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| Putting On a World War II Show by Richard Horgan |
3/9/2010 1:53:37 PM |
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Before he became an influential American fashion designer, the late Bill Blass held a most unusual position: soldier-artist with the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, a top-secret Word War II outfit also known as the Ghost Army. Alongside painter Ellsworth Kelly, photographer Art Kane and the many other lesser-knowns who comprised the 1,100-person Camouflage Battalion, he was tasked with helping with some of the 21 large-scale deception maneuvers staged on the Continent during the waning days of the conflict, using weapons such as inflatable tanks, sound effects and even playacting.
Not to be confused with the First United States Army Group, a task force featured in the 1978 Ken Follet novel Eye of the Needle and subsequent 1981 film adaptation, the Ghost Army is now - finally - the subject of a documentary of the same name by Rick Beyer. Though still in rough cut form, it is scheduled to be sneak previewed on Wednesday, March 17th at the University of Michigan’s Hatcher Library, which is running a concurrent exhibit of photos and drawings supplied by the filmmaker. |
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| Catching Up to a Kentucky Tragedy by Richard Horgan |
2/22/2010 1:09:56 PM |
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The school bus accident that formed the basis of both the Russell Banks story and subsequent Atom Egoyan Oscar-nominated 1997 drama The Sweet Hereafter took place just over 20 years ago in the small town of Alton, Texas. Tragically though, the fatality count of 21 chilren drowned does not make it the worst such accident in U.S. history; that morbid distinction belongs to an earlier 1958 mark on the psyche of residents of Prestonsburg, Kentucky that claimed the lives of 26 children.
This February 28th, 1958 tragedy is the focus of The Very Worst Thing, a documentary screening on Wednesday, February 24th at the Kentucky Theatre in Lexington after premiering last Friday in Prestonsburg to a massive audience of 1,040 people. Taking its title from the summation by local Josephine Fields that the crash was “the very worst thing to ever happen in Floyd County," Michael Crisp and Andrew Moore’s film features interviews with only one living survivor willing to talk about it on camera, relying for the rest of its talking-head documentation on eyewitnesses, emergency personnel and others. |
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| Getting a Handle on Michigan Moviemaking by Richard Horgan |
2/18/2010 11:47:34 AM |
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Michigan’s obscenely entincing tax incentives for filmmakers are in the news a lot these days, but not all of those making movies in The Wolverine State are doing so under the auspices of runaway savings. Case in point: Rebel Pictures, Michael McCallum and Anthony E. Griffin’s Lansing outift; founded in 1999, the company is set to unveil its second feature, Handlebar, on Sunday, February 21st, at the Celebration Cinema.
Clocking in at 70 minutes and shot over a scant two weekends, the farcical mafia comedy may be a tad on the feature-length light side, but it marks the continuation of a journey that began at the same Celebration Cinema in January of 2007 with the launch of Fairview Street, a more serious offering starring McCallum in the title role of a paroled ex-con. McCallum sports the titular handlebar moustache in this new film, and is already at work with partner Griffin on the 2011 comedy-drama Lucky. |
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| Shifting Gears in Potomac by Richard Horgan |
2/17/2010 12:15:37 AM |
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Writer-director Michael Merino is certainly far from a household name, but in the last few years he’s managed to make a heist film (The Deal), some suspense horror (502) and some slasher horror (The Milkman). Now, to his credit once again, he’s raised several hundred thousand dollars in financing for Our Last Supper, a change-of-pace drama set to roll from late March through early April on location in the wealthy equestrian enclave of Potomac, Maryland.
The film, about five male friends in their late 30s who gather for an annual catch-up steak dinner, also marks the first time Merino, a one-time L.A. acting hopeful, is taking a co-starring role in one of his productions. In a way, the story sounds a little bit like it could be a sequel to fellow Maryland native Barry Levinson’s 1982 classic Diner, wherein a group of lifelong friends grow older to face a different set of issues such as caring for a sick parent and ageing out of a sports profession. |
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| A Dwindling Slice of Paradise by Richard Horgan |
2/8/2010 3:04:39 PM |
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The words Te Henua E Nnoho are a lot harder to pronounce than An Inconvenient Truth, but the message of this new Kiwi documentary is in many ways far more incontrovertible than the slide show arguments presented by Al Gore in his Oscar-winning documentary. The title comes from the Polynesian words "There Once Was an Island," and sure enough, that is the very imminent reality faced by inhabitants of the tiny southwestern Pacific atoll of Takuu in Papua New Guinea profiled in this Grand Prize winner at the recent 2010 Pacific International Documentary Film Festival.
