tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54814490505301130322009-11-08T22:18:43.055-08:00Raymond De Felitta invites you onto the daily roller-coaster ride of selling his movie "City Island"--complete with still photos, edited scenes, behind-the-scenes clips and--um--other stuff...Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.comBlogger400125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-5156816253668052012009-11-06T08:25:00.000-08:002009-11-06T08:54:15.623-08:002009-11-06T08:54:15.623-08:00<img src=" http://www.jewoftheday.com/Ulpan/Images/Phyllis%20Diller.gif" alt="phyllisdiller" /><br /><br />Thanks to all for the many comments and for the enthusiastic initial response to the blogathonging. The daily entries, though shorter then my previous verbose digressions, will continue apace. Although I'm tempted to take the weekend off. How much blather can one person truly be expected to produce?<br /><br />Perhaps some of you may recall me mentioning over this past year that I've been shooting footage for a documentary about the history of cabaret. My partner in this venture, James Gavin, wrote a terrific book on the subject called "Intimate Nights" and we are, in essence, making a filmed record of his book. Thus far we've had amazing luck in getting some remarkable people to sit down and be interviewed--among them Lily Tomlin, Orson Bean, Dick Cavett, Dixie Carter, Joan Rivers, Shelley Berman, Kaye Ballard. Well, just a week ago we had the honor of meeting and interviewing the woman who truly started it all for female comics, the great Phyllis Diller. Ms. Diller is ninety-two years old and still has the same delivery, the same sense of humor and..<span style="font-style:italic;">.that same trademark laugh!</span><br /><br />If you're like me, you grew up seeing Madam Diller on Bob Hope shows, in movies, on Laugh In, in commercials etc. Later I heard records of her stand up club act (which is what we were interviewing her about) and was amazed at the pace of her humor, the relentless joke upon joke upon joke engine that she commanded. But there were a few things that I didnt know about her. Such as:<br /><br />1) She had five children and was a housewife/mother in Alameda California before she even attempted a career in comedy--she was well into her thirties when she got her start in the nightclubs.<br />2) She's a wonderful painter--her pictures sell for quite a bit of moolah and many adorn the walls of her lovely old mansion in Brentwood.<br />3) Get this: she's a concert pianist! Trained. The whole shmeer! Who knew? <br />4) Her living room has a portrait of Bob Hope on an easel. <br /><br />Here I am with Madam. Click to enlarge, if you dare:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_bk9QWQYYXDo/SvRPhFyBykI/AAAAAAAAATE/peXm0USIqkw/s1600-h/PhyllisDillerRaymondret102809.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_bk9QWQYYXDo/SvRPhFyBykI/AAAAAAAAATE/peXm0USIqkw/s400/PhyllisDillerRaymondret102809.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5401029283030354498" /></a><br /><br />Below I've posted a couple of Phyllis clips. The first is one of her classic stand-up routines--about her "bird legs" (interestingly she didn't recall this particular routine when I mentioned it to her). The second is a real curio--an appearence on TV where she plays piano with an obviously drunk Liberace. Enjoy. And before heading off into the weekend, remember that mantra:<br /><br /><p> "City Island" is your movie. Help us get the word out. Forward this blog to your friends and enemies alike. <a href="http://www.facebook.com/CityIslandMovie?ref=ts" target="_blank">Comment on our Facebook page</a> (I'll check in on that every day as well).</p><br /><p>And don't forget the <a href="http://twitter.com/DeFelitta" target="_blank"> ever-delightful, still confounding Twitter stream.</a></p> <br /><br />Take it, Madam...<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/IwzOflhCJCo&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/IwzOflhCJCo&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/3mRK5A45Qrc&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/3mRK5A45Qrc&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-515681625366805201?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com'/></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com3http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2009/11/city-islandtwenty-weeks-out-pt4.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-76279351130855111942009-11-05T07:18:00.000-08:002009-11-05T07:38:51.320-08:002009-11-05T07:38:51.320-08:00<img src="http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/twitter-bird-wallpaper.jpg" alt="tweet" /><br /><br />Good morning.<br /><br />Yesterday, we had a terrific meeting with the Anchor Bay people--the folks releasing our movie--on everything to do<br />with their marketing plan. Poster, trailer, timeline for private screenings, long lead press, online presence etc. These guys<br />are as enthusiastic and behind this movie as it's possible to be and are hoping it becomes Anchor Bay's "tentpole" move--i.e., the breakout hit that defines the company and around which they can build further business. Our release date is set for 3/19/10 and I'll be delivering info on the above particulars (cities, appearences etc.) as the time grows nearer.<br /><br />All of that said: the movie is still very much in the publics hands.<span style="font-style:italic;"> Your hands.</span>So a few gentle reminders to those of you participating in what I hope will be a web-based, fan-based, grass roots (what does<br />that term derive from anyway?) effort to put our movie over the top. Forgive the repetition but lets call it our mantra:<br /><p>Reminder: "City Island" is your movie. Help us get the word out. Forward the posts to your friends and enemies alike. <a href="http://www.facebook.com/CityIslandMovie?ref=ts" target="_blank">Comment on our Facebook page</a> (I'll check in on that every day as well).</p><br /><p>And don't forget the <a href="http://twitter.com/DeFelitta" target="_blank"> ever-delightful, still confounding Twitter stream.</a></p> <br /><p>Now, <a href="http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/2009/10/14/is_twitter_a_marketing_tool/" target="_blank" >here's a terrific article by a friend of mine from the Hollywood trenches named Chris Dorr.