Donttellmehowitends

Airplane Bloggin’: Maui Wowie

2012-01-18T00:29:00.001-08:00

Just a short entry, as I am hoping to fall asleep (with help from 10mg of diazepam and a double vodka bloody marie at Wolfgang Pucks, Terminal 7 LAX, and I recommend the pepporoni pizza with mushrooms highly), and as I have been blogging quite a bit lately, so there isn’t as much backnews on which to catch up.

After some hemming and hawing, I pulled the trigger on a trip to Maui with Charles. The ostensible purpose of the trip is oversight and structuring of the business around a prototype build for which our friend Dave P. arranged the financing. Dave P. is an environmental activities, with a huge solar farm on his property in Maui. He sells power back to the municipality after carving off what he needs. He’s also the former manager of Blues Traveller and the co-creator of the Horde Tour, which he sold to Clear Channel. He’s super tied into the music scenes and is a frequent attendee, with his posse of the exceedingly wealthy, exceedingly interesting (or both) in tow.

We’ll be staying on his property, where it is also planned that a camera monitoring system is to be installed to keep an eye of Jaws. I am not talking about Universal’s big mechanical shark of the past, but rather the biggest wave break in Maui (or maybe in Hawaii, I am not sure). Dave, who lives on the coastline abutting Jaws, gets hundreds of calls and texts in the morning when surfers from all over want to check in to see how Jaws is breaking that day. The idea here is to install a stream, sponsored for the sake of charity by surf gear and other companies, so that the avid surfers can stop burning up Dave’s cel every AM. Seems like a multi-tasked good cause. Hoping to get that up and running during the week we’ll be in Maui as well.

Finally, Charles, who’s becoming well-known to both of the readers of this blog, whether they comment or not, is doing a Ted talk. The Ted Conference was put on by a friend of Dave P’s, hence the connection. I haven’t attended a Ted talk yet, so maybe I’ll make my way over, though honestly the prospect of sitting in an auditorium when I could be out enjoying the sun and surf and waterfalls seems less than appealing.

With all of this in store, I jammed my backpack and a trusted carryon with a little bit of clothing and a ton of scuba gear. With a little luck, we’ll get the prototype built, the camera running and I’ll get narced ones or twice.

Not so grumpy today, but for the sake of consistency, that hobgoblin of little minds, I’ll bid you adieu as

Grumps.

Airplane Bloggin: Quetzalcoatl Stole My Pillow, Pt. 2

2012-01-16T11:02:00.001-08:00

Writing now from the semi-comfort of my somewhat chilly house in Venice, Ca.

I missed the second half of the Giant game, after seeing the G-Men take a 20-10 lead on a ridiculously defended hail mary pass at the end of the first half, at a Chili’s (really) in Guadalajara Airport. When we landed in Phoenix for our change, and I turned my phone on, I got a New York Times update about the Giants spanking the Pack (sorry Mark, Newman, Basch, it is what it is).

I also missed the Golden Globes on television (much less, going to any of the parties). Not that I am such a fan, but I usually watch. Sounds like some worthy movies took the gold.

To continue the blog I was writing before having to literally sprint on still semi-wounded ankle to catch the connection to LAX….

After the hacienda party (pics attached), we took the long bus ride back to the Riu Plaza hotel (which is very nice). I was exhausted, running on perhaps three hours of sleep over the previous two days, and I wasn’t going anywhere.

Until.

Charles, who had slept on the bus despite the cacophony, was downstairs telling me that I had to come downstairs, that quite a crowd had developed, including the girls who had been our chaperones the night before (and friends).

I rallied, I rose, I showered and I departed, sleepless still. Went downstairs to the hotel bar, where we had the local tequila, which they shoot with lime and salt just like in the states. Jada, who had been our hostess on the first night, was again there to provide, with a few of her close friends along for the trip. We didn’t even leave the hotel until after one thirty AM, and headed to Barra Bar, a baroque testament to Guadalajara nightlife, complete with a full assortment of disco and electronic and funny foam hats. Mind you, Jada did all this on a broken foot – making her a kindred spirit.

The second night ended earlier than the first. My best recollection is being asleep at around 5AM. Some of the crew were headed back to Bar Americanos at around 4AM but I was not just hitting a wall by then, I was burying myself underneath it. We bid goodbye to Jada, who went out for a late dinner with another of the BG crew, and I was asleep minutes after my head hit the pillow.

The next morning, Sunday, was brunch in the hotel, a bit of saying goodbye, and on the road. And now I am back in Venice, catching up on (blogging and) correspondence, and preparing to hit the road again on Wednesday, this time to Maui (at least I think so).

Til then, remaining yours, somewhat faithfully (what happens in Guadalajara stays in Guadalajara, didn’t you know)

Grumps.

Airplane Bloggin: Quetzalcoatl Stole My Pillow

2012-01-16T09:32:00.000-08:00

On the way back from a short jaunt in Guadelajara Mexico. Charles and I had grabbed a Friday afternoon commuter to Phoenix, and then the evening flight south into Mexico’s second largest city.

We were attending the ribbon cutting for a company with which Charles is involved, Blue Gold. Blue Gold’s tech basically purifies water, regardless of its toxicity or turbidity, and makes it usable for agriculture, industry, drinking. Pretty important stuff. The pilot project actually is taking leachate water from a dumpsite and making it usable for agriculture. And a single mobile plant churns out enough water to keep a small city in ice cubes.

But lets take a step back. On our arrival, and meeting some of the BG folks, we went out on the town in Guadelajara. First stop was a rock club, Old Jack’s, with a more than passable cover band barking out music, quite adeptly, as varied as The Doors, Coldplay and Kings of Leon. We tossed a few back, Grumpy made a friend J, and then we headed to an underground club, Bar Americanos, in a warehouse type space. With the assistance of your friendly neighborhood bartended, and a change to central time zone, somehow we were out til almost 6AM, before retreating to the hotel for perhaps three hours of sleep before jumping on the bus to the ribbon cutting.

For obvious reasons, I was a bit piqued in the morning, and directly following the speeches and ceremony we headed out to a hacienda owned by a local (Mexican) business partner, where we were plied with tequila (I abstained at the party), which was actually invented in Jalisco, the state where Guadelajara is. I know, pretty cool. There was a dance show, more mariachi than you could shake a senorita at, and a lovely outdoor meal. I somehow avoided full on grumpster mode due to fatigue, at least until we got back on the bus for the 90 minute ride back to hotel (expletives regarding behavior of tequila-induced maniacs excised).

Landed in Phoenix – Blogger Interuptus. TBC.

Airplane Bloggin’: South of Border Edition

2012-01-15T14:52:00.000-08:00

(posted days late from Guadelajara Airport on the way back to Estados Unidos)

I have to begin by apologizing. To the crickets. Yes, I’ll acknowledge that I haven’t much of a readership. That’s OK – I write for me, just like Ivan Drago. Yes, just like that. I am the Ivan Drago of bloggers. I have no idea what that means.

I am currently on the way to Guadelajara, Mexico, which, for the geographically undistinguished, is the second largest city in Mexico, a very distant second. I am going with Charles, who’s been previously described in this space as truly the most interesting man in the world. He hasn’t done anything to lower my estimation in that regard, and my presence on this trip bears testament.

We are headed to Guadelajara because Charles is a partner in a technology company that is providing a clean water solution to a part of the world that desperately needs it. In fairness, most of the world needs it, but Guadelajara is as good a place to start as any. I’m assuming I’ll even be able to post this at my hotel – it looked nice enough online. I’m sure they have the internet in Guadelajara, right?) The ribbon cutting for the installation of this technology is tomorrow – with environmental bigwigs and financial titans with an environmental bent apparently circumventing the globe to attend. Prince of Monaco, supposedly, that sort of person. Me? Well, I am basically attending as what…? Moral support? Legal safety valve? Charles’ caddy? Whatever, it seems like an amazing development and I’m happy to be invited (and on someone else’s dime). THe big issue is going to be whether I can find a place to watch the Giants deep in southern Mexico. Got my doubts. I’ve been amped up on football (not futbol) quite a bit more than usual the past month, so I’ll be disappointed not to be able to watch the whole game. However, some things need to take precendence.

In other news, the environmental technology company with which I am involved has rented a corporate apartment in Las Vegas. Charles and I are the primary residents to be. Its nothing fancy, but its clean, quiet, everything works and there is good water pressure (I’m very big on good water pressure). It does mean though, after a short hiatus of seven months, I am once again splitting time between two cities. It was Albuquerque and LA before this, and before that, LA and NYC. Vegas is a bit closer, a four hour drive at the right time of day (perhaps a bit more), but once again I’ll be back and forth it seems. Not necessarily my life’s dream or preference, but as I said before, some things have to take precedence.

I flew from Miami with the folks (three weeks all in) straight back to Vegas for work, and spent last week at the Flamingo (5/10 on the yikes factor) before the corporate apartment was ready. One night there and we left for LA. I got a whole, lets call it, forty hours in Venice before getting the call on Mexico. I’m not complaining, and I was actually getting a bit bored sitting in Venice for the day on Thursday. Charles, interesting man that he us, came to the rescue, and so this too, should be interesting.

I’ll let you know.

Airplane Bloggin’: Too Tired to Name This Edition

2011-12-15T03:11:00.000-08:00

Whirlwind? Well, its been more methodical, more drudgery that that would imply. Yes, the word whirlwind has a nice romanticism, but it doesn’t convey the coach class compression that has defined my flights bookending the last twenty four hours, or the schedule compression that defined the time between.

I woke up early this AM (well, early for me) in Las Vegas, where I’ve been for the past (I have to look at the calender to know how many) ten days. Went to the airport (thanks, Angela and Eric for the lodgings yet again, and for the ride to LAS) so that I could fly back to Los Angeles on the 8:40 on the Grumpster’s favorite airline, the egalitarian and efficient SouthWest.

On the ground before ten AM, I said hello to my home, which I haven’t seen since the Monday after Thanksgiving. Unpacked a bit, returned some correspondence via email, and jumped on a conference call with two scientists and a high level manager of a multinational conglomerate. I could tell you what the call was about, but then I’d have to kill myself. Or at least delete this entry. So I won’t.

That was followed by a meeting with my newest clients, Green Planet Productions, the folks behind the film, Fuel, and their recent entry, The Big Fix, about the BP oil spill, the damage it has done, and the subsequent cover-up by one of the world’s most profitable companies. Love those green signs at your gas stations, boys.

After the Green Planet meeting, I headed over to Tunnel to finalize some paperwork for another client’s new venture, before meeting Mario the composer at an Irish Pub for a happy hour dinner. Mario had some things he’d wanted to discuss, I hadn’t seen him as I haven’t been in LA to see him (and I thought I could co-opt this into a ride to LAX, something Mario was more than happy to provide). He’s been doing the score for Lee Daniels’ follow-up to Precious, a thrilled called The Paperboy, which stars Nicole Kidman, John Cusack, Zak Efron and Matthew McConaughey. I was glad he was able to make time.

I spend a good deal of time these days thinking and talking about environmental technology and the environment in general. One of the books that I am currently reading is Greg Palast’s Vulture’s Picnic. It’s investigative journalism, with a Sam Spade wink, from a truly entertaining and informed writer who is looking very hard at the world’s petrofinancial industry, with a focus on the BP Gulf Deepwater Horizon disaster and its historical precedents in Alaska and the Caspian sea. I mention this primarily because I am most of the way through a redeye flight (yes, this is all one day) to Miami from LAX, on a ticket I booked when I thought I’d be much less busy. Its so rare that I fall asleep cramped in a coach seat, particularly when I am stuck in a row with two big guys (don’t get me started on the perverse humor that must, I swear, must exist, when seat assignments are made). However, I did fall asleep, only to wake up, look out the window hours into the flight, and see the lights of boats and other structures (oil rigs, couldn’t say) in the Gulf.

I am still wiped out regardless of the three hour snooze, and I am looking forward to getting into the guest bedroom at my families’ place in Miami Beach and making a full morning of catching up on the missed sleep. When I booked the ticket, I hadn’t expected to have been in NY eleven days prior, but its still nice to see my folks the extra time (they just arrived in Miami today, er, yesterday, I don’t entirely know what day it is). I didn’t get even a single night (or a nap) in my own bed in the twelve hours I spent in LA, but that’s OK. What I am doing has meaning, I like for the most part all of the people with whom I am spending my time, and the future is exciting.

Wonder if I can get back to sleep for the last forty minutes of the flight.

Grumps.

Airplane Bloggin’ – Back to Sin City

2011-12-06T15:49:00.000-08:00

What a long strange trip its been.

Not so long, actually, but I enjoy the reference. Over the past week, I’ve passed through Pittsburgh to visit with a multinational corporation’s physicists, then onto DC where I met with, among others, Clinton’s Secretary of Agriculture, visited the Indonesian Embassy (I missed the Ambassador but others from our group had an audience), and saw out mission reach the House of Representatives and the Senate. I spent a full day at Jones Day, the preeminent intellectual property law firm (OK, well, maybe that doesn’t sound so exciting, though they did take us out for drinks after) and drank Russian vodka in a Dupont Circle bar, poured by a drop-dead Meryl Streep look-alike (when Meryl was 25). Notably, I met the mistress of the blog Diary of Why , and we shared an evening bloggin’ in person, over beer (and champagne). I assure you all, there is a good reason why.

I’m currently on the plane back to Vegas, to company HQ’s, with the man I’ve coined “the real most interesting man in the world,” an appellation to which the Mistress of Why agreed after a brief interview with him. The world’s most interesting man is actually asleep in the window seat (to my aisle), and so I can describe him with no fear of intervention :P.

Charles is a blue blood scion of American corporate royalty, coming from the Pan Am legacy. He is a former (well, not so former sometimes, like at the Mint a month ago) rockstar, an expatriate on the run for twenty years from charges against him (now expunged), a boat captain, an airplane pilot, a technical Flir photographer of much merit, the true producer of the movie (and the daredevil therein) The Cove (and if you haven’t seen it, see it, immediately – no excuses, it streams on Netflix), and a magnet for all global environmental issues. His rolodex includes other rockstars, heads of state, billionaires business magnets, world renowned scientists, royalty and Johnny Depp. He can outdrink you, outsmoke you and play a blistering guitar. He lives the life of a 1 percenter on the income of a 99 percenter. And he doesn’t want anything from you except perhaps friendship and a shared point of view.

In NYC, which we reached via Acela from DC, just in time for The Big Fix premiere (please google and check it out, very important doco about BP’s continuing destruction of our environment), I had time to see my parents, some close friends (like Ibo and Elicia), to take in with Newman the most exciting football game I (and probably most of the crowd) have ever attended, even though my Giants lost to the Pack), and dine with a quite charming member (a friend of Charles, of course) of the royal family of Monaco, all in a seventy two hour period. I spent a few hours with one of the top lawyers in America, a bit of time on the phone with another with whom I used to work, and even more importantly, got to see Drew’s lovely, brilliant young daughters, a sterling reminder of why I am doing what I am doing.

Also, I’ve heard several times over the past few days from my EX (capitalized to emphasize that she’s the only one I’d refer to in this capacity). The tumultuousness of that relationship still well, in mind, it appears that détente may be on her mind. Ambivalence is what is on mine. Hold fast.

And now, back to Las Vegas, where this journey all began just a few short months ago (not surprisingly due to Charles’ introduction). Its not full circle, as the journey has hardly begun. Lots of travel appears to be on tap, a tremendous amount of safeguarding and business development to be done. Stops in Monte Carlo, Guadalajara, and Switzerland loom on the horizon. What a long strange trip it promises to be.

Airplane Bloggin’: The World’s An Open Book.

2011-11-28T15:47:00.000-08:00

Flying at the moment from LA to Pittsburgh for meetings with a big company, on behalf of my newest client. An inventor. Truly groundbreaking stuff that I cannot yet disclose. Let’s just say that, if everythings works according to plan, the world could potentially be a very different, better place in the not-so-distant future. Hoping to see that happen, and I may have as much work as I can handle as well, which will be nice after a slow work year.

After said Pittsburgh jaunt, off the D.C. While I haven’t ever been to Pittsburgh (though I have heard nice things from my friends who’ve visited), over the years I’ve spent a fair amount of time in Washington. However, I haven’t been there in perhaps ten years or more (honestly, I can’t really recall when I was last there). When I was with Cadwalader, I spent a fair amount of time in DC as one of the partners for whom I worked was based in DC. Before that, I’d progressed pretty far in a job search with another firm in DC, Miller & Chevalier, and before that, my brother Scott and good friend David had lived in Alexandria, and I’d been down to visit more than once. It was also a frequent stop for tax conferences (exciting, yes, I know, please calm down) and training seminars.

Back then, D.C. had the reputation of being a very female-laden, centric, heavy, I don’t know. Lotsa girls. And lots of gay men, which helped the “ratio” even more. Guys know what I mean, its how many of us picked the colleges we attended. For real. Hehe.

So wondering, after speaking with a friend this AM about how DC has changed over the last ten years, gentrified and become more broadly inhabitable, how much the city has changed demographically. Not that I’ll necessarily notice in two days, but we’ll see. I will be seeing my close friend, Drew, who works in some kind of high finance job splitting time between DC and NYC. ~~He’s getting us in, it seems, on a corporate rate at the Mandarin Oriental, so thanks for that, Drew.~~ Nevermind that, I just checked prices on DC Hotel Rooms, and the prices are extraordinarily low for decent hotels within the district. $67 for a room in Dupont Circle? Hard to believe.

In any event, I am looking forward to seeing D.C. again, and to move this client forward. Exciting things going on, for me, for you (though you don’t know it yet), and I hope to be able to share more in the near future.

Grumps.

Repost - Interesting on Blogs

2011-11-15T09:34:00.001-08:00

Walt Disney Co. has acquired New York-based Babble Media Inc., a parenting site that features advice about pregnancy, child development and related topics from some 200 mommy bloggers.

The Burbank entertainment giant has been acquiring family-focused websites in recent years, as its struggling Disney Interactive Media Group seeks to build out its online offerings for parents.

Babble, launched in 2006 by husband-and-wife team Rufus Griscom and Alisa Volkman, attracts about 2.1 million monthly visitors -- about 483,000 of whom are women with children ages 2 to 17, according to Nielsen.

Blogs have become a vital source of information for women with children. The research firm EMarketer estimates that 54% of the 32 million mothers who go online in the U.S. every month visit blogs.

"This is an audience where there's a lot of loyal, faithful readers," said Debra Aho Williamson, an online analyst for EMarketer who wrote an October 2010 report about moms who blog. "People tend to gravitate towards certain bloggers ... and comment regularly on what they're reading. It's a very tight-knit community."

Major media companies have been in hot pursuit of mothers. Nickelodeon plans to launch NickMom, a nightly block of programs aimed at parents, late next year. It will be accompanied by a website, Nickelodeon's ParentsConnect.com, to dispense parenting advice.

Disney has been assembling its own collection of mom-focused websites for years, to bolster its network of family-oriented Internet offerings. It acquired iParenting Media's collection of websites in late 2007, and two years later paid $23.3 million to buy Kaboose Inc., a Canadian family-focused media group.

"Disney is all about moms and kids. It's a great place for them to 'play,'" said Mike Vorhaus, president of Magid Advisors consulting group.

The latest deal, for which terms were not disclosed, Disney gains a site that was named one of the 50 best of 2010 by Time magazine. Its stable of bloggers write on a range of parenting topics. Recent contributions include "I'm Jealous of My Nanny," "20 Sleepover Party Recipes" and "How to Buy and Use a Family Camera."

"With more than 3.9 million mom blogs in the U.S. alone, Disney Interactive recognizes and values the important and powerful role moms have taken on in new media," Brooke Chaffin, senior vice president of Moms and Family for the company's interactive media group, said in a statement.

Disney declined to comment. Babble did not immediately respond to a request for an interview.

Cold Weather In California and Other Non-Sequiturs

2011-09-22T14:51:00.000-07:00

This just in. Venice is cold. And I've become a warm-weather wimp. Its still September, I am all-ashiver about how cold I'm going to be come winter-time. I actually can see wearing some of my heavier NYC wardrobe.

Its been overcast and in the mid-sixties for the past week, and I'm bundled up like a grandmother. Been out and about just a little bit, headed to Gold's Gym, which I joined because it was close and much nicer than the terrible and depressing LA/Marina Fitness in Marina del Rey. Back to yoga, cardio, weight-lifting. Slow-going getting back into shape...Also (and not helping the getting back in shape thing) went with Mike K., my neighbor and a friend from high school, to the newly-opened beer hall on Lincoln, Wurstkuche (umlauts omitted), for some snausages and litres of beer (they come in litres?? (obscure tweaked movie reference, five movie geek points for getting the reference). It was fun, and we ran into the managers of Baby Blues, the BBQ joint across the street, checking out their new neighbors, and bought them a round for making some really wonderful BBQ very close to home.

Work has been slow this month, so I am spending too much time netsurfing and not enough time being productive. Sound familiar. Things have seemingly started to pick up though, and its not like I don't have things around the house (still no maid) that I could be doing more productive than playing stupid games on FB. The games aren't even that much fun, they just provide something to do. I had an invitation to head back to Vegas for another four or five days, but I passed, as I should be looking for more lucrative opportunities, regardless of missed fun.

Been quiet - and hence, boring blog entry. I'll try to be more fascinating next time.

Grumps

What I'm Watching

2011-09-20T23:46:00.000-07:00

Netflucks (the moniker that seems to be sticking to this pr-deprived enterprise) certainly makes it easy to remember - they give you a list of everything you've watched. Without further ado...

Q&A (Sidney Lumet, amazing performances, which tends to go without saying in a Sidney Lumet movie) (not netflix btw)
Bill Cunningham New York (Richard Press) (excellent doco on NYT street fashion photog.)
Still Waiting (Jeff Balis) - cause I liked the first, your fairly standard gross out comedy, not bad, not the first though, though far better than say the Harold and Kumar sequel. Balis, an indie producer based in LA, was incidentally the guy fired off Season two of Project Greenlight (the one with Shia LeBeof)
The Expendables (Sly Stallone) - have a client who may be in the new one, due diligence, not without its entertainment value, not exactly a rumination on existentialism, and in fairness not trying to be
Alice In Wonderland (Tim Burton) - no doubt I am the last person ~~in the US~~ on the planet to see this and you all have your own opinions, but I found it pretty breathtaking, and Helena Bonham Carter rocks it out
Running the Sahara (James Moll - doco) - not bad. Incongruous Matt Damon narration.
Hobo With A Shotgun (Jason Eisener) - Not bad, worth the watch, I think this director has a future.
and
Bronson (Nicholas Winding Refn) - Really knocked me out, as did Tom Hardy, who I met right after this film came out in the US at a pool on the roof of some WeHo hotel. (Nice guy, wasn't very happy about how Bronson got treated by its distributor, or how he got treated. He was already hanging with Leo and the Inception crew by then, so I imagine he got over it soon enough). So Kubrick-like thats both its most amazing and probably most attackable attribute. I was pretty much stopped in my tracks. A must see.

