figure. During the press conference of 'her' new flick Precious, she was looking happy enough although stared at me with a big smile numerous times...Too numerous. Really, it was a nice surprise. By the way, if you are in a good mood generally and having a good day DON'T go and see Precious. If you're having suicidal thoughts, go and see it. It will probably be the last thing you do.
OPRAH WINFREY
NICOLAS CAGE and WERNER HERZOG.
JULIANNE MOORE.
GEORGE CLOONEY.
The Toronto film festival was successful for me as we had a very good celebrity turn out. It more than made up for skipping the moribund Venice film festival. I had a great time once again working in Toronto. Made specially nice by the generous and kind hospitality of my friends and colleagues there. I will definitely be back next year.
That's all for now dear peeps. Thank you all for your sweet, weird and wonderful e-mails.
Over and out. See ya next month.
JOE ALVAREZ
joealvarez@verycool.co.uk
Website: www.myspace.com/redcarpetspecialist
WORDS AND ALL PICTURES COPYRIGHT JOE ALVAREZ 2009. |
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