</a> Although Chris is a producer and former studio executive, he currently is deep into the new wave of figuring out how businesses will be positively impacted by social networking. And Twitter, it seems to him (he may refute this) is the new frontier for all of us self-promoting hucksters...not to mention mega-giant corps etc. In this article, Chris gives a very sound rundown of how and why Twitter works, as well as providing a solid smackdown of a typical Hollywood execs misunderstanding of the value of the service. Must reading if you're interested in where we are all headed, media and communication wise, almost instantly.</p><br /> <br />This morning I tweeted a lovely piece of footage of Teddy Wilson playing piano in the 1960s. So as not to repeat myself, here's a different view of the jazz master, this time engaged in a duet with the monstrously wonderful Earl "Fatha" Hines. N'joy!<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/YNH4Sipmj1w&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/YNH4Sipmj1w&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-7627935113085511194?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com'/></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com3http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2009/11/city-islandtwenty-weeks-out-pt3.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-6565307320945740272009-11-04T04:16:00.000-08:002009-11-04T04:38:22.811-08:002009-11-04T04:38:22.811-08:00<img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2668/3902679546_e7107d664a.jpg" alt="jail" /><br /><br /><p>Reminder: "City Island" is your movie. Help us get the word out. Forward the posts to your friends and enemies alike. <a href="http://www.facebook.com/CityIslandMovie?ref=ts" target="_blank">Comment on our Facebook page</a> (I'll check in on that every day as well).</p><br /> <br /><p>And don't forget the <a href="http://twitter.com/DeFelitta" target="_blank"> ever-delightful, still confounding Twitter stream.</a></p> <br /><br />Dig the heavitude of the circle of life-a-tude: I'm currently in New York "shadowing" on an episode of Julianna Margulies hit show "The Good Wife". This means that I'm observing the production in hopes of getting an episode of my own to direct. Yesterday was the first day of prep so I went out to Greenpoint, Brooklyn and met the very nice folks who work on the show. (The director--Nelson McCormick--is especially gracious and welcoming).<br /><br />The first days work consisted of a location scout for a prison. So guess where I wound up visiting one year and five months after I'd previously been there? The Nassau County Correctional Facility, where we shot the prison scenes for "City Island". I was bemused by the inescapability of our paths and how they double and re-double upon themselves. Still, I saw no real reason to say anything or make a fuss. And then we got out of the van and were greeted by the guy who runs the joint (or one of them) Sgt. DiStefano. And he recognized me! It was like old home week. He and his guys all asked about "City Island", when its coming out, what a nice crew we were to have working in the jail, how much they liked Andy Garcia, etc. <br /><br />So I take it that my visits to Nassau County Correctional are now a yearly thing for me. As long as I'm not there against my own wishes...<br /><br />Here's a clip of Andy playing correctional officer Vince Rizzo, shot at Nassau County.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/JryqPcpb5hM&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/JryqPcpb5hM&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-656530732094574027?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com'/></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com6http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2009/11/city-islandtwenty-weeks-out-pt2.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-47374658863390981922009-11-03T07:58:00.000-08:002009-11-03T08:31:05.176-08:002009-11-03T08:31:05.176-08:00<img src="http://www.freefoto.com/images/2000/20/2000_20_51---Number-Twenty_web.jpg" alt="twenty" /> <br /><br />Tired of my stale postings staying up for a week or more at a time? Exhausted by my carping and complaining about glammy<br />festivals that didn't treat me like royalty? Wondering if this whole damn blog is simply an excercise in meta-fiction, with me being the ultimate unreliable narrator? Is there really a movie called "City Island" and is the person writing really named Raymond De Felitta...and if he's not, <span style="font-style:italic;">why would he bother impersonating this guy</span>?<br /><br />Well, folks, today's your lucky one. Today, Tuesday November 3, marks the beginning of a new life for you and me in the blogosphere. For today we are OFFICIALLY TWENTY WEEKS AWAY FROM THE US RELEASE OF OUR MOVIE. And I will be relentlessly blogging, tweeting, posting clips and still photos and whatnot for the next twenty weeks in order to build the necessary word of mouth that it takes to open an independent film and not have it disappear instantly into the vapors.<br /><br />Yes, this marks the beginning of the official "Let's Make a Hit Movie Out Of CIty Island" blogathon. Although something tells me it would a more popular event if it was a "Thong-A-Blog". Har. <br /><br />Now, what has this to do with you, my loyal readers? Simple. Just as I asked for your help--both actual and karmic--during our premiere at Tribeca in spreading the word about the film, I'm about to ask for your help on a much larger scale. The Tribeca stuff truly worked--I'm convinced that a large part of the buzz about the movie which resulted in the festival adding multiple screenings (all sold out) and us winning the Audience Award had a direct connection to the good vibes generated by your interest and participation. <br /><br />So: what is it I'm hoping for here? Nothing less than a web-miracle (I'm sure there's some cutsy acronym for this phenomena--"webicle" or"mira-net" or somesuch). I'm hoping that we kick up so much dust via this blog, Facebook and Twitter that our opening weekend in NYC and LA kicks serious ass. And that the fan out to the next ten cities (I'll announce them soon--certainly Miami, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston will be among them) will be equally high profile.<br /><br />I want the entertainment media to notice that our movie was powered by a secret engine: the fan-base that we've developed over the last year, ever since I began blogging the making of the movie.