Just Some Minor Head-Bobbing

The Scene: The premiere of “Malice,” the suspense thriller starring Alec Baldwin, Nicole Kidman and Bill Pullman. The apres -work screening Wednesday night at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills drew a packed house of stars and industry over-achievers with extra-firm handshakes. A party followed in the lobby, this town’s least favorite spot for a post-premiere schmooze. The oft-heard phrase was “I gotta get some air.”

Who Was There: The film’s stars Kidman (with husband Tom Cruise) and Pullman, director Harold Becker, co-producer Rachel Pfeffer and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin. Also spotted were directors Fraser Heston, John McTiernan and Bruce Joel Rubin; performers Christian Slater, Diane Keaton, Stephen Baldwin, Chynna Phillips, Kathy Najimy and Rosie O’Donnell; and Castle Rock partners Alan Horn, Glenn Padnick, Rob Reiner and Martin Shafer (fifth partner Andrew Scheinman was directing his first film in Minneapolis). Alec Baldwin was in absentia.

Dress Mode: Clothes ran the sartorial spectrum from casual (jeans) to dressy (one woman sported a copy of that infamous black dress Demi Moore wore in “Indecent Proposal”). Otherwise it was the usual preponderance of suits and short, fitted skirts. One man in a brown leather jacket, jeans and tennies complained to a friend, “I feel so underdressed!” And we thought leather was acceptable everywhere in L.A.

Chow: The audience dive-bombed the buffet, which included sushi, chicken on skewers, pizza, cookies, fresh fruit and assorted canapes. Those who tried to maintain some semblance of decorum soon realized pushing and shoving was the only way to get fed.

Quoted I: Did Kidman enjoy playing a not-so-sympathetic character?: “Yes. I’d like to do it more often.”

Quoted II: Castle Rock was recently bought by Turner Broadcasting System, headed by that wacky media mogul, Ted Turner. Asked if he found Turner enigmatic, Castle Rock’s managing partner Horn said, “Enigmatic? No, he’s mercurial, but not enigmatic. He’s a bundle of energy and I think he’s a wonderful guy. I genuinely like him.”

Box Office, Shmox Office: How does Castle Rock’s Shafer judge an audience’s reaction to a film? “For me, I judge a drama by seeing if people are relatively still, that there’s not a lot of coughing and not a lot of people going to the bathroom. But if you see a lot of heads bobbing, that’s not good.”

Were heads bobbing?

“No, I thought they were relatively still.”