While Griffith Park was smoldering, less than a mile from the Los Feliz movie theaters on Wednesday night, the hardscape of Joe D'Augustine's terrific thriller One Night With You was cool relief: the only thing to go up in smoke was cash. There's barely a tree in the feature film, because the characters in One Night are the kinds of people who pass the time in hard-urban areas where trees don't get a lot of love. The only time I can remember D'Augustine's down-and-outers keeping company with trees is at night (of course) in a scene with the Lady of the Lake statue at Echo Park Lake. And I'll add that they weren't there willingly.
Otherwise, it's all bridges, the LA River, the streets of East L.A. and Echo Park, a lot of Chinatown. The restaurant Taix is there. Downtown tunnels, City Hall. A seedy motel A rooftop. And Chango coffeehouse. One Night With You may be the best L.A. movie -- in terms of location scouting -- I've ever seen. The mobility of a lower-budget independent must have allowed D'Augustine's loving vision of a thriller-noir L.A. that feels true, familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. The production manager was Joe's wife, Heather.
In any case, One Night With You is fresh and well-written -- and also genuinely funny more times than I have the time to list here: In one instance a bookie's goon worries about where to put his coffee before chasing down Mark Boone Junior's character, who owes the bookie money. Hipster cult actor Michael Parks stars along with Boone, and it's one Parks showcase after another, many of them hilarious. Boone is great, too.
Another fine, if short, performance was turned in by our mail man, Andrew, who plays a mail carrier in the film. He chases Boone, who has just committed the federal crime of stealing mail, and his "Oh, shit," when Boone gets away is rendered with conviction. (He may be drawing upon his own experiences when we had a mail thief on my street; Andrew knew who it was, and he was not amused).
At a recent neighborhood party celebrating the film,* Andrew was present. So was Boone, who tended bar, and some other members of the cast. One of the neighbors, a woman who has 24 wind chimes, used to be principal guardian of one of those legendary pets of Echo Park, Roxy the dog. Roxy used to lay in the street and wasn't in a rush to get up. Everyone knew to watch out for the mid-sized brown mutt. He also did a lot of wandering, slept in a lot of homes and got fed in numerous places. Boone was one of the feeders and carers of Roxy, and I wasn't sure if our mutual neighbor was complaining or just telling when she said that Boone installed a dog door so her dog could sleep at his house. She said, "I'd be looking for him, and then it would turn out Boone's got him." She said she thought Boone himself was a down-and-outer of the type he plays in the film -- until she found out he was an actor and was in a lot of movies, like the latest Batman, Memento and Seven. Roxy was run over by a car on July 4th when people from other neighborhoods were searching for places to park to see the fireworks. The person who hit him took him to a vet, where he died.
At the party I learned (and witnessed) something new about Lucy the dog, another pet who roams: she barks at airplanes. Though not at cars or most people.
On Wednesday, One Night With You was shown as part of the Silver Lake Film Festival, right on the heels of a short film titled "Duck Man."
*No disclaimer necessary: Despite the breathless (heartfelt) praise for the movie and attendance at a party celebrating it, I had no role whatsoever in any aspect of making this film.
