Published: May 02, 2009 12:06 am      

ENTERTAINMENT: Stars open the Buffalo Niagara Film Festival at the Riv

Classic cars, hula-hoopers and girls on skates rolling up and down Webster Street heralded the beginning of the Buffalo Niagara Film Festival Friday.

The ’50s theme was tied to the Riviera Theatre’s presentation of “American Graffiti,” the cinematic classic that put filmmaker George Lucas on the map. But Dick Delson, who has promoted films for decades, said “American Graffiti initially looked like a tough sell at its first small screening.

“When the movie came off the screen, everybody in the room hated it. Hated it,” Delson said. “But when they asked me, I said I loved it, and they asked “You loved it? Why did you love it?’ and I said, ‘Because it’s my childhood.’”

The studio handed it to Delson to promote, and the themes resonated just as strongly with the audience. The film helped catapult Cindy Williams to stardom, though she would become forever associated with the character she’d portray three years later on “Laverne & Shirley.” Williams was on hand at the Riviera along with Oscar-winner Louis Gossett Jr. to officially open the event. Gossett was still recovering from his late-night run-in with wings from the Anchor Bar, which he said were delicious but unexpectedly spicy. To that end, he had a word of caution for his fellow out-of-towners.

“You shouldn’t eat Buffalo wings just before you go to bed,” Gossett said. “I went around the world three or four times, and for a few of those I didn’t have a plane.”

All things considered, though, Gossett said spring is definitely the time to enjoy Western New York. He also has a film on the bill, 1985’s “Enemy Mine,” where Gossett plays an alien stranded on a planet with a human, played by Dennis Quaid. The movie featured more challenges for Gossett’s acting skills than performing in hours worth of special-effect makeup, he said.

“I had a baby in it, that’s movie trivia,” Gossett joked. “It really hurt.”

Gossett is also in “Left Behind: World at War,” another of the festival’s scheduled films. North Tonawanda Mayor Larry Soos proclaimed Friday Buffalo Niagara Film Festival Day and waxed nostalgic about his own experiences paying 15 cents to watch black and white — and eventually color — films at the old Avondale.

With that, hula hoop girls took to the streets and the film festival was open for business. Features, documentaries, shorts, student films and even music videos will grace the screen at the Riviera and the Market Arcade Film & Arts Center.

San Diego’s Rusty Trevino came to town for the showing of his short film, “The High Tower.” Trevino said he pored over famous and little known gangster films before creating his movie about a family of Chinese gangsters. He learned from the good and, unexpectedly, from the bad as well.

“In the bad ones, people try too hard to be cool and you lose the movie,” Trevino said. “They may be bad people, but they’re people, and some of those movies make these one-dimensional, vicious mobster characters.”

In his movie, the traditional one-last-heist plot takes an exotic turn, with the Chinese actors speaking Mandarin during their private moments to lend authenticity. That attention to detail has already helped the film claim Best Actress in a Short Film and Best Foreign Language Picture awards at the Bare Bones Film Festival in Oklahoma. Win or lose in Buffalo, Trevino said he’s enjoyed the experience of being in North Tonawanda.

“I’ve been telling everybody it’s like being in a Stephen King novel, because they’re all set in small Northeastern towns,” Trevino said. “But the people here are just nicer, and it’s a different pace than city life somewhere like New York or L.A.”

Contact reporter Daniel Pye at 693-1000, ext. 158.