<br /><br /><p>How to do this? Well, you might start by sending the link to this blog to a few friends every day. For that matter, send it to people who aren't your friends--spammers deserve to be in on this as well as creditors . Also <a href="http://twitter.com/defelitta"target="_blank"> bookmark me on Twitter</a> and check in a couple of times a day--I won't be posting exclusively on "City Island" (don't really have that amount of material) but I'l always provide a link to something cinematic or musical on youtube, or perhaps an article concerning precisely what we're doing here--the rise of social networking in publicizing indie films. If you like what I've tweeted, re-tweet it to whomever (this, I'm discovering, is the truly viral use of Twitter).</p><br />There's much to do so let's roll. Twenty weeks is a good, honest amount of time to change the face of the entertainment world. Who better than you loyal City Island hounds to be at the forefront of the revolution? <br /><br />Below, I've posted the trailer of "City Island" prepared a few months ago by our foreign sales company, WestEnd Films. This is not the official US trailer--that isn't ready yet--but it's a good start. Cheers!<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/2LhpeTBJj5g&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/2LhpeTBJj5g&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-4737465886339098192?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com'/></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com11http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2009/11/city-islandtwenty-weeks-out-pt1.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-19939607636167470102009-10-25T17:44:00.001-07:002009-10-25T18:50:31.358-07:002009-10-25T18:50:31.358-07:00<img src="http://popseoul.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/apan_20091010_20_283_29_small.jpg" alt="koreagirl" /><br /><br /><p>Forget the fact that none of us were invited to Korea for the 14th Annual Pusan International Film Festival for what I assume must be the Korean Premiere of "City Island"; I didn't even know there was such a festival. I won't kick and scream as I did about Rio because frankly I don't think I could have handled traveling to South Korea. Still, had I known a bit more about the lovely participants at the festival (above)...scratch that. I'm a married man. <a href="http://filmgarmott.blogspot.com/2009/10/review-city-island.html" target="_blank"> Here's an awfully nice blog review of "City island" by somebody named McGarmot who saw it at the Pusan festival.</a>Big time thanks for the nice words. Give me a call sometime if you need a reference.</p> <br /> <br /><p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pusan_International_Film_Festival" target="_blank">And here's more about the Pusan International film festival then you ever need to know.</a> Turns out they were the first film festival ever to exist in Korea--and that they only began in 1996. I wonder why it took so long for them to catch on to what the rest of the worlds chamber of commerces had already figured out: film festivals are bigtime civic events and super crowd pleasers. If I were ever elected Mayor of a city that didn't have one, my first order of business would be to get the local film festival underway. Anway, glad they're there in Pusan and that they showed our movie.</p> <br /><br />Item: Deauville already seems like a year ago. And yet just recently the following bit of video surrounding our movie and Andy's honorary evening turned up on youtube. Quite interesting: <br /><br /><object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/p_ZDFDGJKvg&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/p_ZDFDGJKvg&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object><br /><br />And now for Ghent, which already seems like six months ago (I think we were there last week?) The following is a very nice<br />combination tribute to Andy and interview with his fab daughter Dominik, who as fatithful readers of this blog probably know, plays his daughter in the movie. In the opening of this piece, you'll see Andy arriving at our Ghent premiere and you'll occasionally glimpse a fast-aging man with salt and pepper hair and pompous-looking eyeglasses behind him. That would be me. I'm so glad I didn't become an actor. I can't bear the sight of me on screen. By the way, there are quite a few extended clips from the movie within here, enough to satisfy any of you who continue to wonder when they'll get to see the movie...and if, in fact, it actually truly exists outside of my fevered imagination.<br /><br /><object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/asGJTneTPeI&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/asGJTneTPeI&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object><br /><br /><p>Moving on to Twitter. I've become quite convinced that one of the heavy promotional tools for our movie--indeed, one of the heavy tools of our lives as we know it--is Twitter. This is strange since the whole idea of Twitter seemed inane to me only a couple of months ago (even though I quickly signed up for an account--more a spasm of early onset middle-age fear of seeming out of it then anything else). But I've been reading up on it and following my tweets and lets face it--sharing small bits of instant information is addictive, easy, and quite revelatory. For instance I follow Ted Hope--well known indie film producer (and by the way my first ever boss--he was the Key Production Assistant on the first movie I ever had a job on the name of which I've forgotten that was shot in New York City in the dismal summer of 1985...oh well, lets skip that part of our history since we've all presumably moved on to better things...) Anyway, Ted is a visionary about the future of cinema, communication and the way in which real time web stuff is going to impact us all. And though he's been blogging for awhile, it's his tweets that I'm finding most heroically useful. Lots of info, thoughts and ruminations on the ride we're all taking and where we might wind up. <a href="http://twitter.com/TedHope" target="_blank">Click here to follow him.</a></p><br /><br /><p>So what I'm thinking is: this blog, of course, will continue apace. Better than that, actually, since once I finish my new script I'll start blogging more regularly. But I'll be tweeting every day--almost always with a link to something that I think will be of interest. <a href="http://twitter.com/defelitta" target="_blank" >Click here to follow me on Twitter.