Fishtails swishy at Genies - Lime green this year's new black
May. 3, 2004
By Rita Zekas
There was only one single, solitary autograph hound at the top of the escalator at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre on Saturday night before the Genie Awards. His prey was downstairs at the cocktailer, sipping beverages and snacking on vast quantities of delectables.
Major kudos to event planner Barbara Hershenhorn for orchestrating the cocktail spread and the après dinner. Both were top-notch. And we genuflect before CHUM-TV, this year's broadcaster, who made sure the media room was properly ventilated and spacious. What a concept: You could actually sit down.
It was stocked with bottles of water, lots of edible food including sushi and roast beef — way beyond the cheese and crackers of yore — and instead of the god-forbid-the-press-should-get-more-than-two-drink-tickets-dictum, there was an open bar. And we're happy to report that no journos were drop-dead drunk.
Unlike the Oscars, Genies attendees were not afraid of colour. And plenty of glam-bam, thank you ma'am.
Producer Catherine Gourdier wore a dazzling gown of lime green, this season's "it" colour. Nominee Emily Hampshire channelled Jean Harlow in a crème coloured satin dress by Thien Le. Her beau, director Jerry Ciccoritti documented all the head swivelling generated by Hampshire using his utilitarian disposable camera.
Thien Le also designed Academy Of Canadian Cinema's head Maria Topalovich's fabbo honk-your-horns red coat and skirt ensemble. Nominee Molly Parker was also a scarlet woman, in a sexy cocktail number by Rebecca Miller. Rebecca Jenkins was very Marilyn Monroe in a slinky white gown by Lowen Pope and nominee Meredith McGeachie was a standout in turquoise.
Nominee Karine Vanasse looked Grace Kelly elegant in a ruched mocha confection with a fishtail from Montreal designer Andy Theann. Seemed like everybody with the exception of host Scott Thompson — who you know wanted to — was wearing a gown with a fishtail.
Members of the basic black brigade included Mary Walsh, Alberta Watson and best actress Genie winner Sarah Polley (My Life Without Me), who wore a dress she bought for the Berlin Film Festival.
There would be a double celebration in her household. David Wharnsby, her husband, picked up a Genie for editing for The Saddest Music In The World.
When Polley showed up at the Los Angeles premiere of Dawn Of The Dead with her Life Without Me co-star Scott Speedman, tabloid tongues started wagging. "We decided that Scott's my date for something embarrassing," she laughed.
Best accessory of the night: a two-way tie between Ryan Reynolds, whose gold belt buckle was emblazoned with huge initials ANM, for his honey, Alanis Morissette, and the chain-mail tie worn by Paul Gratton, Chair of the Academy and head of Bravo, Space and Drive-in Classics channels.
It was hand knit by the artisan who made the chain mail for The Lord Of The Rings. Gratton met him at a party before the Oscars. "I told him about the Genies," Gratton explained, "and he said, `Send me your neck size and I'll make you one.'"
Tara Beach, wife of actor Adam Beach, had the best warrior princess tattoos.
She is gorgeous enough to be an actor, but isn't.
"I'm a housewife," she laughed. "Bet you don't hear that often."
Her hubby, a Genie presenter, has just finished the ABC pilot Countdown, in which he plays a member of the L.A. bomb squad. Beach was recording the Genies in digital video — obviously on a bigger budget than Ciccoritti.
He got in the face of director pal Charles Officer (short hymn — silent war) with it. Officer is doing the film Limb Salesman with Ingrid Veninger, whose humungous white deadlocks eclipsed all the other 'dos in the room.
"The hair is for the role," she explained. "I play a legless albino. Charles and I are brother and sister, Clark Johnson is our father and Jackie Burroughs is our grandmother. It's a crazy cast."
It could almost be a plot line from a film by a Genie-nominated director Guy Maddin, (The Saddest Music In The World), who was a no-show. He was in New York having his picture taken by Richard Avedon for The New Yorker.
Four major Genie winners were also no-shows: Robert LePage, Marie-Josée Croze, Remy Girard and Stephane Rousseau, which meant the journos in the media room didn't have much to do, short of interviewing each other. Thank God for Mitsou, who worked the room in her amazing tweed and metallic taffeta frou frou number from Quebec designer Caroline Demarais.
Mitsou was dying to meet presenter Victor Garber, who was his usual dashing self. He will be dashing off to Rome to play Julius Caesar in a 13-part miniseries on the Roman Empire during Alias hiatus. Then he'll do A Little Night Music in Los Angeles.
"Which will bury me," he quipped.
Best director Denys Arcand wore his "lucky" bowtie. It worked: Les Invasions barbares picked up six Genies.
A year of collecting all that hardware from the Oscars, the Cesars, etc. has taken its toll, he admitted.
"It's been an artificial life," Arcand said. "I haven't been able to read, write, see my friends. I've been on planes and in airports. It's like space travel, really a parenthesis. It's been boring except for (producer/wife) Denise's dresses (Indeed Denise Robert was très chic in vibrant orange sheath with exquisite back cut-out detailing).
"I don't know if it's worth it."
Prompting Robert to nail him for being a tad disingenuous.
"Sure it's worth it," she insisted. "Let's be honest."
Roll credits. When we left after the ceremonies, the autograph hound quotient at the top of the escalator had leapt to three.
