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From: owner-movies-digest@lists.xmission.com (movies-digest) To: movies-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: movies-digest V2 #70 Reply-To: movies-digest Sender: owner-movies-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-movies-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk movies-digest Sunday, August 23 1998 Volume 02 : Number 070 [MV] . Re: [MV] MovieJuice! - Week of August 22, 1998 [MV] REVIEW: WRONGFULLY ACCUSED [MV] Lethal Weapon 4 Re: [MV] Lethal Weapon 4 [MV] FILM THREAT WEEKLY : 8-24-98 : Slate II, Take 35 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 22 Aug 1998 17:19:21 EDT From: <MovieL0VER@aol.com> Subject: [MV] . subscribe movies movie5000 [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1998 10:38:09 EDT From: <BzRvueNews@aol.com> Subject: Re: [MV] MovieJuice! - Week of August 22, 1998 Phooey! Buzzy [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1998 10:49:10 -0600 (MDT) From: Scott Renshaw <renshaw@inconnect.com> Subject: [MV] REVIEW: WRONGFULLY ACCUSED WRONGFULLY ACCUSED (Warner Bros.) Starring: Leslie Nielsen, Richard Crenna, Melinda McGraw, Kelly LeBrock, Aaron Pearl, Michael York. Screenplay: Pat Proft. Producers: Pat Proft, James G. Robinson and Bernd Eichinger. Director: Pat Proft. MPAA Rating: PG-13 (sexual innuendo, profanity, adult themes) Running Time: 85 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw. "Leslie Nielsen _is_ Leslie Nielsen" reads a tongue-in-cheek opening credit that opens WRONGFULLY ACCUSED, and no irony could be more bitter. Once upon a time Nielsen was a B-movie dramatic actor who re-invented himself as a deadpan comedian thanks to the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker team, who cast him in AIRPLANE! and their television series "Police Squad!" Those successes led to three NAKED GUN films based on "Police Squad!", which in turn led to SPY HARD and MR. MAGOO. The one-time serious actor who used to play straight man so successfully against absurdist parody turned into a self-parody, mugging ever more shamelessly as he became typecast as the prat-falling dope. You can expect more of the same -- Leslie Nielsen once again _as_ Leslie Nielsen -- in WRONGFULLY ACCUSED, the latest in a seemingly endless string of films this summer from ZAZ alumni. This one, written and directed by HOT SHOTS! and NAKED GUN co-scribe Pat Proft, casts Nielsen as Ryan Harrison, internationally renowned "Lord of the Violin." Seduced by a slinky temptress (Kelly LeBrock), Harrison ends up accused of the murder of millionaire Hibbing Goodhue (Michael York, looking like a Madame Tussaud figure of himself). He escapes, he runs, he's pursued by a single-minded law-enforcement agent (Richard Crenna), he searches for a one-armed, one-legged, one-eyed man (Aaron Pearl), yada yada yada. I don't know whether the strained comedy of WRONGFULLY ACCUSED would have seemed any fresher if it hadn't come hard on the heels of MAFIA! and BASEKETBALL, but it certainly doesn't help. Proft tries to keep the gags coming fast enough to obscure the tedium -- perhaps believing he can convince an audience that a hundred lame jokes add up to one decent one -- but the gags are worse than uninspired. They're uninspired and redundant, the kind of stuff that makes you suspect Proft and Jim Abrahams were sitting in a room together as they were hashing out this film and MAFIA!, respectively. How else to explain the fact that both films include a shot of a man leaving a lipstick print from a kiss, and a computer generated tongue emerging from someone's ear, and shots at Michael Flatley? Those re-cycled gags are enough to make WRONGFULLY ACCUSED feel ridiculously tired. Nielsen's performance merely compounds the misery. He has become such a flashing red light for self-defeating satire that he simply can't play the role he once played: the slack-faced observer of anarchy. Directors have decided it's easier to get the audience to laugh at Nielsen than it is to write anything funny to which he can react...or, more appropriately, _not_ react. WRONGFULLY ACCUSED features Nielsen at his least appealing, throwing out rolled eyes, grimaces and misguided reaction takes by the truckload. Instead of providing an incongruous presence that contributes to the