And the Emmy Award Winners (Cave-dweller, pt. 2)

2011-09-19T11:33:00.000-07:00

COMEDY SERIES

* Modern Family (ABC)The Big Bang Theory (CBS)

Glee (Fox)

The Office (NBC)

Parks & Recreation (NBC)

30 Rock (NBC)

DRAMA SERIES

* Mad Men (AMC)Boardwalk Empire (HBO)

Dexter (Showtime)

Friday Night Lights (DirecTV/NBC)

Game of Thrones (HBO)

The Good Wife (CBS)

MOVIE OR MINISERIES

* Downton Abbey (PBS)

Cinema Verité (HBO)

The Kennedys (Reelz)

Mildred Pierce (HBO)

Pillars of the Earth (Starz)

Too Big To Fail (HBO)

ACTRESS IN A MOVIE OR MINISERIES

* Kate Winslet, Mildred Pierce (HBO)

Diane Lane, Cinema Verité (HBO)

Elizabeth McGovern, Downton Abbey (PBS)

Taraji P. Henson, Taken From Me: The Tiffany Rubin Story (Lifetime)

Jean Marsh, Upstairs Downstairs (PBS)

SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A MOVIE OR MINISERIES

* Guy Pearce, Mildred Pierce (HBO)

Tom Wilkinson, The Kennedys (Reelz)

Brian F. O'Byrne, Mildred Pierce (HBO)

Paul Giamatti, Too Big to Fail (HBO)

James Woods, Too Big to Fail (HBO)

ACTOR IN A MOVIE OR MINISERIES

* Barry Pepper, The Kennedys (Reelz)

Edgar Ramirez, Carlos (Sundance)

Greg Kinnear, The Kennedys (Reelz)

Idris Elba, Luther (BBC America)

Laurence Fishburne, Thurgood (HBO)

William Hurt, Too Big to Fail (HBO)

DIRECTING FOR MINISERIES, MOVIE OR DRAMATIC SPECIAL

* Brian Percival, Downton Abbey (PBS)

Olivier Assayas, Carlos (Sundance)

Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, Cinema Verite (HBO)

Todd Haynes, Mildred Pierce (HBO)

Curtis Hanson, Too Big to Fail (HBO)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A MOVIE OR MINISERIES

* Maggie Smith, Downton Abbey (PBS)

Evan Rachel Wood, Mildred Pierce (HBO)

Melissa Leo, Mildred Pierce (HBO)

Mare Winningham, Mildred Pierce (HBO)

Eileen Atkins, Upstairs Downstairs (PBS)

WRITING FOR A MINISERIES OR DRAMATIC SPECIAL

* Julian Fellowes, Downton Abbey (PBS)

Todd Haynes and Jon Raymond, Mildred Pierce (HBO)

Steven Moffat, Sherlock: A Study in Pink (PBS)

Peter Gould, Too Big To Fail, HBO

Heidi Thomas, Upstairs Downstairs (PBS)

ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES

* Kyle Chandler, Friday Night Lights (DirecTV)

Steve Buscemi, Boardwalk Empire (HBO)

Michael C. Hall, Dexter (Showtime)

Jon Hamm, Mad Men (AMC)

Hugh Laurie, House (Fox)

Timothy Olyphant, Justified (FX)

ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES

* Julianna Margulies, The Good Wife (CBS)

Kathy Bates, Harry's Law (NBC)

Connie Britton, Friday Night Lights (DirecTV)

Mireille Enos, The Killing (AMC)

Mariska Hargitay, Law & Order: SVU (NBC)

Elisabeth Moss, Mad Men (AMC)

DIRECTING IN A DRAMA SERIES

* Martin Scorsese, Boardwalk Empire (HBO)

Jeremy Podeswa, Boardwalk Empire (HBO)

Neil Jordan, The Borgias (Showtime)

Tim Van Patten, Game of Thrones (HBO)

Patty Jenkins, The Killing (AMC)

SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES

* Peter Dinklage, Game of Thrones (HBO)

Andre Braugher, Men of a Certain Age (TNT)

Josh Charles, The Good Wife (CBS)

Alan Cumming, The Good Wife (CBS)

Walton Goggins, Justified (FX)

John Slattery, Mad Men (AMC)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES

* Margo Martindale, Justified (FX)

Christine Baranski, The Good Wife (CBS)

Michelle Forbes, The Killing (AMC)

Christina Hendricks, Mad Men (AMC)

Kelly Macdonald, Boardwalk Empire (HBO)

Archie Punjabi, The Good Wife (CBS)

WRITING FOR A DRAMA SERIES

* Jason Katims, Friday Night Lights (DirecTV)

David Benioff, Game of Thrones (HBO)

Veena Sud, The Killing (AMC)

Matthew Weiner, Mad Men (AMC)

Andre Jacquemetton, Mad Men (AMC)

DIRECTING FOR A VARIETY MUSICAL OR COMEDY SERIES

* Don Roy King, Saturday Night Live (NBC)

Jerry Foley, Late Night With David Letterman (CBS)

Gregg Gelfand, American Idol (Fox)

James Hoskinson, The Colbert Report (Comedy Central)

Chuck O'Neil, Daily Show With Jon Stewart (Comedy Central)

VARIETY MUSICAL OR COMEDY SERIES

* The Daily Show With Jon Stewart (Comedy Central)The Colbert Report (Comedy Central)

Conan (TBS)

Late Night With Jimmy Fallon (NBC)

Real Time With Bill Maher (HBO)

Saturday Night Live (NBC)

WRITING FOR A VARIETY, MUSICAL OR COMEDY SERIES

* The Daily Show With Jon Stewart (Comedy Central)

Saturday Night Live (NBC)

The Colbert Report (Comedy Central)

Late Night With Jimmy Fallon (NBC)

Conan (TBS)

REALITY COMPETITION SERIES

* The Amazing Race (CBS) American Idol (Fox)

Dancing With the Stars (ABC)

Project Runway (Lifetime)

So You Think You Can Dance (Fox)

Top Chef (Bravo)

COMEDY SERIES DIRECTING

* Michael Alan Spiller, Modern Family (ABC)

Gail Mancuso, Modern Family (ABC)

Pamela Fryman, How I Met Your Mother

Steven Levitan, Modern Family (ABC)

Beth McCarthy-Miller, 30 Rock (NBC)

ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES

* Melissa McCarthy, Mike & Molly (CBS)

Edie Falco, Nurse Jackie (Showtime)

Tina Fey, 30 Rock (NBC)

Laura Linney, The Big C (Showtime)

Martha Plimpton, Raising Hope (Fox)

Amy Poehler, Parks & Recreation (NBC)

ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES

* Jim Parsons, The Big Bang Theory (CBS)

Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock (NBC)

Louis C.K., Louie (FX)

Steve Carell, The Office (NBC)

Johnny Galecki, The Big Bang Theory (CBS)

Matt LeBlanc, Episodes (Showtime)

COMEDY SERIES WRITING

* Steve Levitan, Jeffrey Richman, Modern Family (ABC)

Louis C.K, Louis (FX)

Greg Daniels, The Office (NBC)

Matt Hubbard, 30 Rock (NBC)

David Crane, Jeffrey Klarik, Episodes (Showtime)

SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES

* Ty Burrell, Modern Family (ABC)

Chris Colfer, Glee (Fox)

Jon Cryer, Two and a Half Men (CBS)

Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Modern Family (ABC)

Ed O'Neill, Modern Family (ABC)

Eric Stonestreet, Modern Family (ABC)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES

* Julie Bowen, Modern Family (ABC)

Jane Krakowski, 30 Rock (NBC)

Jane Lynch,Glee (Fox)

Sofia Vergara, Modern Family (ABC)

Betty White, Hot in Cleveland (TV Land)

Kristin Wiig, Saturday Night Live (NBC)

Some TIFF Awards Stuff (in case you live in a cave and only have this page bookmarked)

2011-09-19T11:25:00.001-07:00

Toronto Winners

Cadillac People’s Choice Award
Nadine Labaki-directed Where Do We Go Now?

Cadillac People’s Choice Award For Documentary
Jon Shenk-directed The Island President

Cadillac People’s Choice Award For Midnight MadnessGareth Evans-directed The Raid

City of Toronto and Astral Media’s The Movie Network Award For Best Canadian FeaturePhilippe Falardeau-directed Monsieur Lazhar

Skyy Vodka Award For Best Canadian First Feature FilmNathan Morlando-directed Edwin Boyd

FIPRESCI Prize For Special Presentations SectionGianni Amelio-directed The First Man

FIPRESCI Prize For Discovery ProgrammeAxel Petersen-directed Avalon (Sweden)

Best Canadian Short FilmIan Harnarine-directed Doubles With Slight Pepper

Ahhh, (Back In) Venice

2011-09-13T11:00:00.000-07:00

And boy are my arms tired.

OK, sorry.

It's nice to be home. But home is a serious mess. To housekeeper, or not to housekeeper, that is the question. Whether tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of multiple dust-bunnies...

You get the point.

Airplane Bloggin’: Winds of the North – Air Canada Blows

2011-09-12T15:56:00.000-07:00

(posted from the ground)

After an eventful weekend at the Toronto Film Festival, I am approximately five and a half hours into my purportedly five hour trip back to Los Angeles (read: Venice). Air Canada, hospice to surly flight attendants and a bulwark against oppressive airline Wi-Fi, kindly let us passengers on the 10:25 flight back to LA that the flight would be “en retard” (I am not making this up, nor is my command of Ontarian French strong enough to disregard the obvious synergies) for an additional deux heures. Of course, it might have been more helpful to let us know this most valuable information more than five minutes before the original boarding time for the flight. Hey, well at least Pearson had wi-fi, Starbucks and multiple other diversions, like Woody Harrelson walking around in an orange t-shirt (inadvertently?) promoting some kind of fresh fruit juice.

Yeah, I know.

After getting in on Friday, Mario Grigorov (composer and pianist of much ability, and famed thanks to his memorable scoring of the terrific academy-award-winning Precious) cabbed it downtown to the Metropolitan, which is not to be confused with the much more tony Soho Metropolitan. Our Metropolitan was the relatively-low budget version of a downtown Toronto hotel, serviceable and residing in the less than luxurious range north of a Best Western, and well south of a Hilton, not to mention the Hyatt Regency, which serves as TIFF’s headquarters. Livable, a bit scabrous, perhaps a tad bit far from the festival’s headquarters at the Hyatt, but with running water, wifi and mostly free from (i) pests, (ii) excessive street noise and (iii) recently-updated lobby furniture (honestly, I had a nicer couch in law school). Still, they make a mean Maker’s Mark Manhattan (neat, thanks) and I ran into the ever-cool Bill Duke (Predators) in the lobby. So I’ll assign a passing grade and presume upon some lobby improvements.

After getting to the hotel and grabbing a shower, we met up with the Tunn3l team for whom I am consulting these days and headed over to Queens Quay for a beer at a nice outdoor bar, before the Brooklyn Brother’s (a TIFF title) party. Mario, Kyle, Jay, Matt and I rolled into the place where we were literally inundated with free shots, drinks, pretty decent-yet-low-cholesterol-diet-breaking-appetizers, and a live music show featuring the eponymous Brooklyn Brother’s band from the movie, led by Ryan O’Nan on guitar and guest performances by Arielle Kebbel, Jeremy Renner and Jason Ritter. Ryan directed Brooklyn Bros. as well as starred in it, and posted it at Tunn3l’s post-facility in Santa Monica. Coincidentally, he is starring in and co-writing Life, an upcoming film that was co-written by one of my very closest friends, who also happens to be named Ryan.

The sound system at the party venue was screwed, or the mixer was on two tabs of acid, I couldn’t tell which. Regardless, it made the acoustics, shall we say, challenging, and Ryan, though a gentleman, seemed rightfully frustrated. Riding on fumes by about 2AM, and despite having been playfully accosted by a cute, green-card seeking blonde Canadian waitress with a longing for Orange Country, CA, I was more than ready when we grabbed a cab back to the hotel.

Saturday morning, the Tunn3l guys (OK, I am not writing it like that anymore, fair warning) headed over to a breakfast morning. Mario and I ventured over to the Hyatt to check out all things “festive” and catch up with the guys after their breakfast. They had additional meetings and then had to deal with sleep deprivation, so Mario and I padded down some Toronto thoroughfare with a unintelligible and clearly memorable (not) name like Spirudana or something, and headed into Toronto’s very fine Chinatown. Thirty one Canadian dollars (an even swap for the greenback these days) of dim-sum later, Mario and I had to walk off the starch, sodium and various mystery ingredients, so we waddled our way back to the hotel. Mario then departed for a screening while I grabbed a nap, despite gorgeous Toronto afternoon sunshine. Plans for later were still being formulated.

Saturday night the guys (sans Mario, who attended some chic private dinner at a restaurant called Crème in Yorkville with Rob Lowe) hit the ICM party at a chic little venue, newly-opened and with the filmic name, F stop. The name made me wonder if it was a venue temporarily opened for TIFF, but apparently that’s the somewhat unfortunate name of this nicely-appointed spot. With a well-appreciated open bar and no shortage of cocktail waitresses who easily could have passed as the next crop of ICM starlets, we had a good time for a few hours enjoying the buzz of vodka and bourbon. Ryan O’Nan showed up and spilled some background on his directing debut. We made a pit stop with Jay’s friend and sometime-partner, Pat Murphy, at a middling French bistro next door before calling it a night at around 2AM once again. The Malbec was good, at least.

Sunday morning, Mario and I, reunited, headed out to find repast, with the Tunnel guys at yet another breakfast meeting. We discovered a Torontian version of Eggs Benedict, which used shrimp rather than ham. I actually ordered it inadvertently, but happily survived the experience without complaint.

Sunday, being the first full day of American football, yielded a quick stroll through the Hyatt lobby, where I reencountered a group of friendly rfilmmakers at TIFF in support of their well-reviewed South African film, Lucky. Congrats to the British director and the film’s Rochester-based producing team on their very impressive Hollywood Reporter review. I look forward to talking with them soon, as well as seeing the humanistic Lucky.

This peremptory stop didn’t last long, as kickoff loomed for the 1PM NFL games (being on EST definitely has its benefits – watching football at 10AM in California still seems an awkward endeavor to me). We headed to that bastion of American football, Wayne Gretskies (o.k., well, maybe not, but they had every game on), congregated with other American’s jonesing after the interminable NFL offseason. Even Mario joined us, though I can’t say that his Iranian/Bulgarian/Australian upbringing made him particularly interested in the outcomes of the games or in the Bloody Caesars, which I learned from another cute, California-lovin’, green-card seeking, Canadian waitress (not making this up, truly, and a brunette this time) is considered by some to be the national cocktail of Canada. After a lifetime without Clamato (best I can recall), I’ve now had a Bloody Caesar twice in the last two weeks (the first was courtesy of Cove producer Charles Hambleton in Las Vegas). The largely TIFF-laden American crowd included Kevin Iwashina of Preferred Content, Kevin Kasha (Anchor Bay) and Michael Roban (IM Global). I wouldn’t have been surprised if a few acquisitions were made right there at Gretskies back tables, amongst the poutine and the hockey sticks.

We hightailed it after the early games (sorry about your Browns, Matt, no doubt you’re sorrier about my Giants) back to the Metropolitan to prepare for Kyle’s film’s premiere, the Marc Forster-directed Machine Gun Preacher. I got stuck waiting outside for Matt Berman, producer from Brooklyn Brothers, who arrived quite late after ending his screening for his movie at another venue. We made it to our seats just before the lights went down, though, so no harm, no foul.

The movie was really well-done, with Gerard Butler going above and beyond, Michael Shannon excellent as usual, a great supporting cast and nary a dry eye in the house by the end of the screening. A packed Roy Thompson hall gave an extended standing ovation to the film at its conclusion. Congrats to everyone involvd are in order.

From there, Matt, an investor-client of his, and I killed some time at a pub near the theater before heading to meet Kyle and Jay, who had been attending the private dinner for the Preacher cast and producers. We met them outside the CAA party at bungalow 8 in some semi-seedy neighborhood on Queens W, but as I am apt to do in the event of potential door drama, I left the group rather than wait outside with the maddening throng. (I was informed this morning that I really didn’t miss much, in any event, which I’ll happily accept as the truth.) The idea of yet another party full of Hollywood agents seemed less attractive than a few additional hours of shut-eye in advance of an early morning trip to the airport for the flight home. If only Air Canada had let me know that I could have slept an additional two hours in the morning before heading to Pearson. En retard, indeed.

In any event, I’m halfway back to Los Angeles, I have an empty middle seat next to me, Mario’s wife is picking us up from the airport, and there is more NFL tonight (though my fantasy league match-up is looking less than promising after a middling-at-best Sunday). Perhaps I’ll at least get a valuable draft pick, and I will happily sleep in my own bed. It’s been a busy month or so of travel after jaunts to NYC, Vegas and now Toronto, and I am more than ready to be back in Venice by the beach for a while.

Grumps.

Airplane Bloggin’: TIFF and the Return of Grumpy O’Selznick

2011-09-09T19:49:00.000-07:00

Well, its obviously been some time since I last wrote this blog about my experiences in the film industry and the accompanying issues in my personal life that arise out of these choices I’ve made for myself. Too much water has passed under the bridge since my last writing to really give any kind of comprehensive view of my life and work (note that life and work are, and continue to be, separate words and distinct concepts). A very brief summary of the last eighteen months of so since I posted:

• Closed up and gave up the NYC residence for good (at least that residence).
• Worked for a foreign sales company for a year, as a head of business affairs, during which time I had to deal with a manic company president and four wolf hybrids (the president often acted more like one of his wolf-pets than a person).
• Produced a family comedy I’ll refer to as “Romeo” in California, where I met a beautiful young single mother (and her infant-turned-toddler), a close friend of a now-formerly close friend-turned-enemy??, that I…
• Dated and then lived with in West Hollywood and then in Albuquerque, NM for six months (where she worked as an actress). At various moments, wonderful, awful, and almost always tumultuous, with a very bitter ending, when we split, and I …
• Moved to Venice, California at the beginning of summer, and have begun adjusting to my recovered singledom on the Westside, a very different life experience that living in Hollywood or West Hollywood.
• Traveled to India to prep a romantic drama, for which the financing fell apart, which negatively impacted a number of relationships I have in the entertainment industry, most of which hopefully can be repaired (in the business where a new paycheck fixes everything, for the most part). Thankfully my hands are clean.
• Took a consultancy with a newly-formed company doing film investment, technology development and investment, and film production, headed by a friend of mine, Kyle, in whom I have a good deal of faith, in the role of running operations and business affairs, which leads me to…

Toronto, in my capacity of a yet-unnamed position with this new company. My friend Mario is accompanying me to Toronto for its opening weekend. We’re staying at the Metropolitan Hotel and should be in the mix for a lot of interesting screenings, parties and hopefully some fun over the next three days. Mario is a well-known composer, having scored a number of well-known and award-winning films, including Precious and Taxi to the Dark Side, both of which won Academy Awards. He’s also one of the nicest people you’re going to meet, and he scored two films for me, Scott Dacko’s The Insurgents, and Lev Gorn’s short film, 10:31.

I am still a bit under the weather, having caught some bug in Las Vegas over the past week I spent there. I went to Vegas with a new friend, The Cove producer Charles Hambleton. We went to help organize and promote the Las Vegas demonstration for Celebrate Dolphin Day Japan, which was being simultaneously being recognized in fifty cities around the world. September 1 is the day that the dolphin slaughter begins again in Taiji, Japan. If you don’t know what I am talking about, I suggest you sit down and watch The Cove on Netflix and find out about this important issue. And the film, which won the Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary in 2009, is simply unforgettable and amazing.

The demonstration in Vegas was run by another new friend, Angela Shih, with her partner, Eric Conner, lending a significant hand. In true Vegas style and tradition, Angela, a server at the Wet Republic Dayclub, recruited a crew of beautiful girls from the hospitality industry to stand, bikini-clad, on the walking bridge between The Cosmopolitan and The Planet Hollywood hotels, and draw attention to the signs and the literature and well, the cause. They did a terrific job attracting attention, not surprisingly, and did so in a manner that was truly appropriate for their home city. Here are some pictures of Charles (the only guy in the posted pics) and the Vegas team. The photographer that was arranged unfortunately didn’t show, but I’d brought my camera as a back-up, and I ended up standing in for him. It was a fun assignment, and the results were passable. Angela is in the front row of the first picture, far right. More on facebook if you go to the page for Celebrate Dolphin Day Las Vegas 2011.

Pic 1

Pic 2

After the demonstration, we spent some time scouting for Charles’ upcoming television show. I won’t give away what its about, but we snuck into the restricted land controlled by the Water Authority to obtain samples for testing. There are a lot of water issues in the City That Shouldn’t Be, and we spent a few days working on that. On the last day, Angela somehow magically got us comped at Wet Republic, and we spent most of the day there being introduced to the staff. They all had a lot of respect for what Charles has achieved. Watch The Cove and you’ll see why too.

So that’s the recap, and the plane is angling down, which means we’ll be on the ground shortly, and I need to sign off. Grumpily yours (still), and welcome back.

Airplane Bloggin’: Headed to Mardi Gras

2010-02-07T16:31:00.000-08:00

Its been blast from the past week. I got a message from the ether from Henry, a high school friend who I probably haven’t heard from in fifteen years, more or less. The joys of facebook.

And I am currently on yet another airplane headed from Atlanta to New Orleans (indirectly, coming from LA). I’ll be seeing Big Dave, little Dave , and Rob, all three friends with whom I spent the majority of my summers from later high school into college. They are all east coasters, and I haven’t seen Rob in a long time (Prolly last at someone’s wedding). Big Dave I’d see sporadically when he’d be in NYC on business (he lives in Arlington VA and works in DC). Lil Dave, when I was in NY, I’d meet for dinner from time to timr. But all three at once, at Mardi gras, in New Orleans, which is gonna be crazy because the Aints (no more) are in the Super Bowl. Should be fairly wild.

Some challenges.

I went to Mardi Gras with the Daves before. I don’t recall if Rob was with us. I know some others were. I’ve also been with my friend Stave and other law school guys. What I’d say about the trip with the Daves is that is was rather calm and maybe a bit dull compared to the trup with Steve. That was rape, pillage, debauchery. As God intended on Bourbon St. this time of year.

We’re all quite a bit older, they are all married (though I am not) and so belt size, grey hair and energy levels will be working against us. I hope that we all (me included) can muster enough energy to make this weekend something that, while worth talking about, should only be discussed in hushed voices. We’ll see, and I’ll do my best as a ringleader. I already suggested that we have a weekend-long dirty old man contest, and I think setting such goals is a good way to make these guys aspire to a higher result. (:

Incidentally, when I booked my ticket to go, I didn’t really I was booking my return on Superbowl Sunday. I think I’ll be flying while the second half is on, as I don’t land in LA until like 730PM. Its OK, I don’t really care much who wins the game (I like both QBs and that’s enough for me), but I wonder how full the flight back will be. It’s a direct, which was probably only available because….weell, what nut flies during the Superbowl.

This one, clearly.

Anyway, that’s it for now. Let you know how it went on the way back.

Grumps.

Airplane Bloggin’: Up In The Air Edition

2010-01-25T15:30:00.002-08:00

Well, ok, so not necessarily the most specific title for a series called Airplane Bloggin’, but it is timely, no? I actually haven’t seen the movie so I don’t even really have a basis for any type of analogy. Hey, maybe I’ll get more hits on the site because of my use of Jason’s movie title.

We are on our way back from the Dances. Spent from Thursday night to this morning in Park City, and I have some observations.

1. We met with the writers from the next Slamdance horror winner. Cool guys (as well as good writers). We met with Brandon, head of the contest. Cool guy as well. Got a chilly reception (at best) from the boss, but that was expected. What can you do – I’m over it.
2. We had a place up on Woodside – and when I say up, I mean up. Woodside towers a few hundred feet over Main St. and the cabs couldn’t even get up the hill if it was snowing. A good amount of walking, and huffing and puffing, up the steps to our street, given the altitude as well. By the end though, it was fairly easy – I guess one’s body adjusts fairly well to the altitude in a short time.
3. I still have standards. Had a lay-up pickup yesterday at the gersh party at the Spur. Some drunken Salt Lake native. Physically appealing enough, but personality was a bit scary. I passed, even after she started making out with one of her girlfriends. (Guys, begin moaning wtf now).
4. I literally was in the same condo building as my friend, actress and writer Eleonore Hendricks and we knew it for three days and we didn’t manage to meet up though I sincerely believe both of us wanted to say hi.
5. The Indie movie scene is dying. That’s it for that.
6. I’m kind of over the whole Park City thing. I mean, I really like the place, geographically. But the hubbub of the festivals – I was so ready to get on our plane and go back home this morning. And this isn’t just because I was sleeping on one of the all-time worst pull-out couches in our condo living room, though that didn’t help. Thing felt like a bbq grill without the heat.
7. Agents (including sales agents) will always be agents. Scorpion and the Frog.
8. Adrienne Grenier is a nice guy, in a shaggy dog sort of way, and I mean that in a positive way. And he made a pretty good documentary.
9. Wilmer Valderama has a good handshake.
10. America Ferrara is even shorter then you though she was.
11. Ben Silverman is taller and even more hyper than you think he is.
12. Screaming at someone on the phone on Main Street at 2:30 Am is a good way to get frostbite.

That’s kinda it. E7 didn’t buy anything at the festival (though we might). We were negotiating two deals, one is going to close and the other one looks like it won’t. The best party I went to was for Dry Land. Gersh was runner up (and I also got several cute girls’ phone numbers). The worst party was Slamdances’ party at the Star Bar (too crowded, and hot, and bad ratio, and the weather outside made it such a slosh to get in). I only saw one movie. But I got to see some folks I rarely get to see, meet some new peeps, some who were very fun, and now I get to sleep in my own bed.

Grumps.

Airplane Bloggin’: Park City 2010 Edition

2010-01-25T15:30:00.001-08:00

Airplane Bloggin’: Park City 2010 Edition

Off to Sundance and Slamdance and whatever dances are taking place this week in Park City. We took off a bit ago, and all I have to say is “thank god for valium.” The ride up and the first half hour? Not to exaggerate but awful bumpiness. Really bad. Quite frankly I cannot even remember my last smooth flight going east-west. They have all sucked.

First time going to festivals working for a distributor. This is, to be clear, not your independent producer’s film festival. This is three-four days of jammed packed screenings, meetings, drinks, coffees, massages (well maybe not). Moving a number of different agendas along, all the while dealing with multiple egos, hundreds of alternate agendas. All that stuff, actually, is business as usual.

Entertainment 7 has rented a condo right off main street, so we’re walking distance to most things, which is nice. Utah’s been dumped on with snow though, so we’ll see how long I last before buying a proper pair of boots (I have a pair of low cut Merrills I am wearings, and they’re all I have with me so far as shoes go).

I am in negotiation, wearing my biz affairs hat, in no less than three ongoing deals with three types of folks – and all that needs to continue to progress (or not) while we are on the road. I think in the next three days we can close two of these deals, and then, hopefully, I can get more focused on the movies I am producing with the Company. I don’t mind at all doing the legal stuff, but most of it can get behind me now, and I hope to spend more time over my next three months focused on making movies and not on making deals. Of course, the making of the deals permits the making of the movies.

A nice added bonus is that Ryan is flying in from NY. He’s crashing at our condo, so will get to see lots of him, presumably. He and Emilio enjoy each others company, and Ryan’s way better connected to the nightlife scene then I am, so should be very cool in addition to the mere fun of seeing him out here. Feels like eighty percent of the time we spend together we’re either in the club or a restaurant. Prolly end up to be the same story out there, lolz.

So we’ll talk to you later this weekend or when I fly back on Monday.

Grumpy O’Selznick.

PGA Noms.

2010-01-05T22:53:00.001-08:00

LOS ANGELES (January 5, 2010) - The Producers Guild of America (PGA) announced today the ten nominations for the Darryl F. Zanuck Producer of the Year Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures category that will advance in the voting process for the 21st Annual PGA Awards, which will take place on Sunday, January 24th at the Hollywood Palladium. The PGA also announced nominees in other categories including: the PGA Producer of the Year Award in Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures; the PGA Producer of the Year Award in Documentary Theatrical Motion Pictures; and the David L. Wolper Producer of the Year Award in Long-Form Television.

The nominated films and programs are listed below in alphabetical order by category, along with producers. The producers' names listed for each nominated production are listed in alphabetical order and are not necessarily the proper order of credits:

Darryl F. Zanuck Producer of the Year Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures:

AVATAR (Fox)
Producers: James Cameron, Jon Landau
DISTRICT 9 (Sony)
Producers: Carolynne Cunningham, Peter Jackson
AN EDUCATION (Sony Classics)
Producers: Finola Dwyer, Amanda Posey
THE HURT LOCKER (Summit)
Producer(s): Awaiting final credit determination.
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (Weinstein/Universal)
Producer: Lawrence Bender
INVICTUS (Warner Bros)
Producers: Clint Eastwood, Rob Lorenz, Lori McCreary , Mace Neufeld
PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL PUSH BY SAPPHIRE (Lionsgate)
Producers: Lee Daniels, Gary Magness, Sarah Siegel-Magness
STAR TREK (Paramount)
Producers: J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof
UP (Disney)
Producer: Jonas Rivera
UP IN THE AIR (Paramount)
Producer(s): Awaiting final credit determination.

PGA Producer of the Year Award in Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures:

9 (Focus)
Producer(s): Awaiting final credit determination.
CORALINE (Focus)
Producer(s): Awaiting final credit determination.
FANTASTIC MR. FOX (Fox)
Producer(s): Awaiting final credit determination.
THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG (Disney)
Producer: Peter Del Vecho
UP (Disney)
Producer: Jonas Rivera

PGA Producer of the Year Award in Documentary Theatrical Motion Pictures:

BURMA VJ
Producer: Lise Lense-Moller
The COVE
Producers: Paula DuPre Pesman, Fisher Stevens
SERGIO
Producer(s): Awaiting final credit determination.
SOUNDTRACK FOR A REVOLUTION
Producer(s): Awaiting final credit determination.

David L. Wolper Producer of the Year Award in Long-Form Television*:
GEORGIA O'KEEFFE
Producer(s): Awaiting final credit determination.
GREY GARDENS
Producers: David Coatsworth, Lucy Donnelly, Rachael Horovitz, Michael Sucsy
LITTLE DORRIT
Producers: Lisa Osborne, Anne Pivcevic
PRAYERS FOR BOBBY
Producers: Stanley M. Brooks, Damian Ganczewski, David Permut, Daniel Sladek, Chris Taaffe
THE PRISONER
Producer(s): Awaiting final credit determination.
TAKING CHANCE
Producers: Lori Keith Douglas, Ross Katz, Brad Krevoy, Cathy Wischner-Sola

*Special note: The Long-Form Television category encompasses both movies of the week and mini series. The eligibility period for this category was January 1, 2009 through December 31, 2009.

