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'A little bit of water never stopped a party," says Michael, the taxi driver who picked me up at the LAX airport Thursday, en route to Beverly Hills where the champagne-swilling and Prada-parading had already kicked into high gear as the city gears up for the 76th Academy Awards.
Just hours before, the heavens had opened over the City of Lights and given it a good dousing. The streets were still streaming. Out the window, a six-foot-tall blonde in a white leather mini was plowing through a particularly treacherous puddle in her trusty Ugg boots. A guy on the radio predicted more storms. "It could," he added in his booming weatherman voice, "put a real damper on this year's Oscars." That's when Michael, the cabbie, snorted. "In this town, nothing stops Oscar," the 45-year resident of Los Angeles says. "It could look like something like that Independence Day movie out here and they'd still make sure that damn party went on."
After the more demure function held at the Kodak Theater last year, when the Red Carpet gawk-fest was cancelled because of the Iraq war, tanks and helicopters patrolled the streets, and way too many celebs wore black, Oscar-watchers think that this year the glam and enthusiasm will turn back up to full wattage. Sure, some folks here are preoccupied with the election and the same-sex marriage legislation, but for this weekend, those issues will be put aside for more important matters. Like who's going to get the vintage Jean Desses gown or multimillion-dollar Alan Friedman necklace, whose rare multicoloured diamonds took eight years to collect?
The hotels where the top talent stays - such as the Four Seasons, L'Hermitage, Chateau Marmont, The Bel-Air and Peninsula - have been fully booked for weeks. Stylists and designers are already hyperventilating. And the treatments in demand just get more bizarre. Oscar invitees are flooding into spas to get their hands "rejuvenated" (at $350 a treatment), paying $500 to have collagen injected into the balls of their feet (helps to cushion the pain of 10-plus hours standing on them) or getting $900 to $2,000 brow suspension treatments, which are speedier than a facelift.
One woman I met in my hotel claimed she thought this year's Oscars were still going to be pretty tame. "There's not a lot of movies," she said. "Where's Russell Crowe, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman? [Mel Gibson's] The Passion [of the Christ]/i>, right now, has everyone's attention and it's not even up for anything!" she pointed out. But I thought about that, and then figure it's okay to go Cruise-less if Johnny Depp sashays down the carpet, and Sean Penn actually shows up. Hell, I'd make an appearance just for the Oscar loot bag, worth an estimated $110,000 and including $1,500 worth of steak at Morton's, a seven-day Caribbean cruise and a 43-inch high-definition TV. Low-key? Have people forgotten this is Hollywood?
Michael the cabby's directive was to get me to my hotel so I could drop off the luggage and arrive bag-less at a 1 p.m. luncheon at the Consul General of Canada's residence. Michael zips his lime-green van into the curved drive of the Four Seasons. The parking space isn't great, so he backs up - into the front of a gleaming gold Jag. The women driving gives us the finger and neatly scoots around the van. Apparently, she had better things to do than check her front bumper.
I hop out. The first thing that greets me is an overpowering (but wondrous) smell. At least 400 white Casablanca lilies, in a vase about six feet tall, greet guests in the lobby. In the ladies' room, give my bag to the concierge and dart off to the lady's room. In there, a young woman and her friends are huddled together, excitedly comparing notes about WHO was staying in this hotel. Colin Farrell and Jeff Bridges, they squeal. I wonder if Farrell, who stars in the upcoming ancient-Greek epic Alexander, is still a Trojan blond? On my way back out, I don't see a single celebrity, but I do see several fabulously dressed people in tinted glasses who certainly look like they should be someone famous. But then again, doesn't everyone in L.A. look like that?
Back in the cab, Michael heads to the consul general's house in a posh neighbourhood known as Hancock Park. He points out the hospital to the stars, Cedars Sinai, as we cross George Burns Road and then Gracie Allen Drive. We pass an interesting establishment called Splash, which advertises hourly rental of private Jacuzzi suites. A new one for me.
Finally we turn onto Muirfield Road, but we go left instead of right. It is a miraculous mistake. Because there, on the left hand side of the street, is the most surreal house I've ever seen - white, with gobs of lattice and wrought-iron lace, its front decorated with 20 statues of Michelangelo's David, on pedestals, each 10 feet tall.
Still in shock when I finally make it up the sweeping drive to Consul General Colin Robertson's home, I ask him about his neighbour. "Oh yes," Robertson says. "You should see it at Christmas. They're all painted black, with hats or veils." Toronto-born actor Lloyd Bochner, a resident of L.A. for 44 years, overhears us and interjects: "That's nothing. There's a house down the road in Beverly Hills with just as many statues and they all have pubic hair." Ugh. Thank God, I haven't eaten.
The luncheon is in honour of the Canadian Oscar nominees, including Denys Arcand (up for two Oscars for The Barbarian Invasions - original screenplay and best foreign film), Howard Shore (original score and original song, for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King), Benoît Charest (original song in The Triplets of Belleville) and Chris Hinton (whose Nibbles is up for best animated short film).
There are more than 100 of us gathered in Robertson's garden, which is tented because of all the ominous warnings of rain. He's got two dogs, a plastic alligator in the centre of his pool and two Cirque du Soleil creatures lurking about. One is a bird that keeps pecking people. The other, painted white entirely, looks like a cross between the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz and those tree creatures in The Lord of the Rings. The canapés are things like Wild Rice Pancake with Canadian Caviar. Besides wine, there is a wonderful-tasting microbrew from Quebec, called Unibroue. Norman Jewison saunters over for a sample. " Ça va bien," the director of The Statement, starring Michael Caine, tells the brew masters, who grin from ear to ear.
Nia Vardalos, the star of the indie hit My Big Fat Greek Wedding, is there, looking svelte in a khaki suit, her hair swept up in a scarf. I ask her what she thinks of the five-second delay for the Academy Award speeches. "It's just ridiculous!," shouts Vardalos, whose new movie Connie and Carla opens in theatres April 16. "Like a child's going to become a serial killer if he hears a bad word or sees a breast."
On the flight down to Los Angeles, I'd sat near Toronto filmmaker Robert Lantos and asked him who he thought would win in some of the top categories. He named Depp as best actor, Charlize Theron as best actress and predicted Arcand would win best foreign film and possibly best screenplay.
"I think he should win," Lantos said of Arcand's work. "He made a brilliant film. It's moving, it's powerful, it's humanistic. And even in death, it celebrates life."
After the lunch, I told Arcand what Lantos had said. He appreciated the compliment but added that the foreign-film category, in particular, is always a crapshoot. He'd like to win, but added he isn't going to be devastated if his film is a runner-up.
"I have a sort of philosophical idea about all this. It's not going to change my life. I'm 62 going on 63 and I'm very happy where I am. So if it comes, that's very nice. I'll be very happy and I'll have a nice night.
"But if it doesn't come, it's not going to change a whole lot in my life. That was not the case 20 years ago when I did Decline of the American Empire. Then I was 45, and I needed that film to be a success. Otherwise it was television hell for the rest of my life."
We'll see tomorrow night if, in front of millions of viewers, the Quebec director remains so laissez-faire.
The Academy Awards are broadcast live tomorrow on CTV and ABC beginning at 8:30 p.m. ET (On the Red Carpet: Oscars 2004 begins at 8 p.m.)
Gayle MacDonald