The Circuit

by Steven Gaydos
It is with great trepidation that one reveals a place where the biggest stars in the business can live, work, enjoy a nice evening digging film fest movies like you or me without a bunch of rabid stalkerazzi hyenas nipping at their heels, but in the interests of fulfilling the mission of The Circuit I must report the facts: that place is Nashville, Tennessee.

Maybe it's Southern manners, maybe it's because Nashville is home to lots of music stars rich and famous enough to make lots of Hollywood stars look positively poverty-stricken, but since Nicole Kidman was able to zip in and out of her favorite movies this weekend at the 39th Nashville Film Festival unspoolings, it's a fine testament to Music City's common courtesies and laid-back creative scene.

Not that William H. Macy wasn't mobbed by fans at the Fest's opening night gala over at BMI headquarters after the screening of his new film, "The Deal." Macy told me he was keen to return to Nashville as "this is my first time here and I have already fallen in love with the place." Or that Nobel laureate Al Gore (pictured with director Michael O'Connell) was able to escape the clutches of hordes of green groupies after his fourth annual presentation of the Fest's Reel Current award for O'Connell's hard-hitting doc, "Mountain Top Removal." Or that Universal Records' newest multi-platinum artist/hunk, Josh Turner (pictured below) wasn't sending female industryites swooning after an intimate fest sidebar concert at the storied Bluebird Cafe.

But they were all working and fair game, whereas the increasingly pregnant Mrs. Keith Urban is a civilian here, and hometown mom-to-be to boot. Which is one way of telling out-of-towners without manners you might just find yourself on the fighting side of a pickup-truck-driving local should you think about breaking the rules of Tennessee hospitality.

As for the films and music on tap just over the past few days here in the Athens of the South, no place outside of Austin seems to mix up the visual and performing arts like Nashville. The Turner show was a revelation, especially when singer-songwriter Anthony Hamilton joined the strong-jawed, deep-voiced Turner for a spin through Hamilton's tune, "Nowhere Fast." Turner is co-starring in "Billy: The Early Years," the Billy Graham biopic shooting all over Nashville this month and Hamilton is carving a healthy niche as film songwriter de jour with ditties in several recent films, including "American Gangster," "Step Up" and Tyler Perry's "Daddy's Little Girls."

And music-driven films were so popular here at the Fest that CAA agent John Huie was plaintively calling around town for last-minute tickets to the sold-out doc "Young@Heart." Too polite to pull rank and mention that his agency was a festival sponsor, one can only imagine what his tone would be should that situation arrive in the "Don't you know who I am!?!?!!" heart of Hollywood.