humor, he becomes a vaguely pathetic aging class clown. I realize that subtlety has never been the forte of genre parody, but there are scattered moments when WRONGFULLY ACCUSED appears to have a decent idea that's not head-smackingly obvious. The best laugh, one I'm sure was unintentional, comes from the 30-second cameo by Sandra Bernhard which belies her prominent featuring in the credits. It seems like a clever jab at Julianne Moore's cutting-room-floor performance in THE FUGITIVE, especially when Nielsen refers to getting information from Bernhard's character in a scene we never see. It's probably too much to expect that level of insider satire to be sustained, especially when it's so much easier to have Nielsen bang his head on a low bridge while standing on the bow of the Titanic. That's about the level of humor you can expect when a film's number one comedic weapon is Leslie Nielsen _as_ Leslie Nielsen. On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 Nielsen ratings: 2. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Visit Scott Renshaw's MoviePage http://www.inconnect.com/~renshaw/ *** Subscribe to receive new reviews directly by email! See the MoviePage for details, or reply to this message with subject line "Subscribe". - -------------------------------------------------------------------------- [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1998 22:06:22 -0400 (EDT) From: wonger@cyberdude.com Subject: [MV] Lethal Weapon 4 Good day to you, I am sure that the majority of you have seen Lethal Weapon 4. I was wondering what you thought of Jet Li's performance in the movie. As an Asian, I am curious about the westerners' point of view on his performance. Heck, I guess it need not be just the westerners, how about everyone for that matter? I thought his fighting sequence was wonderful. Most memorable was the sequence when he and his goons were in Danny Glover's house holding Rene Russo hostage. So, what do you think of Jet Li? Wong wonger@cyberdude.com Sibexlink Sdn Bhd in Malaysia http://www.sibexlink.com.my - ----------------------------------------------------- Get free personalized email at http://email.lycos.com [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1998 21:14:02 -0800 From: Ken Andrews <kendrew@earthlink.net> Subject: Re: [MV] Lethal Weapon 4 Wong, I personally thought he was the highlight of the movie, and I'm a westerner, from Pasadena. Ken wonger@cyberdude.com wrote: > Good day to you, > > I am sure that the majority of you have seen Lethal Weapon 4. I was > wondering what you thought of Jet Li's performance in the movie. As an > Asian, I am curious about the westerners' point of view on his > performance. Heck, I guess it need not be just the westerners, how about > everyone for that matter? > > I thought his fighting sequence was wonderful. Most memorable was the > sequence when he and his goons were in Danny Glover's house holding Rene > Russo hostage. > > So, what do you think of Jet Li? > > Wong > wonger@cyberdude.com > Sibexlink Sdn Bhd in Malaysia > http://www.sibexlink.com.my > > ----------------------------------------------------- > Get free personalized email at http://email.lycos.com > > [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] > [ movies (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 01:11:07 EDT From: <FTWeekly00@aol.com> Subject: [MV] FILM THREAT WEEKLY : 8-24-98 : Slate II, Take 35 FILM THREAT WEEKLY "Hollywood's Indie Voice of the New Millennium" ============================= Slate II, Take 35 : August 24th, 1998 ============================= http://www.filmthreat.com ============================= "A man who lies cannot love." - - Louis Jordan informing Leslie Caron in in Vincente Minelli's "Gigi." <===========Deluxe======Widescreen======Edition ===========> THIS WEEK "Right here, right now." =========================================== - --> NEWS: Where objectivity is strangely absent. - --> BOXOFFICE CHART: Who's number one at the boxoffice? - --> PICKS OF THE WEEK: A load of plugs. - --> BIG SCREEN: Blade, and that's it. - --> DIY FILMMAKING: Filmmaker War Stories - --> AN INDIE PRODUCTION DIARY: The adventure continues... SUBSCRIBE "Unless you already did." =========================================== Subscribe/Unsubscribe by sending an e-mail to FilmThreat@aol.com. CLASSIFIEDS "If you advertise, they will come." =========================================== Reach over 55,000 film fanatics on the net. For our reasonable ad rates, e- mail filmthreat@aol.com. FREE ADVERTISING FOR YOUR FILM Go to http://www.lostinhollywood.com and click on the FREE advertising icon. DIGITAL EFFECTS - AFFORDABLE FOR INDIES! LOOK! is a new digital effects company producing inexpensive, high-quality solutions for independent filmmakers. 