The premiere of “In the Electric Mist” was terrific. The movie was shot in and around New Iberia, based on a book of the same name, written by nationally known author and part-time New Iberian, James Lee Burke.

The movie had lots of recognizable stars, with Tommy Lee Jones in the lead, John Goodman as the main bad guy, Mary Steenburgen, Ned Beatty and others you’ve seen in movies and on TV. It was fun seeing the familiar locations from the area and seeing people we recognized in various scenes.

Wife Gladys and I agreed we need to go back and watch the movie again, so we can see what we missed as sometimes we got distracted looking at the locations and at the faces in the background and missed a moment or two of the real focus of a particular scene.

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The movie was most entertaining, well worth seeing. And it was pretty flattering to our area, presenting some beautiful scenery and interesting characters without being insulting to Southerners or Cajuns as has been the case with many other films about this area.

As evidence of that, I noted that most all of the characters had decent teeth, something in short supply in many other films less flattering to our people.

The movie premiere and reception that followed benefited Southern Mutual Help Association, and was sold out.

Gladys and I got there early trying to make sure we got a good seat and got lucky as author James Lee Burke (he told me to call him Jim!) and his wife Pearl, and John Goodman were seated right in front of us.

Next to us was a couple we didn’t recognize so we introduced ourselves. We didn’t recognize the name but when the credits rolled, we noted that John Hardy, the fellow next to us, was the unit production manager for the film. He seemed pleased that Gladys made the connection.

I found it interesting, and cute, how Mr. Burke ... Jim ... laughed out loud or had other vocal responses to so many lines and scenes. He told me afterward he’d seen versions of the movie before but not this final cut. It’s got to be interesting to see your mind’s creation recreated by others in a movie and comparing your visualization to what the movie showed.

I didn’t get a chance to speak to John Goodman, but certainly appreciated that he came to this event and even more so, that he was such a good sport about talking to so many locals and having his picture taken with so many people. We hear so much about standoffish movie stars but John Goodman certainly was more than gracious in sharing himself and his time with those at Wednesday night’s event.

Stephen Hemelt, Heather Miller and Mary Catharine Martin did a great job getting stories with local reaction, comments from the stars, etc., and I think had a lot of fun in putting them together.

And Lee Ball took a lot of pictures at the premiere and posted a ton on our Web site, in addition to those used in the paper.

Also on our Web site are two chances for you to blog about the movie, one where we ask for your thoughts about the movie and the other where we’re asking you to help us recognize locations and individuals who are shown in various scenes.

WILL CHAPMAN is publisher of The Daily Iberian.