Feb 03 2009
What do Diablo Cody, Ellen Page, Henry Selick and Kyle Newman have in common?
The answer: I didn’t get a chance to meet them. I know, you probably didn’t either and you’re wondering why I’m so friggin’ special. Well, occasionally, I am afforded the extreme privilege of attending early movie screenings for soon-to-be-released films and, even more occasionally, writers, directors and/or actors are scheduled to appear at those screenings for Q&A sessions after the film. However, when you live in a city prone to unpredictably extreme weather and one of the worst airports in the country, sometimes things don’t work out too well, especially when such events are scheduled during the winter months.
My first near-meeting was in November 2007 at a screening of Juno. It was about five weeks before the film hit theaters and became a huge sensation (as well as before the ridiculous infantile backlash that followed). Having not seen the movie yet, I didn’t know that I should be really psyched that Diablo Cody and Ellen Page were going to be in attendance post-screening, I was just excited to see the film because the trailer looked hilarious and I’d really enjoyed Thank You For Smoking. However, post-screening, Juno immediately shot to my list of favorite films of the year, making it terribly disappointing that I didn’t have the opportunity to witness its writer, a fellow Chicago girl and blogger, snarkily respond to questions from my audience and, perhaps, me. The even more regrettable thing was that I discovered later that, when her plane eventually did land, she wound up hanging out at a bar not too far away and I totally could have met her anyone. *sigh* Them’s the breaks.
The other two misses occurred more recently. A few weeks ago, I was extremely fortunate to see a 3D screening of Coraline in which director Henry Selick (you know, the guy that actually directed Nightmare Before Christmas) would be present for questions. Again, plane troubles were cited and Selick’s plane had not landed by the time the film was over (it was probably afraid to land, given the ridiculous below zero temperatures we were experiencing that night). Then last night, I was at a screening for Fanboys in which director Kyle Newman was scheduled to appear. Maybe he’d heard some stories from Selick, Page and Cody because he was so concerned about today’s weather forecast that he didn’t even bother to board the plane to fly to Chicago last night for fear that he wouldn’t be able to leave in time and would miss tonight’s red carpet screening.
I hope you don’t misinterpret this post as me bellyaching that I didn’t get to meet all these nifty Hollywood people. I’m not. In each of these instances I got to interesting movies days, even weeks, before general audiences and for free, no less. No sir, I’m not crying about that. I’m just taking a moment to look back and laugh at the coincidences because I think it makes for an amusing tale.
And a word of advice for any actors, writers or directors planning on flying into Chicago during winter weather for similar occasions: skip O’Hare, fly into Midway. 
