Fournos Bakery, Rosebank

Wednesday, May 05, 2004

Service: * *
Food: * * * *
Ambience: * * *
Babe Count: * * * *

Yay! Just skived off work for a coupla hours to see Anthony Minghella talk about filmmaking at Cinema Nouveau in Rosebank. The whole of Joburg's filmmaking community pitched up for a mutual masturbation session (cos that's what happens when filmmakers gather... serious unreality, air kisses, grumblings behind backs about "massive lack of talent", and "what a hack!" and other compliments). Half of the Cape Town wankers were here too. Brilliant. Major schmoozing opportunity.

And I've finally managed to get a coffee-date commitment from Robyn Aaronstom!

Excellent. Worth all the schmoozing in the world. She's babeage deluxe. And hopefully she's single. Seeing as I am. What with the breakup and all that. Sigh. We'll just have to see what develops over coffee.

Robyn's one of these success stories. She's been the Script Continuity person on dozens of Hollywood movies. Until recently, she used to spend half her year in Hollywood, and the other half in Cape Town. I'll find out over coffee why she's now based in Joburg. And what she's going to be doing next.

I order the Cajun Chicken salad and a glass of water. And I'm in a hurry, cos I've really got to get back to work. Lots and lots and lots of Ethiopian Chemistry lessons to view before midnight on Friday night. And I really do not enjoy working late nights, even though that's what I have to do some nights.

While I wait for my lunch, I make eye contact with a pretty blonde outside. (I'm sitting inside, cos I've brought scripts with me to check, and I don't want them blowing away.) And it's one of those situations where you just know that if you could somehow find a reason to chat to the babe, there might be some chemistry. But it's really a case of "ships-in-the-night-that-pass-very-fast". Eye contact means zip unless courage is on the table. And I'm all couraged-out right now.

Anthony Minghella is a really warm and funny British filmmaker. He wrote and directed THE ENGLISH PATIENT and COLD MOUNTAIN and TRULY MADLY DEEPLY. He created the British television hit, INSPECTOR MORSE. And the lovely thing about sitting in a full cinema with him talking is the realisation that he's just a dude. Just someone like me. Someone who made a decision to follow his passion.

And here he is, wearing ordinary clothes, talking about his gorgeous wife, telling us about the American backlash he got for using non-American actors in the quintessential American story, COLD MOUNTAIN. Telling us how he got to spend $83 million of other people's money. Breathtaking.

The food comes. I eat it. Very nice, thank you. Now bring the bill with some urgency, please. And the bill doesn't arrive. And then when it does, it takes the waiter another ten minutes to ignore me. So I walk up to the till and ask the lady there to process my bill immediately. Which she does. And I go back to work knowing that Robyn and I will be coffee-ing, and that I might be spending several million dollars of other people's money within the next five years. Cos my heart is set on making movies.