Capt. Mondo's World o' Mondo-ness

Smoochie Still Not Dead Yet
Erika asked me yesterday if I'd be interested in bringing myself and Vanessa back to the set for Death to Smoochie. Erika told me that they are shooting the finale scenes back at Maple Leaf Gardens again, and that Robin Williams would be there. So, with Vanessa in hand, we headed over to Maple Leaf Gardens at Erika's lunchtime, which for her was at 3PM. We ended up having a sushi lunch at a place across the street. Am pretty sure that same space was where The Record Peddler was located a couple of decades ago -- I spent a lot of time buying alternative records there immediately prior to my University days. The sushi lunch was good, and a nice treat -- a suspect the nearest we'll get to sushi in Beckenham next week is of the battered and fried variety. Things were quite different at Maple Leaf Gardens for this shoot. Last time, the seats were filled with kids and their parents; masses of extras needed for the scenes they were shooting. Now, it's only the film crew, so there are masses upon masses of cabling and wires, props, bits of the Smoochie-land set everywhere in the corridors, and relative quiet, since there's only a handful of people in the building. The rink itself was impressive, and somewhat surreal: from the ceiling hangs massive black curtain material, lined with strips of Christmas lights several stories high. And the rink is painted purple. It's like being inside an insanely-large lighted velvet bag. At one of the rink is part of the Smoochie-land set, and at the other end is the Rainbow Randolph stage, and running between them are large lighted letters on stands spelling out "Rainbow" and "Smoochie". Vanessa was of course the center of attention, and we were greeted by a number of people. I met the doubles for actors Robin Williams and Edward Norton -- apparently the Robin William's double (whose name for the life of me I cannot remember) remembered Erika from the last movie he shot up here, which was Good Will Hunting. I didn't really notice the physical similarities between the RW double and Robin Williams himself until they started rehearsing some choreography together on the ice. Mr. Williams lives up to his reputation of always being "on" -- making jokes to Vanessa, and making her giggle and laugh. (Story from yesterday: apparently upon seeing Erika's large belly, he went over to her, put his head on her belly and quizzically asked "Sound, speed?". Anybody in film sound will get the joke. ;-) Since Robin Williams is not a world-class skater, local Canadian Olympian skater Elvis Stojko was there as his skating double -- who is roughly the same height as Robin. In the morning, they had shot the scenes which had required actual skating, but when we arrived all of these were over, and Robin Williams and Edward Norton donned cleated shoes to do the close-ups of their ice-dancing routines. Wearing part of his Rainbow Randolph costume, Vanessa found Mr. Williams pretty funny-looking, and he played it up for laughs. She liked the crush of his cleats in the ice, and he announced himself as "Mr. Crunchy" to her: "By day, mild-mannered actor. By night: Crunchy Man!". Edward Norton also played up putting on his Smoochie outfit for her, and she got a kick out of that, pointing to him and saying "Smoochie!" several times. The shoot began shortly thereafter, with Williams and Norton, in full costume, doing a dance routine across the rink in close-up several times. By the end of the shooting of this scene, Vanessa announced that she had had enough, and wanted to go home. I would have gladly stayed longer, but a Dad's gotta do what a Dad's gotta do! Prior to exiting I managed to get some shots of the props being used offstage. Some notes on the production: the film is currently running two weeks over the original shooting schedule, and Erika told me that at this point, they are largely "making things up as they go along" in terms of sets and so forth. Everybody on the film crew seems wiped, and looking forward to end of this project. This has been a fun shoot for Erika, but she is quite ready for it to be over at this point. This will definitely make for a warped movie when it comes out, and Erika expects it to be a hit when it comes out.