In November 2009, the PGA Awards announced the nominations for Television Series and Non-fiction categories.

Airplane Bloggin’ : 2010 and Back to LA

2010-01-04T07:50:00.000-08:00

You know what really kind of pisses me off. Companies offering free this or free that, on terms so unclear or difficult to figure out that you basically don’t even want to risk trying it or bother in the first place.

Example one: Flying back and forth on Delta from LAX to MIA, there was an offer for free wi-fi for the first time that one used the new pay-wifi service Delta offers, called GoGo. You know why its called GoGo? No, neither do I.

Anyway, I saw a mention of this free offer on one of the Delta TV screens and didn’t catch the password. It was well into the first part of my trip to Miami, which was an overnight and I had great aspirations of sleeping. I think I may have even achieved them to a degree. In any event, due to the difficulty with the password being unavailable (one would think they would put it somewhere on the Delta website or something, or on GoGo’s site, but no) it seemed like using my one free trial during a long flight where I wanted to be out with the lights was not the best use of the trial. The ATL-MIA leg was short (90 minutes or so) so those legs in each direction again didn’t seem the best opportunity. I figured that I’d use it on the way from ATL back to LAX to catch up on emails, pass the time, explore Zangarmarsh (never mind). But I ended up taking an ambient on this flight, with the hope of sleeping through a decent portion of it. Hasn’t happened and so now, an hour and a half in, I am basically wide awake. There’s still that free trial, so why not. I pull out the laptop and try to log on.

Like last time I played with it for a little, it made no mention of the password, and provided no link to sign in as a free trial (I don’t know why). It also didn’t give any indication of when the free trial offer expired, though in one of the flight magazines there was a mention of “holiday season.’ Well, apparently the holiday season has completed during the weekend of New Year’s eve. I got onto a help (ya) chat with a GoGo employee who told me as much. Too late. Had they told me that from the first, perhaps I’d have given it the free try on the way to Miami. Now, I’ll not have the benefit, and they’ll have an issue getting a new customer who might not want to take it on faith that the connectoin is worth 13 bucks for a few hours. I guess I’d say that this story is unfinished, but at the moment, I find it somewhat aggravating. Now I am flying, cross country in a middle seat between two dudes (again), though the first leg I actually got an exit row, just by checking in online the night before. Very weird to end up with something that good.

But the trip itself? Hmmm. Yeah, that. It was a pretty basic week and change. As my brother and his wife were out of town in NYC, and my closest friend who typically does parties in Miami didn’t come down this year, I didn’t do a lot of nightlife. My associate producer David, from the movie My Brother, bought a 12,000 square foot penthouse on Miami Beach and I hung with him a few times, but that was pretty much it. We went out once with his gal and her friends but I left early, and we watched the football game last Sunday at the new refurbished Clevelander. Those were the primary “going out” highlights. I spent a bunch of time with my parents, much of it with us gathered around reading or doing out thing, and some more of that when Stephanie and her boys showed up. The weather was really only beach weather perhaps twice, so we did that both of those days, and we also went on a river ride out of an alligator farm that was quite tourist but pretty entertaining nonetheless and conveniently located near a very solid BBQ joint called the Pit. I was on the couch in the living room for the six or seven days Jake, Derek and Steph were in town (they got there three days after I did and left the day before), but my back is even mostly recovered by now.

In short, I didn’t even go out or make a wholehearted attempt on New Year’s Eve. Didn’t have a partner in crime and was not inclined to drop hundreds for a party where I’d know next to nobody. Writing it like that, wow, makes a lot of sense.

And now I am on ht way back to work and bills and the gym and the new apartment. It was time to go back. Was ready, despite how enticing I find the sea/sun combo in Miami. As my folks get older, these trips take on for me, a greater importance that a jaunt to a beach or a nightclub.

I live in Los Angeles now, for most of the year. With the new full time job, I will be neither in New York or Miami regulatly, That limits my interactions with my parents, and they are in good health but they aren’t getting younger. So each time is a half-life, if you will, of our time together until their gone. When you’re packing a bag full of boxer shorts and socks, it is that which gives you pause to consider what your priorities are and how you fit them all in the same basket. Its mostly why I fly across the country to see them. And it’s a very good reason, I don’t know how I am going to continue to fit all of these things in the same basket. I don’t even know if I am supposed to fit them. All I do know is that it feels like yet another pressure from another angle, something that needs doing, for good and valid reason, and even in the doing of it, it feels, as I fly back to LA with my father’s words “See you next year” ringing in my ears, insufficient. The effort isn’t enough for what its worth, and I end up feeling like I put effort into something that doesn’t go far enough to really matter.

OK. I am not writing airplane blogs on Ambien anymore. Didn’t know it had these emotional side effects. I just wanted to sleep, not write a treatise of observations about how I feel like I am failing at life. This plane ride is not nearly long enough for me to write that anyway, I’d need to fly to the moon.

That’s about all I have to say for now. The guys on either side of my seat are very much awake and I am going to choose not to make a spectacle of myself.

Talk soon.

Grumps.

Airplane Bloggin’: Miami for the Holidays Edition

2009-12-25T08:24:00.000-08:00

Airplane Bloggin’: Miami for the Holidays Edition

Well, so much for subtly named blog posts, that one comes right out and says it. To whom (other than Dawn?) good question. I imagine I’ve lost most of my once small audience do to the infrequency of my posting. In fact, it seems that I post only when I fly. For the most part, that’s been the case. If its any saving grace, I do actually plan to be traveling quite a bit more than I have in the past few years, as the job I’ve taken (more below) promises more of that. Even now, I bave a few more trips on tap over the next few months.

So what’s been going on? Quite a few things….

I took a job with a small but rapidly growing sales and production company in Los Angeles. It’s a full time, in-office position, and thus, I am officially a full time resident of Los Angeles. No more back and forth – though I may travel, I am fully based in Los Angeles and report to a job M-F etc. etc.

Towards that end (and also towards the end of having a place to live with roommate who can pay the rent), I moved from my old digs in the Cahuenga pass area to newer digs in West Hollywood, with a brief stop on Cherokee in Hollywood during my search for a new place – thank yous to Scott and John, John for his hospitality, and Scott for his vacancy and generosity. After the waylay on Cherokee, and a misstart with another apartment on Franklin, I’ve been at the new place, on Alta Vista just below Sunset Blvd., for a but less than a month now. I have a new roommate, we get along fine, though we’re not close and I don’t particularly see that changing. He’d just moved up from San Diego to take a job with Disney Radio. Pretty much, we both work outside the place, and do mostly our own thing when we get home. Cordial, fine, not remarkably friendly, but its fine.

The apartment itself is close to the new job and to my gym, and its on a very attractive block in West Hollywood at about the most central location one could hope for. It’s hardly more than I was paying at the old place, and its nice and new and I have my own bath. It’s a fairly good situation this far. Oh, and its pretty quiet, except for the occasional garbage truck in the morning.

The job, well, yeah, the job. I am the head of business affairs for a film sales and production house. Means I am in charge of all that is legal and contractual. However, since it’s a small company, and (bow) I have a multitude of skills, I am spending my time in production (which is how I want to spend my time, as much of its as possible), in acquisitions, not bad, and doing a few other things to help move the Company’s business along. It’s an adjustment to be back at a full time job after many years on my own, but its OK. Adaptation is an important trait, and I guess I am still in practice, well enough. Besides, I work out of a compound where the owner’s house is also located, and it’s a fairly informal attitude except for the general office policy. That might have something to do with the industry; it definitely has something to do with the five wolf hybrids running around the compound at all times. Sounds scarier than it is and besides, with respect to the pack, I think I’ve climbed to a respectable place in the middle.

Aside from the office time, I’ve already spent time at the American Film Market, where we have a booth each year to sell the films we make and acquire. I’m booked to go to Park City for Slamdance and Sundance, after a hiatus during last winter. And unless we are in production on a movie, it seems likely that I’ll go to the Berlin Film Market and Festival during early February. If not, I’ll go to Cannes for either the TV or the Film market in the spring. So there is a lot of potential travel involved.

One adjustment has been dealing with having allocated vacation time. I only have two weeks annually in my contract, and I basically was required to take one week during this holiday. The office (and the vast majority of the entertainment business) is closed, and if I hadn’t taken the vacation, it would have been treated as “leave” and been unpaid. I’d prefer to be paid, and it worked out anyway, as I get to go to Miami and see my parents. The timing of my visit isn’t perfect in some ways, but alls well enough, and they are excited I am visiting. The apartment is going to be very crowded, as my sister and her sons will be in town as well during five or so of the ten days I’ll be in Miami. Haven’t seen the boys in a while, so that will be nice. Most likely, I’ll get to take them to the beach a few times while they are down there. Its been a little terse with my sister for a reason or two, but I am sure we will all have a good time together, and I know how much my parents are looking forward to it. I’ve visited them in Florida quite a bit for New Year’s, I think this is the third year in the last four I’ve been with them. Last year was with Newman and two years before that, I was there alone I think (I remember bringing home a girl on New Year’s Eve after getting separated from the people with whom I’d been out, Ryan and company), and waking with her and hearing my parents already awakened. They were super relaxed about the whole thing, and I think they were just happy to have me there having a good time. Hehe.

So hopefully the weather will be decent and I’ll get a little sun. LA’s been quite dreary for about a month, rainy and/or cloudy, and I hate to say, as it reflects my new sensitivity to colder weather from living in LA, absolutely freezing some of the time. I’m not that keyed up about what to do for New Years, so I’ll play it by ear and see if I am interested. Last year was fun most of the week, but New Years itself kinda stunk, and that was the same in 2007. I’ve never been a huge fan of the holiday, and always considered it a big rookie night where the chance of having a blast was less than the chance of having someone vomit on your shoes. Pushing 40 (almost), that opinion has only been reinforced. But what I can look forward to it relaxing, unwinding, and spending time with my terrific parents and family. That sound pretty good right now, and I guess on the flight back, we’ll know for sure.

Grumps.

2009 Black List

2009-12-12T13:16:00.000-08:00

The Black List 2009: Full Roster
By Nikki Finke | Category: Uncategorized | Friday December 11, 2009 @ 9:10am
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The Black List 2009: Manager Score Card
The Black List 2009: Agency Score Card

black list 20092ND UPDATE: I'm the first to post the entire roster after EW premiered the Top 10 (here as they wrote it, plus I added in some production details) because of a pre-arrangement. That's right, it's time for Universal film executive Franklin Leonard's THE BLACK LIST begun back in 2004. Compiled every year from the suggestions of 311 film executives, each contributes the names of up to ten of their favorite scripts that were written in, or are somehow uniquely associated with, 2009 and will not be released in theaters during this calendar year. This year, scripts had to receive at least five mentions to be included on THE BLACK LIST. It has been said many times, but it’s worth repeating: THE BLACK LIST is not a 'best of' list. It is, at best, a 'most liked' list." But it does catapult dozens of scripts into production and screenwriters out of oblivion. Diablo Cody's Juno, Nancy Oliver's Lars And The Real Girl, Scott Neustader's and Michael Weber's 500 Days Of Summer, are just some of the screenplays which appeared on The Black List and then were made. I've noticed that it's also a "big dick" measuring contest for the Hollywood agencies and their motion picture lit departments. Problem is, some screenwriters think this list isn't on the up-and-up and accuse junior studio execs and assistants along with self-interested agents and managers of getting together to push their own clients on projects even if already abandoned. So get off the ledge if you're not on THE BLACK LIST. And, if you are, then congratulations. This year’s list consists of 97 scripts with 311 people contributing to the ranking — up from 260 in 2008:

1. The Muppet Man By Christopher Weekes
What it’s about: The life and times of the late Jim Henson (pictured), the man behind Sesame Street and The Muppets.

What it’s like: The Andy Kaufman biopic Man on the Moon, but with puppets. This moving story depicts the life of a creative genius, with occasional surreal appearances by the likes of Kermit and Miss Piggy.

AGENT William Morris Endeavor – Bill Weinstein, Adriana Alberghetti

MANAGER Circle of Confusion – Britton Rizzio, Lawrence Mattis, Kelly McCormack

Status: Set up at The Jim Henson Co.

2. The Social Network By Aaron Sorkin
What it’s about: Chronicles Mark Zuckerberg’s complicated journey towards creating Facebook. Sorkin depicts both the founder’s motivations for starting the largest social network in the world and the human casualties that came with his profound success.

What it’s like: The fascinating biographical elements of Shattered Glass meets the courtroom drama of Kramer vs. Kramer, without the tears. Sorkin cuts between Zuckerberg’s heated depositions with his former Harvard colleagues who claimed he stole Facebook from them and the chronological retelling of the company’s trip to becoming a billion-dollar enterprise.

AGENT William Morris Endeavor – Ari Emanuel, Jason Spitz

Status: In production for Sony Pictures. Scott Rudin Productions, Michael De Luca Productions, Cean Chaffin, and Dana Brunetti producing. Jesse Eisenberg plays Zuckerberg while Justin Timberlake portrays Sean Parker, one of the founders of Napster and Zuckerberg’s idol. David Fincher is directing.

3. The Voices By Michael R. Perry
What it’s about: Jerry, a schizophrenic worker at a bathtub factory, accidentally kills an attractive woman from accounting. While trying to cover his bloody tracks, Jerry starts taking advice from his talking (and foul-mouthed) cat and dog.

What it’s like: Watching the lovable pig from Babe join forces with American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman. Some may be turned off by the script’s twisted sense of humor — Jerry has friendly conversations with his victim’s severed head — while others will get a kick out of its sheer audacity.

AGENT United Talent Agency – Charlie Ferraro, Jenny Maryasis

MANAGER Kaplan/Perrone Entertainment – Aaron Kaplan, Sean Perrone

Status: Vertigo Entertainment is trying to package the film with a lead actor. Mark Romanek (One Hour Photo) is developing.

4. Prisoners By Aaron Guzikowski
What it’s about: When his young daughter and her best friend vanish on Thanksgiving Day, a Christian survivalist named Keller Dover takes matters into his own hands, imprisoning and torturing a suspect whom the police have set free. But does Dover have the wrong man? And if he does, who really has his little girl?

What’s it like: Silence of the Lambs meets Mystic River. A terrifying, riveting read. Vivid, unforgettable characters, a bullet-fast plot, and scenes that mine our deepest psychological fears. Lock the doors and windows (and go to the bathroom) before turning the first page.

AGENT William Morris Endeavor - David Karp, Rich Cook, Adam Levine

MANAGER Madhouse Entertainment

Status: Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) directing for Alcon Entertainment and Warner Bros, Madhouse Entertainment and Kira Davis producing.

5. Cedar Rapids By Phil Johnston
What it’s about: Tim Lippy is a small-town insurance man who’s somehow made it to middle age without having quite done anything. Everything changes when he unexpectedly gets the chance to represent his company at the Cedar Rapids insurance convention, where comedy ensues, of course.

What it’s like: The 40-Year-Old Virgin meets Napoleon Dynamite. A sad, but not pathetic, middle-aged man comes of age in the Midwest. A speedily told story with romance and action and some legitimately funny jokes.

AGENT United Talent Agency – Jason Burns

MANAGER Industry Entertainment – Eryn Brown

Status: In production Fox Searchlight. Ad Hominem Enterprises producing, with Miguel Arteta directing and Ed Helms playing Lippy. John C. Reilly, Alia Shakwat, Anne Heche and Sigourney Weaver co-star.

6. Londongrad By David Scarpa
What it’s about: The writer of The Day The Earth Stood Still and co-writer of The Last Castle does an adaptation of Alan Cowell’s 2008 book The Terminal Spy: A True Story of Espionage, Betrayal and Murder, chronicling the life and strange death of Alexander Litvinenko. Remember in 2006, when that ex-Soviet spy was allegedly poisoned with radioactive tea at a London sushi joint? That’s him.

What it’s like: The script evokes Born on the Fourth of July, Silkwood, and Robert DeNiro’s history-of-the-CIA saga The Good Shepherd — but in Russia, with spies. Using Litvinenko’s final days as a framing device, Scarpa’s script flashes back to pivotal passages of Alexander’s adult life: training and serving as a KGB agent; trying to staunch the growing influence of Russian mobs as a Russian super-cop after the fall of Communism; and boldly deciding to publicly accuse his superiors of trying to assassinate a Russian business tycoon, as well as facilitating the rise of Russian president Vladimir Putin through acts of terrorism.

AGENT HML – Bob Hohman, Bayard Maybank, Devra Lieb

Status: Warner Bros. has optioned the script. Initial Entertainment Group and Infinitum Nihil producing.

7. L.A. Rex By Will Beall (based on his novel of the same name)
What it’s about: Rookie LAPD officer Ben Halloran gets partnered with scarred and tobacco-spitting Officer Marquez, and the unlikely team hit the streets of L.A. on the brink of a gang-rivalry explosion. Amid run-ins with the Mexican mafia, brutal gang murders, and corrupt cops, we soon find that Halloran may not be as squeaky clean as his brand new badge.

What it’s like: Training Day combined with the brutal violence of The Departed. L.A. Rex is as much a cop story as it is a graphic portrait of underground crime in Los Angeles.

AGENT Creative Artists Agency – Shari Smiley, Jay Baker

MANAGER Management 360 – Darin Friedman

Status: Paramount Pictures has optioned on behalf of producer Scott Rudin.

8. Desperados By Ellen Rapoport
What it’s about: Wesley Robbins, a 30-something single attorney with an unhealthy obsession with coupling up, thinks she’s found the perfect man. But when he doesn’t call for days after the first time they sleep together she freaks out and sends him a scathing email, only to learn he’s been laid up in a Mexican hospital with some broken bones. On a whim, she and her girlfriends travel down south to erase the email before she ruins what she believes could be her one true love.

What it’s like: The Hangover meets The Sweetest Thing, but in a good way. This equal parts raunchy and sweet script has LOL moments and the potential to be a big hit, especially with audiences loving movies today with complicated female protagonists.

AGENT Creative Artists Agency – Jessica Matthews

MANAGER Management 360 – Susan Bymel, Daniel Rapoport

Status: Isla Fisher is attached to star with Mark Gordon and Jason Blum producing at Universal.

9. The Gunslinger By John Hlavin
What it’s about: When a Texas Ranger is horrifically tortured and killed, his sharp-shooter older brother, Sam Lee Hensley, plots revenge against the mysterious, sadistic leader of a notorious drug cartel. Sam Lee’s quest for vengeance will cost him seven years in prison, his right hand and one eye. It will imperil his young nephew and wreak havoc on the lives of those who love him. And it will not bring him peace.

What it’s like: No Country For Old Men fused with Death Wish, graced by the melancholy of Unforgiven. Violent, macho, and action-packed, it’s as fun as a Dirty Harry script, but the remorse and grief of the central character linger long after the final gunshot.

AGENT United Talent Agency – Jason Burns

MANAGER Benderspink – Jill McElroy, Charlie Gogolak

Status: Warner Bros. and Andrew Lazar producing

10. (tie) By Way of Helena By Matt Cook
What it’s about: Set in the south at the turn of the century, Texas Ranger David Kingston and his Mexican bride are sent down to the mysterious town of Helena to investigate the multiple Mexican bodies washing up in the river. What they discover is an idyllic-like town where everything is not as it seems.

What it’s like: Pleasantville meets High Noon where dueling-pistol showdowns take on a whole new meaning and the definitions of righteousness and morality are twisted into unrecognizable concepts.

AGENT William Morris Endeavor – Cliff Roberts, Danny Gabai

MANAGER Anonymous Content – Keith Redmon, Bard Dorros

Status: Purchased by Russian filmmaker-producer Sergei Bodrov (Kavkazskiy plennik)

10. (tie) The Days Before By Chad St. John
What’s it about: A man from the future keeps hopping one successive day into the past desperate to stop a vicious race of time-traveling aliens from wiping out humanity.

What’s it’s like: This lightning-paced, time-travel adventure is Back to the Future meets Independence Day meets Demolition Man accompanied with a gargantuan production budget.

AGENT International Creative Management – Lars Theriot, Ava Jamshidi

Status: Warner Bros. has optioned it. Hollywood Gang Productions producing. A few big-time action directors have circled it but no one is yet attached.

11. DOC AND HOWIE WHACK A GRANNY by Steve Leff

What it's about: “Two men, Doc and Howie, inadvertently kill an elderly woman when they neglect to help her carry groceries up stairs. The incident puts them in position to get closer to the woman's attractive granddaughters, and they struggle with deciding whether to tell the women the truth about the circumstances under which they met.”

AGENT United Talent Agency – Doug Johnson

MANAGER Rain Management Group – Jonathan Baruch, Geoff Silverman

Status: The Montecito Picture Company producing.

12. WHEN CORRUPTION WAS KING by Frank Baldwin

What it's about: “A scrappy lawyer from Chicago's South Side rises to be a trusted attorney for the Outfit – the mob that controls the city through an elaborate web of bribery, voterigging and violence – until he turns state's witness and brings the whole corrupt system to its knees.”

AGENT William Morris Endeavor – Cliff Roberts

MANAGER Leverage Management – Michael Prevett

Status: Paramount Pictures. Temple Hill Entertainment producing.

13. PAWN SACRIFICE by Steve Knight

What it's about: “The life story of chess legend Bobby Fischer leading up to his historic world championship match against Boris Spassky.”

AGENT Creative Artists Agency – Brian Siberell, Sally Willcox

Status: Sony Pictures. Maguire Entertainment producing.

14. TOY’S HOUSE by Chris Galletta

What it's about: “When fourteen year old Joe Toy and his buddies tire of their parents overbearing ways, they decide to build their own house in the woods, away from the restraints of the lives they have come to know.”

AGENT The Gersh Agency – Carolyn Sivitz

MANAGER Anonymous Content – Bard Dorros

Status: Big Beach Productions

15. MIXTAPE by Stacey Menear

What it's about: “A thirteen year old outcast finds a mixtape that belonged to the deceased parents she never knew, accidentally destroys it, and uses the song list to go on a journey to find all the music in an attempt to get to know her parents.”

AGENT Paradigm – Ida Ziniti, Valarie Phillips

MANAGER Parallax Talent Management – Jim Wedaa

Status: Jim Wedaa producing.

16. THE ISOLATE THIEF by Kevin Leffler

What it's about: “In the dead of winter in the middle of the U.S. Civil War, a young man tries to hide the gold he stole from rogue soldiers who have taken over his remote house.”

AGENT International Creative Management – Aaron Hart

MANAGER Energy Entertainment – Brooklyn Weaver, Adam Marshall

Status: Hawk Koch producing.

17. BOOK SMART by Emily Halpern and Sarah Haskins

What it's about: “Two overachieving high school seniors realize the only thing they haven't accomplished is having boyfriends, and each resolves to find one by prom.”

AGENT William Morris Endeavor – Lis Rowinski, Sharon Sheinwold (Halpern)

United Talent Agency – Kassie Evashevski, Rio Hernandez (Haskins)

Status: Fox. Handsomecharlie Films producing.

18. MOTOR CITY by Chad St. John

What it's about: “A small time hood is framed and sent to prison, only to exact revenge years later.”

AGENT International Creative Management – Lars Theriot, Ava Jamshidi

Status: Warner Brothers. Dark Castle Entertainment producing.

19. THEY FALL BY NIGHT by Zach Baylin

What it's about: “A burned out detective investigates the kidnapping of a socialite couple's child.”

AGENT International Creative Management – Aaron Hart

MANAGER Mosaic – Brent Lilley

Status: Di Bonaventura Pictures producing

20. CELESTE & JESSE FOREVER by Rashida Jones and Will McCormack

What it's about: “A divorcing couple tries to maintain their friendship while they both pursue other people.”

AGENT United Talent Agency – Keya Khayatian (Jones)

Gersh - David Kopple, Lindsay Porter (McCormick)

MANAGER Brillstein Entertainment Partners - Andrea Pett-Joseph (Jones)

Status: Overture. Team Todd producing.

21. NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH by Jared Stern

“A suburban ‘neighborhood watch’ group, actually a front for dads to get some male bonding time away from the family, uncovers a plot bent on destroying the world.”

AGENT William Morris Endeavor – Jeff Gorin

MANAGER Industrial Entertainment – Helena Hayman

Odenkirk Provissiero Entertainment - Marc Provissiero

Fox. 21 Laps Entertainment producing.

22. CONVICTION by Jonathan Herman

“After serving five years in prison after a botched heist, a mastermind bank robber is forced by a tenacious FBI agent to entrap his former protege who has embarked on a multi-million-dollar bank-robbing spree.”

AGENT William Morris Endeavor – Mike Esola

MANAGER Luber/Roklin - Stephen Crawford

Warner Brothers. Silver Pictures producing.

23. BEST ACTRESS by Michael Zam and Jaffe Cohen

“The story of the infamous career-long battle between screen legends Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, focusing on the on-set experience of the only film they ever made together WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE.”

AGENT William Morris Endeavor – Adriana Alberghetti, Kimberly Bialek

MANAGER Artist Talent Management – Renee Tab

Plan B Entertainment producing.

24. BETTY’S READY by Jaylynn Bailey

“After she discovers that her boyfriend is gay, a high schooler, determined to lose her virginity before she goes to college, pursues several possible ‘candidates’ before she finds love with her geeky neighbor, who has always loved her.”

AGENT Hohman Maybank Lieb - Bob Hohman, Bayard Maybank, Devra Lieb

MANAGER Circle of Confusion - Britton Rizzio, Noah Rosen

25. THE SITTER by Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka

“A suspended college student, living at home with his single mom, is talked into babysitting the three, young kids next door.”

AGENT United Talent Agency - Keya Khayatian, Charlie Ferraro

MANAGER Brillstein Entertainment Partners - Eryn Brown

Fox. Michael De Luca Productions.

26. Z FOR ZACHARIAH by Nissar Modi

“A sixteen-year-old girl named Ann Burden survives a nuclear war in a small American town..”

AGENT Creative Artists Agency - Jay Baker, Josh Krauss

MANAGER Energy Entertainment - Angelina Chen, Brooklyn Weaver

Zik Zak Filmworks producing.

27. WENCESLAS SQUARE by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely

“Based on the Arthur Phillips short story. Two spies fall in love while participating in separate Cold War missions in Prague during the 1980s.”

AGENT United Talent Agency - Charlie Ferraro, Keya Khayatian

Endgame Entertainment and This American Life producing.

