Kicking and ScreeningJune 16 2005
As part of the CineVegas population migrates to Green Valley Ranch for that night's CineVegas/Vegas magazine party, Tommy and I hit the 9 p.m. screening of In Memory of My Father. The only thing I know is that Jeremy Sisto (Clueless, Thirteen) is in it, and it's the story of several brothers whose Robert Evans-like producer father dies in his Hollywood home. I assume it's a lame film made by a friend of Sisto's who is glomming onto whatever star-power draw Sisto has. Wrong.
Although the beginning is deceptively amateurish, Christopher Jaymes proves himself a burgeoning visionary. He stars in the film as one of the brothers, and comes across as much more confident in the role onscreen than he is playing director offscreen. But once the pacing is established, three hilarious storylines revolving around some sort of "wake" -- in which the brothers, their friends and girlfriends, and their father's young, final girlfriends interact, do drugs, talk about sex, have sex and seek individual redemptions -- carry the film forward and prove Jaymes to be of sound black-humored mind with a totally original, kinetic approach to filmmaking.
The crowd polarizes over Sisto's scenes with actor Eric Michael Cole (watch out for his name), in which they take ecstasy and start to reeeeally feeeel it, maaaaaaaan, tripping out over the tailoring of found bathrobes and having a seeing-my-face-in-the-mirror-for-the-first-time MDMA experience. I lose it. Tommy loses it. The couple next to us -- who I will meet later that night and find out are Jaymes' friends Danielle Hoover and Ryan McLaughlin -- lose it. The guy across the aisle from me who brought the large pizza box does not lose it. He is probably not having a cool discovery experience. He didn't even smile. He clearly has never tried good ecstasy.
I give it a "5." I'll let Jaymes know that later on at the after party in the ballroom at the Palms. If Jaymes doesn't get access to the same filmmaking resources and become as famous as Paul Thomas Anderson, then there is no justice in the world.
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in memory of my father