SFIFF: We Stalk Matt Dillon

Despite our initial resolve to move at a dignified pace through this film festival, we got overly excited on our first day out and may have shot our wad way too early. We planned to see only one movie—the Chinese chick flick, Perpetual Motion on Saturday night but an SFIFF insider in the press room told us we simply must stay for The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai. It's porn! It's funny! It's political! And hey, it's porn!

We decided to while away the hours between the two movies in the press room watching a documentary on a personal monitor but through our headphones we could hear distressed SFIFF workers whispering to each other. Apparently the film broke during the screening of Factotum, the movie based on Charles Bukowski's largely autobiographical novel, and horror of horrors, Matt Dillon who stars in the movie was on his way over for the post-screening Q&A. We overheard that Matt had been diverted into the Stella Artois lounge on the third floor so we scurried upstairs to the "lounge," (aka: a corner of the Kabuki Theatre cordoned off with velvet rope and a burly bouncer checking passes). We cruised through the lounge looking beseechingly at each face, "are you Matt Dillon? Are you Matt Dillon?" Meanwhile everyone looked searchingly at us, "are you famous? Can you finance my next movie? Are you Matt Dillon?"

Image: Matt Dillon in Factotum

SFist MiHi Ahn, contributing

We ditched the lounge and snuck into the last few minutes of Factotum only to be greeted by the sight of Matt Dillon's 12 foot tall bare buttocks in a jock strap walking across the screen. We were riveted by his chubby butt cheeks but had no idea what was going on in the movie. As we leaned against the back wall, another leaner kept annoyingly walking in and out of the theatre right in front of us. Small bladder? No, wait a minute, it was Matt Dillon! We can only guess that he was simultaneously monitoring the audience reaction next door where Factotum was playing on a second screen. Our star-stalking did not actually extend to following him. It was very strange to look at Matt Dillon one foot away from us while a gigantic Matt Dillon was on the big screen. Maybe it was our exhaustion from hanging out at the Kabuki for six hours, maybe we were jacked up on the boozy fumes from the Stella Artois lounge but it was all we could do to stop ourselves from reaching out and touching one of those impossibly sculpted cheeks (the ones on his face, people).

It looked like Dillon has lost the weight he'd gained for Factotum and quite frankly, even a chubby, bearded Matt Dillon in the movie still looked pretty like a woman to us. The audience asked a lot of Actor's Studio types of questions about preparing for the role and improvisation. They laughed appreciatively at everything he said and threw out softball non-questions like, "Thank you for your role in Crash." Dillon revealed that he was in contact with Bukowski's widow, Linda, and she told him that Bukowski is often, "misinterpreted as someone who is dirty—a slob, but really was neat and clean," which gave Dillon a window into Bukowski's dignity. We would have asked a question ourselves but since we had only seen the last few minutes of the movie all we could think of were softball non-questions like, "I loved you in the Flamingo Kid. Did you know you're still pretty like a woman?"

Dillon was swarmed by the crowd at the end of the Q&A and by the time we looked up from scribbling notes he was gone. We rushed out of the theatre to find the Japanese porn movie we had waited until 11:15 p.m. to see only to run smack dab into a line for said porno snaking around the corner for the theatre we had just left. More on The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai to come. We got home at 2 a.m. and we're pooped.

Factotum screens again on Sunday, Apr 30 at 3:00 p.m. at the Kabuki. Perpetual Motion can be seen again on Wednesday, April 26 at 3:30 p.m at the Kabuki and
Monday , May 1 at 9:30 p.m. at the Aquarius. The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai plays again today at 1:15 p.m. at the Kabuki.