310-858-0130, or contact@lookfx.com http://www.lookfx.com INDIE FILM CHARITY Filmmakers Alliance is a non-profit filmmaking collective in Los Angeles, providing hundreds of aspiring filmmakers with support, education and opportunity. As part of our drive to raise $10,000 by Aug. 31st, we are holding a drawing offering fantastic prizes including, hair, facial, massage and chiropractic treatments, dinners at LA restaurants, passes to the Magic Castle, free script analysis,tattoos, personal training, swing dancing lessons and more! Every dollar donated matters--so thank you for your continued support of independent filmmaking--and pass the word along to your friends in LA! For info on how to enter the drawing, please visit our web site at http://www.filmmakersalliance.com/fundraiser.html SCRIPT CONSULTING BY AFI INSTRUCTOR Need professional screenplay help? Consultant to top Hollywood directors. http://www.absoluterealtime.com/Schreiber/ WIN A FILM THREAT VIDEO! "Sign up a friend!" =========================================== Each week we'll be giving away a special collectible Film Threat Party Video to readers who forward Film Threat Weekly to their friends! (And you know in Hollywood, "friends" is a loose term, so that means just about anybody!!!) You could WIN, too! The more e-mail addresses you send, the more your chances to win. Sign up your whole family, or your whole company! Start forwarding FTW to your pals or send us their e-mail address and we'll send them a weekly fix of Film Threat. That's not a threat, it's a promise. THE NEWS "Filtered and manipulated. Just like the real news." =========================================== Look for updates this week at Film Threat Online in the Dailies section at: http://www.filmthreat.com/Dailies-Today.htm SPIDER-MAN RANT James Cameron's proposed "Spider-Man" film may be getting closer to reality as the legal-mumbo-jumbo surrounding the project gets resolved, but not everyone is pleased. The always entertaining Jeffrey Wells sent this missive to the Rough Cut Online web site in response to a news item about the project. Wells letter is published here, unedited. The site contains an edited version. You go Jeff!! Dave, Very intriguing, Dave. "Spiderman" and Cameron and MGM and the weasels at 21st Century and yaddah-yaddah-yaddah. Just one question: Who gives a rat's ass? Has it occured to anyone how totally lame and old-shoe and one-dimensional ALL movies based on comic-book characters have been in recent years? They are the single worst obsession to come out of the under 35's who are writing, directing and pushing for green-lights these days. This is strictly a GenX thing here and it's like a pestilence. God save us from another Mike DeLuca brainstorm along these lines. This is because they are (a) repetitive, (b) about infantile masturbatory boy- fan- tasies, and (c) terminally '80s. Costumed heroes-vs.-villains is the same old story every friggin' time. The submerged alter-ego of a conflicted personality stands up to and ultimately triumphs over evil. And that's....IT! How many times are audiences expected to sift through the same dog-eared baseball cards? Spiderman is a bit more young-guy juvenile and hung up than the others. Well, whoop-dee-doo for knocking our socks off! I cringe at the thought of Cameron regressing from the growth spurt of "Titanic" to do this thing. I lament that Bryan Singer is doing "X-Men." I hated "Spawn." I was intrigued by "The Crow" but not to any great extent. "Batman and Robin" was one of the most repulsive extravaganzas in H'wood history. I refuse to see a free screening of "Blade" because I just can't take this shit anymore. Some have said that the "Superman" films have aged well, but they were never more than marginally diverting, in my view. The basic problem with comic-book hero movies right now isn't so much that movies about titanic