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May. 3, 2004
By Rita Zekas
There was only one single, solitary autograph hound at the top of the escalator at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre on Saturday night before the Genie Awards. His prey was downstairs at the cocktailer, sipping beverages and snacking on vast quantities of delectables.
Major kudos to event planner Barbara Hershenhorn for orchestrating the cocktail spread and the après dinner. Both were top-notch. And we genuflect before CHUM-TV, this year's broadcaster, who made sure the media room was properly ventilated and spacious. What a concept: You could actually sit down.
It was stocked with bottles of water, lots of edible food including sushi and roast beef — way beyond the cheese and crackers of yore — and instead of the god-forbid-the-press-should-get-more-than-two-drink-tickets-dictum, there was an open bar. And we're happy to report that no journos were drop-dead drunk.
Unlike the Oscars, Genies attendees were not afraid of colour. And plenty of glam-bam, thank you ma'am.
Producer Catherine Gourdier wore a dazzling gown of lime green, this season's "it" colour. Nominee Emily Hampshire channelled Jean Harlow in a crème coloured satin dress by Thien Le. Her beau, director Jerry Ciccoritti documented all the head swivelling generated by Hampshire using his utilitarian disposable camera.
Thien Le also designed Academy Of Canadian Cinema's head Maria Topalovich's fabbo honk-your-horns red coat and skirt ensemble. Nominee Molly Parker was also a scarlet woman, in a sexy cocktail number by Rebecca Miller. Rebecca Jenkins was very Marilyn Monroe in a slinky white gown by Lowen Pope and nominee Meredith McGeachie was a standout in turquoise.
Nominee Karine Vanasse looked Grace Kelly elegant in a ruched mocha confection with a fishtail from Montreal designer Andy Theann. Seemed like everybody with the exception of host Scott Thompson — who you know wanted to — was wearing a gown with a fishtail.
Members of the basic black brigade included Mary Walsh, Alberta Watson and best actress Genie winner Sarah Polley (My Life Without Me), who wore a dress she bought for the Berlin Film Festival.
There would be a double celebration in her household. David Wharnsby, her husband, picked up a Genie for editing for The Saddest Music In The World.
When Polley showed up at the Los Angeles premiere of Dawn Of The Dead with her Life Without Me co-star Scott Speedman, tabloid tongues started wagging. "We decided that Scott's my date for something embarrassing," she laughed.
Best accessory of the night: a two-way tie between Ryan Reynolds, whose gold belt buckle was emblazoned with huge initials ANM, for his honey, Alanis Morissette, and the chain-mail tie worn by Paul Gratton, Chair of the Academy and head of Bravo, Space and Drive-in Classics channels.
It was hand knit by the artisan who made the chain mail for The Lord Of The Rings. Gratton met him at a party before the Oscars. "I told him about the Genies," Gratton explained, "and he said, `Send me your neck size and I'll make you one.'"
Tara Beach, wife of actor Adam Beach, had the best warrior princess tattoos.
She is gorgeous enough to be an actor, but isn't.
"I'm a housewife," she laughed. "Bet you don't hear that often."
Her hubby, a Genie presenter, has just finished the ABC pilot Countdown, in which he plays a member of the L.A. bomb squad. Beach was recording the Genies in digital video — obviously on a bigger budget than Ciccoritti.
He got in the face of director pal Charles Officer (short hymn — silent war) with it. Officer is doing the film Limb Salesman with Ingrid Veninger, whose humungous white deadlocks eclipsed all the other 'dos in the room.
"The hair is for the role," she explained. "I play a legless albino. Charles and I are brother and sister, Clark Johnson is our father and Jackie Burroughs is our grandmother. It's a crazy cast."
It could almost be a plot line from a film by a Genie-nominated director Guy Maddin, (The Saddest Music In The World), who was a no-show. He was in New York having his picture taken by Richard Avedon for The New Yorker.
Four major Genie winners were also no-shows: Robert LePage, Marie-Josée Croze, Remy Girard and Stephane Rousseau, which meant the journos in the media room didn't have much to do, short of interviewing each other. Thank God for Mitsou, who worked the room in her amazing tweed and metallic taffeta frou frou number from Quebec designer Caroline Demarais.
Mitsou was dying to meet presenter Victor Garber, who was his usual dashing self. He will be dashing off to Rome to play Julius Caesar in a 13-part miniseries on the Roman Empire during Alias hiatus. Then he'll do A Little Night Music in Los Angeles.
"Which will bury me," he quipped.
Best director Denys Arcand wore his "lucky" bowtie. It worked: Les Invasions barbares picked up six Genies.
A year of collecting all that hardware from the Oscars, the Cesars, etc. has taken its toll, he admitted.
"It's been an artificial life," Arcand said. "I haven't been able to read, write, see my friends. I've been on planes and in airports. It's like space travel, really a parenthesis. It's been boring except for (producer/wife) Denise's dresses (Indeed Denise Robert was très chic in vibrant orange sheath with exquisite back cut-out detailing).
"I don't know if it's worth it."
Prompting Robert to nail him for being a tad disingenuous.
"Sure it's worth it," she insisted. "Let's be honest."
Roll credits. When we left after the ceremonies, the autograph hound quotient at the top of the escalator had leapt to three.
Back to articles