28. BALLS OUT by The Robotard 8000 (Tim Talbott and Malcolm Spellman)

“When insurance salesman Jim Simmers has a near death experience, he decides that nothing matters except getting a promotion, a new car, and the hot girl from work. Jim's new attitude alienates his friends and co-workers, and he must figure out how to live his new life without losing his old one.”

AGENT Paradigm - Trevor Astbury, Mark Ross

MANAGER The Schiff Company - Nicole Romano

29. BURIED by Chris Sparling

“A civilian contractor in Iraq is kidnapped and awakens to find himself buried in a coffin in the desert.”

AGENT United Talent Agency - Charlie Ferraro, Doug Johnson

MANAGER Kaplan/Perrone Entertainment - Aaron Kaplan, Sean Perrone

Dark Trick Films, The Safran Company, Versus Entertainment producing.

29. THE DIVERSIFICATION OF NOAH MILLER by Adam Cole-Kelly and Sam Pitman

“A liberal New Yorker realizes he isn't as open-minded as he thinks he is and sets out to make a black friend.”

AGENT William Morris Entertainment - Mike Esola, Bill Weinstein

MANAGER Management 360 - Darin Friedman

34th Street Films, Radar Pictures producing.

30. THE GIRL WITH THE RED RIDING HOOD by David Leslie Johnson

“A Gothic imagining of the classic fairy tale in which a young woman is confronted by a werewolf, this time with a teenage love triangle at its center.”

AGENT Paradigm - Chris Smith

Warner Brothers. Appian Way Productions producing.

31. MY MOTHER'S CURSE by Dan Fogelman

“The young inventor of a new organic cleaning product invites his mother on a crosscountry road trip as he tries to sell his product to marketing outlets. His ulterior motive is to reunite her with a man she loved when she was young, and her motive is to help him overcome his ‘curse’ of non-commitment in relationships, for which she blames herself.”

AGENT William Morris Endeavor - Danny Greenberg

MANAGER Industry Entertainment - Eryn Brown

Paramount Pictures. Michaels Goldwyn producing.

32. RESTLESS by Jason Lew

“A tale of young love between a teenage boy and girl who share a preoccupation with mortality.”

AGENT William Morris Endeavor - Adam Levine

MANAGER Crestview Entertainment - Eric Black

Sony Pictures. Imagine Entertainment producing.

33. STREETS ON FIRE by Justin Britt-Gibson

“Two cops, reluctantly partnered, try to bring down a drug syndicate while navigating the streets of Chicago.”

AGENT The Gersh Agency - Sean Barclay

MANAGER Media Talent Group - Chris Davey

Katalyst Films producing.

34. TAKE THIS WALTZ by Sarah Polley

“A young woman struggles with her infidelities and the budding realization that she may be addicted to the honeymoon period of her relationships.”

AGENT William Morris Agency - Gaby Morgerman

MANAGER D/F Management - Frank Frattaroli

Susan Cavan producing.

35. THE TRADE by Dave Mandel

“The true story of two New York Yankees pitchers who caused a national scandal when they swapped wives in the early 70s.”

AGENT William Morris Endeavor – Bill Weinstein, Jeff Gorin, Phil Raskind

Warner Brothers. Idealogy producing.

36. BAYTOWN DISCO by Barry Battles and Griffin Hood

“Three redneck brothers get in over their heads when they agree to help a woman kidnap her son back from his seemingly evil father.”

AGENT Agency for the Performing Arts - Sheryl Peterson, Debbie Deuble Hill

MANAGER Elevate Entertainment - Jenny Wood

37. JIMI by Max Borenstein

“The life story of rock legend Jimi Hendrix.”

AGENT United Talent Agency - Keya Khayatian, Jon Huddle, Rebecca Ewing

MANAGER Anonymous Content - Adam Kossack, Bard Dorros

Legendary Pictures. Billy Gerber producing.

38. WHATEVER GETS YOU THROUGH THE NIGHT by Morgan Foehl

“After ten years on the run from the mob, the son of a mob lawyer must choose between prison and helping the man who killed his mother.”

AGENT William Morris Endeavor - Mike Esola, Lisa Hallerman

MANAGER Wirehouse Entertainment - Jessica Jordan

39. THE GUYS GIRL by Nick Confalone and Neal Dusedau

“Three male best friends realize they’re each in love with their mutual female best friend when she gets engaged.”

AGENT United Talent Agency - Blair Kohan, Rio Hernandez

MANAGER 3 Arts Entertainment - Greg Walter

Ternion producing.

40. RITES OF MEN by Jonathan Herman

“When a working class dad’s only son is murdered, he sets out to discover who is responsible.”

AGENT William Morris Endeavor - Mike Esola

MANAGER Luber/Roklin - Stephen Crawford

Universal Pictures.

41. SMILE, RELAX, ATTACK by Eli Attie

“A young, ambitious political consultant finds himself in over his head when his first big client - an incumbent Democratic Virginia Senator - becomes the subject of national scrutiny by both Parties.”

AGENT William Morris Endeavor - Bryan Besser

Mandate Pictures. Idealogy producing.

42. BOBBY MARTINEZ by Ric Roman Waugh

“A coming-of-age biopic about the titular Mexican-American surfer. Martinez rose out of the gang-ridden streets of Southern California to become a hero to his community when he swept every major amateur surfing tournament in his first year of competition and won the ASP Rookie of the Year honors in his first pro season.”

AGENT International Creative Management - Nicole Clemens, Harley Copen, Nick Reed

MANAGER Management 360 - Darin Friedman

State Street Pictures and Participant Media producing.

43. SHIMMER LAKE by Oren Uziel

“As a small-town bank-theft job slowly unravels, it proves to involve virtually everyone, from an ex-meth-lab runner to a crooked prosecutor and his vengeful cop brother.”

AGENT William Morris Endeavor - Bryan Besser

MANAGER Circle of Confusion - Britton Rizzio

Fox. Josephson Entertainment producing.

44. LOVESTRUCK by Annabel Oakes

“Cynical best friends Amelia and Ruth love nothing more than to ridicule romance. When they take it one step too far at their friend's wedding, they are sentenced to a fate worse than death - becoming heroines in their own romantic comedy.”

AGENT Untitled Talent Agency - Rio Hernandez, Jon Huddle

MANAGER Kaplan/Perrone Entertainment - Sean Perrone, Bryan Miller

Apparatus producing.

45. GOOD LOOKING by Chris McCoy

“In a future where dating services perfectly match soulmates, a man rejects the person chosen for him.”

AGENT Creative Artists Agency - Brian Siberell, Sally Willcox

MANAGER Anonymous Content - Shawn Simon

Dreamworks. Double Feature Films producing.

46. LIARS (A-E) by Emma Forrest

“A twenty-nine year old woman on the way to President Obama's inauguration stops to retrieve lost items from her ex-boyfriend in the hope of getting over her most recent heartache.”

AGENT William Morris Endeavor - Cliff Roberts

Casaratto - Eleanor Burns

Miramax. Scott Rudin Productions producing.

47. A FISTFUL OF QUARTERS: THE LEGEND OF NOLAN BUSHNELL by Brian Hecker and Craig Sherman

“The rise of Nolan Bushnell, father of the videogame industry, who started Atari in the 70s.”

AGENT Original - Jordan Bayer

MANAGER Principato Young Management - Paul Young, George Heller

Paramount Pictures. Appian Way Productions producing.

48. JIMMY SIX by Daniel Casey

“The screw-up son of a murdered mobster goes with a hitman to exact revenge on the informer who sent his father to his death.”

AGENT William Morris Endeavor - Mike Esola

MANAGER Circle of Confusion - Noah Rosen

Whitewater Films producing.

49. CORSICA 72 by Neil Purvis and Robert Wade

“On the island of Corsica in 1972, childhood best friends Marco and Sauveur find their lives veering in opposite directions - the first towards the Mafia, the second toward a simpler life with his beloved, Lucia. When the Corsican mob kills Sauveur's brother, they ignite a tit-for-tat blood feud that inevitably leads toward a final showdown.”

AGENT United Talent Agency - Jeremy Barber

Ruby Films producing.

50. ARTHUR by Peter Baynham

“Based on the 1981 film of the same name. A spoiled rich twentysomething must decide between true love and the vast fortune he’ll inherit if he marries a society woman whom he doesn’t love.”

AGENT United Talent Agency - Jeremy Barber

Warner Brothers. MBST Entertainment and Benderspink producing.

51. 2 GUNS by Blake Masters

“Based on the comic book of the same name by Stephen Grant. A DEA agent and an undercover naval intelligence officer unwittingly investigate each other while stealing mob money.”

AGENT United Talent Agency – Blair Kohan, Geoff Morely

Universal Pictures. Marc Platt Productions and Boom! Studios producing.

52. CUT BANK by Roberto Patino

“A small town thriller set in Cut Bank, Montana.”

AGENT William Morris Endeavor - Rich Cook, David Karp

MANAGER Principato Young - Evan Cavic

Stick n’ Stone Productions producing.

53. DEAD LOSS by Josh Baizer and Marshall Johnson

“A crab fishing boat crew rescues a castaway adrift in a life raft with mysterious cargo that soon both captivates and divides them.”

AGENT William Morris Endeavor - Bill Weinstein, David Karp

MANAGER Anonymous Content - Bard Dorros, Shawn Simon

Thousand Words producing.

54. THE STORM by Richard Taylor and Bryan Bagby

“A bounty hunter and his prey must unite to take on an evil sheriff and his posse in a lawless Wyoming town.”

AGENT The Gersh Agency - Carolyn Sivitz

MANAGER Anonymous Content - Bard Dorros

Simon Brooks producing.

55. I HOPE WE CAN STILL BE FRIENDS by John Whittington

“A couple breaks up after 5 years together but vow to remain friends after the fact, which proves much harder to do than they imagined.”

AGENT The Gersh Agency - Sarah Self

MANAGER Mason Novick

Inferno Entertainment. Mason Novick producing.

56. I HATE YOU DAD by David Caspe

“A father moves in with his son on the eve of his son’s wedding and promptly begins feuding with the bride-to-be.”

AGENT William Morris Endeavor - Phil D’amecourt, Elia Infascelli-Smith

MANAGER Magnolia - Javier Contreras

Sony Pictures. Happy Madison Productions producing.

57. IF I STAY by Shauna Cross

“Based on the novel of the same name by Gayle Forman. A teenage girl leaves her body after a tragic car crash and needs to decide whether to return to her life or not.”

AGENT William Morris Endeavor - Cliff Roberts, Lis Rowinski

MANAGER Jaret Entertainment - Seth Jaret

Summit Entertainment. Di Novi Pictures producing.

58. THE KING'S SPEECH by David Seidler

“George VI, also known as Bertie, reluctantly takes the throne of England when his

brother, Edward, abdicates in 1936. The unprepared king turns to a radical speech

therapist, Lionel Logue, to help overcome his nervous stutter and the two forge a

friendship.”

MANAGER Jeff Aghassi Management - Jeff Aghassi

The Weinstein Company. Bedlam Pictures and See-Saw Films producing.

59. THE GHOST AND THE WOLF by Rylend Grant and Dikran Ornekian

“An ex-cop and his old partner must reunite, burying years of distrust, to take on the vicious Russian mobsters who altered their lives profoundly in the 90s… destroying one and propelling the other to Captain.”

MANAGER Industry Entertainment - Andrew Deane

60. CON MEN by Eric Lane

“Greg Weinstock and Kevin Russell, two drug reps from Burlington Labs with nothing in common aside from a shared gift of moving product, are dispatched to a convention to hook the biggest sale of their lives.”

Shay Weiner producing.

61. THE BLIND RAGE OF PEACOAT MILLER by Adam Penn

“A college student home for the holidays discovers that an internet porn film turns its viewer into homicidal maniacs. As the epidemic spreads, he has to save his longtime crush while struggling to control his own urges.”

AGENT Creative Artists Agency - Billy Hawkins, Brian Kavanaugh-Jones

MANAGER Energy Entertainment - Adam Marshall, Milana Rabkin

Status: Michael de Luca Productions and David Gordon Green producing.

62. JOSH by Gary Ross

What it's about: “The lives of a single father and his teenaged son are dramatically changed when the boy's mother returns and wants to be part of her son's life.”

AGENT Creative Artists Agency - David O’Connor, Maha Dakhil

Status: Universal Pictures. Larger Than Life Productions producing.

63. MY SISTER IS MARRYING A DOUCHEBAG by Wendy Molyneux and Lizzie Molyneux

What it's about: “A young woman, thinking that her sister’s new fiance is a douchebag, sets out to sabotage their wedding.”

AGENT William Morris Endeavor - Phil D’amecourt, Simon Faber

MANAGER Kaplan/Perrone Entertainment - Aaron Kaplan, Sean Perrone

64. THE LOW SELF ESTEEM OF LIZZIE GILLESPIE by Mindy Kaling and Brent Forrester

What it's about:“A single girl in Manhattan dates the hottest guy in the world but must overcome her insecurities when she hears him deny they are dating.”

AGENT United Talent Agency - Blair Kohan, Julien Thuan (Kaling)

United Talent Agency - Jason Burns, David Kramer (Forrester)

MANAGER 3 Arts Entertainment - Howard Klein (Kaling)

Levity Management Group - Kevin Stolper (Forrester)

Status: Mandate Pictures.

65. RENKO VEGA & THE JENNIFER NINE by John Raffo

What it's about: “Renko Vega, once a hero and now a rogue thief wandering the galaxy with his hyperintelligent spaceship the Jennifer 9, is forced to become a hero once again when the young daughter of the President of Earth is kidnapped.”

AGENT Agency for the Performing Arts - Debbie Deuble Hill, Sheryl Peterson

MANAGER Brucks Entertainment - Brian Brucks

66. NORM THE MOVIE by Sam Esmail

What it's about: “A buddy comedy in which a guy is transported into a movie... or so he thinks.”

AGENT William Morris Endeavor - Mike Esola, Danny Gabai

MANAGER Energy Entertainment - Adam Marshall, Milana Rabkin

67. SMASH AND GRAB by Marc Wolff

What it's about: “When his wife is kidnapped, a reformed thief has to team up with his hapless ex-partner to save her, while dodging the LAPD, the FBI, and various members of the Los Angeles underworld.”

AGENT United Talent Agency - Tobin Babst

MANAGER Mason Novick

Status: Mason Novick and Julie Yorn producing.

68. THE TRUE MEMOIRS OF AN INTERNATIONAL ASSASSIN by Jeff Morris

What it's about: “Joe, an insecure writer with a boring desk job, finally manages to sell his assassin novel, The Memoirs of an International Assassin to the one publisher that will buy it. To his horror the publisher retitles it The True Memoirs of an International Assassin and markets the book as non-fiction -- making it seem as if Joe is the assassin himself. He soon finds himself in the crosshairs of the CIA, various drug lords, the media, and a beautiful investigative journalist while on a vacation in Belize.”

AGENT William Morris Endeavor - Mike Esola, Rich Cook

MANAGER Art/Work Entertainment - Julie Bloom

Status: The Film Department. Michael De Luca Productions producing.

69. NO BLOOD, NO GUTS, NO GLORY by Chase Palmer

What it's about: “A spy and twenty Union soldiers in disguise board a train in Georgia to execute a scheme that could bring a quick end to the U.S. Civil War.”

AGENT William Morris Endeavor - Craig Kestel

MANAGER Gotham Group - Peter McHugh, Lindsay Williams

Status: Misher Films producing.

70. ALLIES WITH BENEFITS by Elizabeth Wright Shapiro

What it's about: “The female President of The United States falls for her old college fling, the now Prime Minister of England.”

AGENT United Talent Agency - Blair Kohan, Tobin Babst, Jay Gassner

MANAGER Industry Entertainment - Jess Rosenthal

Status: Scott Free Productions producing.

71. 30 MINUTES OR LESS by Matthew Sullivan and Michael Diliberti

What it's about: “A comedy about a pizza delivery guy on an unlikely caper.”

AGENT William Morris Endeavor - Bill Weinstein, Simon Faber

MANAGER New School Media - Brian Levy

Status: Red Hour Films and New School Media producing.

72. COMIC CON by Matthew Sullivan and Michael Diliberti

What it's about: “To save their beloved neighborhood comic shop, a justice league of comic geeks must plan and execute a daring heist at Comic-Con.”

AGENT William Morris Endeavor - Bill Weinstein, Simon Faber

MANAGER New School Media - Brian Levy

73. CROOK FACTORY by Nicholas Meyer

What it's about: “Based on the novel by Dan Simmons and true events. An FBI agent is ordered to baby-sit Ernest Hemingway as he goes about running a motley spy ring in WWII Cuba.”

MANAGER Alan Gasmer & Friends - Alan Gasmer

Status: Warner Brothers. Infinitum Nihil producing.

74. THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY by Mark Bomback

What it's about: “Based on the comic book written by Gerard Way. After being raised by a brilliant scientist and a hyper-intelligent chimp, six super-powered former ‘child superheroes’ reunite to stop one of their own from leading a violin symphony that will destroy the world.”

AGENT William Morris Endeavor - Jason Spitz

MANAGER Anonymous Content - Adam Shulman

Status: Universal Pictures. Stuber Productions and Dark Horse Entertainment producing.

75. HANNA by David Farr

What it's about: “A fourteen year old girl is raised by her father to be a cold hearted killing machine.”

AGENT Creative Artists Agency - Bob Bookman, Josh Krauss

Curtis Brown - Nick Marston

Status: Focus Features. Adelstein Productions producing.

THE HAND JOB by Maggie Carey

What it's about: “A coming-of-age comedy about a teenage girl who gives her first hand job (among other life experiences).”

AGENT United Talent Agency - Blair Kohan, Julien Thuan

MANAGER 3 Arts Entertainment - Greg Walter, Tom Lassally

Status: Team Todd producing.

THE HUNGRY RABBIT JUMPS by Robert Tannen

What it's about: “A man becomes entangled in a secret society that forces him to murder.”

AGENT Feature Artists Agency - Brian Dreyfuss

MANAGER The Shuman Company - AB Fischer

Status: Maguire Entertainment and Endgame Entertainment producing.

DUE DATE by Alan R. Cohen and Alan Freedland

What it's about: “An uptight father-to-be is forced to travel across the country with an idiotic stoner in order to close a major business deal and make it home in time for the birth of his first child.”

AGENT William Morris Endeavor - Jason Spitz, Richard Weitz, Mike Esola

Status: Warner Brothers. Legendary Pictures and Green Hat Films producing.

THE CURSE OF MEDUSA by J Lee and Tom Welch

What it's about: “An origin story of Medusa the Gorgon.”

MANAGER Anonymous Content - Adam Kossack

Status: Original Films producing.

MEDIEVAL by Alex Litvak and Michael Finch

What it's about: “An unlikely group of imprisoned warriors are forced on a suicide mission to steal the King's crown in order to gain their freedom. They soon realize they've been set up to take the fall for the assassination of the King.”

AGENT William Morris Endeavor - Adam Levine

Status: Fox, New Regency. Wonderland Sound and Vision producing.

OWENS MANUAL by Greg Ferkel

What it's about: “A mild-mannered IT guy finds an 'owners manual' to his dull life but struggles to manage the realities of it when he reaches the end of the manual.”

AGENT International Creative Management - Harley Copen, Sophie Holodnik

MANAGER Caliber Media - Max Roman

Status: Gary Sanchez Productions producing.

THE LAST STAND by Andrew Knauer

What it's about: “A drug cartel king escapes his trial in a 200mph Gumpert Apollo, and the only thing in between him and Mexican freedom is a small town cop in a bordertown.”

AGENT William Morris Endeavor - Mike Esola

MANAGER Energy Entertainment - Jake Wagner

Status: Lionsgate. Di Bonaventura Pictures producing.

JAWS OF LIFE by Michael Goldbach

What it's about: “A seventeen year old boy falls in love with a woman old enough to be his mother and begins to question the meaning of love and relationships while his parents go through a divorce.”

MANAGER The Collective - Ava Greenfield

Status: Mason Novick producing.

JITTERS by Marc Haimes

What it's about: “A dysfunctional, recession-struck family moves into a new neighborhood and is terrorized by superbugs.”

AGENT William Morris Endeavor - Jeff Gorin

MANAGER Benderspink - JC Spink, Charlie Gogolak

Status: Paramount Pictures. Benderspink producing.

SWINGLES by Zach Braff

What it's about: “A bachelor who is dumped by his wingman teams up with a sharp-tongued woman he can't stand in order to meet women.”

AGENT Creative Artists Agency - Craig Gering

MANAGER Industry Entertainment - Sandra Chang

Status: Paramount Pictures. Misher Films producing.

THE TREES by Tyler Hisel

What it's about: “Isolated and threatened, a mysterious force hidden within the trees outside the small town of Laytonsville, Maryland strikes fear in the townsfolk as Sheriff Paul Shields attempts to overcome the demons of his past while protecting those that he loves.”

MANAGER Insignia Entertainment - Alexander Robb

THE SPECTACULAR NOW by Scott Neustadter and Mike Weber

What it's about: “A hard-partying high school senior's life changes when he meets a shy, insecure girl.”

AGENT Creative Artists Agency - Bill Zotti, Greg McKnight

MANAGER Kaplan/Perrone Entertainment - Aaron Kaplan, Sean Perrone

Status: Fox Searchlight. 21 Laps Entertainment producing.

SAND DOGS by Vineet Dewan and Angus Fletcher

What it's about: “A pair of Western Red Crescent Paramedics weather a series of intense, dangerous days in the Gaza Strip.”

AGENT United Talent Agency - Ramses Ishak, Michael Sheresky (Dewan)

Agency for the Performing Arts - David Saunders (Fletcher)

MANAGER Caliber Media - Dallas Sonnier (Dewan & Fletcher)

SEX, GREED, MONEY, MURDER & CHICKEN FRIED STEAK by Reinhard Denke

What it's about: “The story of oilman T. Cullen Davis, the richest man in the United States ever to be tried (and acquitted twice) for the capital murder of his stepdaughter, marking the end of the reign of Texas oil billionaires.”

AGENT William Morris Endeavor - Mike Esola

Status: Infinitum Nihil producing.

WATER FOR ELEPHANTS by Richard LaGravanese

What it's about: “Jacob Jankowski is about to take his final exams in veterinary medicine at Cornell when his parents are killed in a car accident. He drops out and joins Benzini Brothers, a second-rate traveling circus trying to survive during the Depression.”

AGENT Creative Artists Agency - Byrdie Lifson-Pompan, David O’Connor

Status: Fox 2000. Flashpoint Entertainment producing.

THE WETTEST COUNTY by Nick Cave

What it's about: “Based on the book by Matt Bondurant. The story of a moonshine gang operating in the bootlegging capital of America – Franklin County, Virginia – during Prohibition.”

AGENT United Agents - Anthony Jones

Status: Red Wagon Productions producing.

WALL STREET 2: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS by Allan Loeb

What it's about: “Gordon Gekko, fresh from prison, re-emerges into a much harsher financial world than the one he left.”

AGENT Creative Artists Agency - Jon Levin, Carin Sage

MANAGER Scarlet Fire - Steven Pearl

Status: Fox. The Edward R. Pressman Film Corporation producing.

THE UNDERLING by Dave Stoller and Ben Shiffrin

What it's about: “A man slowly comes to discover his girlfriend is literally working for the devil and has to find a way to escape.”

AGENT United Talent Agency - Charlie Ferraro

Status: MANAGER Gotham Group - Jeremy Bell, Lindsay Williams

THE VATICAN TAPES by Chris Borrelli

What it's about: “In a highly secured vault deep within the walls of Vatican City, the Catholic Church holds thousands of old films and video footage documenting exorcisms/supposed exorcisms and other unexplained religious phenomena they feel the world is not ready to see. This is the first tape - Case 83-G - stolen from these archives and exposed to the public by an anonymous source.”

AGENT United Talent Agency - Jon Huddle

MANAGER H2F - Chris Fenton

Status: Lionsgate. Lakeshore Entertainment producing.

YEAR 12 by Edward Ricourt

What it's about: “Twelve years after an alien invasion leaves humankind decimated and brutally subjugated, a former soldier must smuggle deadly uranium in his bloodstream and, with help from a pair of rebels, fight his way to an air force base where the uranium can be extracted and used to fuel a nuclear missile for a counterstrike that will reverse the direction of the war.”

AGENT Creative Artists Agency - Matt Rosen

MANAGER Gotham Group - Peter McHugh

Status: Paramount Pictures. Roth Films producing.

Airplane Blogging

2009-12-02T12:54:00.000-08:00

Wrote this a few weeks back. Wasnt sure i was going to post, but what the hell.

*****
Long indeed but I won't be starting with any apologies faithful reader. How hollow would that ring when we both know that this blog is merely a tickle in my side only at 33000 feet it seems.

Emotionally one of the roughest experiences in years. A colleague, friend, confidant, a terrible late night argument. Him aggressive and accusatory and myself defensive and denying. It seems that there was a lot more bad blood between us than I would have thought and for whatever reason it all came flowing out that night. By the end of the argument it had degenerated to name calling in the loudest of volumes. I haven't screamed like that in anger, fury, for years. After hanging up he deleted me as a facebook friend and emailed that he didn't want to know me, work with me, ever again. Will see what happens, If a detente is possible but I don't know. Its not just what was said but the feelings behind it were so full of anger. Regardless of apologies or anything else, don't those remain. Its difficult to be told by someone that virtually everyone that knows us in common thinks you are an asshole, that you are the most selfish person that only looks out for themselves. That you are to blame, largely for a huge mess which was brought upon you by others and which you did your best to rectify. Emotionally I'm still rather spent and raw. Recovering. I woke that morning after with a hangover in fact even though I hadn't had anything to drink. I've spent a fair amount of time discussing those accusations with friends and thinking about them myself. Some I can disregard I believe and some perhaps have an element of truth. I'm not perfect and I can strive to be nicer to people . Ill do that.

Whew.

I'm actually Blogging on my phone as my laptop is out of juice. Its making me less verbose than normal. About to land in austin. Here with Steve hentges hunger and looking forward to seeing some of the most laid back city in America.

Grumps.

