Star gazing

In which the author is stalked by Isabella Rossellini, underwhelmed by Leonardo DiCaprio, and at no time mistaken for Harrison Ford

by Jason Gay

Ours is a culture of star worship. The icons of our generation are not civic leaders, philosophers, or revolutionaries, but movie stars, pop singers, and talk-show hosts. Biographies of standup comedians outsell the works of Nobel laureates; more people trust Oprah than their own friends.

Intellectual critics are fond of teeing off on this celebrity culture, as if to suggest that we're all a bunch of troglodytes who can't distinguish Matt Damon from Nelson Mandela. This, of course, isn't totally fair; star worship hasn't turned our brains into porridge. (Matt's the blond one.) No, most people fully recognize the vapidity of celebrity worship, and no reasonable person actually thinks that Entertainment Weekly is a substitute for a good book. Celebrity isn't dangerous. The real bombshell, when you observe it in person, is that celebrity is just sort of . . . boring.

Let me explain. A short time ago, a friend of mine from college -- let's call her A -- e-mailed me with an invitation to attend the opening night of the New York City Film Festival at Lincoln Center. The featured premiere would be Celebrity, directed by Woody Allen and starring, among others, Kenneth Branagh, Winona Ryder, and everyone's It Guy of the moment, the Lord God King of celebrities, Leonardo DiCaprio.

Sure, I had a brief moment of that's-not-my-kind-of-thing hesitation. But I'm an unabashed Woodyphile, and here was an opportunity not only to see his latest film, but to do it at its US premiere, in the company of the glitterati and perhaps even the director himself. Woody! Leo! Lincoln Center! Why not? If you're going to starfuck, I thought, why not starfuck in style?

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As anyone who's watched the Academy Awards knows, a crisis of conscience about attending an event like this is What to Wear. You can't mess around: fashion moments like the opening night of the New York Film Festival make or break reputations. (I still have a few of Cher's Oscar-night outfits seared into my brain, like awful summer-camp memories.) I didn't want to embarrass A by showing up to the ONOTNYFF wearing something you'd wear to the Boston Film Festival, like Old Navy carpenter's pants and a Ray Borque Bruins jersey.

Thankfully, my limited wardrobe made some of the decisions for me. No need to choose between Armani and Versace, for instance, because I own neither. No need for me to worry about wearing a suit, because I don't own one of those, either. I could have gotten my paws on a friend's tuxedo, but tuxedos, I believe, should be worn only to black-tie weddings or to dinner on the Love Boat.

After a few minutes' deliberation, I settled on a straight-from-my-closet ensemble of black T-shirt, black sweater, black pants, and black Doc Martens. I looked like a TA for an Emerson film class. But at least I wasn't wearing a tuxedo.

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One of the things I have been able to enjoy, through A's friendship and her fabulous connections, is the unique experience of being a very unimportant important person, or a VUIP -- that is, someone who gets to enjoy all the perks and privileges of fame and wealth without actually having either. This VUIP status, of course, is only occasional -- a dinner here, a party there -- and always fleeting.

VUIP status means traveling to a classy event like the ONOTNYFF on a jam-packed Peter Pan Express bus. There's no chance of getting an inflated impression of your own importance when you're sardined among 50-plus earthlings of various backgrounds, ages, and odors. There's no first class on Peter Pan, no privileged treatment, and there're sure as hell no celebrities.

Worse, the "express" bus I took was anything but. We were stuck in halting traffic in New London and Stamford, Connecticut, and reduced to an excruciating block-an-hour crawl in midtown Manhattan. It was nearing 8 p.m. (we had left at 2:30 that afternoon) and the ONOTNYFF was scheduled to begin at 9. I began to panic that I'd miss it because I was a hostage of Peter Pan. I briefly considered rising from my seat and shouting, "Excuse me, Mr. Bus Driver, but in less than an hour, I'm due as a VIP guest at the opening night of the New York Film Festival, and if you wouldn't mind hurrying up just a wee bit . . ." But I recognized that this would probably result in a beating.