Shot during the winter of 2006-2007 and in the last few months of 2008, Te Henua E Nnoho shows how residents Satty, Endor and Teloo must struggle with the very real effects of global warming, man-made or otherwise. Producer Lyn Collie and director Briar March were initially inspired by the writings of Richard Moyle, an Auckland, New Zealand anthropologist who has been visiting and studying the island for two decades. Onscreen, that scientific perspective is taken up by oceanographer John Hunter and geomorphologist Scott Smithers, who work with the local trio to quantify what is occurring. |
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| A Projector Runs Through It by Richard Horgan |
2/3/2010 3:34:54 PM |
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It’s probably a safe bet that the overlap between the filmmakers at the recently completed 27th edition of Sundance and the just-started fourth year of the traveling Fly Fishing Film Tour is nil. But Robert Redford, one-time writer-director of 1992’s A River Runs Through It, might do well to head down to Salt Lake City when the lesser known road show stops there later this month.
Tonight in Billings, Montana and onwards to dozens of other U.S. locations throughout 2010, this collection of seven documentaries of varying lengths is the brainchild of Thad Robison, a former partner of AEG (Angling Exploration Group) Media. He’s reeled in an impressive batch of corporate sponsors, set up a solid website with online screening room and snared titles that belie the gentility of the subject matter (Nervous Water, Trout Burn Diaries III: The Final Chapter...) |
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| From Corn to Cottage Industry by Richard Horgan |
1/28/2010 4:28:08 PM |
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As the independent film business splinters into a million, mostly unprofitable directions, the search is on for successful 21st century grassroots paradigms. Two guys who appear to be well on their way to figuring out such a model are Yale University alums Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis (pictured below, left to right), the pair of filmmaking novices who burst onto the scene with the 2007 Peabody Award winning documentary King Corn.
Take for example the Cheney-directed 2009 effort The Greening of Southie, an in-depth look at the construction of the Macellan Building, Boston’s first LEED-certified green edifice. The company behind the project, Pappas Enterprises, also provided most of the funding for the documentary, which meant that although Greening could not veer towards the realm of expose, it could still provide Cheney with a slick canvas from which to work. |
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Love Means Never Having to Say You're
Saw-ry by Richard Horgan |
1/26/2010 3:42:21 PM |
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Once upon a time, the 1965 British film The Collector garnered three Oscar nominations (Best Actress, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay) for its tale of a disturbed bank clerk (Terence Stamp) who kidnaps a pretty art student (Samantha Eggar). Now comes Twisted Seduction, a just-wrapped $30,000 project that expands upon the same general territory with a pair of unknown leads, Tom Broadwell and Caroline Brassard.
Along with a killer title, Twisted Seduction boasts a (brand new) killer trailer, whose compelling music by Adam Pietrowski and crisp RED Camera images should resonate with fans of the Saw franchise. Debuting UK native Broadwell, who lives in Leeds, met French-Canadian writer-director Dominique Adams in 2008 when the pair worked as fitness instructors on a cruise ship; they soon discovered a shared ambition for moviemaking and after discussing, post-contract, an idea of Adams’, the latter was able to crank out a script in two days. |
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| Leaning on Lavorsia by Richard Horgan |
1/21/2010 3:17:44 PM |
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Much was made at the outset of Seth Rogen’s meteoric Hollywood rise about the fact that he launched his stand-up comedy career at the tender age of 13 in a Vancouver lesbian bar. But in terms of west coast precociousness, writer-director Bill Cornelius has him handily beat – when he founded his company B.C. Films back in 1991, he was all of eight.
Still, it wasn’t until the age of 14 that Cornelius wrote the screenplay for Lavorsia, a cliffhanger love story about a pair of outcast high school students (Blake George, Anna David). The short film won a prize at the 2006 edition of the University of Western Kentucky’s Western Film and Video Festival and Cornelius is now hoping to gain traction for feature-length expansion by offering it up online. |
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| Bowling at Las Cruces by Richard Horgan |
1/15/2010 1:54:33 PM |
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As the 20-year anniversary of an unthinkable scene of carnage at New Mexico’s Las Cruces Bowl approaches, the two Hispanic suspects thought to be responsible remain at large and unaccounted for. This despite the fact that three of the four victims gunned down during the February 10th, 1990 robbery were girls ages two, six and 13.
First-time filmmaker Charlie Minn is hoping to change all that with A Nightmare in Las Cruces, a 100-minute high-def video documentary shot last fall with the assistance of several New Mexico State University students. Set for a limited local engagement at the Cine 10 Theaters beginning Wednesday, February 10th, the movie features interviews with three surviving victims, case lead detective Mark Myers and a replay of the haunting 911 call by a distraught young Melissa Repass (listen to it here). |
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