>If You Give a Clutz a Movie Premiere…
>The other night, I got to attend my first movie premiere.
With all the celebrities and entertainment executives in town, it’s not unusual for films to premiere here in Nashville. I was excited to walk down the red carpet and pretend to be important for one night.
Once I got there, I wished I had brought my camera with me. Most people there clearly had never been to a movie premiere and had no idea what to wear. Some women opted for evening gowns. Others showed up in t-shirts and jeans. There were several Billy Ray Cyrus lookalikes- middle aged men wearing foundation and flat-ironed, collar length hair. Johnny Cash’s sister, Joanne was there (Check out that hair!), along with a few dozen other singers and musicians I was supposed to know, but didn’t. Suffice it to say, the people watching opportunities were extraordinary.
My husband and I were among the first to arrive at the after party at a nearby restaurant, where the manager at the buffet enthusiastically loaded our plates down with food. She put our desserts on a separate plate and then handed both plates to me. I held one plate in my hand and balanced another in the crook of my arm, so that I could carry my drink in my other hand. By this time, the room had filled with people, and I carefully followed Hubs through the restaurant toward an empty table. That’s when the plate holding the desserts began to tip.
“Uhhh….” I said, pausing in the middle of a pristine hardwood floor. There was nothing I could do, nowhere to put my drink, and no way to grab the plate, which was overlapping the other one balanced in my hand. As I watched helplessly, both plates crashed to the floor. Red velvet cake and cheesecake splattered everywhere, along with meatballs, gravy, spinach artichoke dip, chips, and prosciutto-wrapped melon balls. Hubs turned and looked at my horror-stricken face, then down at the floor, and shook his head. He’d seen this happen more than a few times before.
“It’s okay if you pretend like you don’t know me,” I whispered. “Just keep walking.”
He did.
Meanwhile, two very pissed-looking waiters scurried to get towels and a mop and clean up my mess. I stood there, hovering over it, looking apologetically at the crowd milling around me.
“You don’t have to stay there, you know,” Hubs said from 15 feet away.
I brightened. “Oh! You’re right!” I said, stepping over the mess. “I don’t!” We continued on our way to find a table. “I felt like I should stand there and take responsibility for it or something,” I said. “Like people who saw that mess were owed some kind of visual explanation!”
Fortunately, I had dropped my plates right beside the kitchen door, so the whole thing was cleaned up in a matter of seconds.
But…
EMBARRASSING.
So I’m sure you’re dying to know which movie was premiering, right? It was…
{drumroll}
Letters to God!
Do you remember when I wrote about this movie a few months ago? A good friend of ours wrote and co-directed the film, which was produced by one of the producers of Fireproof. If you didn’t read my column about the movie, you really should check it out– The story is based on a true one, which is incredibly moving and literally changed the lives of my husband and me, along with countless others. And the movie leaves out some major real-life details (Wanna see a PTO president who paid for a boob job with funds she stole that had been raised for a 9-year-old cancer patient? I link to the video in this post)- details that made it one of the biggest news stories here in Nashville in years.
Letters to God opens nationwide tomorrow and the producers are really hoping to get a big turnout on Friday and Saturday. That’s what made Fireproof an independent hit- It had a phenomenal opening weekend at the box office. The subject matter is dark, but the message is uplifting. I’ve seen it three times now and my husband and I agree we like it better each time we see it. You can watch the trailer for the movie here and I hope that if you’re looking for some inspirational, uplifting entertainment this weekend, you’ll give it a shot.
I know, I know, I sound like a commercial! But I love the family behind this film and I’d love for it to do well.
Can you blame me?
