Saved!

I walked the red carpet last night at the Gen Art Film Festival. There were no flashbulbs. I guess no one recognized me.

I was there at Loew’s 68th Street to see ‘Saved!’ I didn’t know it was a premier until I got there. I didn’t know Mandy Moore, Jenna Malone and my new teen crush, Eva Amurri, would be there. Not that it mattered much, excepting when Jenna Malone bumped into me racing up the aisle after the Q&A (“I’m sorry, I have to pee so bad,” she said). I was just hoping to get in touch with my audience (my work audience, that is), and that co-producer Michael Stipe would be there.

Anyway: the film. It was cute, basically ‘Pretty In Pink’ through a Christian lens. Director Brian Dannelly introduced it as “the anti-‘Passion,'” which in a lot of ways it is. Mainstream, lily-white, sweet and funny, the film basically advocates openness, inclusiveness, and reasonable doubt in opposition to divisiveness, exclusion, and blind faith. Which is a good thing.

Now, It’s no ‘Breakfast Club,’ and it does end with that ‘Return of the Jedi’ close where the whole cast is basically smiling for the camera: one big, happy, dysfunctional family. But I’d still encourage you and yours to go see it, primarily because there is so little out there in terms of mainstream entertainment that bothers to be intelligent, insightful or subversive. I like to support the things that take a stab at the deep and simple. I say that there are plenty of Twinkies out there; try a slice of whole wheat instead. Even if the paparazzi ignores you.