Michel Gondry bangs the drums

Last week as part of our Cinema Tuesdays series at the Montalbán Theater in Hollywood, we presented An Evening with Michel Gondry and Friends, the launch event of Michel's new self-published DVD, Michel Gondry 2: More Videos (Before and After DVD 1).

I've had the pleasure of collaborating with Michel on a handful of events showcasing his work over the years and each and every one was uniquely magical and somehow managed to trump the last.

In 2003, I chose Michel as the subject of our filmmaker retrospective at RESFEST. Although this happened at a time before the mainstream success of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the screenings nevertheless were sold out on the tour. Our New York event had a capacity crowd of over 900 guests and I still remember the anticipation in the air as the beats of Daft Punk reverberated through the theater just before show time. I remember thinking how epic the event and the entire evening was and how it would be pretty hard to ever top something that special again.

The packed out Montalban Theatre

But life has a way of creating one's best surprises when you least expect it. The night after the 2005 Oscars and his Best Original Screenplay win for Eternal Sunshine..., Michel was the guest of honor at our monthly RES screening event in LA. Needless to say, when I extended the invitation for him to come, no one had any idea that he would win an Oscar. We wondered if he would still make it, after all the guy just won an Oscar! Not only did he show, he did what Michel always does... he came, he inspired and he conquered. It seemed like everyone in LA came out that night. Defying what must have been a crazy hangover, Michel did not disappoint as he entertained an audience of his most loyal fans.

He also exhibited a hilarious and unguarded brotherly rivalry on stage with Olivier Gondry, whose work also screened that night. Once again, magic happened.

In 2006, I started my new company Flux with my partner and wife, Meg, and the first event of our then emerging company was a ten-city tour around North America of Michel's film The Science of Sleep. We thought we were being clever when we decided to have the tour culminate in New York City and purposely chose a venue in a relatively out of the way rooftop in Brooklyn to manage what we knew would be a crazy turnout.

Green Hornet star Seth Rogen introduces Gondry and band to play the theme tune from the forthcoming movie.

ut once again, I was proven wrong. Not even distance and cumbersome transit stopped Michel's following. High powered posses of New York City's creative elite name dropped and downright pushed their way into the venue. It was a madhouse! The sleepy venue that usually hosted 200-300 guests experienced a mad rush of over 650 people fighting to see Michel's latest work and hear the Willowz rock the night away. I don't know what it is, but I finally figured out that the common denominator of all the events we have done with Michel is that we always end up getting unusually cold and windy weather in the unlikeliest of times. That awesome night in New York, we got a blustery 55 degrees when just the night before, the entire city caroused in 77 degree weather. I now believe that Flux + Michel Gondry + his adoring fans + artic weather is the recipe that makes each and every event more amazing than the last. It's like that extra special spice and secret ingredient everyone looks for.

Which finally leads me to our latest event with him just last week. It was unusually cold and blustery for Los Angeles in mid-April. As the wind blew and the lines grew longer and longer and longer and longer, Michel pulled even more rabbits out of his ever fun-filled hat. The theater lobby was adorned with props from Gondry productions as well as unusual products (like illustrated toilet paper) available from the newly launched MichelGondry.com. An installation featuring a mini version of his bright red drumkit was stationed at the entry of the theater. Michel created original artwork for us (humanism, fashionism, earism, runism, squeesm) for guests to screenprint onto journals they could take away, But that was just the beginning. Just before the show started Michel grabbed a video camera, walked the massively long line and started interviewing people waiting. Minutes later he showed the film in the theater to a happily stunned if not gratified audience. According to Michel, this was his way of showing the audience that they were some of the "friends" that the evening was about. [Watch the film here.]

The after party, DJed by Mathieu Schreyer

Speaking of friends, everyone speculated about who the surprises might be. Well there were plenty. Among the past, present and future collaborators: Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg (Green Hornet), Patricia Arquette (Human Nature), Jon Brion (Eternal Sunshine...), Melonie Diaz (Be Kind, Rewind), Ayako Fujitani (Tokyo), Steriogram ("Walkie Talkie Man" music video) and many many more. The evening was capped off with a rammed party and jam session with Michel on drums, Jon Brion on vocals/guitar, and Sebastian Steinberg on bass. It was definitely squeesm at it's best and I can honestly say this last one is my new favorite out of all of them....at least until the next one.

Get envious: check out more photos from the evening in our Photo Gallery blog here.

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