</a> If you like what I'm saying/showing you, and if you want to help promote the release of "City Island", re-tweet me to your friends. And send the link to others so that my measely (but much appreciated) nineteen followers grows a bit over the next couple of months. I'm forced to repeat Conan O'Brien's joke about the combined time wasting website that utilizes youtube, twitter and facebook called: "YouTwitFace". Funny though it was a few months ago, time has rendered the joke obsolete; we appear to be on a viral path of no return in which we find ourselves, others and our mutual interests in constant communication, clicking and linking and friending and tweeting ourselves into a mad future that can only be comprehended whilst engaged in a Manhattan Up (Makers Mark preferably)...and while watching a nice old clip such as the following on the ubiquitous youtube. Jeepers Creepers! Take it Satch...</p> <br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/hvZwDFIZ-jY&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/hvZwDFIZ-jY&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-1993960763616747010?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com'/></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com11http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2009/10/pusan-goes-bronx-city-island-hits.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-49780962009402880232009-10-17T23:29:00.000-07:002009-10-18T15:52:39.415-07:002009-10-18T15:52:39.415-07:00<img src="http://www.vimooz.com/festivalticker/public_html/festivalticker/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/ghent-2009-poster.jpg" alt="ghentposter" /><br /><br /><p>Well, before I could say "If it's Tuesday it must be Belgium", the invaluble JC has managed to locate press and photos of our trip to Ghent that are so recent, they seem to have been pubiished before having actually occurred. Actually, two nights ago was the gala screening of "City Island" and the lifetime achievement award for Andy Garcia. Note that his actress/co-star/daughter Dominik was with us and that Andy wore his trademark "wintertime only" beret. Thanks, JC, for <a href="http://www.standaard.be/Artikel/Detail.aspx?artikelId=G882GO9H6&word=Andy+Garcia" target="_blank">posting this link in a language I can't identify (Flemish?)</a> If you want more photos and stuff, go to the comments section of my last post and scroll to the bottom; JC has helpfully provided links for all to share.</p> <br /><br /><p> <img src="http://home.scarlet.be/ignace.debruyne/smartshortcourses/images/venues/esc-Ghent-001.jpg" alt="ghent" />Ghent is a candy-box city, literally, As beautifully crafted, modeled and sweet as the chocolate which its country is so famous for making. I made the tactical error of telling one of our hosts upon arriving that I couldn't wait to see neighboring Bruges (as in "In Bruges"). "But why?", they asked. "Ghent has everything and more. It is alive! Bruges is merely a museum city. Ghent has a university, people, life!" I half-expected them to break into a Flemish chorus of "L'Chaim" and realized, glumly, that I'd stumbled into an old rivalry while merely attempting to behave a trifle more...aware...educated, if you will, about my surroundings than the usual ugly American filmmaker.</p> <br /><br />But I was hell bent on Bruges anyway--how many trips to Belgium might we reasonably contemplate in this life?--and yesterday five of us went: myself, Andy, Dominik, our associate producer Joe Drago and music agent extrodinaire Laura Engel who was at the festival with several members of her highly prestigious boutique client list: Alexander Desplat (who wrote the wonderful score to "Benjamin Button") and the legendary Marvin Hamlisch ("A Chorus Line", "The Way We Were" etc.). Bruges turned out to be far from a museum--a bustling, beautifully kept and frankly touristy little medieval spot. We managed a horse-and-buggy tour--Laura was hip to this specialty of the area and "produced" the entire thing--which was lovely and terrifying all at once. Andy smoked his cigar while bundled in the back of the carriage, a touch that I found very swashbuckling. Indeed the whole thing felt so of another century that I couldn't help stealing a favorite Orson Welles line upon entering a taxi cab in New York (as quoted in Peter Bogdanovich's "This Is Orson Welles" and re-quoted to me by PB in similar circumstances--we were getting in a cab on Central Park West in deep rush hour--and hereby requoted by me with no permission whatsoever...JESUS, STOP ME): "And a gold doubloon to you, sir, if you get us there before nightfall!" <br /><br />Said to the average New York City cabbie, it's funny because it's meaningless. Said to the horse and buggy driver in Bruges, it somehow makes sense. Now picture an aging Orson Welles saying it as he lumbers into a taxi after giving his destination and you get it fully. Here's Andy and I in the town center of beautiful Bruges.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_bk9QWQYYXDo/StuUCYyHUgI/AAAAAAAAAS8/rD6JN-QXSW8/s1600-h/photo-2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_bk9QWQYYXDo/StuUCYyHUgI/AAAAAAAAAS8/rD6JN-QXSW8/s400/photo-2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5394067747439596034" /></a><br /><br />The big closing night ceremony bit that all these festivals have was something called the "Soundtrack Awards", a televised<br />event where they give out awards of various sorts for music in movies. M. Desplat won two. Marvin Hamlisch was the "lifetime acheivement" guy. He played "The Way We Were" on the piano with a singer who looked but didn't sound like Barbara Striesand, a truly unfortunate combination. Then he conducted the orchestra in "One" from "A Chorus Line", with footage from what I presume to be the film version of the show (a flop from the eighties with Michael Douglas as the director who in the show wisely remains an off-stage presence only). <br /><br /><p> <img src="http://www.buffalorising.com/assets_c/2009/02/hamlisch-thumb-505xauto-1141.jpg" alt="marvinhamlisch" />Afterwards, Andy, Joe and I (and the cool-as-all-get out Laura Engel) had dinner with Marvin Hamlisch and his wife, Teri. Now most people know Marvin from the above mentioned credits; when I was a kid, everyone thought he wrote Scot Joplin's "The Entertainer" from the Redford/Newman/David Ward/George Roy Hill classic "The Sting". The truth was he didn't; he had the cleverness to fit that ancient piece of ragtime to the picture and adapted it for the film. Obviously "The Way We Were" and "A Chorus Line" were hugely successful events in their time--and these he most definately did write. But what I remembered about Hamlisch--which I mentioned to his surprise and I think delight last night--was a record album I had called "An Evening With Groucho". This was Groucho Marx's one man show as presented in the late sixties (prior to Hamlisch's emergence on the big-time circuit) at Carnegie Hall. And who was Groucho's accompaniest? Marvin, of course! Earlier he had been the rehearsal pianist for Streisand when she did "Funny Girl", her breakthrough Broadway hit. This was the stuff I wanted to talk about with Marvin and he was most engaging and--i suspect--happy to talk about a piece of his early life that is now vaguely remembered by others, if at all.