Home Theater: Bachelor Party
Thanks to Mel for sending this in to us!
From Movieline, April 2000, page 92, Movies at Home section, transcribed by MyrnaLynne
“Home Theater: Bachelor Party” by Daniel Guss
“Roswell’s” star alien Jason Behr crashes at a small bachelor pad that’s perfect for a few guys, a few DVD’s, and a pizza.”
Jason Behr’s one-bedroom apartment in Burbank is only a short drive from the soundstage on the Paramount backlot where he plays Max, the heartthrob teenage alien in love with a human actress, on the hit TV series “Roswell.” After a lengthy say on the set, the 26-year-old Behr tends to rush straight home to plan his entertainment for the evening–Should he drive over the hill to the Viper Room on the Strip? Line up pals to shoot pool with at Q’s in West L.A.? Neither.
He’d rather invite some guys over to kick back at his place with a pizza and any of the dozens of movies in his expanding DVD collection. “Movies, for me, usually mean a bunch of my buddies and a stack of pizza boxes from Mulberry Street Pizzeria,” Behr says. “We try to create as much of a theater atmosphere as possible, so we turn the house lights out.” Laughing, he adds, “Sometimes we even spill Coke and spread out Jujubes for authenticity.” Behr’s “all snacks, all the time” entertaining style meshes perfectly with his comfortable, very modest digs in which he’s got a bulletin board littered with Blockbuster coupons and a healthy supply of (as-yet-unopened) Dom Perignon bottles (grateful offerings from WB execs?). The actor plans to move somewhere more spacious soon.
“But for now,” he says, while carefully positioning his shiatsu massage-equipped black leather recliner in front of his entertainment center, “this setup works just fine for me.” In front of him a Sony DVP S7700 DVD player coupled with a Sony Trinitron KV-20S40 20-inch TV and a Sony SLV-679HF VCR stands ready.
So, what’s on Behr’s marquee tonight? Well, his collection includes alienated Gen-X fare (Trainspotting and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels), some comedies (both Austin Powers), some sci-fi (The Matrix, Star Wars) and a scare flick (Disturbing Behavior, which was directed by “Roswell’s” co-creator David Nutter). But Behr’s real enthusiasm is for intense films like Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, Scarface, Seven, The Godfather, and A Clockwork Orange.
Behr, who arrived from Minnesota just a few years ago, has noticed that his perspective on certain films has changed as his tenure in L.A. has lengthened. “I saw Robert Altman’s The Player when I first came to L.A. Back then, I didn’t get a lot of the insider nuances. I watched it again six months ago on DVD and had an entirely different impression of it. Now it’s like, Wow! I love how the opening scene is one long shot. Someone told me it’s an homage to Hitchcock’s Rope. That’s the kind of movie that gets better each time you see it.”
Having never gone to film school, or college for that matter, Behr is educating himself about the classics at home. He owns 1956’s Giant, 1958’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and 1967’s Cool Hand Luke. He also owns much of the Spielberg oeuvre from Jaws to
Saving Private Ryan. “I’m really getting into DVD’s,” says Behr. “The extra information they offer does it for me, especially the documentary and director commentary parts. I love knowing why a scene was set up in a particular way. And why this actor moved to a certain position.” Take Martin Scorsese’s cold-blooded 1976 classic, for instance: “On the Taxi Driver DVD, Scorsese explains why he set up certain scenes in particular ways, and I also learned how Robert De Niro freaked out Jodie Foster prior to shooting. You get so much more out of movies when you get inside the director’s and actors’ heads.”When Behr is inspecting films this close up, he tends to limit his company to only the most appreciative movie aficionados. ‘I watch with my Akita, Ronin,” he says. “By the way, I adopted him long before Robert De Niro made his movie of the same name!”
BEHR’S BASICS
1. Sony DVP S7700 DVD player
2. Sony Trinitron KV-20S40 20-inch TV
3. Sony SLV-679HF VCR
