Brad Pitt sightings; an end to mystery of 'Mysteries'

By Barbara Vancheri / Sept. 5, 2008

TORONTO - The running of the bulls is nothing compared to the running of the Brad Pitt fans. The police either removed the metal barricades at one end or the Pitt parade breached them, turning the street next to Roy Thomson Hall into a very loud love-in for the actor.

He's just one of the stars of "Burn After Reading," alongside George Clooney, Tilda Swinton, John Malkovich and Frances McDormand, but he's the one on the first name basis with the world. Daniela Raponi, 20, who lives north of Toronto had been stationed along the sidewalk since 5:20 p.m. Friday - more than four hours before a showing of "Burn" - and was rewarded with both an autograph and a literal brush with fame when Pitt grazed her hand as he took her magazine to sign. She reported both facts to her parents by cell phone afterward, once the shrieks had died down. The screams and cries had moved from one pocket of the crowd to another, as if people were doing an aural version of the wave.

Raponi and her friends did far better than last year when they turned out for "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford," also starring Pitt. And by arriving early, they also watched the stars of "The Secret Life of Bees" walk the red carpet into the hall for that movie's world premiere.

After director Gina Prince-Bythewood introduced the source novel's author, Sue Monk Kidd, she brought onto the stage actors Queen Latifah, Dakota Fanning, Jennifer Hudson, Alicia Keys, Sophie Okonedo, Nate Parker and Tristan Wilds.The women wore dresses  both short and long, with Queen Latifah clad in a black, one-shoulder knee-length number complementing her sleekly styled, side parted hair. Missing was actor Paul Bettany due to an unspecified personal situation.

In the movie, Fanning plays a 14-year-old who runs away from her abusive father with their housekeeper (Hudson) and finds love, acceptance and motherly approval with the Bo atwright beekeeping sisters. The film is rated PG-13 and attracted such moviegoers as Susan Lee and her 8-year-old daughter, Michelle Lee, who is partial to Barbie movies but was happy to don a red dress, pink headband and fuzzy bracelet for the night out. They had been given the tickets by a friend of Mrs. Lee's husband.

Prince-Bythewood said the cast "all took this gig for way less than what they normally get," because they believed in her vision and she was proud of their sacrifice in that regard. Some of the cast were seeing the movie for the first time with the public  and, as a man in the audience shouted out, "Queen Latifah in the house!" it was time to turn  down the lights and bring up the film.

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Michael London is here as executive producer of "Appaloosa," starring Ed Harris, Viggo Mortensen, Renee Zellweger and Jeremy Irons and no one directed a question to him during a press conference.

However, afterward, he answered the question Pittsburghers have been asking for months: When will "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh" arrive in theaters? Or will it land there at all?

He expects to close a distribution deal by later this month and said the adaptation of the Michael Chabon novel could be released in the first quarter of 2009. London is the founder of Groundswell Productions which made "Mysteries" along with "Smart People," which played theaters in the spring and is already on DVD.

"It took a long time. It's been a very difficult market in the last six to nine months because smaller movies, the studios are really shying away from, but we're in conversations with actually two or three different companies so we're just finalizing that in the next week or so." London said "Mysteries" turned out very well but it's "dark, it's complicated, it's interesting, it's exactly what distributors are afraid of right now but it's good. It's been a long struggle, it's been a hard struggle but it's going to see the light of day."