Matt Damon, in town to shoot Martin Scorsese's ''The Departed," stopped by Restaurant L at Louis Boston in the Back Bay with his dad, Kent, the other night. Damon chatted up Louis's veep Maria Fei and L's chef Pino Maffeo for a while, complimenting them on the food and the decor.
It's hard to imagine anyone more comfortable than Van Sant with his present artistic course. He looked serene even in the face of viewer confusion. He told a story about "Gerry," a film difficult to discern, even for its stars, Damon and Affleck. "I had to talk Matt and Casey into signing off," he said, "because they were, like, 'Let's go back and shoot more stuff.' That was their reaction to watching the movie. And I said, 'Well, we could.' And Casey said, 'Maybe next Tuesday?' And I said: 'We could. I'm not sure. I really like it.' And Matt said, 'You mean you're fine with the movie like this?' And I said: 'Yeah. I think I really like it a lot.' And he said, 'Oh.' And Matt and Casey looked at each other and said, 'Huh.' And then they said, 'Hmmm.' They said, 'So we're not telling anybody what happened?' And I said, 'Yeah, but that's great.' Fortunately, I had people who were on my side. Because Casey and Matt, they wanted to make sure that the movie wasn't insane. Which it kind of is."
There's really nothing you can say to that, except "Huh." And "Hmmm." And maybe "Cool."