The bus finally limped into Port Authority shortly after 8, and I hurried outside and grabbed a cab to A's apartment. When I arrived, A and her husband were already dressed in their premiere-wear. A, a celeb-watcher nonpareil, would sooner miss her own wedding than a minute of the ONOTNYFF. She permitted me a 30-second shower and another minute to get dressed, and we scampered out the door and hailed a cab for Lincoln Center.

As we rode in the cab, I glanced over at A. I don't think I'd ever seen her looking quite like this. She had her celebrity game face on: lips tightened, brows furrowed, eyes wide open. She was ready for stargazing.

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As we approached Lincoln Center, we discovered that we would have to walk down a long red carpet and past a queue of paparazzi. (Because of the high probability of a Leonardo sighting, A told me, this queue was particularly large.) My $7 T-shirt and I proceeded down the carpet.

Now, nothing -- not even six hours as a hostage on a Peter Pan bus -- solidifies one's unfamousness more than walking past 500 photographers and not having a single one take your picture. I thought one of them might confuse me with someone -- a producer, or Harrison Ford, perhaps -- or that at least one flashbulb would accidentally pop. None did. But just as I completed my clickless stroll down the red carpet, we achieved stargazing liftoff. An official-looking man in a tuxedo walked hurriedly past me, whispering loudly: "Miss Isabella Rossellini. Miss Isabella Rossellini. Miss Isabella Rossellini." Sure enough, I turned around to see, right behind A and her husband, the daughter of Ingrid Bergman -- actually looking a bit dowdy, not to mention Chaplinesque, in a black jacket and untucked white shirt -- engulfed in a sea of flashbulbs.

And she wasn't even in the damn movie.

Apart from the 500 photographers and the red carpet, however, a Lincoln Center premiere turned out to be surprisingly much like attending the local multiplex. You walk to the door, they take your tickets, they rip your tickets. You can even buy overpriced tubs of candy and popcorn (although, as you've no doubt heard, the popcorn kernels at events like the ONOTNYFF are hand-popped and individually buttered).

We secured Junior Mints and decided to hang around the lobby; A was hoping to catch a few more stars before we took our seats. It was really easy to tell if someone important was coming along -- you just looked for the flashbulbs. There was Kenneth Branagh! Charlize Theron! Joe Mantegna! Lauren Bacall! Donald Trump! (Donald Trump?) Winona! (A footnote: when A told me that "Winona" was going to be at the ONOTNYFF, I thought she meant Wynonna, as in Wynonna Judd, the pudgy country singer. I was actually quite disappointed when it turned out to be Winona Ryder, the overrated Gen-X priestess, who, now approaching her 30s, looks increasingly like Elvira's kid sister.) We also noticed Isabella Rossellini loitering around the outside of the theater turnstiles, like an eighth grader attempting to sneak into Boogie Nights. (Thought at moment: was Isabella Rossellini trying to scrounge up a ticket to the ONOTNYFF?)

Momentarily star-satisfied, we headed for our seats, which, given that A's sister is on the board of one of the festival sponsors, were excellent: smack-dab center, about 10 rows from the front. Such is the VUIP life: after spending six hours fighting for legroom on a bus, I walked to my seat past many a plutocrat stuck back in the nosebleeds. We also noticed Isabella Rossellini hovering around our row, just like those guys who wander near the box seats at the beginning of Red Sox games, hoping that a few season-ticket holders won't show up. (Thought at moment: had Isabella Rossellini just sneaked in to the ONOTNYFF?)

At about 9:45, a man appeared on the Lincoln Center stage, thanked us all for our contributions to the New York Film Festival (Don't mention it, I thought), and introduced another person to introduce the actual movie. This other person, a woman, introduced the cast of Celebrity: Branagh, Leonardo, Famke Janssen, Bebe Neuwirth, Mantegna, and lastly, Theron, a NBA-sized model-cum-actress who proceeded to trip on her heels and came thisclose to doing a face-plant in front of a sold-out theater.