good-vs-evil confrontations and phantasmagoria and intensely rendered mirror-image visions of urban horror (have you noticed that ALL these movies take place in the essentially the same expressionistic city, i.e., Noir Town?) tend to bring out in screenwriters and directors the same self-referential, self-mocking, heh-heh, we've-been-here-before-but-THIS-time- we're-going-to-be-MUCH-more-clever-than-the-last-flick-about-an-anguished-all- too-human-superhero. The problem, now, is that these production-design-for-their-own-sake-because- the-plot-and-character-points-have-been-done-to-death-thrity-seven-times- before movies are OVER. They're deader than dead. Raw, minimalist realism is the new thing, as the breathtaking opening 25 minutes of "Saving Private Ryan" gave us a taste of. That movie wasn't the end-all and be-all, but it sure as hell made the proponents of stylized violence and stylized storytelling seem like yesterday's pasta. I never, EVER want to see again a stylishly decked-out, over-coiffed super- villain cackling and smirking and double-entendre-ing his or her way through a cynical, over-preening, self-absorbed perf in a super-hero movie, once again delighted at his or her unregenerate evil (born of Nicholson's Jack Torrance in "The Shining" 18 years ago, and amped up by Jack with his Joker perf in "Batman" 7 years later). Pleeeeese, enough is enough is enough! Pared-to- the-bone realism with real-death and real-consequences endured by real-people- with-a-semblance-of-gray-matter-between-their-ears is where it's at for any director or producer with the slightest interest in wanting to play it cutting edge. And while we're at it let's call a moratorium on calling-attention-to- themselves CGI shots, because I'm getting sick to death of these too. I hate it when filmmakers show you a CGI shot and you say to yourself, "Hmmm...pretty good CGI" I want to believe in at least a semblance of actual biological reality when I see a film, as I did in that mind-blowing Omaha Beach sequence, which of course used CGI here and there but sparingly and "realistically." To paraphrase Samuel Johnson, in today's Hollywood CGI shots-for-their-own-sake are truly the last refuge of a scoundrel. BOXOFFICE CHART "Hollywood's Horse Race... and they're off!" =========================================== Weekend of August 21-23, Source: Exhibitor Relations Co. 1/New BLADE $17.0 2/ 1 SAVING PRIVATE RYAN $10.1/$142.7 3/ 4 THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY $7.9/$104.2 4/ 2 HOW STELLA GOT HER GROOVE BACK $6.6/$22.3 5/ 5 SNAKE EYES $5.1/$40.6 6/New DEAD MAN ON CAMPUS $4.7 7/New DANCE WITH ME $4.5 7/ 7 EVER AFTER $4.5/$42.3 9/ 8 THE PARENT TRAP $3.8/$51.1 10/ 6 HALLOWEEN: H2O $3.7/$47.2 - -/ 3 THE AVENGERS $3.55/$18 - -/New WRONGFULLY ACCUSED $3.4 PICKS OF THE WEEK "Stuff we wanna plug." =========================================== INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL: The Detroit International Film Festival is looking for unique visions on film and video. "...creating a vital center for independent filmmaking in Detroit." This is the new incarnation of the Metropolitan Film Festival, now in it's 7th year. Any format, any genre, any length. Films by and for a diverse ethnic community. Competition for Shorts & Features. Beyond the competition, this year's festival features many exciting highlights, including an opening night Lifetime Achievement Awards Ceremony honoring legendary Detroit novelist and screenwriter Elmore Leonard. The ceremony will be hosted by nationally-renown filmmakers influenced by Mr. Leonard's work. This kick- off, followed by a weekend of intriguing film, information-packed conferences and gala parties. HURRY! Deadline: 8-31-98. Festival to be held Nov. 5-8th. Call 313-255-0098 or email: thedfc@juno.com http://www.detroitfilm.org INDIE FILM FESTIVAL: The Austin Cinemaker Co-Op has a cool contest. Enter your film in the Cheap and out of Focus competition. Get the details: http://www.cinemaker.austin.tx.us/announcements.html WEB SITE: The Hedtec Moving Pictures, LTD web site offers critique, information, and ideas about filmmaking. They have created a "shell" for filmmakers to bring and exchange information. An online searchable database offers users the opportunity to post their resume. The goal is to have a large