So, a couple nights after we saw Naomi Watts at the Santa Barbara Film Festival, we went to watch James Cameron’s arrival on the red carpet. Like Naomi, he was being presented with some sort of tribute award. We didn’t have tickets to that, but we were eating dinner nearby and thought we would just pop over to see the red carpet walk. (We’re not so much into the Titanic thing, but do think The Terminator and Aliens are two of the coolest movies ever. Plus, I think our brief, fleeting glimpses of Naomi’s back had left us feeling a bit unfulfilled, red carpet-wise.)
So we head over to the theater, but when we get there we almost think we have the wrong night. The red carpet line-up for James Cameron seems pretty sparse. (What? We don’t like directors in this country?) We easily snag a couple rope-side spots and wait.
Then James Cameron arrives and is working his way down the red carpet. Well, “working” seems a bit strong. “Casually meandering” seems more like it. But because there’s not all the paparazzi there, he is actually facing in our direction a good chunk of the time. And because he’s considerably taller than Naomi, he’s not hidden behind a Great Wall of entourage. Finally, as the crowning moment, he seems to bump into some long lost friends on the red carpet and stops to talk to them right in front of us.
I whip out my camera, determined to make up for all my celebrity back photos with an actual photo of a celebrity face. But, at the instant I push the button, I hear—not the reassuring click of the photo snapping—but the disconcerting grinding of the gears as the lens retracts and the camera shuts down. Then, the blinking battery light of doom comes on, and despite all my efforts at resuscitation, the camera cannot be coaxed back to life. Meanwhile, James Cameron fades away down the red carpet, and vanishes into the theater. Sigh.
I guess that’s the stargazing equivalent of a “big fish” story: the one that got away.