Winners, 13th NYC PictureStart Film Festival, June 14-5, 2009

2009-06-16T10:36:00.001-07:00

Jury Awards

Best Short Film
Winner, Lost Paradise, Oded Binnun, Mihal Brezis
1st Runner Up, Kweisi, David Sauvage
2nd Runner Up, Refrigerator, Jim Revis

Best Actor
Winner, Kweisi, Kweisi
1st Runner Up, Sodom by the Sea, Mike Cianflone
2nd Runner Up, Lost Paradise, Moris Cohen

Best Actress
Winner, Emma’s 18th Birthday Party, Ching Shen Chang
1st Runner Up, Lost Paradise, Rotem Cohen-Zisman
2nd Runner Up, The Gynaecologist, Camila Bossa

Cinematography
Winner, Emma’s 18th Birthday Party
1st Runner Up, Lost Paradise
2nd Runner Up, Baby Boots, Aaron Munson

Special Jury Award
Baby Boots, Hans Olsen

Best Short Screenplay
Sonny, Julian Stephenson

Audience Awards

Best Short Film
Winner, Refrigerator, Jim Revis
1st Runner Up, Stay True Darling, James Morrison
2nd Runner Up, Trunk, Annie Feld

Best Actor
Winner, Refrigerator, Simon Sorrells
1st Runner Up, Trunk, Steve Smith
2nd Runner Up, Lost Paradise, Moris Cohen

Best Actress
Winner, Stay True Darling, Ellen Cunningham
1st Runner Up, Refrigerator, Alyson Weaver
2nd Runner Up, April Day And Night, Dana Hunter

Setting Up

2009-06-12T16:06:00.000-07:00

Spent much of the day finalizing for the 13th NYC PictureStart Film Festival. Got everything in hand, did the limited tech checks. Seems like everything is all set. Been a bumpy one this time around, at least in getting it together, with films withdrawing after acceptance (two, one for no reason at all, the other for a good reason, they got into Toronto which required a premiere), and my assistant not being in NY for the festival. Oh and David having the swine flu and his availability for the festival being in doubt.

But Dave seems to be OK. Got my hosts locked up, judges committed, and the films set and QC'ed. So away we go.

Grumps.

Anyone remember these? Love em.

2009-06-11T12:26:00.000-07:00

So i was speaking to one of my festival hosts, Sarah Mindlin. She's a NY based actress, and she does some voice-over work for a friend of mine, Ben. That is how we've met, and how she came to be hosting the first day of "Fest"-ivities.

She has this great voice - no wonder she does these voice-over gigs. That voice got me thinking back, however, to the old beer ads that used to run on the radio, in the eighties before I could drink (not long before). I couldnt recall the company that made the ads, but with some help from my sister and her friend Kelly (herself another blast from the 80's for me), I was informed that the company was Molson, and that the guy in the spots was Garrett Brown, who invented the Steadi-cam, which makes all those great moving shots that pepper every big studio movie made (and revolutionalized movie-making). Talk about a renaissance man. Anne Winn, with that sultry laugh and great comic timing, was the one I recalled when talking to Sarah.

Anyway, here is a link to their spots for Molson and others. (Click the hear link on the left side of the page).

Listen

I dont blog anymore.

2009-06-10T16:53:00.000-07:00

Yet I am here. I've been thinking for quite some time about making some entries. There are so many things that draw my interest on the internet, active exploits, passive pursuits, and while I am online so much of the time while I am home (i.e., not shooting something, film, not deer, dear), I don't end up here. I think about ending up here, but I don't.

And then I think its been too long. Like a friend you haven't called for so long, it becomes a question mark. Maybe its been so long that they wouldn't even want to hear from you at this point. Maybe i haven't blogged in so long (months and months) that my audience (er, both of you) wouldn't even return to read what I'd newly written. Wouldn't even think to return to look to see if I had written anything.

And yet here I am writing, because...because because because, because I write more for me than for anyone else, and I felt like writing.

Whats going on...

I am once again in NY for the summer. I may not spend the whole summer in NY. There is some film work to be finished in LALA, on a film we shot over the winter. Pickups, mostly. Supposed to happen in July, but might be August. That would send me back to LA earlier than past years.

The film festival is this weekend. In many ways its been tougher than past years. My assistant bailed to LA during the festival, and Dave has the swine flu. Yeah, seriously. So he may be out of pocket. But the new venue is great and Sawyer is on board as always, so it will work out. We had less films submitted than expected, given the once per year nature of the festival now, which I attribute to the economic malaise. I only programmed 13 new films. Well, I programmed more, but one filmmaker withdrew and another got into the TIFF (Toronto) and had to hold for his premiere there, which I understand. I didnt find anything terrific to replace them so I stayed at the shorter schedule, and decided to show one of my own films for the first time, out of competition. Should be fun, anyway.

The film business is very difficult right now for independent producers. Banks are not loaning money and many of the companies that distributed indie movies have folded over the last few years. Budgets have been squeezed. It is what it is. Probably for the best on some level, as there were too many movies being made, I think.

I remain single, for the longest stretch of singledom of my adult life.

What else, what else. I don't really have to spill everything now, if my attention is to be back sooner rather than later. That is my intention.

And I am out of practice blogging, so forgive my lack of flow. I promise not to let it be so long next time, and I'll be in better form. I think.

Grumps

Airplane Bloggin'- Easy Come, Easy Go

2009-01-28T12:05:00.000-08:00

So finally on the way back to Los Angeles, and of course, en route, doing a little airplane blogging.

We wrapped production on Monday, with a bang. Or an explosion. I cannot really be more specific in this forum, but lets just say that it was enlightening. We were all fired up about the day’s filming. Know what I mean?

And now, I’m on the late night United flight back to Los Angeles, direct, coach. Bumpy as hell, the whole ride. I am sitting in an aisle seat, and there is an empty middle seat. In the window seat, I lie to you not, is a mountain of a guy. Wearing overalls. He is a veritable parade of bodily noises, mouth and otherwise. His name would probably be Bubba (in fact, our transportation captain on the movie was named Big Bubba, a short and impressively globular white dude with the strongest Cajun accent you can image, and a very surprising sensitivity to being liked and appreciated, especially in regard to his extensive collection of automatic weapons), but that would be an understatement. He looks like the guy who lost the hot dog eating contest to Larry Finkelstein in the movie, Meatballs, except that guy would be my neighbor’s younger, smaller brother.

Having not been home in a while, I am definitely excited about seeing friends, getting to work on projects somewhat neglected for a period of time, and most of all, waking up in my own space. Getting back to the gym will be nice too. Cooking and eating home cooked meals will be excellent. I think the weather hasn’t been great in LA for the past few weeks, but no matter, home is home. And I guess I have to admit, at least based on the amount of time in spent in LA relative to NY, LA is as much or more home than NY these days.

Got bunches of pics to upload to facebook, maybe I’ll post some here as well. We had a great crew for the most part on Sinners, and what I’ve seen of the movie really looks terrific. The shoot had its challenges, mostly due to a few very tough talent issues (some resolved) and location and permit problems. But the crew and even the producers pulled together and resolved to fight through it to make the best movie possible, even given the limitations.

And that is just how is should be.

We’ll be shooting a week or so in Los Angeles to finish off production. It will actually be the first time I’ll have shot a movie in LA (Slaughter was fully prepped in LA, but of course, never shot), so that will be an interesting experience.

Happy to be home.

Grumps.

***
I was done. But Bubba just spoke to me. Asked me to move so he could get out “to go to take a piss.” Literally. First words out of him. Then he chuckled and asked which was was the “head.” Ah, the colorful sorts you encounter in traveling to and from Louisiana.

The Home Stretch

2009-01-19T18:37:00.000-08:00

Some tidbits from the shoot in New Orleans…

Filming has gone well and we’re entering our final week of filming (seven days straight because of some actor-related schedule snafus) here in New Orleans. We started filming in the French Quarter today, with a call time at 1AM, meaning hotel pick-up at 12:15. Brutal was not the word, by the time it was nine or ten AM. We wrapped by around 11:30, and despite absolute exhaustion, since we were at St. Peter and Bourbon, I had two Newcastle drafts with Mark (another producer) and Will (the director) before heading back to the hotel for around five hours of sleep.

We’ll be heading down to the worst neighborhood in New Orleans, perhaps one of the worst in the country, tomorrow, down to the lower Ninth Ward. It’s the area most ravaged by Katrina, and we’ll be shooting there over the next four days. We’re doing lots of shootouts, and its my understanding that gunfire is not an unknown sound in this neighborhood. Its definitely going to be interesting.

In finding that location, I headed down to the lower Ninth with Leon, one of the exec producers. Among my duties in New Orleans outside of general producing was to focus on locations. I took Leon with me around to a number of location candidates because he had his car here and because he, well, he is strapped. With a permit of course. I knew what this neighborhood was so having a partner with an HK 45 caliber in his pocket was a bonus, an indispensable one.

When we got out to the house that is ultimately serving as our location, it had been boarded up tight. After checking with our location contact, a rep for a government contractor who knocks down these blighted houses, we got the go-ahead and Leon kicked in the back door. He wouldn’t walk through the house though, so I walked through this flooded-out blighted former rowhouse and kicked out the front door, knocking off the padlock. How many lawyers do that? We had some company, some unfriendly company across the street. My guess is that they thought we were cops, given that we were both, well, white, and kicking in doors, and videotaping the premises. They weren’t too happy to see us, and I hope they wont be around for the filming, but I imagine with our machine gun fire and exploding house, we’ll be attracting a fair amount of attention.

We’ve been splitting rooms in production here at the hotel, and I’ve been with actors until the past few days, and now a firearms specialist, a very nice guy who was a former KGB and Russian Special Forces soldier. His knowledge base when it comes to weapons and gunshots and that kind of stuff is broad and real and maybea little scary. But he’s a good roommate. Even though he’s toying with a gravity knife as I am writing. Yeah, seriously. You should see his home movies. Yeah, seriously again.

That’s kind of it for now. I haven’t been home since early December and I am looking forward to getting back to LA and my room and the gym and friends and warm weather.

Grumps.

Sinners Poster

2009-01-05T16:59:00.000-08:00

Rosenblatt Story was embellished

2009-01-04T18:36:00.000-08:00

I am sure many of you have seen this in one of the 1000 newspapers in which its been published. This story is a project of mine for the last five years or so. This NYT article is probably one of the more balanced on the topic i"ve seen.

Let it be known that we are still going forward with the movie, which depicts the "apple" as a dream sequence, unclear about whether it really happened. It remains, in many peoples' minds, a wonderful story of survival, a personal "life is beatiful" created in reality by Mr. Rosenblatt.

Further, a book publication, most likely a novelization of the screenplay, is forthcoming.

I do want to point out that I feel that comparisons to Madoff, a swindler of other peoples money (billions of it), whose behavior has led to desperation and suicide, and to James Frey, who wrote the completely fabricated A Million Little Pieces, about his purported drug addiction, are out of turn. Herman didnt hurt anyone with his story, except perhaps himself. And he didn't fabricate his personality or existence. He is a confirmed Holocaust survivor, and as a child lived through and endured the most difficult circumstances possible. That this had an effect on his choices and how he chose to deal with reality is axiomatic. We cannot imagine his brain, not having walked in his shoes, and not having seen what he has seen. I thank God I haven't had to endure what Herman Rosenblatt endured in the first years of hit life.

**********

A man whose memoir about his experience during the Holocaust was to have been published in February has admitted that his story was embellished, and on Saturday evening his publisher canceled the release of the book.
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Times Topics: Literary Fraud

A bound proof of “Angel at the Fence” circulated in advance of the publication date.

And once again a New York publisher and Oprah Winfrey were among those fooled by a too-good-to-be-true story.

This time, it was the tale of Herman Rosenblat, who said he first met his wife while he was a child imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp and she, disguised as a Christian farm girl, tossed apples over the camp’s fence to him. He said they met again on a blind date 12 years after the end of war in Coney Island and married. The couple celebrated their 50th anniversary this year.

Ms. Winfrey, who hosted Mr. Rosenblat and his wife, Roma Radzicki Rosenblat, on her show twice, called their romance “the single greatest love story” she had encountered in her 22 years on the show. On Saturday night, after learning from Mr. Rosenblat’s agent that the author had confessed that the story was fabricated, Berkley Books, a unit of Penguin Group that was planning to publish “Angel at the Fence,” Mr. Rosenblat’s memoir of surviving in a sub-camp of Buchenwald with the help of his future wife, canceled the book and demanded that Mr. Rosenblat return his advance.

Harris Salomon, who is producing a movie based on the story, said he would go ahead with the film, but as a work of fiction, adding that Mr. Rosenblat had agreed to donate all earnings from the film to Holocaust survivor charities.

Berkley’s decision came in the same year that another unit of Penguin, Riverhead Books, was duped by Margaret Seltzer, the author of “Love and Consequences,” her fabricated gang memoir about her life as a white girl taken into an African-American foster home in South Central Los Angeles. She had in fact been raised by her biological family in a well-to-do section of the San Fernando Valley. It also followed the revelations, nearly three years ago, that James Frey, the Oprah Winfrey-annointed author “A Million Little Pieces,” had exaggerated details of his memoir of drug addiction.

This latest literary hoax is likely to trigger yet more questions as to why the publishing industry has such a poor track record of fact-checking.

In the latest instance, no one at Berkley questioned the central truth of Mr. Rosenblat’s story until last week, said Andrea Hurst, his agent. Neither Leslie Gelbman, president and publisher of Berkley, nor Natalee Rosenstein, Mr. Rosenblat’s editor at Berkley, returned calls or e-mail messages seeking comment. Craig Burke, director of publicity for Berkley, declined to elaborate beyond the company’s brief statement announcing the cancellation of the book. In an e-mail message, a spokesman for Ms. Winfrey also declined to comment.

After several scholars and family members attacked Mr. Rosenblat’s story in articles last week in The New Republic, Mr. Rosenblat confessed on Saturday to Ms. Hurst and Mr. Salomon that he had concocted the core of his tale. Ms. Hurst said that in an emotional telephone call with herself and Mr. Salomon, Mr. Rosenblat said his wife had never tossed him apples over the fence.

In a statement released through his agent, Mr. Rosenblat wrote that he had once been shot during a robbery and that while he was recovering in the hospital, “my mother came to me in a dream and said that I must tell my story so that my grandchildren would know of our survival from the Holocaust.”

He said that after the incident he began to write. “I wanted to bring happiness to people, to remind them not to hate, but to love and tolerate all people,” he wrote in the statement. “I brought good feelings to a lot of people and I brought hope to many. My motivation was to make good in this world. In my dreams, Roma will always throw me an apple, but I now know it is only a dream.”

According to Ms. Hurst, who represents other inspirational writers including Bernie Siegel, author of “Love, Medicine & Miracles,” Mr. Rosenblat first concocted his story in the mid 1990s as an entry to a newspaper contest soliciting the “best love stories.” In 1996, he appeared on Ms. Winfrey’s show with his wife and repeated the fabricated story. From there, it snowballed, with versions appearing in magazines, a volume of the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series, and a children’s book, “Angel Girl,” by Laurie Friedman, released in September by an imprint of Lerner Publishing. Mr. and Mrs. Rosenblat, who now live in North Miami Beach, appeared on CBS’s “Early Show” in October.

As media coverage of Mr. Rosenblat’s story spread, scholars and others began to question the veracity of the romance throughout the blogosphere, pointing out that, among other things, the layout of the camp would have prevented the pair from meeting at a fence.
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Times Topics: Literary Fraud

In a telephone interview in November, Mr. Rosenblat defended his story against such doubts. He said that his section of Schlieben, a sub-camp of Buchenwald, was not well guarded and that he could stand between a barracks and the six-to-eight-foot fence out of sight of guards. Roma was able to approach him because there were woods that would have concealed her.

In recounting the stunning “reunion” with Ms. Radzicki 12 years later as survivors living in New York, Mr. Rosenblat said Ms. Radzicki told him she had saved a boy by hurling apples over a fence to him.

“Did he have rags on his feet instead of shoes?” Mr. Rosenblat said he asked her.

She said yes and he told her, “That boy was me.”

In a telephone interview Sunday, Ms. Hurst, who sold the book to Berkley for less than $50,000, said she always believed the essential truth of Mr. Rosenblat’s tale until last week. “I believed the teller,” Ms. Hurst said. “He was in so many magazines and books and on ‘Oprah.’ It did not seem like it would not be true.” On Sunday, Ms. Hurst said that she was reviewing her legal options because “I’ve yet to see what kind of repercussions could come from this, and I was lied to.”

Ms. Hurst said that Mr. Rosenblat did provide some documentation, including a 1946 letter from a warden with the Jewish Children’s Community Committee for the Care of Children From the Camps that said Mr. Rosenblat had attended a technical school in London. Evidence of an organization with that name did not appear in Internet searches on Sunday.

Susanna Margolis, a New York-based ghost writer who polished Mr. Rosenblat’s manuscript, said she was surprised by his description of his first blind date with Ms. Radzicki. “I thought that was far-fetched.” she said. “But if somebody comes to you, as an agent and a publisher, and says, ‘This is my story,’ how do you check it other than to say, ‘Did this happen?’ ”

That so many would get taken in by Mr. Rosenblat’s inauthentic love story seems incredible given the number of fake memoirs that have come to light in the last few years. The Holocaust in particular has been fertile territory for fabricated personal histories: earlier this year, Misha Defonseca confessed that her memoir, “Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years,” about her childhood spent running from the Nazis and living with wolves, was not true.

A decade ago, a Swiss historian debunked Binjamin Wilkomirski’s 1996 memoir, “Fragments,” which described how he survived as a Latvian Jewish orphan in a Nazi concentration camp. It turns out the book was written by Bruno Doessekker, a Swiss man who spent the war in relative comfort in Switzerland. Mr. Rosenblat, at least, appears to have told the truth about being a prisoner in the Nazi concentration camps.

The primary sleuth in unmasking his fabrication of the apple story was Kenneth Waltzer, director of Jewish studies at Michigan State University. He has been working on a book on how 904 boys — including the Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel — were saved from death by an underground rescue operation inside Buchenwald, and has interviewed hundreds of survivors, including boys from the ghetto at Piotrkow in Poland who were taken with the young Herman Rosenblat to the camp.

When Dr. Waltzer asked other survivors who were with Mr. Rosenblat about the tossed apple story, they said the story couldn’t possibly be true.

In his research of maps drawn by ex-prisoners, Dr. Waltzer learned that the section of Schlieben where Mr. Rosenblat was housed had fences facing other sections of the camp and only one fence — on the south — facing the outside world. That fence was adjacent to the camp’s SS barracks and the SS men there would have been able to spot a boy regularly speaking to a girl on the other side of the fence, Dr. Waltzer said. Moreover, the fence was electrified and civilians outside the camp were forbidden to walk along the road that bordered the fence.

Dr. Waltzer also learned from online documentation that Ms. Radzicki, her parents and two sisters were hidden as Christians at a farm not outside Schlieben but 210 miles away near Breslau.

Holocaust survivors and scholars are fiercely on guard against any fabrication of memories because they taint the truth of the Holocaust and raise doubts about the millions who were killed or brutalized.

“There’s no need to embellish, no need to aggrandize,” said Deborah E. Lipstadt, the Dorot professor of modern Jewish and Holocaust studies at Emory University. “The facts are horrible, and when you’re teaching about horrible stuff you just have to lay out the facts.”

Airplane Bloggin’: Back to NOLA

2009-01-04T18:32:00.001-08:00

Sitting in the Admiral’s lounge for American airlines in Miami International Airport, I cannot help to feel more like a yeoman. No wireless access. No complimentary beverages other than coffee and water, and if you want a complimentary meal, I guess one can subside on three or four of the mini-muffins they have displayed under the glass cases. They do seem to have a full cash bar, but that’s not really the point of these airline clubs, is it? I thought the point was, when you’re encountering the ordeal that airports are in the modern age, it was a little oasis, with free lubrication. I don’t pay for the club, I get in by virtue of a platinum amex, but still, its just one more thing that’s been taken away, put on a paying basis. Its like the girl who used to lay you for the hell of it, the friend with benefits, who know wants girlfriend status. It’s a poor analogy, but forgive me, its early and I am still a bit groggy, a situation not aided by the weak-ass coffee here. Only thirty minutes from my flight, guess I should mosey (mosey?) to my gate…

Well, its hours later and I am in my hotel room in New Orleans. I think I am the first one back in the city from the production.

Miami…Miami. Was great. It was terrific to have that time with my parents, as its not often that I get to see them for an extended period of time. A bump here and there, to be sure, but all in all a great and relaxing trip. Dave Newman came down and despite the cramped quarters (we had to split a room, and David bought his version of an air mattress, which was a pool flotation device, only Newman) to sleep on. And with Ryan and Ricky in Miami, for the most part, the nightlife was kicking. New Years Eve itself was probably the weak link in the nightlife chain, a rookie night as I’ve always called it. But hitting the other spots, from the places at the Fontainbleau (Liv, and the outdoor portion of Blade by the Pool), the Mondrian (with Jen Styles, an LA friend), Mokia, Rokbar and all the rest. Oh, and the Shore Club, at Skybar which was lowkey (yeah yeah) and fun and non-pretentious somehow.

We hit the beach almost every day (except for the days spent at the Fontainbleau pool). The beach was a scene of course, crawling with paparazzi and the occasional celebrity. I actually ran into AnnaLynne McCord, who was an actress who was attached to Slaughter when it was supposed to enter production. You might know her better from 90210 (the new one) or from playing the teen seductress of Dylan Walsh on Nip/Tuck. In any event, despite our shared trials and tribulations she was very nice and gave me a New Year’s hug and kiss despite being clad in a very small bikini, which is something I really hope some reaching paparazzi got on camera.

I also had Mickey Rourke shake my hand and inadvertently spit on me. I hope it was inadvertent. Especiallybecause I bought him a shot of Jagermeister afterwards. He drank it like it was a shot of apple juice. We didn’t hug afterwards.

It was a bit of a whirlwind, ending up with Newman and I at Mokia the last night he was in town (he left the third, me the fourth) til 5 Am , me basically watching him people watching. He had an 8AM pickup for the airport, and was gone when I woke up hours later. I basically spent much of my last day first waiting for confirmation that I was leaving the next day (today), sleeping, packing and sleeping (lots of sleeping).

And now its back to work in New Orleans. Did some location scouting today, mostly in the ninth ward, and hit up the famous Port Of Call for Burgers and Monsoons, and to see Miami lose to Ravens, unfortunately. Like the Dolphins’ season, it wasn’t a perfect vacation, but it was pretty darn good.

File Under "You Gotta Be Kidding Me..."

2008-12-25T12:00:00.001-08:00

How long have we waited for this? And now, ....

The New York Times has just revealed that Gary A. Feess, a federal judge in Los Angeles, said he intended to grant 20th Century Fox’s claim that it owns a copyright interest in the Watchmen, a movie shot by Warner Brothers and Legendary Pictures and set for release in March. At an earlier hearing, the judge said he believed that issues in the case could be settled only at a trial, which was scheduled for late January. On Wednesday, however, Judge Feess said he had reconsidered and concluded that Fox should prevail on crucial issues.

“Fox owns a copyright interest consisting of, at the very least, the right to distribute the Watchmen motion picture,” the ruling said.

This battle became public back in February 2008 when Fox said it planned on suing Warner Bros. claiming to have exclusive rights to develop, produce and distribute a film based on the graphic novel “Watchmen.” The suit has been discussed in a variety of issues since then all pointing to producer Lawrence Gordon who sold the rights to the film to Fox but when Fox dropped plans for a movie he began shopping it around to Universal and Paramount until it ultimately fell in the hands of Warner.

However, don’t get too concerned just yet fanboys, in Wednesday’s ruling Judge Feess advised both Fox and Warner to look toward a settlement or an appeal.

“The parties may wish to turn their efforts from preparing for trial to negotiating a resolution of this dispute or positioning the case for review,” he said.

Will there be a settlement? I can only assume so since that March 6 release date is looming, but this is definitely interesting news heading into the holidays as we probably won’t hear any new details until the new year.

MIA in MIA

2008-12-23T11:14:00.000-08:00

I broke the streak of airplane blogging I had going, so instead I am Miami apt. blogging. Wow, what an exciting introduction….

Just finished at 830am two days ago the first of two legs of the New Orleans shoot for Sinners and Saints, complete with flipping cars, well-armed mercenaries with automatic weapons and full muzzle loads, and lots of fake blood. Without a doubt, it’s the most testosterone-laden set I’ve even been on. Very Michael Mann and I mean that in a good way. How suitable that I depart for Miami during our planned hiatus.

The Miami apt., in the fam since 1965, was a regular for me for the last ten years, save the last two, when I’ve been west-coast centric. The last time I was here was NYE two years back, which was fun, and which I spent with a lot of the same folks (Ricky in particular) that are coming down this time around. The indefatigable (except when sick) Ryan will be coming through as well, so I expect well-ordered excitement, as is his usual course.

My parents were down here when I arrived at the place, and Dave is coming down for a well-deserved break from the snows of the Northeast. Looking forward to the beach (gonna be 80 plus tomorrow and much of the week), some cheesy happy hours down in South Beach (I’m close, by the Delano and Shore Club), and then the NYE hullabaloo. After the turn, a few days of recovery and back to New Orleans, hopefully with a few less night-shoots on the schedule, and perhaps with somewhat recovered feet. My feet are actually the only part of me with any continuing malaise, but for those of you who have worked on shoots (movies, ads, photo, wtver, you know why). A three week stretch of six day weeks awaits on my return to the big easy, which after that stretch will probably feel more like the big lousy. I’ll be fine though, always seem to make it through.

Grumps in the sub-tropics

Airplane Bloggin’: Big Easy Style

2008-12-12T21:56:00.001-08:00

I am most certainly on an airplane on the way to New Orleans. I feel somewhat less nervous on this airplane than I usually do (ever since 9/11, I am a pretty shitty flight passenger, particularly for take-offs), and I haven’t the foggiest idea why. But why look a gift horse in the mouth, right?

Sinners and Saints, the movie I am producing with Mark Clark, started shooting Monday down in Lousiana. Its my first action movie, and I wanted to get down there for the first day, but had to stay behind to tie up some unfinished paperwork in L.A. before making the move. Grabbed the flight out of LAX at 10:30 this AM, which annoyingly necessitated getting up at 7:15 (at least in my head). Of course, when we shoot days on the show, I will likely be up quite a bit earlier than that.

What is Sinners and Saints, you say? OK, well, you would say, if you were reading this as I wrote it. Its an cop-thriller action movie, very solid script, from writer/director Will Kaufman, who I think could be a very big action movie director in the future. Sinners is his second movie, the first being The Prodigy, which he made for pocket change with no name actors and is in distribution everywhere from Pago Pago to Walla Walla, Washington. Its amazing what he did with scant resources on The Prodigy, and I am excited to see what he’ll do with modest (several steps up from scant) resources on Sinners.

The shoot goes two weeks in December, before a break for two weeks, which I’ll be spending at my family’s Miami apartment with my parents and my good buddy Dave, who is in some hot water for leaving his girl behind for Xmas and New Years. On the fourth of January or so, it’ll be back to New Orleans for the final three weeks of the show, and then back to LA. Based on that schedule, I think there isn’t going to be any Sundance for me this year, or Slamdance, but that’s not a sure thing atm. I may still, pending how things go, head out to Park City, but it does seem that (1) few of my friends are going, (2) the economy may be bad enough to kill it for the most part, particularly the second weekend which is usually more dead anyway (many folks just go for opening weekend, when most of the big premieres happen) and (3) we aren’t announcing yet on the next Slamdance Horror screenplay winner until the middle of next year. So going isn’t such a priority in any event and on a logistical level, I don’t even have any cold weather clothing with me, if I was going to go straight from New Orleans to Park City. That’s kind of an interesting issue just today, as it actually snowed yesterday in New Orleans, not the best timing for a lower budget movie on a tight schedule (i.e. Sinners).