working database of filmmakers around the world. The site also offers chat rooms, bulletin boards, and an interactive links page. Cool free stuff. http://www.hedtec.com BIG SCREEN "Coming Soon to a Theater Near You" =========================================== From five stars "Perfect! * * * * *" to one star "Crap! *" here's the lowdown. BLADE (R) * * * 1/2 (http://www.lycos.com/blade) In the past week I've attended a Q & A with John Carpenter for "Vampires", a Q & A with nearly the entire cast of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", two Bauhaus reunion concerts and finally a screening of "Blade". I have now successfully completed Vampirathon '98. The "Buffy" panel was mainly a lot of crying, awkward teenage girls and creator Joss Whedon saying, "I can't tell you anything about next season." The John Carpenter thingee went something like this: Audience member: "Dude! 'The Thing' is the best horror movie ever!" JC: "So what's your f**king question?" This brings us to "Blade". Based on the somewhat obscure Marvel Comics character of the 1970's, "Blade" (Wesley Snipes) is a human/vampire hybrid created at his birth as his mother died from a vampire attack. Possessing the speed, strength, and healing abilities of the creatures, he is also unharmed by sunlight, silver and garlic. He does, however, have their thirst for blood. He know moves from city to city, attempting to cleanse them of bloodsuckers. This time around, he nemesis in Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff), who wants to become some sort of super-vampire (if this were Japanese, it would be Mecha-Vampire). The whole thing is an excuse for lots of Gothic atmoshpere, techno, and Kung Fu. I don't know about you, but when I've been partying all weekend and it's around 2pm on Sunday, I'm not really in the mood for a Merchant/Ivory picture (then again, I'm never actually in the mood for a Merchant/Ivory picture). I just want pretty colors, minimal dialog, and lot's of ass-kickin'. There should be AKN, the "Ass Kickin' Network". Instead of the old guy from AMC, you could have Don "the Dragon" Wilson presenting color commentary, and the evening highlight would be "Blade". It delivers the goods. Does it completely make sense? Of course not, but it actually builds on itself until the end and for one or two brief moments, nearly works as a horror film. The Director, Stephen Norrington, and Snipes, who also acts as producer, took this project very seriously. Norrington tries to get arty, and not all of the action works, but it hits most of the time, and the filmmakers succeed in hinting at a larger framework and vampire society outside of the film itself. At least somebody can make a superhero picture without screwing it up, and props to New Line for letting the film clock in with an R rating. The only negative is the audience apparently found an alternative way to serve out their detention time, as it was the same bunch of idiot hip gangster wannabes who were at the "Halloween" screening. It is amazing how each successive generation knows instinctively how to annoy the previous one. Shut the f--k up, I'm hungover and trying to watch the movie. - Ron Wells DIY FILMMAKING: "War Stories from the Frontlines of Filmmaking" =========================================== Here we present another chapter in our continuing series focusing on the trials and tribulations of making independent films. These War Stories from filmmakers who slaved to get it done will tear at your heart and might even make you cry. (Not really, but it sounds good to say that.) Battle on indie filmmakers! INTERVIEW WITH FILMMAKER: Mike Branum, writer/director WHAT'S YOUR STORY? I don't have film school experience. I just know what I like. I came down here from the Bay Area to work in post sound, and eventually got "The Bug" to direct. It didn't take very long, since I had been doing it at my little home studio (Hoopty Studios) for quite a while, and even though it was dumb little projects, it eventually grew to dumb big projects. I love movies, and I get inspired by them. In the case of "The Big Ring" I was kind of inspired by Buster Keaton, Suzuki Seijun, and Hong Kong action cinema. I'm just an idiot playing director. It's fun. WHAT'S UP WITH THAT TITLE? "The Big Ring" is about this tweaky chick who finds a ring that