We didn't quite make it onto the red carpet but we were at the tail end of the carpet, wedged between latinoreview.com and a film crew from the PSU Daily Vanguard. Talk about a weird night. The Vanguard kids made fun of the blog, Teri Hatcher offered a great response to my snarky question about Desperate Housewives, Dakota Fanning signed my copy of the book and we also talked to Phil Knight, Neil Gaiman and others. All the interviews will go up on the blog on Monday after I fulfill the duties of my day job and get some sleep.

The after-party at the Portland Art Museum was also pretty amazing, all pomp and glitz with Phil Knight and son holding court in a VIP section. Laika rolled in several of the sets and puppets from the movie in addition to the artists' workshops. The film's enormous "Pink Palace" served as the ballroom's centerpiece.

More to come. In the meantime, here's a Flickr gallery of photos from last night. A tip of the hat goes out to the folks at Focus, Laika, my photographer Pete who took all the red carpet photos and a certain PR rep who put us on the list and talked security out of dragging me out of the Schnitz after I ran down to Safeway for more batteries (Mr. Levy, if I'd known you could have had them. We got through the night without needing 'em).

Labels: Coraline, PIFF