Anyway, I probably will be blogging quite a bit more for the time being, as I tend to have more to write about from set and when I am waiting around on set (in between handling whatever need be handled) I have time to write it down too. Has been a slowish year for the movie business, and for me personally, as I only made the short 10:31 this year up until now. I am definitely looking forward to being on set and to having some beach time in Miami to recharge the batteries.

Grumps.

Sinners and Saints

2008-11-12T11:55:00.000-08:00

Its been a busy kinda week (well, the past seven days or so) for work. This down economy feels perilous for all of us, economically at least, and the word of friends losing jobs is spreading around.

I’ve been fairly busy though, and the producing stuff seems to be coming along. However, as I always say, making movies is a roller-coaster. Don’t get on. So while things appear to moving forward nicely on a few projects, some long-gestating, some new, I’ll believe it totally when we break escrow. Just the way things are and the way they work.

I’m liking the new apartment, that it’s a one minute walk to the gym, and that the kitchen is so much better than where we were before. I bought a gas grill last weekend, and we’ve already used it a few times. Being able to walk onto the terrace and use a grill is great, very happy about that too.

Wow, I sound like a happy person. So strange. Don’t worry, I’ll snap out of it.

Im heading down to Louisiana in a few weeks for Will Kaufman’s movie, Sinners and Saints. We locked up a few names for the last few roles, and I think this one is a winner. The director is super-talented, and the cast, many of whom came on for pennies (well, not literally), seem to recognize that. I’m looking forward to being on a set, something I haven’t had the chance to do since making 10:31 over the summer.

Here’s will’s reel. This is from a super-low budget “nights and weekends” movie made for pocket-chance (again, not literally, but very inexpensively – VERY VERY). If he can do this kind of work at that budget, i simply cannot wait to see what he can do on Sinners with a bigger budget and a talented cast.

Grumps.

New Apartment

2008-11-04T12:25:00.000-08:00

So i dont post as much as I used to. But I got a new place, and I do miss posting. So maybe with the new place in LA and the wireless internet that I just seemed to have figured out (needed to download airport extreme update to keep from getting disconnected every seven seconds, ugh), I will be inspired to share just a little bit more with the four people who read this (well, three plus me).

New place is working out fine, got the free direct TV in today, wireless is up. Dont have my new bed yet, but that comes tomorrow. Cannot wait. We still need a bunch of other furniture, Mike, Linda and I but we're getting there. Bought all the cooking/kitchen crap on sale over the weekend, should be here end of the week. Priorities remain a sofa, a bbq, and my bed, but thats just a matter of time.

Never have had my own bathroom before and its really nice. Big shower. Just wish water was a little warmer and pressure was a little better. But no complaints. I cannot believe this place is the same price (after factoring in free gym, internet and cable/direct TV). If only I knew, would have been out of the hovel last year sometime.

Gym is next door, so its a stroll over in three minutes. Plus I saw Andy Dick there yesterday, which means I guess I'll be staying out of the locker room.

Another repost, funny stuff

2008-09-27T13:35:00.000-07:00

This email circulating around Hollywood was sent by a DreamWorks floater. Last names have been deleted to protect the Semitic-challenged:

Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2008 5:09 PM
Subject: RE: SWP Mtg. Kristi w/ Kristin and Matthew

Hey Ryan-
I’m sorry, b/c I’m covering for Lindsey’s usual asst., could you tell me, who’s Rosh Hashanah and why would he/she affect Kristi’s meeting with K and M?
Thanks! I really appreciate it!
Michelle

From Nicki Finke, DHD.

2008-09-27T13:29:00.001-07:00

His death at age 83 following a long battle with cancer was described as just as private and discreet as the way he had lived -- surrounded by family and friends at his farmhouse home near Westport, Conn. I had the opportunity to interview him for the cover of the old Los Angeles Times magazine during that most elegant of moments when every Oscar contender is bound equally by hope. Seven times a contender, never a champion, Paul Newman was still waiting for his Best Actor Oscar at the time. That year, he was being judged not only for his nominated role as "Gramps" Fast Eddie Felson in 1986's The Color of Money but also for four decades of playing anti-heroes. He thought his moment had come and gone when he was earlier awarded an honorary Oscar recognizing his personal integrity and dedication to his craft. He told me it was "for people who are already up to their knees in weeds. But at least I was working at the time on The Color of Money, so I knew something that they didn't know: that the pasture was quite a bit in front of me."

Newman lamented the passing of "the golden age" of Hollywood in the 1950s and 1960s. It's as if this son of a Jewish sporting-goods store owner from Shaker Heights, Ohio; this Navy Pilot Training Program reject and World War II torpedo-bomber radioman; this stage and television actor who married the understudy (Joanne Woodward); this father, movie director, racecar driver, cook, philanthropist and political activist wanted to tell the world that no one knew how well they had it back then. Then there were films. There were plays. There was quality television. "Boy, there was work," he said wistfully. "You got a week off and you could be right back in a film or on television or in a play. But I'm not driven to the extent that I will take up a bad script in order to work," he told me. "Although I don't know. I may have to do that if something doesn't show up. After a while, you simply have to keep an instrument oiled. You can't just throw it in the garage and pick it up every four or five years and expect it to work." Yet he still turned down the part of playing Superman's father for the Salkinds even though he would have earned millions for just a few days work.

He was always an anomaly in Hollywood, choosing to live on the East Coast, and refusing to read the trades, and stayed married for 50 years. In an industry noted for cost overruns, he prided himself on bringing his pictures in under budget, and once he became famous acting in or helming only important or original films. And how rare for actors and how fortunate for Newman that his dotage brought him some of his most memorable characters -- Michael Gallagher in Absence of Malice, Frank Galvin in The Verdict, Fast Eddie in The Color of Money and he received Best Actor nominations for all three. (Newman's other nods were for roles in Cool Hand Luke, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Hud and The Hustler. He was not nominated for two of his most famous movies: The Sting and Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid.) So what if Newman wound up his career playing near-geezers whose spindly legs and watering eyes and sunken cheeks were part of his new screen image. He claimed that he never cared about being a sex symbol anyway. After all, he told me, "if you can get by on your baby blues, then what does it mean to be anything in the profession?" Newman suspected that he was giving an Oscar-quality performance under Marty Scorsese's direction. But anyone who expected Newman to come right out and say, "Yes, I want the Oscar," was going to have to wait until those blue eyes turn brown. Newman darted around the issue with me while still managing to convey the absurdity of his winless condition. "Oral Roberts has said that if he doesn't raise [enough] money by the end of March, God is going to call him home. Then whatever will He do to me? So if those guys out there don't tap me for this, I think I'm going to go to that great rehearsal hall in the sky." Now Hollywood can console itself knowing that he was much, much more than a Best Actor Oscar winner: he was an interesting and thoughtful and special man.

Seven Years Later.

2008-09-11T11:11:00.000-07:00

In LA for this September 11th, the anniversary of that day. First time not in NYC for the day. Anyway, I want to remember what happened, and so I repost my recollections today.

******
I've already posted this, last September 11th. Its a difficult day for me, one that continues to make me examine my priorities. And because I now live across the street from Ground Zero, its not very much a situation of Out of Sight, Out of Mind. I havent even been downstairs today, but I'll go take a look at it soon, the news trucks, the spectators, and other tourists of sympathy and disaster. Im not casting aspersions, it is what it is. And every year, as it becomes more chronologically remote, it becomes something a little bit more and a little bit less for me. More of an arrow, and less of an anchor perhaps.

******Previously posted, Sept. 11, 2006********

I used to work in law, in finance. These are jobs that may be exciting for some, a thrill for some. Others may fancy that they do these jobs for the good of the economy, of the world, in some way.

I did my jobs for the money, and for the freedom that the money would eventually, supposedly, purchase for me.

I was working for Deloitte & Touche, which is one of the largest consulting firms in the world. I sold and developed tax product for companies. Basically, I used my knowledge as a tax lawyer to design and implement tax strategies whose primary aim was to lower the world tax burden of some of the world’s richest companies and families. I’d previously done similar jobs at Cadwalader, Wickersham and Taft, a white-shoe firm that is the oldest in the U.S.A, and at Ernst and Young, another monster-sized multinational consulting firm. I’d also worked a year in banking for Barclay’s Capital, the investment banking arm of one of Europe’s most venerable banks. Working for Barclay’s, I had made almost 400,000 dollars in one year. That year was perhaps the least happy year of my life.

My rise since graduation from law school at Albany Law School and Union (for an MBA) had been nothing short of meteoric. I spent two years in Boston at EY, before moving to New York. I was doubling my income every two years of so. I was following a path towards what I had originally set out to do.

A few years before, when I was attending Wesleyan University in Connecticut, I had an epiphany. I was following a course of only liberal arts: history, film, language, etc. I had no real career path, I was studying liberal arts. And my realization was that I should, at the age of 19, follow a path that would allow me to use what talents I had to make as much money as possible in as short a period of time as possible, which would allow me to do whatever I wanted to do with the rest of my life, on my own terms.

And what I wanted to do with the rest of my life was make movies. What I had wanted to do, from childhood, was make movies.

I left Wesleyan without even having applied to another school. I saw no point in wasting my parents money continuing to study things that wouldn’t pay off when I graduated (I thought – whether that assumption is right I don’t know, but I met an awful lot of people who went to liberal arts schools on Wall Street). I had to sit out a semester but transferred to SUNY Albany and began to pursue a path towards becoming a lawyer. I skipped through college, law school and business school and had completed the first step towards my eventual freedom.

Now, years later, working for D&T, a job I absolutely hated, a worthless job in my opinion, one that made no mark in the world, I was collecting money for my freedom. Of course, I was so bored with my existence that I often spent almost as fast as I earned. But that was just part of making my existence livable until I was free, could go and make movies.

On September 11th, 2001, I had an early conference call with London. Some project we were doing with a law firm over in London, and because of the time difference, the call was scheduled for 8AM. I normally got to my office right about nine AM more or less, which put me on the train from my then Chelsea apt. at 8:30 or so, and in the basement of the WTC (on the 2/3 train) at about 8:50 AM. I’d go up the escalators, and walk across the platform, and cross the walking bridge to 2 World Financial Center. It was a trip I made every weekday (unless I was on the road, which I was maybe a quarter of the time).

If I had done this at this time, on this particular morning, I would be dead right now, crushed by falling debris like the others who made the commute at the time that I always did.

But that morning I grudgingly made the trip an hour early, got to WTC around 7:50AM, up the escalators, and across the bridge to my office in time for the 8AM conference call.

The call was rather short, and was finished by eight thirty. I was probably hitting baseball scores on the Net when my phone rang. A friend from work, Elizabeth, was calling, which I thought was funny cuz she was always late for work and since she was calling me after 9AM, I thought she was just late again.

She asked me – Whats going on down there?

Me: What do you mean?

Her: A plane just crashed into the WTC?

Me: (incredulous) – What?

As I spoke to her, the second plane crashed into the WTC. It just looked like an explosion on the television I was watching, nothing but a fireball. You didn’t see the plane at all (until they replayed it later at low speed).

We left en masse from the building, and were basically herded out to the harbor that sits behind the World Financial Center. Huge crowds of people were standing, looking up at the burning towers, watching, stunned. Talking in disbelief.

I looked up and saw a piece of lumber falling from near the tops of one of the towers. It tumbled, thousands of feet. I asked someone about it. They told me that it was the tenth person they’d seen jump from the top of the tower.

Not eager to see anymore, to have these images recorded in my memory, I headed north. My best friend Drew lived on Chambers then and I thought I would try to get to his building, give my parents a call from his place to let them know I was OK. I’d spoken to them very briefly as I walked out of the building, but now my cel wasn’t working because the networks were overcrowded.

I got to Chambers St. and Drew wasn’t home. A neigjhbor of his let me into his apartment but the phone lines were busy and I couldn’t get my parents. A bunch of people were milling around in his lobby, including a young woman and her child. She was looking for her husband. He was in Midtown, she thought, but had been trying to get down to find her in the chaos. As we were talking, swapping rumors about more airplanes, we hear the first tower go down. But because we couldn’t see the towers from where we stood, we could only hear what sounded exactly like another airplane flying low in the sky. The sonic boom of the tower coming down exactly, cruelly, mimicked the sound of an airplane overhead. And because of the rumors of more unaccounted-for jets in the air, that’s exactly what we thought it was.

This young woman, I don’t even remember her name, grabbed her son from his stroller and we all took off north up the bike path which fronts the west side highway. The sound of the tower stopped and my heart stopped beating like it had been, in a way that I thought was going to give me a heart attack.

We walked north along the highway. We had nothing else to do. I carried the little boy, as he was too big for his mother to carry too far. We walked for ten minutes, until the first miracle I witnessed that day occurred. Walking perhaps a hundred yards away, in the opposite direction, on the other side of the highway, was this woman’s husband. And somehow, out of thousands of people, they spotted each other and were reunited. Everyone in our group stopped and stared. Seeing these people reunite under these circumstances was simply an event I will never forget for the rest of my life. I don’t remember her name, her face. But I will never, ever forget that moment. Its clear in my mind, five years later.

I got home perhaps an hour later. I lived on 29th street. I think I put the film Animal House on video. I needed something light, I thought, but I couldn’t really watch it.

I never really went back to work in the same way. My heart was never really in it after that. I worked from home, with disinterest. My firm relocated to a hotel in Times Square, but I hated going there, working in a hotel room. I hated most of my bosses, most of the unhappy people for whom I worked. I started looking for something else to do- a friend had opened a restaurant, and that was a business I had always found interesting. As I lost interest in D&T, I spent more and more time at the restaurant, until I began to manage the restaurant. It was merely a temporary thing, but in some very important ways it represented a huge step for me. It was a step away from living for tomorrow, a tomorrow that 9/11 made me realize might never come, and towards living for today.

While I was running the restaurant, a few things significant to my life’s journey happened. My relationship with my then-girlfriend, someone I thought I would spend my life with, fell apart. We were going in different directions, and the relationship shattered into pieces under the strain of these changes. It isn’t about fault, it just happened.

Another thing that happened that day was that I started a film festival. It was my first step into anything film related. The first festival was three films, none very good. About twenty people or so showed up. It has developed into a festival that receives perhaps six hundred entrants a year now.

But what really happened, what really started from the events of 9/11 in my life, was that I decided that all the things that I had put off for later in life, I began to do. I started looking for work in the film business. I started the festival. I got a motorcyle. I CHANGED MY LIFE. Because I realized that you can’t always count on tomorrow and, because of that, today is very, very precious.

I was very fortunate to survive that day. I've been fortunate to have a little bit of wisdom in following the path I probably should have followed from the beginning, one that isnt about financial gain, but about gaining everything else for myself. And I've been fortunate for the support of my true friends and family in making the transition in my life.

Thanks for your time.

Watching

2008-08-16T21:12:00.000-07:00

the Scorsese narrated documentary on Val Lewton, who began his career working for Grumpy namesake David O'Selnick. Definitely interesting stuff, and learned alot. But as an aside, here's another set of lost twins for you.

Karloff did a few movies with Lewton at RKO.

And then Abe Vigoda, Tessio in The Godfather and from Barney Miller.

Anyone else ever notice this.

Grumps

What I am Watching

2008-08-16T11:34:00.000-07:00

Searchers (John Ford)
Sunshine (Danny Boyle)
Atonement (Joe Wright)
Frontier(s) (Xavier Gens)
Ils (David Moreau)
Eastern Promises (David Cronenberg)
Irreversible (Gaspar Noe)

This is hilarious. Worst Kids' Book Covers

2008-08-09T08:34:00.000-07:00

Gut busting. Not kid friendly, duh (but this blog isnt exactly kid-friendly)

Good for a bunch of chuckles.
here

While riding motorcycle shot towards NYC skyline

2008-08-08T17:04:00.000-07:00

OK. So not always the smartest thing, to snap a pic or two while moving at 60 mph on the LIE, riding one handed (yes, the one on the break).

It was way more dramatic coming over the last rise towards the Empire State and surrounds, around 800 or so, right as the sun set behind the city. This pic is half an mile down the hill, and doesnt hold a light candle.

Long way home.

2008-08-08T15:54:00.001-07:00

Throgs Next Bridge from the Long Island Sound

Locking it up.

2008-08-08T13:20:00.000-07:00

Valet Parking, City Island Style

2008-08-08T13:19:00.001-07:00

Sailing to city island on Newman boat

2008-08-08T13:15:00.001-07:00

Repost from Diary of Why

2008-08-06T19:59:00.000-07:00

One of the blogs i read is Diary of Why. Rachel, the proprietor of said blog, is quite the writer. This proves that. Enjoy.

Why my arms are empty but my mind is full
He sleeps too solidly, head ground into the pillow. In the glow of the streetlight his face is white, young and unrecognizable. We are polite and overly generous, a wide line drawn down the middle. An arm extended tentatively and then withdrawn. Sleep takes over and we are alone in it, dreaming of falling down on empty sidewalks. A solitary sleeper, I am a rock, I am an eye-land. I used to be like that, before, seperate in sleep, my body a stiff question mark. But that was before, long before, so long before that sometimes all I can remember is the after.

After the before we slept close, so tight together that no paper could fit between, no particle of light shine through. I woke and he woke. Roll over. Shhh. Roll over. Go to sleep. Wake, turn, shift, sleep, all night long, with never a space between. Airtight and happy, belly to back, nose to neck, every sigh a tickle, every flutter of lash a butterfly kiss. Our bodies a matched set, curved lines traced by a steady hand, two long parentheses. Comfort in this. In three years, how many hours did we spend like this? Twenty-five hundred, perhaps. Three thousand. Perhaps more. Never counting, our time not measured in hours and minutes, but in beats and breaths, in shared body heat, in risings and fallings and the slow and steady pressure of a hand on a back, on a leg, on an arm. Our sleep was as infinite as our future, as vast as the horizon unrolling before us, until we came to the end of the world, and leapt.

A year and a quarter later and I am still not a solitary sleeper. Tonight I am a shadowy figure in a strange bed, an unwilling apostrophe longing to be made a quotation mark.

Bond?

2008-08-05T07:53:00.000-07:00

Kind of interesting. From Russia with love is on. Robert Shaw's appearance in this movie as a villain is quite similar to that of Daniel Craig in the new bond movies. Like they could be related.

Dark knight

2008-08-03T19:42:00.001-07:00

I think I'm the last person under eighty to see the dark knight. Was trying to outlast crowds and its late Sunday night but there are still moviegoers here

More on Meat Train Baloney

2008-08-03T14:38:00.001-07:00

From Nicki Finke, Deadline Hollywood Daily

With Lionsgate expanding and landing a $340 credit line, it's easy for the studio to forget about its fanbase. Or is it? As I reported previously, horror aficionados are furious that Lionsgate's Joe Drake is moving away from this genre of films in favor of more mainstream fare like Tyler Perry. (This month, Lionsgate signed hit factory Perry to a new 3-year first-look deal to distribute at least 3 more Perry films -- after releasing 5 Perry pics since 2005.) Well, this weekend Lionsgate officially dumped Clive Barker's Midnight Meat Train. And not just into a tiny 102 theaters but humiliatingly into the dollar and second run theaters where it made $32,000 ($313 per screen). Now fans are worried Lionsgate will do the same to other films they're hotly anticipating, like Repo! The Genetic Opera and The Burrowers. All are ex-Lionsgate head Peter Block's films, so Drake has a vested interest in making Block's movies look bad at the box office. As one horror fan asked me, "The question is, why does Lionsgate want the movie to make less money than it would normally in limited theaters? Something seems off." The answer may well be studio politics.

Frontiers

2008-08-01T20:46:00.000-07:00

Absolutely one of the most bizarre and brutal films I have scene in some time. What a weird take on the weird french/german rednecks out in the countryside. Hostel meets Texas chainsaw meets the boys from Brazil meets I don't even know.

More Midnight Meat

2008-08-01T19:07:00.000-07:00

So what the fuck. I went online to see where Midnight Meat Train is playing near me. Wasn’t sure that I’d go see it tonight (especially b/c I haven’t even seen the fark knight yet).

Im sitting at home on Friday night watching the movie, Frontiers, by recommendation of Victor Garcia (same director as Them). And I went online b/c I wanted to see what was playing, and I remembered that Midnight Meat was out this weekend, even though there has been virtually no advertising for it.

And now I know why. Its not playing in any theaters in New York City. None. Zilch. Zippo. The closest theaters lists are in Rochester, NY (about five hours) and Pennsylvania (some town I never heard of). I mean, really, do they want to bury this movie that badly. Why even release it theatrically.

Here is the list of the ones closest to me (I don’t know how many screens its on total, this is a partial list).

* Cinemark Movies 10 (Rochester,NY)
* Carmike Maxi-Saver 12 (West Mifflin,PA)
* Millcreek Cinema 6 (Erie,PA)
* Cinemark Movies 8 (Youngstown,OH)
* Cinemark Movies 10 (Lynchburg,VA)
* Cinemark Movies 10 (North Canton,OH)
* Cinemark Willoughby Hills Movies 10 (Wickliffe,OH)
* Carmike Blue Ridge 14 (Raleigh,NC)
* Cinema 10 (Mansfield,OH)
* Carmike 8 (High Point,NC)
* Omni Cinemas 8 (Fayetteville,NC)
* Silver Cinemas - Macomb Mall (Roseville,MI)
* Cinemark Movie 12 (Columbus,OH)
* Cinemark Movies 16 Warren (Warren,MI)
* Cinemark Movies 10 (Matthews,NC)
* Danbarry Dollar Saver Huber Hgts. (Huber Heights,OH)
* Danbarry Dollar Saver S. Dayton (Dayton,OH)
* Danbarry Dollar Saver Cinemas W. Hills (Cincinnati,OH)
* Kerasotes Richmond Cinema 10 (Richmond,IN)
* Danbarry Cinemas Turfway (Florence,KY)
* Carmike 10 Lexington (Lexington,KY)
* Coventry 13 (Fort Wayne,IN)
* Washington Market Movies 8 (Indianapolis,IN)
* Cinemark University Park 6 (Mishawaka,IN)
* Carmike Movies 7 (Knoxville,TN)

There was a fanboy push after the trailer was released to get this movie more widely distributed. Apparently that didn’t work. There is also some discussion of a political intrigue which affected the release pattern of this film, the concern being that it could beat another film that a new executive produced and is having released, from before he was, um, a new executive? Yeah, I know, who cares. But it made sense when I heard it.

I guess I will watch Frontiers.

Grumps

Roommate?

2008-07-26T18:07:00.000-07:00

I am still roommateless as the month crawls to a close. No good.

That dude who said he'd do it backed out the next day, the skag. Waiting for some news tomorrow, and the current roomie is half out the door.

Hoping to find someone compatible in the next few days. Im trying to think positive thoughts. Of course, Im gonna have to live with this person.

Grumps.

The Up and The Down

2008-07-22T11:55:00.000-07:00

I have a headache, for hours. Not sure why. Accumulated dehydration, perhaps. Anyway, it hasnt gone away.

In other news, it seems I have found my next roommate for the new york apt. Seems like a great guy, laid back, will be a good fit.

Grumps.

A couple of production stills....

2008-07-21T14:54:00.000-07:00

Tommy's Movie

2008-07-21T14:51:00.001-07:00

I am fairly wasted after a three day marathon in the wilting heat of July. Tommy’s Boy (working title, likely to change) wrapped in Patterson, New York at 10:02PM Sunday night. Each of Friday, Saturday and Sunday were very hot, and we were outside much of the day each day (and sometimes in cars with no air conditioning).

I got back to New York very late last night, exhausted but somewhat elated. I think the film came out well. Got to get into the editing process now, so we can see exactly what we have.

Grumps

hell yeah, who watches the watchmen

2008-07-17T19:32:00.000-07:00

2008-07-17T11:04:00.001-07:00

Testing out the mobile Blogging thing. Not sure how this works.

Test mobile blogging

2008-07-17T10:08:00.000-07:00

2008-07-17T10:02:00.001-07:00

2008-07-17T10:00:00.000-07:00

Tommy's Boy (working title).

2008-07-17T08:05:00.000-07:00

One day away from shooting the short film I am producing, which is currently titled “Tommy’s Boy,” though given its similarity to the Chris Farley comedy, I am pretty sure we’re gonna change that. Just haven’t figured out what the new title is going to be.

We’re shooting all weekend, Friday through Sunday, and we’re all over New York, it feels like, from Astoria and Long Island City on Friday, then Poughkeepsie on Saturday at the Sheriff’s office (great locations) and then around Duchess and Putnam Counties on Sunday. We have a long schedule for each day, but we’ll get it done.

I’ll hopefully get some good pics that can be uploaded from the production by Monday AM. And in NY, its gonna be hot this weekend, so I hope craft service is bringing a slip’n’slide.

Grumps.

Mirrors

2008-07-13T19:24:00.000-07:00

Victor Garcia pointed this out to me. Cool...

Hellboy

2008-07-13T19:17:00.000-07:00

I havent really been posting. OK. I havent been posting. Im in prep on a film. and when I haven't been prepping (its just a short film, hopefully a good one), I've been out of my apartment because they are removing all of the rebar from the outside of the building. With drills. All afternoon long. Every day. It sounds like they are drilling my skull.

Anyway, I've been hanging by the gym and the pool in my building to avoid the noise in the apt. Less computer and more blackberry time, and thats a lame excuse but I am going with it. Its also allowed me to get pretty tan (and somewhat reddish in my tax, as I usually am, at least at the end of a day of being in the sun).

Kinda like a less muscular and more sarcastic version of Hellboy.

Incidentally, go see Hellboy II. Its tons of fun, and visually fantastic. It even has a moral. Basically, its an example of a filmmaker at or near the top of his game.

Not Columbia's best move to let Uni take the sequal.

Grumps

George Martin rocks

2008-06-21T07:52:00.000-07:00

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Retired NFL great George Martin will conclude his historic cross-country “a Journey for 9/11” www.ajourneyfor911.info walk to benefit thousands of ailing Ground Zero rescue and recovery workers in a ceremony at 10:00 AM PT, Saturday, June 21, in San Diego, CA. When he crosses the finish line at Embarcadero Park North on the banks of the city’s downtown district, Mr. Martin will have trekked 3,003 miles on foot and raised several million dollars in cash, in-kind contributions and pledged medical services for seriously ill 9/11 workers from all 50 states.