just happens to belong to some really bad people. She takes it up to her apartment to show her boyfriend, but the bad guys follow her, hold her hostage, and attempt to get the ring back. She breaks free and escapes, but eventually there's a showdown. WHAT WAS YOUR BUDGET, SCHEDULE? The budget was originally gonna be $0. I ran into a problem, though. I needed to buy film stock. That cost $20 (it's shot on MiniDV), and then I had to get 6 bananas, which, at 7-Eleven, was about $3.50. Expenses on movies are ridiculous. I used to make them for no money, with recycled stock, but not any more. In fact, it was a rule that if I couldn't do something for free, then I would re-write until I found a free way to do it. For example....I wanted to use real guns at the end of the movie, but I didn't know anyone who had a cache of guns laying around, so I used bananas instead. Then I tried to figure out a way to make the banana's act more like real guns. That didn't work. The locations were both only 6 blocks away from each other, and it was essentially shot in sequence (somebody from film school told me you shouldn't do that). The whole thing took about 4 hours to shoot. Then I took it to my master mechanic Troy Takaki, and he made it all make sense, editing it in about 4 hours. There were a few tricks, but nothing spectacular, and we made sure to keep the running time down to about 4 minutes. Then I took it to my work, added sound fx, music, and ADR that we recorded at my home studio, and did the sound edit and mix in about 4 hours. DID YOU SACRIFICE ANYTHING BECAUSE OF BUDGET? Since I go into a project trying to figure out how to make it for no money, I don't really sacrifice anything. Sure, I'd love to have a nice big $1000 budget, but I think I would end up wasting it on frivolous things. Either that, or I'd have the movie done for EXACTLY $1000. I did want to do a car chase through the streets of Venice, but I didn't have gas money to put into Troy's truck. I ended up scrapping the whole scene. I would'a been great. Also, we had this idea to do some CGI, but we couldn't find anywhere to put it in. Plus, my hands are kind of tied as far as when a project gets done, since I borrow Avids to cut with, and I usually have to do it on weekends or after hours. WHY DID YOU DO IT? Because we had some cool costumes, and nobody had anything to do that weekend. Plus, I needed an excuse to film a girl playing an accordion. Also, Victoria Haas ("Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman", Midol commercial spokesperson) agreed to do the next project with me, and I couldn't pass that up. She's great, and much fun to work with. STATUS OF THE FILM? It's done. Now it sits in my house, and I give copies to people I know as often as possible. Because of it's running time (about 4 minutes) there's not much I can do with it. I sent it out to the CinemaTexas Film Fest so that they could have some extra tape stock in case they needed to copy something. ANY ADVICE OF PEARLS OF FILMMAKING WISDOM? Any movie that costs over $100 costs too much. Plus, if you can help it, try not to use any more than one real actor....that way you don't have personality and ego problems. Of course, that wouldn't work with just anyone, but in my case it does. WAS IT WORTH IT? Oh yeah, but I doubt I'll make my money back. I can't stop making them now. My wife is trying to make me not think about the next movie until at least the current one is done. I've got a whole slew of ideas, and my friends are getting more and more into it, so I'm sure there'll be more Hoopty movies. WHAT'S NEXT? I'm almost done with the next Hoopty Movie. It's called "Gigantica And The Planet Of The She-Monsters." It's a mixture of Sci-fi/Edward D. Wood Jr./Ray Harryhausen and beach party movies. Put it all in a blender and put on puree. It should be ready in about 3 weeks. It's already way over budget, costing a whopping 40 bux so far. To find out more, surf over to: http://members.aol.com/hooptyman/hoopty.html FILMMAKERS: Hey! How come my film isn't in this column?!! E-mail your tales to WarStories@filmthreat.com and answer the basic questions above. Send us a copy of your film on video and if it sounds cool, we'll run a story about your movie! Send VHS review copies to: Film Threat, 5042 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 