Last night, I attended the 11:30 opening night showing of Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy 2 at the Arclight Cinema in Sherman Oaks, CA. Seen leaving from the previous showing: Mike Elizalde of Spectral Motion.

Guillermo opened the film with a short introduction- He started with a couple of jokes about himself and his weight and then immediately began describing how the film was post-produced in a facility just a couple blocks from the theatre and how he liked the area’s restaraunts. Especially Cheesecake factory.

I couldn’t help noticing what an amazingly warm speaker he is – Guillermo is very confident, and speaks to the audience in attendance like he is speaking to someone he has known for years. Like he is speaking to a friend. Of course this also means you get the F-bomb wich I thought was terribly funny to hear in the squeaky-clean corporate-feel Arclight.

Guillermo went on to say that Hellboy 2 was (in a way) a long shot to be made. His agent and others said it was time to move on but he wanted to make another movie with Ron Pearlman, Doug Jones, and Selma BIair.  it was also only because the studio saw that there was potential after the fist film that they would consider making this kind of movie.

He told the audience about how he wanted to be less “conservative” during the making of this film than the first. He wanted to show more intimate moments with the characters in the BPRD.

“if you are going to do a super-hero movie, I wanted to show Alfred scrubbing out the nut-sack of the bat suit going… ‘Master Bruce you need to use the talcum powder’-you know, the real stuff”.

He did just that. Hellboy 2 is almost a voyeuristic look at the lives of these “freaks with a purpose”. Many times revealing that human nature is ugly, shallow and at times pointless and has you (even if it’s just for a minute or two) rooting for “the bad guy”,

Thank you Guillermo, I loved Hellboy 2′s delivery of real on screen monsters in the Troll Market, the very funny conversations between a tumor and it’s host and a troll with a Brooklyn accent. Thank you for the destructive yet beautiful elemental that brings Hellboy to question his place in the universe.  Thank you for the frighteningly beautiful Brom-like Princess and equally beautiful (yet destructive) Prince.

I also loved the “real life” moments between Abe, Liz and Red as they try to deal with a new outsider amongst them (Johann), issues of love, and conflicts of heart, concience and duty. Lastly, thank you for Selma Blair in her panties. Bravo!

Note to Arclight employees: When you have a “Special Guest” you might not want to be talking over them while the audience who PAYED to be there are trying to listen.