bill nighy is my hero

I just got back from an advance screening of The Constant Gardener. I went mainly because it was free (yeah, I'm a sucker), but it was really, really good. Not at all like when I went to see Raising Helen. Ralph Fiennes rocks his whole hot middle-aged British man thing (um - not that I would have any particular feelings about hot middle-aged British men) and Bill Nighy is a truly excellent slimy elder statesman.

The audience was mostly humorless human rights people, and their Q&A was, my friend "Martin" (who is female, but we're using her confirmation name for disguise here, since nothing else comes to mind immediately) said, like sitting in an American Studies seminar in college. E-e-e-verybody's got an opinion, nobody's got a question for the director. The funniest was a French woman who was like, I never heard of your earlier movie (City of God), and I never heard of this one, and the word's really not getting out, and you need to get the word out, because people need to see this, because the message is so important, blah blah blah. Which is, (1) kind of insulting, and anyway, City of God was kind of big, and (2) hilarious, because nobody's heard of this movie, because it doesn't open for a month, which is why you just saw it at an ADVANCE SCREENING, idiot. In his very polite response, the director pointed out that the company is making 1200 prints, so people will probably hear about it one way or the other.

When I got home, I had the gratifying experience of posting one of the first five IMDB votes on the film.