The finish line ceremony, open to the public, will be attended by scores of police officers, firefighters, EMTs, 9/11 workers, NFL players and others. Mr. Martin has completed all but 4.5 miles of his Journey, which he will walk on Saturday morning.

Co-captain of the Super Bowl XXI NY Giants championship team and now an AXA Equitable executive, Mr. Martin started walking west from the George Washington Bridge in New York City on September 16, 2007. He is likely the first African-American professional athlete to walk coast-to-coast for charitable purposes. Over the past nine months, the humanitarian encountered rainstorms in the Northeast, the freezing temperatures and driving winds of the Great Plains and, more recently, the mountains and desert heat of the Southwest.

“I look forward to concluding this part of our Journey’s mission, and am grateful to have had the opportunity to take on this challenge,” said Mr. Martin. “While this has been a difficult undertaking, it has also been wonderful to see our nation on foot while raising awareness about the plight of these 9/11 workers. These heroes need our collective support. Many who answered our nation’s call for help now cannot even walk up the steps in their own homes due to severe respiratory and other ailments. Some are dying. They deserve our help.”

Although the walking portion of the Journey is concluding, Mr. Martin plans to continue his efforts to help Ground Zero rescue and recovery workers obtain adequate health care. “This is truly a national problem,” says Mr. Martin, who noted that more than 10,000 people who live outside of the New York metropolitan area are enrolled in the World Trade Center Health Registry, including people from all 50 states. “It’s simply unacceptable to me that these brave, selfless individuals from across the country are not getting all the medical assistance they need.”

The Medical Problems of Working at Ground Zero

Mr. Martin, on leave from his position as vice president of sports marketing at AXA Equitable in New York, is raising funds to provide medical monitoring and healthcare for 9/11 responders who are suffering from chronic bronchial disease, leukemia and other cancers, post traumatic stress disorder and other serious medical conditions stemming from their service at Ground Zero after the attacks of September 11, 2001. Three major medical institutions are matching in healthcare services all the money donated by the Journey.1

Medical studies indicate that working at Ground Zero led to serious, long-term medical problems for tens of thousands of 9/11 responders.

* A study by Mt. Sinai Medical Center found that nearly 70 percent of the 40,000+ 9/11 responders have suffered lung disease and other health problems.
* One in five has low lung capacity, five times the normal rate.
* One in eight developed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (Source: NYC Department of Mental Health and Hygiene).
* The rate of those developing asthmatic conditions after exposure to Ground Zero is 12 times the normal adult rate.

In October 2007, Mr. Martin walked through Washington, DC, where he met with several members of the U.S. Congress who are advocating legislation for additional funding for 9/11 healthcare programs. For more information, visit: http://maloney.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=146 8&Itemid=61. (Due to its length, this URL may need to be copied/pasted into your Internet browser's address field. Remove the extra space if one exists.)

For more information on the status of federal 9/11 healthcare legislation, visit: http://maloney.house.gov/documents/911recovery/backgroundmemo.pdf

About George Martin, the Route and the Journey Team

George Martin was a star defensive end and co-captain of the Super Bowl XXI Champion New York Giants (1986). During his 14 NFL seasons (1975-1988), the longtime Giant scored eight touchdowns -- seven of them as a defensive lineman, which set an NFL record that stood until 2007. Mr. Martin is a former president of the NFL Players Association.

On a Journey for 9/11, Mr. Martin has passed through portions of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. Now 55 years old, the retired NFL great has lost more than 40 pounds since he began his trek. In addition to walking, he has visited schools, fire houses, police stations, government offices, and other places where he raises awareness about the plight of Ground Zero workers.

For his charitable efforts, Mr. Martin was named one of ABC News’ 2007 “Persons of the Year,” received the prestigious Heisman Humanitarian Award, and was recognized with an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters Degree from Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey for his lifelong commitment to community service.

Donations

To make a tax deductible financial donation, mail a check to “a Journey for 9/11,” c/o Valley National Bank, P.O. Box 707, Wayne, NJ 07474-0707, or call 800-889-8038. Contributions can also be made online via www.ajourneyfor911.info.

Support from Business, Medical, Education, Sports and Charitable Community

Sponsors of the Journey include AXA Equitable; Fairleigh Dickinson University; Best Western International; MBT Physiological Footwear; Intelligent Design; United Parcel Service; Bear Stearns; Proskauer Rose LLP; Proforma Associates; Nike; Tana Seybert Printing; Hunter Douglas; the New York Giants; the National Football League; the National Football League Players Association; General Motors; Sprint; World Wrestling Entertainment; Big Blue Travel; CV Technologies; ESRI; KeySpan Energy; Lou Hammond Associates; MAN Etc., Inc; Nautilus; SJI Associates; S& L Services; Sunoco and Valley National Bank. Beau Dietl & Associates is providing security for the Journey. Philanthropists Joseph H. and Dr. Carol F. Reich have made a substantial donation as well.

1 Hackensack University Medical Center (NJ), North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health Systems (NY) and the Mt. Sinai Medical Center (NY) will match in medical services the total funds Mr. Martin’s Journey donates to the hospitals.

Holy cow, this is cool - ride the Midnight Meat Train

2008-06-19T15:39:00.000-07:00

Good stuff

2008-06-18T19:09:00.001-07:00

Still Single

2008-06-12T21:39:00.000-07:00

Yes, hard to believe, I know.

I think I am going to order a wife from overseas. Any thoughts on the best country from which to order. I think Argentina is having sales this week.

NYC PictureStart Winners, June 08

2008-06-05T15:33:00.000-07:00

12th NYC PictureStart Winners and Entries

WINNERS ARE IN:

Jury:

Best Film: Carissa, dir. David Sauvage

2nd Place – Cupcake, Dir. Sean McPhillips (Special Jury Prize)

3rd Place: La Combinaison, Dir. Serge Adam

Best Actor: Benoît Thévenoz, La Combinaison

2nd Place: Ezra Miller, Busted Walk

3rd Place: Mike Consolmagno, Cupcake

Best Actress: Sara Jaye, Leave You in Me

2nd Place: Kinna McInroe, Cupcake

3rd Place: Agnieszka Pekala, Alicja Wonderland

Best Cinematography: La Combinaison

Audience:

Best Film: Busted Walk, dir. Steven Tanenbaum

2nd Place: Carissa, dir. Sean McPhillips

3rd Place: The Maple Leaf, dir. Real Sprague

Best Actor: Ezra Miller, Busted Walk

2nd Place: Markie C., The Maple Leaf

3rd Place: Joe Lisi, Joe Mover

Best Actress: Christina Broccolini, And The Winner Is…

2nd Place: Kinna McInroe, Cupcake

3rd Place: Melissa Wolfklain, Saturday Night At Norms

Best Short Screenplay

Knocksville, Written by Josef Lemoine

The Puffy Chair

2008-06-03T11:52:00.000-07:00

My expectations weren’t very high, to be sure. I have had spotty success with so-called festival movies like The Puffy Chair. But I was cruising the Sundance channel, and I saw it was on and recorded it.

Went back to watch it today, and I was very pleasantly surprised. Its easily as strong as most independent films, with good acting and camera work that definitely adds to the momentum of the movie. It has some painfully funny scenes, suspense (really!) and good dramatic tension. The writing (I didn’t get the feeling that it was improvised to any great extent, though I could be wrong – it happens once in a while) is terrific. The whole movie just works as a movie. The story is surprising (for a festival-type film) in that it is told in a very traditional three act structure, and despite the lack of stars and effects, that structure and the strength of the material.

Very strongly recommended, and if someone can explain to me what “mumblecore” is, I’ll be very appreciative.

The Puffy Chair

Grumps.

12th NYC PictureStart Film Festival

2008-06-01T10:51:00.001-07:00

WWW.PICTURESTARTFILMFESTIVAL.COM

FREE ADMISSION

You are cordially invited:

June 2 and 3, Retreat Lounge, 37 West 17th St. (between 5th and 6th Ave) New York, NY. 6:30PM each nite. Trains to Union Square (less than five minute walk).

FOUNDER, GREGORY SEGAL, AWARD WINNING PRODUCER HAROLD, MY BROTHER, TAKE THE BRIDGE, AND THE INSURGENTS

HOSTED BY ACTRESS ADI ORTNER

Judges:

JURY CHAIRMAN: GUY JACOBSON, Writer/Producer, HOLLY (st. Ron Livingston, Udo Kier); President, Priority Films

TERRY LEONARD, Producer, STEPHANIE DALEY (st. Amber Tamblyn); BACKSEAT; HOUNDDOG (st. Dakota Fanning, Robin Wright Penn)

JAYCE BARTOK, Actor/Writer/Producer, THE CAKE EATERS (dir. Mary Stuart Masterson, st. Kristen Stewart); THE STATION AGENT (actor); SPIDERMAN (actor); SUBURBIA (actor)

OFFICIAL SELECTIONS: (Screening times randomized for fairness in audience voting)

Day One

Night #1

Joe Mover, (16m), Drama, dir. Lev Gorn, Gabe Fazio
Murdering Mama's Boy (17m) Drama, dir. Katherine Cunningham-Eves
Whirleybird (12m) Experimental, dir. Danielle Corches
October 19, 2007 - October 22, 2007 (17m), Drama, dir. Sebastian Pardo
Cupcake (7m), Comedy, dir. Sean McPhillips
Leave You In Me (19m), Drama, dir. Dutch Doscher
27,000 Days (10m), Experimental, dir. Naveen Singh
Busted Walk (13m), Drama, dir. Steven Tanenbaum
Getting Out (5m), Animation/Horror, dir. Ian Topple

Night #2

And the Winner Is... (5m), Comedy, dir. John Andrew Gallagher
La Combinaison (12m), Thriller, dir. Serge Adam
Saturday Night At Norms (25m), Musical, Dir. Kellen Blair
The Maple Leaf (17m), Drama/Thriller, Dir. Real Sprague
Carissa (22m), Documentary, Dir. David Sauvage
Alicja Wonderland (20m), Thriller, Dir. Martin Gauvreau

And an encore showing of the Grand Jury Prize Winner, Best Short Film, from the 11th NYC PictureStart Film Festival

Son (17:30) drama, dir. Daniel Mulloy, drama

SCRIPT FINALISTS (Announcement of Winner Only):
The Invisible Detective in Pain Au Chocolat , Adam Wright
The Masked Man, Dan Smith
Knocksville, Josef Lemoine
Procession, Beth Spitalny
Stranger, Jennifer Razon

EVENT PRODUCER: JOHN SAWYER
EVENT CO-PRODUCERS: DAVID NEWMAN, EMILY TURNER AND NICK CHAKWIN

RIP Sydney Pollack

2008-05-26T22:47:00.001-07:00

Acclaimed director, producer, and actor Sydney Pollack has died of cancer. He was 73.

According to the AP, quoting Pollack's agent Leslee Dart, Pollack died Monday afternoon (5/26/08) at his home in Pacific Palisades, surrounded by family and friends.

Though Sydney Pollack started out as an actor and acting coach and later ended his career doubling producer duties with cameo and supporting roles, it was as a director that Pollack will probably best be remembered. His films had the sheen of the Golden Era of Hollywood, even though most were made in the `70s and `80s. They also spanned genres and included The Way We Were (`73), Three Days of the Condor (`75), The Electric Horseman (`79), Tootsie (`82), culminating in what was arguably his greatest success, Out of Africa (`85).

Sydney Irwin Pollack was born on July 1, 1934, in Lafayette and raised in South Bend, Indiana. He developed a love of acting at South Bend High School and went straight to New York and the Neighborhood Playhouse School for Theater. There Sanford Meisner took him under his wing, first as a student and then as his assistant. Pollack received favorable marks from his students, which included Robert Duvall and Rip Torn, and Claire Griswold, a former pupil whom Pollack married and remained married to for 50 years.

His time at the Neighborhood Playhouse was destined not to last as long and, under the encouragement of director John Frankheimer and nudging from Burt Lancaster Pollack began directing. He started out small, in television shows such as The Alfred Hitchcock Hour and Ben Casey.

He soon branched out into feature filmmaking. His first was The Slender Thread starring Anne Bancroft and Sydney Poitier, about a desperate woman and the suicide hotline volunteer who attempts to keep her on the line while waiting for the police to find her.

The film fared poorly, both critically and financially, as, to a lesser extent, did Pollack's second feature, 1966's This Property Is Condemned, based upon a Tennessee Williams play (with a screenplay by Francis Ford Coppola). It featured Natalie Wood as a girl desperate to break out of her small town who sets her sights and hopes on a travelling railroad official and company hatchet man, played by Robert Redford.

Property was the start of a lifelong association and friendship with Redford; Pollack would direct Redford in seven films in total, including some of his most famous.

First success came, however, from the depression-era The Shoot Horses, Don't They, about the characters involved in a grueling dance marathon. It starred Jane Fonda and it shattered her American image as a comely ingénue or a sex kitten and established her as a serious actress once and for all. She received her first Oscar nomination for the part.

Most actors benefited from appearing in a Pollack film. 12 actors received Oscar nominations after being in one of his movies including Barbra Streisand, Meryl Streep, Jessica Lange, and Dustin Hoffman. He was no stranger to the Academy himself. He was nominated three times for Best Director (Horses and Tootsie, winning for Out of Africa). Oddly enough, Redford never received a nomination for any of the multiply-lauded films he starred in for Pollack.

Industry recognition was just part of his success. His films were also profitable at the box office. Hits included Horses, The Way We Were, Three Days of the Condor, The Electric Horseman and The Firm.

But it was Out of Africa were everything gelled. It had an enormous canvas, an epic scope, a glorious score, luscious cinematography and two superstars (Redford and Streep) in the leads. The film was nominated for 11 awards, picking up seven including Best Picture and Director.

He had misses too. Havana, Random Hearts and Sabrina were the rare examples of critical and commercial failures.

Producing became a passion for him after this string of misfires. Along with the late Anthony Mingella, who died earlier this year while having his throat operated on, Pollacke created Mirage Enterprises. The shop produced The Fabulous Baker Boys Sense and Sensibility, The Talented Mr. Ripley and Cold Mountain. But Mirage represented just a smattering of Pollack's producing duties, which also included Searching for Bobby Fischer, The Quiet American, Michael Clayton and the HBO film, Recount.

In recent years Pollack also specialized in the role of the powerful corporate or societal patriarch, one willing to lay down the law or to teach the hard truths of life to the protagonist. He played variations of it in Eyes Wide Shut, Changing Lanes and Michael Clayton and created what can only be described as avuncular malevolence, inspiring fear and awe while exuding a tinge of mercy.

It was the stature of Pollack in the industry itself and his commanding presence on and off the screen that lent the roles their gravitas. They sprang from the man himself

Pollack is survived by his wife, Claire; two daughters, Rebecca and Rachel; his brother Bernie; and six grandchildren He was preceded in death by his son, Steven, who died in 1993 in a plane crash in Santa Monica.

da da dan ta, dun ta da. dun ta dun to, dun tun tun tun tun

2008-05-21T18:41:00.000-07:00

So what am I gonna do. Wait for it. I can't. I'm nine years old, OK. Deal with it.

I am going to the first showing of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull at 12:01 at the Battery Park Cinema near my house.

Yes, its gonna be packed. And yes, its raining (though not too badly).

When I was a kid, I used to cut school to go see these movies when they came out. Indiana Jones is the closest thing I have to an inspiration for why I am in the movie business now (of course, its never just one thing), the root cause of all this.

So yeah, I am going. I just wish it started a little earlier. Gonna do the popcorn and the whole schmear I think. Might as well go all out.

This is the first time I've gone to a theater on opening night in forever, I think. Maybe my ex, Jeanne dragged me to one when we were dating. She also liked to shop for Christmas presents on the Friday after Thanksgiving. She doesn't mind crowds so much, not like me.

But I'm going, and I have pretty high expectations, despite mostly good but slightly mixed reviews.

Grumps

Airplane Bloggin’: Saturday Morning Shuffle

2008-05-17T19:45:00.000-07:00

Im on the Jet Blue flight, 1140 AM back to NYC, out of Burbank, and thank you very much. I wisely upgraded to the four more inches of space seat for an extra twenty bucks. My kneecaps have been thanking me since I sat down an hour and a half ago.

Heading back to the Apple for the final two weeks before this, the twelfth edition of NYC PictureStart. Bunch of work left to do before we’re ready to go, still picking last film entries, though the script finalists are done (yet to be posted), the venue, god willing, is locked in, and the dates are set (same as the venue, god willing).

Each go around seems like it should get easier, but to some degree, I feel like each time, to a certain degree I need to reinvent the wheel a bit. We’ll be returning to Retreat, thanks to the owner’s generosity but it first seemed like we weren’t heading back over cost issues. I still don’t have a third judge locked in, though I am sure I can find someone great quickly this week. Everything is just more complicated now, running a film festival in New York when I spend the vast majority of my time in California. It had seemed that I was going to spend all of May in NYC, but it ended up that I had to fly back to LA to interview for a production attorney gig for a movie shooting in LA. It’s a good project, and I got the gig, so it was worth the trip.

And now back to NY, to add the final icing to the cake that is the 12th NYC PictureStart Film Festival. Victor Garcia, director of the still-to-be-filmed Slaughter, is joining as a juror, as is Morris Levy, producer (shall I say co-conspirator) of The Ten. The third juror, well, I have my suspects in mind. A few calls and that will be set.

Over 160 movies this time around, for 15 spots. Its getting more and more competitive. I don’t know for sure, but I am guessing that we’ve grown into one of the bigger short film festivals, and we’re definitely among the more selective. The interest in filmmaking seems to grow exponentially, and the short format of a short film is well-attuned to the online, download, Youtubey internet promotion and distribution of much new media product. Yeah, so I am cutting edge. Can ya dig?

Details will be posted in full on the website in the next day or two. Come down one or both days and join us for some short film and some drinks and some networking, and get YOUR SHORT FILM SCENE (shameless plug, but it is my blog).

One thing about LA vs. NY.

The gym.

Let me draw some comparions. I’ve been working out five to six days a week for four or five months now to get back into shape. It had been too long, and I owed it to myself to get into better condition, and not to rely on pushups alone. It also helps me manage my stress, which was for various reasons, getting a workout all its own.

My gym in New York is the gym in my building. It has a view of the Hudson.

My gym in Los Angeles is on Hollywood Blvd. It has a view of the Hotties. Lots of em.

NY has a few cardio machines, one or two benches, and a few universal type machines. There is a pool and a hot tub as well.

LA has every machine you could possibly think of, cardio, weightlifting, cybex, life force, whichever. It also has a pool, hot tub, sauna, full court basketball, day care (not that I have kids), a tremendous free weight room, free parking on Hollywood Blvd., and a great grocery store with lots of healthy choices for after the gym. And a little juice bar with wonderful blended fruit drinks that I am sure taste better than they are truly healthy. It also has beautiful women using all of these things, providing that extra inspiration to proceed towards additional perspiration.

NY no such luck. Occasionally I get to use the gym alone in the afternoon, though, and they have free coffee. But it isn’t very good. Did I mention the view of the Hudson.

NY Price? 70 per month.

LA Price? 30 per month.

Are we noticing a trend here? A little more on that. My car insurance in LA is about the same as my motorcycle insurance in New York. Health insurance in CA is about 100 per month, maybe half of what it is in New York. And my place in LA, shitty as it may be, costs a fraction of what a similar place in New York would cost. Maybe 40 percent of what the NY cost of a small studio would cost, without the parking (included in LA) and the backyard (not available in NY, sorry, thanks for asking).

Did I mention the girls?

Anyway, for now I am still bicoastal, but the cash drain is well, a cash drain. Aalok, the NY roommate is supposed to be moving out shortly and hopefully whoever replaces him will be paying a far larger share of the rent, given how inexpensive the apartment is by current NY standards. That will make it easier to stomach paying for two places, even though I am in the one (far less nice one) like 75 percent of the time.

Still, I am looking forward to being back in NY for a bit. I had fun on my last stay, and people seem indeed very pleased to have me back when I am back. I think I must be very charming in small doses. Which means I should probably stop this entry. Now.

Ciao.

Grumps.

S Bar

2008-05-15T15:34:00.000-07:00

On Hollywood Blvd., right next to Katsuya on the corner of Vine. S Bar is one of the coolest looking places I've been in LA. Its really just a high ceilinged box, with some couches and chairs. However, bringing in Philippe Starck to design the place, where the "S" stands for Satan (no, not mike ovitz), was worthwhile.

Ended up there after a spot at dominicks by the beverly center, which was unusually quiet. I was with a friend from NYC, Inna, and we stopped by the Stone Rose, and I was incredulously turned away. I've been there Wednesday after Wednesday, but I didn't call ahead and Bret Gursky, who runs the party, was nowhere near the door. I didn't feel like waiting for him to show up, so i just moved on.

We met Katie, Ki-Moon, Hill and some other folks at this S Bar place, which I'd heard about but never been to. Dave Navarro was partying at the next table with a bevy of babes, presumably getting over Carmen. Each wall had a concept - over the bar was an Omen-ish four horsemen of the apocalypes photo, four white horses looking frothy and angry. The south wall had a Hotel California motif, endless hotel doors opening one after another, into infinity. All the lamps in the place hang from the ceiling, upside down. Its a very unnerving thing when you first realize it.

I liked it, what can i say. Doesn't make me a devil worshipper. Unfortunately, the cel phone camera doesn't have a very good flash, so the better pics of the murals are ripped offline. anyway, have a looksie.

HOTEL CALIFORNIA MURAL

KI MOON AND INNA
THE INDEFATIGABLE KATIE MATTHEWS

Plans

2008-05-14T20:35:00.000-07:00

Just got back from the gym, spot of dinner. A little work, and a little West Wing (upto season six on DVD now, almost through it, and onto the final season, seven).

I am flying back to New York Saturday morning, which means I get to NY saturday evening, around eight or so.

I've been working as production counsel on a movie, and its a good script and I like the director. The people who got me hired on the movie, unfortunately, are no longer with the project, so thats a little weird. I can't really say any more about it. It is, as I like to say, what it is.

California's been getting hot, Friday's supposed to top out at 100 or so. I don't have A/C in the hovel, but it's only a day or so in that heat, and supposedly, its a dry heat, like a blow torch or a dog humping your leg. Well, maybe not so much like a dog humping your leg.

Be good to be back in NY. NYC PictureStart Film Festival is coming up at the beginning of June, the team is almost done with prep, and final selections are forthcoming this week.

See y'all back in NY. Unless I do some Airplane Bloggin', a distinct possibility.

Oh, and dont forget, Indiana Jones returns on my birthday.

Grumps.

PicPost

2008-05-11T19:44:00.001-07:00

Dodger Stadium, a first for me, Monday night, from the front row in the "All you can eat - but not that you'd want to" bleachers.

Dark Knight

2008-05-04T19:43:00.000-07:00

High def version of the dope trailer for "Dark Knight" which makes it clear what an artist the cinema lost in Heath Ledger

here

grumps

Just Along for the Ride.

2008-05-04T14:34:00.001-07:00

Went out last night with some friends, Chase and Marie and Sha-hid. We were at the rapily declining Les Deux, it was very young and high school, maybe college aged. We had fun unto ourselves, but the place seems done.

Anyway, a friend, Ari was outside, trying to get in, so Chase went out to try to get him in. Things got confused and we thought Chase and Ari had rolled to Winstons. Chase’s phone was dead so we couldn’t reach him. Turns out that Ari had rolled to Winstons and that Chase ended up being left behind. I thought Ari told me that they were together but the club was loud and I must have misheard. So upon getting to Winston’s and seeing no Chase, we immediately left back to Les Deux to go look for him.

Now, Chase and crew had been out since 2PM (I joined them at 1030 or so) so they were, shall we say, well on their way. Chase went back in the club, couldn’t find us, got pissed off that we bounced on him and left him before we got back to Les Deux, perhaps forty minutes after we left. He had already gotten a cab home, was cranky, etc. I was the only sober one in the bunch, so I drove the others back to Chase’s place. We got there, squared stories, dealt with Chase’s crankiness with some herbicological assistance (is that a word) and then I want to go home. By this time, it was 4AM. I had no cash, but called a cab and requested one that could accept a credit card.

While I was in the cab, I found a purse of a young lady. A phone. A digital camera. Thirty dollars wadded in a corner. Nothing else. I called her entry “Home”, spoke to her mom, who much have tracked her down. The girl called me forty minutes later. Her name is Candice.

Candice thanked me for finding her purse and offering to return it. She then told me where she was and asked me to meet her at the Roosevelt hotel, where its clear she is drunk, again. In fact, on the phone of a friend, Ahmed, whose name she had to ask (so maybe they just met), I heard her say to a girlfriend, I cannot believe I am drunk again. It was perhaps 1:30PM.

I don’t know whether I was more taken aback by the fact that this girl was drunk again, with a strange dude, or that she was presumptuous enough to ask me to deliver her purse to her instead of coming to get it on her own. She did confide that none of her group was sober, which was why she asked me to deliver it to her. Fair enough, at least she is being responsible enough not to ask Ahmed to drive drunk.

Anyway, this is just a little slice of life, and while I like LA, this is so typically Los Angeles (the girl is from a suburb called Gardenia, her mother told me when we talked). Its one of the things that does annoy me about this town, and perhaps something that scares me about the generation that follows mine.

Of course, my generation was the one that had these folks drinking from 2PM on a Saturday through the nite, and they drove to the club. I was a sober participant, just along for the ride.

Grumps

UPDATE:
Went to drop off the wallet at the Roosevelt hotel, and Candice came out to meet me. She was in all respects very gracious and appreciative. Perhaps we're not all doomed to anything worse than being frequently inebriated.

First Look at Dark Knight Trailer, Low Quality but you get the idea.

2008-04-29T09:26:00.000-07:00

Fango-Con in Los Angeles

2008-04-29T00:23:00.000-07:00

I headed to the Los Angeles Convention Center with Victor Garcia on Sunday to hit Fango-Con. I was actually just at a brunch meeting when I spoke to VG, and he told me he was meeting his manager Will at Fango for the event. Not having much planned for the Sunday, and given my well-known predilection for horror, I decided to join him.

The Los Angeles area Fango was held in Burbank last year, and I think the move from the Valley to the City didn’t serve the event well. The kind of suburban dwellers, the folks who fill up the multiplexes on the weekend, that love what Fango serves up, are much more plentiful in the Valley, and I think on a warm Sunday, the extra distance of a trip to downtown LA was really not on the menu. In addition, the spread out feeling of the convention center made the crowds seem even sparser, and the lack of electricity that it created definitely had its affect on the audience, and how long they stuck around. Walking from table to table, it seemed like there were more people selling something than buying something.

