Airplane Bloggin’: Maui Wowie

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’: South of Border Edition

(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

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

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.

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. 

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

(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

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’: Up In The Air Edition

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

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.

Airplane Bloggin’: Miami for the Holidays Edition

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.

I dont blog anymore.

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

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

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

Rosenblatt Story was embellished

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.”

MIA in MIA

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

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

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.

A couple of production stills....

Tommy's Movie

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