So last night MC and I did go to the HTV party at Club Monaco (normally a clothing store). We had fun, ran into former jurors and met some potential new ones, heard Wyclef Jean just in from Ethiopia, do a short set…your standard political diatribe filled with ganga. What if Bush and Bin Laden just got high? Would we be at war? Wyclef doesn’t think so.

Still not feeling great this morning after another late night, I managed to get out of the hotel by 8:45 to get to BEOWULF & GRENDEL, a medieval fantasy starring Stellan Skarsgaard and Sarah Polley. And due in part to Grendel’s fakey arm muscle prosthetics, it was a fun story. Matthew went to the Johnny Cash biopic, WALK THE LINE, but more from him later.

After the film I dashed down to Sutton Place to check my mailbox (nothing), email and drop some postcards. Back up at the Varsity I checked out the Indian film AMU and loved it. A fascinating story about a young adopted Hindu woman raised in LA who travels home to find her roots only to learn familial and cultural secrets everyone else would rather keep hidden. This would be a wonderful South Asian Film Festival option…

With no time in between, I immediately grabbed a seat in A LITTLE TRIP TO HEAVEN, a film out of Iceland set in the northern US and starring Julia Stiles, as a con artist’s sister and Forrest Whitaker as an investigating insurance agent. The film is as dark and cold as anything out of Iceland, but Stiles and Whitaker add a delicate touch. Somehow it works, despite my initial hesitation.

I then got to see the sun again (twice in one day!) as I walked the few blocks to the Museum for 51 BIRCH STREET, a very personal doc by Doug Block. When his mother passes away, Block begins to examine his parents 50+ year marriage and discovers some family secrets. He, unlike the young woman in AMU, isn’t sure if this is information he wants to uncover, but like her reaches a final life altering discovery about the true nature of his own family and families in general. Life, death, love, marriage, etc. Good stuff.

I hadn’t eaten since 9:15 this morning and it was now nearly 7 PM, so I walked back over to Younge and discovered a cool little Greek restaurant and had an amazing chicken shwarma sandwich and some dolmades. Heaven. Chatted with Roger Moore outside the Varsity for a few minutes before going up to meet Matthew between films. I ran into Mikki and her friend Naomi who just finished a doc with Deepa Mehta.

After four films and a long day I really wasn’t feeling well and debated just going to bed, but I thought I’d give Larry Clark’s WASSUP ROCKERS a chance. The first half hour of this look at a group of South Central Latino youths wasn’t really holding my interest and just when I thought I’d give it 10 more minutes, it started to get good. The boys although supposedly tough on the outside, came off as sweet and adventurous, going on a wild journey through Beverly Hills.

So the theme of today was stay to the end. Unfortunately, I couldn’t hold out for the parties and after a little bite with Matthew, I left him to the hoopla and headed home for bed.

Store name of the day: The Brick Shirt House