The event did have its charms though. While walking around, had a nice chat with William Forsythe, a terrific actor who’s work I’ve admired since Raising Arizona. Younger Grumpophytes may know him better from The Devil’s Rejects and from the Rob Zombie Halloween. He lamented the location and staffing of the event himself, as well as the turnout. He was sitting next to Andrew Divoff, lately of Robert Kurtzman’s The Rage, and Lost, but perhaps best known for the Wishmaster movies. He was extremely friendly, and knew Victor from some work that they’d done together when Victor was working on FX crews for movies. Andrew, who was born in Venezuela, and Victor were going on in Spanish, so unfortunately I didn’t get the whole scoop. That was OK though, as it gave me more time to talk to Bill Forsythe.

The undisputed highlight of attending Fango was meeting one of the legends of Horror. We’d seen George Romero signing autographs, and he walked around a bit, with that long gait of his, and I knew that Victor wanted to meet him even more than I did, but didn’t want to just wander up. At one point, when he stepped outside for a smoke, I told Victor to grab his cigarettes. We went outside and I introduced myself and Victor to Mr. Romero, who was super cool and friendly and asked about what we were working on. We chatted for a bit, and then escaped with our dignity still intact.

We only stayed a bit longer after that. Victor bought an Body Snatchers t-shirt with a picture of Donald Sutherland on it. In the auditorium, was a Feast 2 and 3 panel going on, with the cast and director and writers, and we said hello to the Feast writers, Patrick and Marcus, who are best known for their Project greenlight appearances and for writing the next two Saw installments. Will is their manager as well, this small world of Horror in which we live.

Anyway, a fun way to pass a few hours on a Sunday, and then we were off. I hope, for everyone’s sake, though, that they move the event back to Burbank next year.

Airplane Bloggin’- End of April Edition

2008-04-26T13:48:00.000-07:00

Headed back to LA on a fine Saturday morning, I haven’t really had my fill of New York since returning maybe three weeks ago. Seems like such a short period of time to spend in my New York home before returning to my LA home (aka the “hovel”), where I spent two months after Sundance.

Im headed out for a number of reasons. I have an interview for a production attorney position on a movie, and the producers on this particular movie insisted on a face-to-face meeting. I am not sure why, as its definitely not typical for lawyers to be interviewed in person, and even more so, at the prospective client’s office. But as money has been tight and this job pays decently, its certainly worth the trip. I am told I have the inside track because the line producer recommended me. I hope so.

Scott (The Insurgents) Dacko has been in LA for most of the week, staying in the hovel in my absence. But he’s just rented an apartment a few blocks from my place, and he’ll be vacating my place and taking up his new digs. He’d been spending money on hotels etc with his trips to LA, which were quite frequent, and so for the same economic reasons as me, he’s now a semi-resident of Los Angeles.

The other reason why its good I am making the flight involves Scott. Scott’s new screenplay (newish, I’d read a draft perhaps five months ago when we were in hard prep on Slaughter) has been optioned, with him attached to direct and me attached to produced, by a heavy hitter exec producer. They are putting up some decent money for Scott to do a script polish and for the option itself, and they’ve invited us to lunch to discuss moving forward, I suppose. I might not have been able to have made the trip just for the lunch, but I am glad I’ll happen to be in town for it, and get to meet another big time producer. This guy has had his name of lots of genre hits, and he’s exec producing a Will Smith movie at the moment – no small thing these days.

A funny thing happened on the way to the forum though, Jet Blue, old faithful, changed their website. Not only was it two pains in the neck to book reward travel because the interface to do so was almost hidden, but also, I wasn’t able to choose my seat online. The function wouldn’t work on either of two browsers. So I didn’t have a seat assignment until I checked in this morning at the airport and of course, ninety minutes before flighttime there were only middle seats. I’ve been crunched between two large guys for the past five hours-not so much my idea of fun, and its been tough to sleep, even though I had both Valium and Tylenol PM before I got on the flight. I probably got two to three hours of fitful sleep in, mostly at the beginning of the flight. I didn’t take my normal 6AM flight, as I thought, hey, its Saturday, what’s the hurry, I will take the 9AM instead. In retrospect, however, when taking a flight where you cannot chose the seat, take the flight most likely to be half empty (the 6AM).

Had a great time with my brother Scott and friends (Dave, Mari, Adi, Lali) doing karaoke on Thursday night, which made it even a little more painful leaving New York early. But fun is fun and work is work, so here I am, crunched in coach.

Anyway, we’re beginning descent, so gonna wrap this up. Talk to you from the City of Angels (or, um, Dodgers).

Grumps.

Request (Updated)

2008-04-13T18:12:00.000-07:00

My sister is having thyroid surgery tomorrow. Drop by her blog and give her your best, I am sure she'll appreciate it. And since I typically get readers from her and not the other way, I am sure she'd appreciate the additional traffic.

UPDATE
Steph is home resting comfortably. Everything went smoothly and she was vigorous enough to debate with me on the phone today.

Life's great mystery

2008-04-12T21:50:00.000-07:00

One of those weird things. It happens from time to time, without explanation.

I met this woman, D, last week. We were both drinking when we met, at Sway, a nightspot close to my place. We flirted, and yes, then we “made out” a bit in the bar. She gave me her number before leaving.

I called her this week, on Tuesday, and we talked briefly and she told me to call her back a bit later. I did so, and we chatted pretty pleasantly for twenty minutes or so. She had a gallery opening or something on Thursday, and we discussed getting together after that, if it wrapped up early enough. She’d call me if it did. She didn’t call Thursday.

Our alternative plan was to get together this weekend. I called her early this evening, and the evening passed, and I haven’t heard back.

This of course doesn’t mean I wont. She very well may call me tomorrow. Then again, perhaps she won’t. If that’s the case, it will be pretty much a surprise given our meeting and our conversation and our plans, however tentative. Its not something that hasn’t happened before, and its something that’s likely to happen again. Its confusing because there seems to be some kind of disconnect, and I know that there are a million reasons why I might not hear from D again (I won’t call again, I think). I am also pretty sure that I have probably, myself, at some time, been the source of this confusion when not following up with someone who expected me to call.

Any number of reasons, right? Boyfriend, multiple dating, personal google issues (who knows). It is just one of life’s great mysteries. And it annoys the hell out of me, more than if she’d never given me her number, or never took my call when I called her.

Probably should have gotten married when I was 29.

Thoughts?

Free Drinks

2008-04-12T13:26:00.000-07:00

A lazy Saturday afternoon. I am watching the Lord of the Rings for the umpteenth time. Its background noise, except for the annoying commercials. I cancelled all the premium cable channels yesterday, and so I am watching network stuff and basic cable.

Went out again last night. I hadn’t expected to go out, but then there I was, getting dressed and tromping down to the subway to meet some friends in the 20s. We met at a strip club, but stayed only momentarily whilst the group assembled. One of the guys in the group owns the club, Tens, and so we got together there to meet.

I was connected to the group through my friend Yuson, who is town because he’s a talent manager for Columbus Short, who I’ve spent some evenings out with in LA. Columbus was the lead in the movie “Stomp The Yard,” and has a bunch more coming out. He came out, with his co-star Jeffrey Wright, the amazing actor who is in tons of movies, like Syriana and recently, Casino Royale as Felix Leiter. They are both working on the same movie. Jeffrey lives here though. We’d never met, but he seems to be a good guy as well. Certainly no airs about him.

Assembled, I had made arrangements because of our celebrity companions to have comped table and bottle service at Marquee, which is a New York nightspot. We first headed over to Kiss and Fly, making the second time this week I’d been there. Jeffrey knew one of the managers, Randy, who is an icon on the New York club scene. I’d met Randy through my friend Ryan, who is my oft club companion, and who had arranged our table for us at Marquee.

Kiss and Fly was OK, though and they kept bringing bottles of champagne. Now I always think about New York being expensive and Los Angeles being cheap, on a relative basis. But actually, I always forget to factor in how rarely I pay for drinks in New York. Since I am currently on a pretty tight budget, I think about these things. But it occurred to me last night that I’ve been out, pretty hardcore, twice this week, and haven’t spent a cent on drinks. Which is nice, no?

Anyway, we lasted at Kiss and Fly for a few hours, I chatted with some ladies (a Charlotte from Norway, and a Flavia from Brazil, by way of Miami, cha cha cha). Got a message from Ryan that Marquee wasn’t worth the trip, but that he would meet us at The Box instead if we wanted to. But Jeffrey and Columbus wanted to go to Bungalow 8, so we headed north out of the Meatpacking district upto 27th street. They knew these folks at the door, so despite being very guy heavy, it wasn’t a problem (being with movie stars helps I guess).

More free drinks would be forthcoming at Bungalow, but frankly, I wasn’t into it. I’d had enough, and drinking at four AM pretty much makes me think that I would just be adding to my potential hangover. So I made my stay brief, said my goodbyes, and made my way home after an evening’s free entertainment.

If only I could get the cabs for free now. Hmmm.

Club

2008-04-10T12:44:00.000-07:00

I’ve been going to clubs for over twenty years in New York. When I was young, I would head into Manhattan with high school friends from Queens, and we’d go to the Tunnel, to the Palladium, to MK and to the Underground, among others. I had this Willi Wear suit that my brother had given me, I’d slick my hair back and don a tie, and tell everyone that I was 23. I was 16. I never needed ID, because one of my friends was a promoter and everyone thought he was 25 (he was 16 too).

Last night, I went to the newest incarnation of the New York club scene, the very exclusive 1Oak, which is a pseudo-acronym for One of a Kind. It’s a kind of a super-club, having been created in partnership by some of NY’s biggest club promoters, the guys who own Butter among them.

We were out for my friend Ryan’s birthday. Going out with Ryan typically is a good time, because (1) he is always in a group of a few guys and a dozen or more beautiful women, and (2) because of his relationships at these clubs, like 1Oak (which is supposed to be the hardest door in NYC), we rarely if ever pay for a drink. I’d met him a bit earlier at Bagatelle, in the Meatpacking district for a dinner for his birthday with perhaps ten or twelve friends. After some drinks (I didn’t eat but it looked tasty), we stopped by Kiss and Fly (which occupies the old Aer space) next door, having been escorted through the Bagatelle kitchen (Goodfellas Henry Hill style) and through a door that led into the club from the restaurant (next door) to the KNF VIP area. We guzzled some Veuve Clicquot for half an hour, and then were out the door and over to 1OAK. In tow at this point, jammed in a few cabs, were perhaps five guys, maybe ten or fifteen girls, and a huge mammoth of a fellow that turned out to be Michael Olowakandi, former NBA center and number one draft pick. I didn’t let him know that he’d been a bust pick for me in a fantasy league years back. Doubt he would have been interested. Nice guy though.

We met a bunch more people inside 1OAK, and went to a table next to the DJ booth. There was more champagne, more women and some very good spinning going on. It was one thirty when we got these, we didn’t leave til perhaps four fifteen, and after some drama, I didn’t get home til five forty five AM or so. Outside of the enormous Michael O. and a little end of the night fisticuffs (which I helped break-up), the night was pretty standard. The place is nicer looking that many clubs, more interesting design-wise, but like I said, I've pretty much seen it all over the last twenty years or so. But its really all about the crowd, and beautiful russian models sitting on my lap and asking me if I mind. This place did fine with both, so I was OK.

I have to admit I am a little worn out today, and depending on her schedule, I may be meeting a photographer, D, who I’d met last weekend out at Sway, tonight for a drink (she has an opening so it’s a play it by ear thing for tonight). I like her fine, but I think I’d be just peachy to meet up over the weekend instead.

Nice to be back in NY, at least for a bit.

Bare Faced

2008-04-09T20:04:00.000-07:00

Been thinking about it for a while, and just did it. Lost the goatee. I've had it for years (either that or a beard). Had a mustache only for a week or so when I'd played a country cop in "Hot Baby" but other than that, its been pretty hairy (sorry).

Feels weird to be bare-faced, but I think I definitely look younger without the mostly-pepper with some salt goatee. For whatever thats worth.

BTW, I am not stoned in this picture. Not a dear in the headlights either.

That Personal Connection

2008-04-09T17:52:00.000-07:00

OK. So I am so over Tony Parker.

I realized over the weekend that over the past six months of agony or so, agony which I cannot really write about directly, professional agony which has crept into most every aspect of my life, personal, financial (especially financial), that I’d become boring. A boring blogger. (More boring?)

A blogger friend, Rachel, who likely always has been more entertaining than me in print (is online print?, I digress), because she is a better writer, had posted recently about dating someone who read her blog. When I’d read this, it sent me back to look at my blog, to a period of blogging in Sept-Oct. 2006 when I was dating, briefly, someone who was reading my blog. (You can search "Curly" in this blog and find the string of posts if you're curious - they go from hilarious to awful, especially the comments). I was also reading hers, and it got messy.

But when I was sending Rachel specific details about the perils of this situation, and went back into my own blog to determine the dates of the posts relating to these dangers, I discovered specifically something that I knew unconsciously. I used to be funnier. I used to be more entertaining (Again, online, I won’t say that this fits my in-person persona).

I did some reading, going through past posts. From a year ago, from longer ago. It was more interesting back in the day. I think part of the reason is that I took a little more care with the posts. I also think that to some degree, the posts had a continuity, a storyline that flowed through posts over time. Not every post, but touchstone ideas to which to return as a reader. It was more a story of my life, and less a collection of unconnected crap.

But in that last thought, though, is perhaps the biggest difference, I think. I post movie reviews and obits and other entertainment related tidbits and oddities, but I’d lost more of the personal side of my blogging. It wasn’t about me (not that I am so wonderful and everyone wants to know about me). And I imagine a decent portion of the folks who wander by here wander by because of the contents’ relationship to the movies and the business of which they are a part. That’s fine.

But perhaps why people read blogs like mine, the biggest reason, is it’s a connection. Its not the closest connection, to be sure, but it is one, to people who you can learn something about at a distance. And it’s the personal stuff that draws us. Proof? I’ve always had more regular readers when I blogged about my personal life. Actually, I’ve gotten the very most readers when I’ve blogged about bad things happening in my personal life (I think misery definitely attracts attention).

So, with my previous entry as proof of my intent, I am going to do my best to include more of myself in my blog. And maybe, if I can, to blog a little bit more. We shall see how it works out.

I hate Tony Parker.

2008-04-06T21:07:00.000-07:00

I hate Tony Parker.

Unbelievable. I am in a fantasy basketball league (that’s the dorky, perhaps, yet not unbelievable part). I make it all the way to the finals for the first time (I’ve been to the finals multiple times in baseball and football leagues, which are equally dorky- although like ten million Americans play fantasy sports so I am not alone in my dorkiness). And then, I’m beset by unexpected injuries. One player sits out the whole week. And another misses a game, and yet, halfway through this afternoon, Sunday, I am in a great position to win.

And then, Tony Parker. Yes, Eva Longoria’s husband, has an impossibly bad game (at least according to the rules of our league). If he had even had a game halfway decent, half his scoring average, I cement a win first place, bragging rights and an additional four hundred dollars.

On top of that, even so, my opponent is having a somewhat dreadful Sunday himself, and so it comes down to Allen Iverson. I am clinging to a small lead. Iverson is facing one of the worst teams in the NBA, a team his should blow out. Instead, he plays the whole game and as regulation winds up, I still have my lead. But the Nuggets cannot put away the Sonics, and the game ends regulation in a tie. And sports fans, you know what that means? Overtime.

They go to overtime, of course he scores some more, and I’m in second place. No extra 400 (I did win 850 or something like that) – no passing go.

But wait (Live bloggin here), the punishment continues. The first overtime has just ended in a tie, sending the game into double overtime. Now I should point out, a player can actually lose points by missing shots, so that he could end up with less points after second overtime then he had after the first. Right now I am still in second. He’d have to miss a few shots in 2OT and then I’d have a chance. Basically, what wounded me when they tied after the regulation has just wounded my opponent when they were tied after the first OT>

He just missed another one. It’s a virtual tie now. But I know this. I know how its gonna end. Its just a tease. If the game ended right now, its my win, by .25 points. Now realize that this is a two week playoff. And it we’ve both scored 2000 points or so (each). And its down to the end, and a quarter of a single point. In the 24th week of the season. So its that kind of tease.

He’s just missed again. I cannot believe I’d have a chance. This is a loss. It’s a loss until its game over. And now, he’s just missed two free throws. That’s another minus two.

I cannot believe that this could possibly go my way. Down to 1:19 left (unless they end in a tie for the third time). I’m still ahead. Barely. One basket by AI and I’m behind again.

As a good friend of mine says, “Sucks balls.” She means it too. Its gonna suck balls for one of us. Probably me.

Down to 16 seconds now. And it’s a five point game so it looks like this is gonna be it.

Down to 10 seconds now. A missed shot by Denver, Seattle going to the line. And Iverson just scores a layup. See – always fucks you in the end. That last two pointer, unbelievable. I am now behind by .25. Gonna lose on the shitty meaningless two pointer with five seconds left.

This is the worst loss – so much worse having witnessed the whole thing. I should have just turned it off. This was like watching someone taking your fingernails off.

Looks like that’s it. Unless the box scores are revised – Im losing by a fucking quarter of a point.

Like I said, I hate Tony Parker.

Charlton Heston, 84

2008-04-06T10:29:00.000-07:00

Charlton Heston, the square-jawed movie star who won an Oscar for his portrayal of Ben-Hur and was famed for a number of other epic films, died Saturday night at the age of 84. Though an official cause of death was not initially released, the actor had announced in 2002 that he was battling Alzheimer's disease, and had withdrawn from professional appearances after the diagnosis. An actor at first well-known for his portrayal of historical figures -- in addition to his role as Ben-Hur, he also played Michelangelo, El Cid, Moses, and John the Baptist -- Heston's fame later in life was highlighted by his polarizing views on gun control, as the actor was elected president of the National Rifle Association in 1998 and vigorously defended the rights of gun owners throughout the country. Indeed the role of political activist, which he embraced throughout his life, almost overshadowed his impressive acting career, which started in theater and television before graduating to the silver screen.

Born in Evanston, IL, Heston was the son of a mill owner who found his life's ambition in acting and found his first big breaks on the Broadway stage and in the nascent medium of television. He made his debut in the 1950 film noir thriller Dark City, and within two years headlined (alongside established stars Betty Hutton and Cornel Wilde) the 1952 Best Picture Oscar winner, The Greatest Show on Earth, directed by Cecil B. DeMille. Though he continued to work in a number of lower-profile films, including Ruby Gentry and The Naked Jungle, it was DeMille who in 1956 gave the actor one of his most iconic roles, that of Moses in the Biblical epic The Ten Commandments, a sweeping, captivating, over-the-top film that pioneered cinematic special effects with its parting of the Red Sea, and in its depiction of the turbulent political lives and love lives of its stars -- Heston, Yul Brynner as the Pharoah and Anne Baxter as the woman torn between them -- became the quintessential studio epic of its time, favored as much for its close-to-camp emotional broadness as well as its impressive scale. Heston did a 180-degree turnaround from that statuesque role with 1958's Touch of Evil, the Orson Welles thriller that remains a classic to this day in which he played a Mexican narcotics officer drawn into a lurid drug ring. Heston won his Best Actor Oscar in 1959 for another lavish, larger-than-life historical epic, Ben-Hur, which with its famed chariot race and story set against the backdrop of ancient Rome won a record 11 Academy Awards, a feat not equalled until Titanic's similar win in 1997.

After Ben-Hur, Heston's status as a star was firmly cemented, and throughout the 1960s roles in such films as El Cid, 55 Days at Peking, The Greatest Story Ever Told (where he played John the Baptist), The Agony and the Ecstasy (his Michelangelo going up against Rex Harrison's Pope Julius II), and Khartoum followed. He found another legendary screen character in 1968's Planet of the Apes, as an astronaut who finds himself on a futuristic Earth now populated by evolved simians who have enslaved the human race. As with his other roles, Heston perfectly balanced the camp aspects of the story with a gravitas that helped ground the sci-fi thriller with a modern-day resonance that helped audiences identify with the hero's plight. (Heston briefly reprised his role in the sequel Beneath the Planet of the Apes). The 1970s saw the actor again in futuristic roles in The Omega Man (based on the same story as last year's I Am Legend) and Soylent Green, as well as the disaster epics Airport 1975 and Earthquake. Heston's later film career was made up primarily of thrillers (Gray Lady Down, Two-Minute Warning, The Awakening), television appearances (most notably in Dynasty and its spinoff, The Colbys), and cameos in a variety of high-profile films (Wayne's World 2, Tombstone, True Lies, Hamlet, Any Given Sunday, and the remake of Planet of the Apes, among others). By 1978, Heston had received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, the Cecil B. DeMille Award from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, and a lifetime achievement award from the Screen Actors Guild; on the down side, he also regrettably won a Razzie award in 2002 for his supporting performances in Cats & Dogs and Town and Country.

Heston's film career often became overshadowed by his political activities. In the 1960s he was an early, vocal and visible participant in the Civil Rights movement; joining Martin Luther King's march on Washington. In the 1980s and onward, as the former president of the Screen Actors Guild and onetime chairman of the American Film Institute he championed conservative causes and campaigned aggressively against gun control, becoming president of the National Rifle Association in 1998 and speaking out against then-President Bill Clinton on the subject. Becoming yet another icon, Heston found himself revered and reviled by supporters on both sides of the issue and became the surprising center of a highly emotional culture war, using his fame to speak out in favor of a number of conservative issues (he changed his political stance from Democrat to Republican in the late 1980s). Using his position as a Time-Warner stock holder he castigated the company for profiting from the sales of an Ice-T album which included the song "Cop Killer," reading the lyrics to the song aloud at a stockholder meeting. His career as gun-control opponent reached an apotheosis with his appearance in 2000 when he vowed that they could take his guns when they pried the weapons "from my cold, dead hands." Later, in Michael Moore's 2002 Oscar-winning Bowling for Columbine, a visibly diminished Heston refused to answer Moore's barrage of questions regarding gun deaths, particularly for the callousness of Heston attending an NRA meeting in Denver shortly after the nearby Columbine school massacres. A year later, Heston received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and he officially disclosed that he was battling Alzheimer's; he consequently withdrew from public life.

Heston is survived by his wife Lydia Clarke, to whom he was married 64 years, and their two children, Fraser Clarke Heston and Holly Heston Rochell.

LA Splash Magazine

2008-04-05T17:59:00.000-07:00

David Rabadi's interview with me, at LA Splash Magazine...

here

I Am Legend

2008-04-02T11:01:00.000-07:00

Just a few words.

Many of you have already seen this (584 million worldwide) so I may be preaching to the choir. But I am not writing for those of you who obviously would have been attracted to something like a Will Smith action apocalypse zombie movie. You know who you are.

I am writing to those of you who would never consider seeing a movie like this based on the seven to ten word blurb that is used to market a movie like this in 110 countries around the world.

THIS MOVIE IS NOT WHAT YOU THINK IT IS.

What it is, is an intriguing character study of a man's reaction to isolation. What it also is - an amazing performance by a leading man who just seems to get better with age, and like Pursuit of Happyness, one that is not a simple extension of his prior, enjoyable but less impressive work. Will Smith is amazing in this movie, playing a role that you've never seen him play. There are two moments of emotional performance that are just classic (legend?) - I wont mention them so as not to spoil them, and you'll know them when you see them.

There isn't a lot of blood (very little actually), but there is a lot of story telling, and a lot of surprises, and pathos, and emotion.

See it. It really has something for everyone, and is one of few recent blockbusters (Ratatouille, being another) that really deserves that big an audience.

Bulgarian Idol - DONT MISS IT!!!!

2008-03-28T01:02:00.000-07:00

Out For Blood.

2008-03-26T21:46:00.000-07:00

No, its not the title of a new movie on which I am working.

Someone stole my wallet at the gym today. I am not in New York, I am in Los Angeles.

I am now an illegal immigrant. I have no wallet. I have no ID. No credit cards. And no cash. Thankfully, I still have my phone and my keys. Otherwise, it would be even worse.

Ive cancelled all my cards. While canceling my AMEX, the operator told me my card had just been used at a gas station. Fucker took it right to the pump to gas up.

I am literally furious. I cannot replace anything I’ve lost from L.A., except my AMEX (which they will send anywhere) and my license (Dave is sending me a duplicate license I had in my apartment in New York). I’ll have to convince someone I know to cash a check for me – for tomorrow, to get through, that’s what is going to have to happen.

Fun stuff, I know.

Grumps.

Car

2008-03-20T00:26:00.000-07:00

I may have slightly mortgaged my manhood to do this, but at least it wasn't monetarily expensive. Yes, I know its kind of a girly car for a strapping youngish fellow like me, but I am a sucker for convertibles and this thing was a great deal and is in nice condition and looks decent for going to meetings where people judge you by this kind of thing. And it gets 33 miles to the gallon supposedly, which doesn’t’ suck for the environment or for my depleted wallet. And did I mention it was cheap. So if it isn’t the most macho of cars, forgive me. Maybe I am getting in touch with my feminine side. Anyway, when you come to LA I’ll pick you up from the airport in it, we’ll ride around with the top down and you’ll get it.

Where’s he been?

2008-03-13T20:27:00.000-07:00

My hard drive died out of nowhere two weeks ago. It took them a week to figure out that the data was totally unrecoverable (ugh) and then it took another week for me to get my computer back with a new hard drive. I have it back, and its somewhat glitchy. I am paranoid now about losing more data, and I am even more paranoid about not having the computer for any further length of time.

Life has been pretty normal the last few weeks, despite the lack of computer. Well, its been normal for not having a computer, which is agony. Agony, I tell you. Agony. Enough (ok).

I am back now. I don’t have much to say right at the moment, but here’s a few snippets.

• Met George Clooney again the other night at the Stone Rose. He and I were both head bobblingly buzzed, and he kept telling me to get home saft. I hope he wasn’t telling me to leave. He was pleasant as he always is. I think he should run for governor.
• I had a weird LA club experience last weekend, which involved me being repeated kissed on the mouth by a young, comely lass whose acquaintance I’d never met. She was going to kiss me on the cheek after I took a picture for her and her friends, and I demurred. After four kisses over a ten minute period, she vanished.
• I’ve joined a gym in LA, and been very good about going. My roommate is a workout fanatic and I’ve been ten days out of twelve or thereabouts since I’ve joined. I’m feeling pretty healthy and mostly sore as a result.
• The hovel improvement works continue to mount, but more is still necessary. I am eagerly awaiting a new bathroom floor to take us out of the nineteenth century (seriously).
• I am also shopping for a car. For those who don’t know, LA is the used car capital of America. What I mean by that (and since I am the one who decided it’s the capital, this meaning is quite important) LA is the best place in the United States to buy a used car. Why? Good question. Because (1) everyone in LA has a car, (2) everyone wants a new car every two years, (3) so there are tons of cars for sale, making it a buyer’s market, and (4) the dry weather means that cars don’t rust, or have many of the other problems associated with wet and cold weather. I am thinking, convertible.

That’s about all for now.

Grumps