Back to Leonardo for a second. This was the first time we'd seen him at the premiere, and even the stodgy, adult ONOTNYFF crowd hushed discernibly when he lounged out on stage. I'm willing to acknowledge that the second-most-famous man in the world does possess a certain angelic, Deanlike handsomeness on-screen (though I liked him best retarded in What's Eating Gilbert Grape?). In the flesh, however, it's a different story. For one thing, Leo's no hunk of man-meat. And for another, his face -- which has seemingly appeared on a thousand magazine covers in the past year -- has a waxy, almost swollen quality in person. It looks like the face of a guy who is allergic to bee stings, after he is stung by a bee. I wish 12-year-old girls could see this for themselves, and stop wasting their cigarette money on Teen Beat and Bop.

It was during this moment of Leo observation, I think, when it was announced that Woody Allen would not be attending the premiere. To me, it was a surprise and a disappointment -- after all, despite Leonardo and the miles of silicone, it was actually the gnarled, nebbishy auteur I was most interested in seeing. However, the rest of the crowd seemed to take the news of his absence with all the shock of a 16-year-old hearing that Santa Claus isn't real. Woody never comes to these things, A told me. I felt like a bit of a dunce.

The movie began. I guess I should say right now that Celebrity sucks. It's one of Allen's least satisfying films, a purportedly humorous skewering of star culture that is actually a diffuse mess of half-baked subplots rescued occasionally by one-liners and decent spot acting. (You: Just like this essay!) And Donald Trump is actually in it, I was depressed to find.

The true entertainment, of course, came from the strangeness of watching Celebrity -- a movie about celebrities, starring celebrities -- in a room full of celebrities. (And, as an added bonus, there are movie-premiere scenes in Celebrity, for a premiere-within-a-premiere effect that I am unlikely ever to experience again.) The whole thing felt slightly incestuous, and I wasn't sure when to laugh -- if I laughed at the jokes in Celebrity made at a celebrity's expense, did I threaten to insult the celebrities around me?

I looked to Mr. Bee Sting Face for guidance. He was seated, with the rest of the Celebrity cast, in a balcony about 20 feet from us. (Another footnote: celebrities appear to go to the bathroom during movies more than average people do.) I took special care to watch the celebrities when they were on-screen. Branagh, the star, seemed genuinely riveted when his scenes came on; Famke Janssen and Bebe Neuwirth looked a tad frightened; Charlize Theron looked bored (I think this is her only look, sadly). Leonardo, whenever his scenes came on, smooched wetly with Joe Mantegna.

Kidding.

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When the film concluded, the crowd beat a path for the post-party at Tavern on the Green. We walked down the street near documentary filmmaker and man-of-the-people Michael Moore, who apparently was able to put aside his anger at corporate welfare long enough to stroll past the homeless men on Central Park benches and belly up to the buffet table to scarf baby-back ribs with the Wall Street and Tinseltown elite. We were also trailed by Isabella Rossellini. (Thought at the moment: Isabella Rossellini is trying to worm her way into yet another event.) Sadly, we didn't see Leonardo, who, according to the next day's Post, apparently made a buffet-table drive-by and then bailed to a much hipper joint in SoHo.

I wish I could say that this stew of celebrities, other rich people, and free food inside Tavern on the Green (which I found, despite its hype, to be an odd combination of the Arnold Arboretum, Studio 54, and a Red Lobster) made for some startling, significant conclusions about the role of stars in our society. I wish I could tell you it was utter fabulousness, that I engaged in a whiskey-fueled deconstruction of King Lear with Kenneth Branagh and finished the night by licking chocolate mousse off Charlize Theron. Or, at the very least, I wish I had recognized, in that moment, the sheer vapidity of celebrity -- that when you get right down to it, it didn't matter if you were a moochy college friend or Lauren Bacall: you still had to wait in the post-premiere buffet line like everyone else.

But I didn't do either one of those things. I was a little bored, actually. And I wanted more ribs.

The following morning, I came crashing back to earth aboard the Peter Pan Express. But at least this time it was, thankfully, an express. The bus was barely half-full. Students, mostly, and a few elderly tourists.

And no, not Isabella Rossellini.

Jason Gay can be reached at jgay[a]phx.com.