Reel World

Point Break That was quite a little ruckus at the recent Tube Film Festival, the two-day smorgasbord of action sports flicks put on by ESPN -- with Adobe dough -- during the X Games. According to my good buddy and Tube Managing Director Ken Karn, Berkeley filmmaker Mike Shaw showed up in a froth because no one from the fest had invited him -- or even told him that his portrait of balls-out dirt-bike jumper Seth Enslow was screening. Turns out that 4 Leaf Entertainment, the L.A. company that funded Seth: The Hard Way and hired Shaw's Enuf Said Productions to make it, hadn't seen fit to mention Shaw or his partner, Chris Wilson. (Adding insult, 4 Leaf submitted a half-hour cut that omitted all credits.) Shaw promptly made a couple of late-night, long-distance calls to the real culprits before reaching a contrite and conciliatory 4 Leaf honcho.

From then on, Shaw was all sweetness and light, doing interviews and signing autographs. "Everybody knew him by the end of the two evenings," Karn said approvingly. "I like the filmmakers to have an active, high profile. They're the stars, and that's the kind of energy you want -- but can't guarantee -- at a festival." Here's the icing: Seth: The Hard Way received the jury award for best film in the festival.

From Dusk Till Dawn Juliette Lewis' hubby, skateboarder Steve Berra, is aiming for next year's X Games. (He's training, even as we speak.) Lewis has had a roller-coaster decade, from her '91 Oscar nomination (Cape Fear) to her current below-the-title billing in The Way of the Gun. The less said about that pointless crime drama the better, so I inquired about the anime character (My Melody) tattooed on the inside of her left wrist.

"It's a cute little tattoo, but now it's just annoying 'cause I have to cover it [with makeup] for work," the likable, vulnerable Lewis said. Didn't she know that when she got it seven years ago? "I did, but you know: youth. You don't often think in consequences. This should just say "youth' in rainbow colors." She added shyly, "I don't want to promote it because I don't want to encourage any youngsters to get tattoos."

Say AnythingWriter/director Cameron Crowe (Jerry Maguire, the most obnoxious and overrated movie in living memory) seems to be the quintessential nice guy, although I know people who are still seething over the cocky tone of his recent book, Conversations With Wilder. When Crowe came through town to chat up his first-person rock 'n' roll fantasy Almost Famous, I asked him what he learned from the great Billy Wilder.

"Anything I could," Crowe replied with a faint trace of mock humility. "In terms of making this movie, not a lot, because this is the movie that Billy didn't make: an autobiographical movie about his years as a journalist. I would be the first guy in line to see that movie. As you might see from reading the book, I'm trying to edge him into embracing that as a good idea, and he won't go there, ever." Crowe imitates Wilder, putting on a bad Germanic accent. "Who would see such a picture? Just the parents, and my parents are dead." Crowe's right: A nice picture, Almost Famous sure ain't Wilder.