Cheat To Win

Was it just a tribute to fellow Canadian Jason Reitman that drew the longest line that your correspondent has seen in Toronto so far to the American Beauty live reading on Thursday? The opportunity to hear Mad Men seductress Christina Hendricks berate her fellow AMC star Bryan Cranston and “bed” an unlikely cable comedian? Or the fact that the event had initially been booked on the film festival program simply as “a surprise” that drew the crowd crowd? Judging from the queued ticket holders wrapped around three sides of a city block—some of whom still did not know which actors would be playing the roles from Alan Ball’s Oscar-winning screenplay, even after waiting in line for two hours—we still have no idea. Regardless of their line-forming motivation, the festival goers were eventually ushered into the theater for a Reitman-directed table read of American Beauty as an extension of his series in Los Angeles this past year. 

I don’t even like American Beauty and I’d go to see this.  Jason Reitman is a treasure.