Push, coming out this month, is a tender story of cultural – and emotional – loneliness. A cinematic child of Lost in Translation, Push is a story about a man who feels lost in a world he doesn’t understand, and the effect two quiet women have on the course of his life during one chilly summer in someplace that looks vaguely Hong Kong-y. Or, like the future. People are lonely in the future; it could work.

We begin with our hero, Joe Caucasian, and his sidekick, Young Lady Where Are Your Tights.

“Seriously. Judging by his kicky layers, it’s cold outside!”
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So on Wednesday and I trekked over to Columbus Circle to hear Brendan Fraser and Cornelia Funke talk about Inkheart, and write it up for Tor. I tried to put in all the writing advice she dispensed, and make everying sound coherent, but let me tell you something: NOT THE CASE.

Fun fact: Brendan Fraser’s face is frozen this way.

Eugene totally made a break for it after coming up with some lie about “batteries”, but turns out he was just being smart, since the audience was not, in fact, full of kids overcome with the love of reading, but Brendan Fraser fans who wanted to ask him if his tango scene with Ricki Lake in Mrs. Winterbourne was romantic.

(It was not. She didn’t come to rehearsals, so they fudged the full-length shots, and then later Brendan danced with choreographer Adam Shenkman for the insert sorts of feet. The woman looked absolutely stricken, as though nothing would ever seem romantic again.

God, I love the movies.)

Brendan Fraser is painfully shy, hated talking about himself, and made monkey noises at random intervals trying to make the kids laugh. (They did not.)

Cornelia Funke, on the other hand, is warm, knows how to frame an answer in thirty seconds and still give it a beginning and a middle and a joke before the end, and is basically someone I would totally have asked out for a cup of coffee and the dirt on the film. (They really didn’t want to spoil those six kids; it was a frustrating lack of film informaiton.)

The best part was the pair of bodyguards who stood at either end of the table at all times, as though at any moment that one lady was going to be like, “YOU’RE A LIAR! MRS. WINTERBOURNE IS ROMANTIC, YOU CAN’T TAKE THAT AWAY!” and lunge for Brendan or something. No wonder the dude hates answering questions.