‘Valentino’ a surprise hit, says filmmaker at Chapman University screening

At a private screening and reception Wednesday at the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts at Chapman University, filmmaker Matt Tyrnauer told the audience that “lightning struck for whatever reason” when his movie “Valentino: The Last Emperor” was released in March 2009.

Tyrnauer said that he would have considered success a one-week run at a small New York theater. Yet in its first week, “Valentino” out-grossed the nation’s then-No. 1 movies, “Knowing” and “ Monsters vs. Aliens,” on a per-screen basis and is still opening in countries around the world.

The film “is taking on a much larger life than I ever thought it would,” Tyrnauer said. “People think, ‘How much can you learn about a man who’s a great designer of dresses?’ But then they see it’s not a fashion story but a love story about two people who built an extraordinary life.”

The filmmaker joined event sponsors Twyla Martin, Deborah Bridges, Eve Kornyei and Laurie Rodnick for a VIP luncheon on Sound Stage A at the college’s Marion Knott Studios. In attendance were Chapman President Jim Doti and some of Chapman’s biggest supporters, such as Kristina Dodge and Marion Knott, as well as Chuck Martin, Dee Dee Sodaro, Libby Pankey, Suki McCardle, Zee Allred and Harriet Sandhu.

Tyrnauer marveled at the university’s facilities. Although Chapman has offered film classes since the 1970s, the film school was just founded in 1996 and named for Lawrence and Kristina Dodge in 2004. The Knott Studios, completed in 2006, will be part of Filmmakers Village, along with Millennial Studios, for which a $50-million fundraising campaign is about to begin.

Dean Robert Bassett, who holds the Twyla Reed Martin chair, called the school’s youth an advantage. “It’s a whole new world,” he said. “In the 1990s, the whole industry was converting to digital and because we didn’t have that much built yet, it was easy to convert.”

The idea is to prepare students for the new technologies, such as 3-D, motion capture and computer animation, and others to come. “If you take a film like ‘Avatar,’ the actors’ eyes look alive,” he said. “People who want to use these tools will find them here.”

‘Wrecks’ premiere after-party

Playwright/director Neil LaBute had a few things to say after the Feb. 7 premiere of “Wrecks” at the Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater at Westwood’s Geffen Playhouse.

Wrecks “is meant to be a love story at the boundaries,” he explained at the after-party at Angel’s Piano Bar & Supper Club in Santa Monica.

While cocktail waitresses in bustiers and miniskirts passed the hors d’oeuvres, LaBute occupied booth No. 1. He called the one-man show, in which Ed Harris delivers a 75-minute monologue, a challenge for an actor, but added, “Good actors like a challenge. “

Gilbert Cates, the theater’s producing director, said, “It’s wonderful to see an actor so skilled at his craft and so in control of his audience.”

As for this love story’s “boundaries,” actor Lawrence Monoson said, “It wouldn’t be a Neil LaBute play if it didn’t have a kick in the gut.”

Restaurateur Louie Ryan, along with Venice Magazine, sponsored the party, which was attended by Harris, his wife, Amy Madigan, and daughter, Lily; actors Richard Chamberlain, Harry Groener and Joe Spano; board members Loren Rothschild and Fred Specktor; and Specktor’s wife Nancy Heller.

The play continues until March 7.

ellen.olivier@society-news.com