</p> <br /><br />All in all, a lovely film fest experience and one that made me reflect on my youth in an interesting way: for if you were growing up in the early seventies, surrounded by show-biz, and had any musical talent at all, everyone thought you might turn out to<br />be...you guessed it, Marvin Hamlisch. I remember his success and omnipotence at the time as proof that it paid to practice your piano lessons. And that he was cool enough to play (and conduct) classical music, but could still write hit tunes, hit shows and accompany Groucho Marx. What a pleasure to break bread with the man. Here he is on his extraordinary beginnings as a piano prodigy..<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/xMTiIePdsz0&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/xMTiIePdsz0&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><br /><br />And here he is on Johnny Carson in 1976 accompanying--get this--Bing Crosby and Ray Bolger. A fine piece of footage and one I hope to mention to Marvin next time...assuming there is a next time.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/biry6aakO9Y&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/biry6aakO9Y&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-4978096200940288023?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com'/></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com3http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2009/10/city-island-lets-go-ghent.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-27155210918394333042009-10-12T14:40:00.000-07:002009-10-12T15:32:53.501-07:002009-10-12T15:32:53.501-07:00<img src="http://www.filmreference.com/images/sjff_01_img0141.jpg" alt="dotherightthing" /><br /><br />Sorry for the serious lag in updates, posts, entries, what have you. I've been on a major writing roll with my new screenplay and have, literally, been too wrung out from writing every day to post. I took today off so here I am. Plus which I have a story which may amuse some of you. It certainly didn't amuse me.<br /><br />But first: the good news is that the screenings went extremely well in Rio--EVEN WITHOUT HAVING ME OR STEVEN STRAIT OR THE PRODUCERS PRESENT. But I'm past all that. Really. One door closes, another opens--he says zennishly. I'm delighted the<br />Brazilians liked the movie and one of these days I may actually deign to visit their country. Assuming of course that they buy me a big fat first class tickets and pay for the hotel. <br /><br />The other good news is that the generous and lovely organizers of the Ghent Film Festival asked if I'd still like to be their guest. To which I replied: hell yes! So I'm leaving this Wednesday for a five day excursion to a country I've never been to, Belgium. They're honoring Andy Garcia, which means at least one good party and a couple of fine meals, and I'm delighted to have been asked to be part of it. I'll post from there. And Facebook. Hell, I'll tweet the whole thing.<br /><br />Did you know you can follow me on Twitter? Look on the sidebar of this page and click on the appropriate message (Raymond De Felitta on Twitter--duh). Or go to "city island movie". Not that I've anything very interesting to say--Twitter baffles me still, but I'm quite convinced of the efficacy of the whole thing and the need to plunge ahead into the icy streams of twenty-first century communication/salesmanship etc. To that end, I will be a much more regular presence on Facebook and Twitter as we ramp up for the release of "City Island". Become my follower! Write on my wall! Or just keep reading this good old-fashioned blog, which I started--believe it or not--<span style="font-style:italic;">over two years ago</span>. (Summer '07!) <br /><br />And now for a little story. You're probably not aware (few people are) that I am the new Chair of the East Coast Special Projects Committee of the Directors Guild of America. What the hell does that mean, you ask? To begin with, the Directors Guild is my union--one of the oldest and certainly strongest of the Guilds (Screen Actors Guild, Writers Guild) that exist in the film industry. There are many committees and sub-committees in the DGA and to be asked to serve on them is a real honor. I started my "service" for the Guild back in 2002 when Steven Soderbergh asked me to co-chair the East Coast Independent Directors Committee. Up until that time I'd been a classic non-joiner, non-voter, non-participator. But with Steven's encouragement I began to see the real value of our Guild and of being of service to it. Also I have a lot of time on my hands in between movies so what the hell? (How Steven juggles his life--four movies or so a year plus being the DGA vice-president--is beyond my comprehension. And he doesn't just direct all those movies--he also shoots and edits them. Sheesh.)<br /><br />Anyway, to be asked to head Special Projects was a distinct honor and one that I couldn't refuse. This committee is the historical heartbeat of the Guild--we collect oral histories on videotape of great directors (always interviewed by another filmmaker) in addition to hosting screenings of new films (with the filmmakers present) and doing cutting edge technology workshops. The other night, I was delighted to present a new film from Mali called "Min Ye" ("Tell Me WHo You Are") written and directed by the distinguished global cinema legened Souleymane Cisse. And guess who interviewed Cisse after the screening? Martin Scorcese. It was the first time I'd met the master and I found him to be terribly pleasant and very well prepared, generous with his time, the whole shmeer.