Film Scouts Diaries

2003 Taormina BNL FilmFest Diaries
Mob Blog - Day 5

by Philipp Hoschka

Taormina, June 11, 2003 - At this morning's press conference, a fellow Web reporter is scorned by the Festival's Director in person for complaining about a "void of a festival" on his Web site. That proves again that the Web is a medium enabling immediate audience feedback. Hopefully, my colleague will not have to join one of Sicily's many popular witness protection programs to be able to attend next year's festival.

"This is the first time in years that I am in a movie theatre that is older than me" cracks director Joel Schumacher when he enters the stage of the 2000-year-old Greek theatre. His latest movie "Phone Booth" is shown tonight. This low-budget Hollywood movie (total cost: 1 Million $) tells the story of Stu, a New York wheeler-dealer publicist. Stu finds himself stuck in Manhattan's last remaining phone booth on the phone with one of Manhattan's many remaining psychopaths. This particular one is threatening to shoot Stu should he decide to hang up on him or to leave the phone booth. Stu's caller has decided to take justice in his own hands, and has started killing people that do not live up to his moral standards. Stu doesn't. He cheats on his wife, lies to his clients, and is overall a pretty superficial person - and the whole world will soon find out. The sniper forces Stu to repent his sins in front of members of the several TV crews, both his wife and his girl-friend, and, if that was not enough, members of the NYPD. While all of this may sound a tad serious, rest assured that the movie is quite entertaining, sometimes funny, and very well-filmed.

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