I fell behind during the last few days of the festival, but I will do my best to catch up in the next day or so. Wednesday’s high point was catching Atom Egoyan’s WHERE THE TRUTH LIES, a film by my favorite director that has been plagued since its screening at Cannes by the ratings board here in North America. It has received an NC-17 rating for some explicit thrusting during a threesome involving two men and a woman. The film is based on a murder mystery novel by Rupert Holmes (of “The Piña Colada Song” fame), and revolves around a 1950’s comedy duo a la Lewis and Martin, here played by Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth. This was clearly meant to be Egoyan’s breakout film only to be hampered by the ratings issue. It was my pleasure to see Atom in person for the first time, and was thrilled to find him as intelligent, articulate, and personable as I’d hoped. 
He discussed his most recent bout with the Ratings Board after cutting to try to receive an “R” rating. When he went to the final hearing, there were two additional people there. When he asked who they were, he was told that there was nothing to worry about, they were just members of the clergy. Atom commented sarcastically that he was told that it had nothing to do with the homosexuality in the film. Ha! Such a double-standard in the movies. Atom’s latest film has been receiving widely different reactions from critics, but I’m pleased to report that I loved it.
The day wrapped with another anticipated film, THE NOTORIOUS BETTIE PAGE, Mary Harron’s follow-up to AMERICAN PSYCHO. The screenplay was once-again co-written by Harron and Guinevere Turner (for which they won a Chlotrudis Award for best adapted screenplay). Turner was originally slated to play Page, but the film was made with Gretchen Mol in the starring role, the reason for which I have never found. In the photo on the left, Mary Harron answers questions along with three producers (Christine Vachon being one) and Gretchen Mol. The film itself is a little disappointing; perfectly well-done, but it turns out that Page’s life wasn’t all that interesting other than the fact that she posed for pictures in bondage gear. THere was little dramatic arc to propel the film forward. The Q&A was somewhat painful, with some buffoons asking ridiculous questions of Mol clearly fishing for some revelation about playing such a sex-themed characters.