<br /><br /><p> <img src="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/martin_scorsese.jpg" alt="marty" />At the after party, I had an agenda to fulfill. The DGA has yet to collect the oral histories of three New York legends--Scorcese, Jonathan Demme and Spike Lee. We've been trying but all three directors have eluded us--usually sightng scheduling conflicts. All three happened to be attending the after party so I thought I'd take the opportunity to press them a little. Scorcese was first: he told me that he'd like to do it but to ask him after the first of the year when he'd have a better idea of when his new movie was going into production. "Be patient" he advised. I said we would.</p> <br /><br /><p><img src="http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2008/05/22/Jonathan-Demme-imgone.jpg" alt="demme" /> Next was Jonathan Demme, who I've met before and whose a lovely gentleman--and a real enthusiast. He'll talk movie history with you any day and has the kind of infectious enthusiasm that makes you realize how he gets such great work out the people he works with; he inspires you, plain and simple. Demme seemed just a bit hesitant--I think the word "history" makes people feel a bit like the interview is a final summing up which it really needn't be at all. Still he said to keep pressing him, he'd find time soon.</p><br /> <br /><p> <img src="http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/Spike%20Lee.jpg" alt="spike" />And then there was Spike Lee. Now Spike Lee is one of the people responsible for making me an independent filmmaker--he doesn't know this, of course, but like so many people film people my age, he changed my life when he changed the rules of the game with "She's Gotta Have It" and showed us young-un's (I was twenty when that movie came out) that the way to make movies was...<span style="font-style:italic;">to make movies</span>. Just go out and do it--no permission need be granted by men in suits in Hollywood. So I've always admired him and, in a sense, wished I could repay that debt. Perhaps, thought I, the opportunity to sit for an oral history might be a way to do so. After all, it is something of an honor to be asked to recount your career for posterity.</p><br />And so I stood there, shaking his hand, telling him who I was and how much his work had meant to me and why the Guild would love to get his interview on tape. He listened, stared, and finally said: "I'm not old enough". Gamely I ventured that perhaps it could be the first of several interviews--we could conduct another in thirty years time. He didn't seem to find this funny. Instead he said: "I don't have time for that." Undaunted, I told him that the interview needn't take a great deal of his valuable time--a half a day would be satisfactory. He stared at me and replied: "How you gonna cover twenty-five years work in half a day?"</p><br /><br />At this point I realized that I was barking, so to speak, up the wrong tree. So I shook Spike Lee's hand and told him to keep it in mind. Oy vey. I can't say I wasn't disappointed. Still, his prickliness made me wonder if there's something else bothering him. He's done so much, and he's still relatively young, and it makes me sad to think that that hasn't brought him just a bit more...peace? Generosity? Whatever you want to call it, it's missing and I seemed to have upset him with what I thought was a request he'd be pleased by. Oh well. Sorry Spike. You're still the man. Somebody else better interview you, though...<br /><br />More from Ghent in a few days. Meanwhile...<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Ul4iTFQOtJs&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Ul4iTFQOtJs&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-2715521091839433304?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com'/></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com9http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2009/10/spike-demme-and-marty-s-raymond-de.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-91075828249731664082009-10-02T12:39:00.000-07:002009-10-02T13:38:06.351-07:002009-10-02T13:38:06.351-07:00<img src="http://www.never2funky.com/austin/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/samba5.jpg" alt="rioshmio" /><br /><br />I wish I hadn't eaten that hat.<br /><br />The Festival du Cinema a la Rio, or whatever the hell they're called, blew us off. Not the movie--they're showing that. But it appears that my presence and (Steven Strait's) wasn't quite ringing the same bell for them that Andy Garcia's was. His inability to attend ended their interest in sending us plane tickets and putting us up on the beaches at Copacabana.<br /><br />Chica Chica Boom Chic.<br /><br />Bitter? Not at all. A bit annoyed at what I think it's totally fair to call a lack of professionalism. After all, they didn't have to invite us in the first place. But I'm glad they're showing the film and I fully intend to visit Rio some other time. Like maybe in the next life.<br /><br /><p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/03/sports/03olympics.html?_r=1&hp" target="_blank"> Click here to read the New York Times article announcing the good news:</a> Rio has won the bid for the 2016 Olympics. Congrats, muchachos. I hope you plan on picking up the athlete's accommodations. Maybe that's why they blew us off--they were saving their pesos for the javelin thrower.</p> <br /><br />Chica Chica Boom.<br /><br />Meanwhile, Andy Garcia--accompanied by the movie of course--will be appearing at the Ghent Film Festival in the middle of this month. I will not be attending even though they invited me. The reason? Well, at the time they invited me I had this other invitation from this festival in Rio and it seemed like too much flying. Furthermore, I reasoned that since Andy was unable to make Rio, it would be awfully big of me to turn down Ghent so the movie would be represented by somebody in Rio. I didn't exactly expect a South American Good Will Medal for this act, but it seemed rude to me to leave poor Brazil in the lurch, while the two of us galivanted across Belgium. Result? NOTHING. No thanks, no medal, no trips. <br /><br />Chica Chica Boom Boom.