Peter's MoP gets a release of sorts amid tales of karaoke and babewatching

Little did I realise when I saw Sienna Miller standing outside a hotel in Toronto back in 2007 (wearing a quite astonishing hat that made onlookers remark to one another 'That's Sienna Miller, you can tell by the hat'), that she had completed a movie with fellow Torontonian visitor Peter Sarsgaard. Mysteries of Pittsburgh is one of those movies that fans of the Gyllengaard can appreciate - it gets finished (hopefully) and then you have to hang around for years on the offchance that it might actually reach the cinemas.


Mysteries of Pittsburgh - or MoP as another Gyllengaard tradition would have us call it - finally got its premiere in NYC this week, three years after filming. I hope we don't have to wait quite as long for Nailed but at least MoP is out. Or is it? MoP got its premiere at Sundance back in January 2008 and even now, despite the showbizzy premiere this week, it's unlikely to reach many theatres. According to Reuters, in an article where Peter and Sienna reflect on the slowdown in the Indie film industry, MoP will have a limited release tomorrow in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago and Minneapolis. There is a site that lists its DVD release in August.


An Education got its outing at Sundance in 2009 to the kind of critical acclaim that one hopes will get it a distributor and a wider release. At the moment, I'm feeling fortunate that I saw Elegy on a big screen. I'll feel more fortunate when I've done the same with Nailed, with Brothers even. One can see why Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal have done their Dark Knights and Princes of Persia.


Nevertheless, it's great to see Peter getting (almost) centre stage in the press, next to Sienna in her red dress and red lips. Sienna did get into a little trouble for a slip of the tongue regarding the name Pittsburgh (it's not hard to guess) and Peter came to her defence: 'Have you ever taped yourself while sitting around with a group of friends and then gone back to listen to it? It’s never fun. If I had said it, people would have laughed. I’m from St. Louis, and I’ve said all sorts of things about St. Louis. It’s also because she’s British and she’s a pretty girl, and the combination is deadly.' One wonders what he means...


Peter also reflects that MoP is older than Ramona and that karaoke took his mind off the worry: '"I did Behind Blue Eyes because it sounded very right for (character) Cleveland. That’s (karaoke) always good for chemistry."... "My 'wife' was about to have a baby and I was flying back every 10 minutes on a Seneca airplane and I’m a bad flyer."'


And some useful restaurant tips from Peter: 'The Brooklyn resident chose Park Slope trattoria Al di Là as his go-to spot. “It’s incredible Italian food. They don’t take reservations so you have to stand in line, but it’s really, really good,” he said, as Miller made a mental note to write the name of the restaurant down. “I also like going Marlow & Sons for a beer. You know, it’s a hip, happening crowd. It’s very sexy and cool, and always crowded. I like to sit at the bar and just babe watch.”'


And finally and memorably, one reporter from the New York Post had this to say about Peter after her 'interview': 'Peter Sarsgaard just possibly might be the most adorable, delicious, fun, talented, cute, lovable, lousiest interview I've ever had.' Her certainly charmed the socks off me when I met him.



I do hope that sooner rather than later we will all get to enjoy Peter's hairy Pittsburgh pain in the ass biker called Cleveland.


Includes pictures from Just Jared and Ace Showbiz.