150, Los Angeles, CA 90036 AN INDIE PRODUCTION DIARY (OR WHAT WE DID ON OUR SUMMER VACATION) =========================================== by Merle Bertrand Thursday August 13, 1998 In case you haven't been glued to the Weather Channel these last two months, the entire state of Texas has been declared a National Disaster Area. A severe drought combined with a killer heat wave has been making life miserable here for weeks. All of which makes the fact that we spent most of the first week dodging raindrops cruelly ironic. At least the scene with the cloudy gray skies was supposed to be a Victorian England dream sequence... So, if anyone's ever been curious, yes, Day One is BY FAR the single most difficult day to get through in a production. We started off "Adam and Ollie" with a 45 minute camera delay... which gave us plenty of time to sort out the ysterious electrical problem that completely knocked out our lights, a persistently intermittent buzz in one of our lavaliere mics, and the two bubbas who showed up to dig a new sewer line right in the middle of our location. (That was an amusing conversation: TONY: Does your equipment make noise? BUBBA #1: Yep. BUBBA #2: And it'll most likely spray, too.") But we regrouped from our sluggish start to survive one of the most grueling production weeks I've ever experienced. When the rains finally cleared, the Sun returned with a vengeance and we blistered under the solar microwave with a couple of hundred extras during our climactic rally scene. The main thing is, after a hellacious first week of flying pudding, bodies hurled into trash heaps, and croquet balls ricocheting into foreheads, (it's a romantic comedy, I swear!), we're still standing and all the dailies look excellent. Six days down and twelve to go. Next Week: Week Two of Shooting END CREDITS "Written, produced, and directed by . . ." =========================================== Publisher / Chris Gore Executive Publisher / Victor Minjares Contributors / Merle Bertrand, Tom Meek, Anthony Miele, Ron Wells Send us films, videos, CDs, games, screening passes: FILM THREAT, 5042 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 150, Los Angeles, CA 90036 Website: http://www.filmthreat.com Edress: FilmThreat@aol.com FILM THREAT WEEKLY is published by The Gore Group, LLC. All material ⌐ 1998 Gore Group Publications. All rights reserved. Contents may not be reprinted without written permission of the author. You are, however, welcome to forward this e-mail to whomever you wish. All letters, comments and reviews sent to Film Threat Weekly in any manner are assumed intended for publication, unless stated otherwise. Your name and e-mail address will be printed if published herein. Not responsible for unsolicited submissions. Film Threat is now a proud part of the den: the daily entertainment network at http://www.theden.com Film Threat Weekly is distributed by ZENtertainment - http://www.zentertainment.com QUOTING FILM THREAT WEEKLY: Journalists, if you feel the need to quote Film Threat Weekly you MUST include the Film Threat url (http://www.filmthreat.com) so that readers can get more information. Otherwise you are NOT given permission to quote any material or contents contained herein. ADVERTISE: FILM THREAT MEDIA KIT =========================================== Reach over 55,000 film fanatics on the net. To receive an e-media kit, e-mail filmthreat@aol.com. Our rates are very reasonable, only $10 per word with a 10 word minimum. 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Read Film Threat Weekly translated into Italian at http://www.ottoemezzo.com FTW is also posted on a web site in the Philippines, Cyberville Online at http://www.cyberville-manila.com FILM THREAT "Hollywood's Indie Voice of the New Millennium" =========================================== Independent, Cult, Underground, Alternative Film, Hollywood Satire And No BS ==============CUT-AND-PRINT =============== [ To leave the movies mailing list, send the message "unsubscribe ] [ movies (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ] ------------------------------ End of movies-digest V2 #70 *************************** [ To quit the movies-digest mailing list (big mistake), send the message ] [ "unsubscribe movies-digest" (without the quotes) to majordomo@xmission.com ]