<br /><br />Angry? Again, no! I need the time to write my new screenplay and frankly I'm always happiest getting off a plane when it's at JFK. And anyway, there's always GoogleEarth to show me as much of Rio as one truly needs to see--aside, of course, from the Twentieth Century Fox Rio on view in all those Carmen Miranda musicals (see below). Pardon me, am I sounding especially acrid? Must have been that plate of Brazilian food that was placed in front of me and then snatched away while I, fork in mid-air, sat goofily and trustingly by. <br /><br />All right, out of my system. I'll appeal to my higher power for direction--my higher power being a quart size bottle of Absolut, mixed with Perrier and a squeeze of lemon. Enjoy the movie, all you nutty Brazilians. Hope the projector doesn't break down halfway through. Don't blame me if it does. What's the Brazilian word for Karma? Chica Chica Boom, for Chrissakes...<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/m0Vh3_vo0Q4&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/m0Vh3_vo0Q4&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-9107582824973166408?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com'/></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com9http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2009/10/rio-shmio.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-32284474216095693872009-09-25T14:02:00.000-07:002009-09-25T17:16:57.056-07:002009-09-25T17:16:57.056-07:00<img src="http://www.nomarmiteintunisia.co.uk/hat.jpg" alt="hat" /><br /><br />Just moments ago I posted a confused blast of impatience directed toward the Festival in Rio that will be showing "City Island". In the post (which I've left up and can be viewed below) I offered to eat my hat if I were wrong about them backing out of showing the movie.<br /><br /><p>I hearby direct you <a href="http://www.festivaldorio.com.br/site2009/filmes/filmes.htm" target="_blank"> to this link, which shows the many showtimes and lovely theaters our movie is showing in</a>, in that great city named for the month of January, Rio De Janeiro. May the good citizens of Brazil accept my humble thanks and apologies for ever doubting your fabulously good instincts on world cinema. And I may I take this opportunity to convey my thanks for the music of Antonio ("They called him Tom") Carlos Jobim, who I included in the previous post? And what of all the wonderful Brazilian food and drink we have? I can't think of anything specific, but I'm sure I've enjoyed a Brazilian cocktail and probably a heavily spiced and salted hunk of meat prepared according to some ancient Brazilian recipe at some point along the way. And just think--if not for Brazil, we wouldn't have the name "Copacabana". And without that name, we wouldn't have that glorious work of art by Barry Manilow!</p><br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/KKsVhyiISY8&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/KKsVhyiISY8&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-3228447421609569387?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com'/></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com9http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2009/09/some-pepper-for-my-hat-please.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-54690413910066285282009-09-25T12:51:00.000-07:002009-09-25T13:37:20.238-07:002009-09-25T13:37:20.238-07:00<img src="http://www.filmfestivalworld.com/fileadmin/media/festival/Rio_de_Janiero_International_Film_Festival/Rio_De_Janeiro_International_Film_festival_1_orig.jpg" alt="rioshmio" /><br /><br />This is getting weird. A month or two ago I was told that we were part of the Rio De Janeiro Film Festival. They wanted to bring me, Andy Garcia, Steven Strait, Emily Mortimer, Julianna Margulies and my producers Lauren Versel and Zachary Matz. Then Andy couldn't make it on the date they'd suggested screening the film and giving a big gala for him. They didn't offer any alternative date. He passed on the festival. Emily couldn't make it for personal reasons. Julianna Marguiles, in case you haven't heard or noticed, is currently the hard-working star of a major network hit series, "The Good Wife" (and very good in it too, by the way). So it's me, the producers and the wonderful Steven Strait who are attending.<br /><br /><p>Except<a href="http://en.unifrance.org/feature-movies/manifestation/531/rio-de-janeiro-international-film-festival/2009" target="_blank"> click on this link and tell me if you see any mention of "City Island" in the festival line-up.</a> Mind you, nobody has dis-invited us. Then again, usually when a film festival invites you they...invite you. And I haven't received any official communication from the festival welcoming me and my movie. Furthermore, this is all supposed to go down...in a week?</p><br /> <br />I'll be the first to eat a healthy portion of my hat if its all a big misunderstanding and I wind up writing to you next from the Copacabana. I've never been to Brazil and was counting on this glammy (and free) trip to introduce me to this much beloved part of our earth. So come on guys. Get your shit together and officially invite "City Island". We're a goddamn hit at every festival we play, so why pussyfoot around? And if you don't want us for some reason, leave a comment telling me to go away.<br /><br />Meanwhile, some Antonio Carlos Jobim--father of the samba and friend of Sinatra's--to hopefully rekindle the good Brazilian vibes.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/lKfl15c-Kh0&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/lKfl15c-Kh0&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object> <br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-5469041391006628528?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com'/></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com5http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2009/09/city-island-blame-it-on-rio.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-16942870833602219642009-09-17T06:34:00.000-07:002009-09-17T07:07:57.804-07:002009-09-17T07:07:57.804-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_bk9QWQYYXDo/SrI7c50DbOI/AAAAAAAAASc/fRuRQ252daE/s1600-h/DeauvillePic2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_bk9QWQYYXDo/SrI7c50DbOI/AAAAAAAAASc/fRuRQ252daE/s400/DeauvillePic2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5382429872402689250" /></a><br /><br />Dig the above photo--a lovely grouping capturing literally ALL of us who attended at Deauville. The handsome little boy is my son, Lorenzo De Felitta. The beautiful little girl belongs to our executive producer Militun Gatsby. This was taken the night of our premiere.<br /><br /><p>Click here for some <a href="http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/nxquGpwKXRy/35th+Deauville+Film+Festival+City+Island+Premiere" target="_blank">AP wire images of our opening night.