“Last night, we lost one of the greatest directors who ever lived,” Jason Reitman said yesterday to a full house at LACMA’s Bing Theater. “Tonight is for Mike Nichols.”

With that dedication, he kicked off this month’s installment of Live Read, part of the Film Independent at LACMA series, with Diner, Barry Levinson’s 1982 debut. As always, the reading was directed by Reitman and the event hosted by Film Independent curator Elvis Mitchell, and both commented on what an exceptional first film Diner was—Mitchell called it “one of the most remarkable debuts in the history of motion pictures.”

Reitman said going through scripts of classic films like Diner is “like archaeological work;” He finds scenes that never made it to film, and large gaps where improvised scenes were inserted. Diner is famous for having a lot of improvisation, but Reitman said he was “astonished by how much was already on the page.”

For the uninitiated, Diner is about five young men in their twenties, best friends since childhood, navigating the transition to adulthood (with varying degrees of success). It takes place in Baltimore—Levinson’s hometown—during the last week of 1959, and the guys hang out, at all hours of the day, at their favorite diner. Reitman’s cast was taken straight from the FX series The League, and the camaraderie and chemistry that already existed between the actors worked for this story about people who had known each other their whole lives. The actors already knew each other, but they had never rehearsed the reading before, Reitman assured us. The Live Read starred:

Nick Kroll as Fenwick, the role originated by Kevin Bacon
Jason Mantzoukas as Modell, the role originated by Paul Reiser
Paul Scheer as Shrevie, the role originated by Daniel Stern
Mark Duplass as Boogie, the role originated by Mickey Rourke
Steve Rannazzisi as Eddie, the role originated by Steve Guttenberg
Katie Aselton as Beth, the role originated by Ellen Barkin
Nadine Velasquez as Barbara, the role originated by Kathryn Dowling
Rob Huebel as Billy, the role originated by Tim Daly

Duplass made a show of mock indignation when Reitman, reading the stage directions, read aloud that Boogie was “not particularly good-looking,” but appeared satisfied when Reitman continued that Boogie was nevertheless very attractive to girls. Levinson’s great characters and dialogue really shone in this setting; Kroll in particular delivered Fenwick’s charmingly dated slang well—calling fun things “a smile” and pretty girls “death.” The famous roast beef sandwich argument between Eddie and Modell was as great onstage as it is onscreen, and all of the actors were particularly funny assuming strange voices in side character parts—Reitman struggled to contain his laughter more than once. Really, the whole night was a smile.

Mary Sollosi / Film Independent Blogger