</a></p><br /><br />I'm having trouble locating the French press on our movie--is it because the language eludes me? If anyone can turn up reviews or feature pieces (and I know they exist) I'd love to have the links forwarded to me...<br /><br /><p>And finally--mega-bigtime thanks to the indespensible (and mysteriously named) JC--a faithful reader who turns up stuff that eludes even I, the Phillip Marlowe of Youtube. <a href="http://www.festival-deauville.com/GB/html/videos.php?a=detail&id=91" target="_blank">CLICK HERE TO SEE OUR PRESS CONFERENCE. </a>Yes, I agree JC: too short and the French translations a bit long. But we were in the midst of a heavy press day so the the somewhat abortive end came as something of a relief. Most importantly, this video captures the professional show-biz debut of my son. Watch as they announce Andy Garcia and a five year old walks out instead of the star of our movie. Then Andy shows up and picks him up for the world paparazzi to get a good, long look.This cameo was a last minute inspiration on Andy's part--and I'm afraid it might have been one of those never to be taken back moments where somebody's life changes forever: later that night, I told Andy how much my son loved being on the stage being photographed and he said: "I'm like the neighborhood pusher--giving the kids a shove down the wrong path". My son was marvelously unfazed by this experience and, I fear, rather liked it: later that night, at the premiere, he watched the movie and kept casting sideways glances over to Andy who sat next to us. It was as if he was asking: "There he is on the screen...there he is in person...how the hell <span style="font-style:italic;">does this movie stuff really work?"</span></p> <br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/b5WVkl_f7_E&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/b5WVkl_f7_E&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-1694287083360221964?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com'/></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com10http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2009/09/city-island-more-deauville.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-64328020384051162152009-09-15T10:21:00.000-07:002009-09-15T10:37:15.999-07:002009-09-15T10:37:15.999-07:00"City Island" got another big-time ovation at our screening at Deauville and plenty of nice French press (those three words don't always go together--the French can be nasty when the mood strikes them). I'm sharing some photos that I took and a few on-line links as they become available. Cheers...<br /><br />Photo call at Deauville--Andy Garcia and Dominik Garcia-Lorido...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_bk9QWQYYXDo/Sq_OUzFOT9I/AAAAAAAAASM/2zW7ijREc4Q/s1600-h/IMG_0652.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_bk9QWQYYXDo/Sq_OUzFOT9I/AAAAAAAAASM/2zW7ijREc4Q/s400/IMG_0652.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5381746936435855314" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_bk9QWQYYXDo/Sq_OKqRVkjI/AAAAAAAAASE/xzDyqsZRXug/s1600-h/IMG_0653.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_bk9QWQYYXDo/Sq_OKqRVkjI/AAAAAAAAASE/xzDyqsZRXug/s400/IMG_0653.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5381746762272051762" /></a><br /><br />Going to dinner with Andy Garcia...<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_bk9QWQYYXDo/Sq_PIja-xRI/AAAAAAAAASU/xH22-UUWY7M/s1600-h/IMG_0636.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_bk9QWQYYXDo/Sq_PIja-xRI/AAAAAAAAASU/xH22-UUWY7M/s400/IMG_0636.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5381747825585341714" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_bk9QWQYYXDo/Sq_N5snmztI/AAAAAAAAAR8/XmmM4Fams2I/s1600-h/IMG_0628.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_bk9QWQYYXDo/Sq_N5snmztI/AAAAAAAAAR8/XmmM4Fams2I/s400/IMG_0628.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5381746470844550866" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_bk9QWQYYXDo/Sq_NqwJitwI/AAAAAAAAAR0/fdiB8EoPCuU/s1600-h/IMG_0632.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_bk9QWQYYXDo/Sq_NqwJitwI/AAAAAAAAAR0/fdiB8EoPCuU/s400/IMG_0632.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5381746214094157570" /></a><br /><br /><br /> <br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-6432802038405116215?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com'/></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com6http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2009/09/city-island-kicks-it-at-deauville.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-76643813667466745352009-09-11T00:03:00.000-07:002009-09-11T00:18:16.074-07:002009-09-11T00:18:16.074-07:00<img src="http://www.domainedevillers.com/images/tourisme/deauville_clic.jpg" alt="deauville" /><br /><br />As I write this, a bunch of no doubt sleep-encrusted, wine-soaked, coffee-seeking, ashtray-reeking journalists are sitting down to watch "City Island" at the ungodly French hour of nine AM. This is our press screening--the screening that will decide, one way or the other, how the film will be reviewed critically in this most critical of cinema-obsessed countries. Am I worried? No. Why, you ask?<br /><br />Because, thanks to you youtube, I just found the goddamned niftiest bit of period footage of this lovely French beach resort, showing the place in 1936 in beautiful black and white which appears to have been struck from an original nitrate print of the footage (you'll see how sharp the quality is). It's coverage of the first Deauville Grand Prix auto race--was there a second, a third?--and included in its short one minute length is a genuine auto fatality. An Italian, of all things, is the victim of the deadly crash--and I believe it happens just a few feet from the hotel I'm staying in--the Royal--which can be glimpsed briefly at 11:00-13:00 seconds.<br /><br />So how can I worry what the French will think of my film, sitting here as I am just feet (meters? cubes?) away from the place where one of my paisans--one Giuseppe Farina it sounds like--wiped out, ending his life? As long as I don't get hit by a car crossing the street, I'll survive whatever happens here in Deauville--which by the way is a wildly attractive part of this charming country, much less hypey and overbuilt than the South of France, home of a certain "other" festival...<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/4sNA1wDK03I&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/4sNA1wDK03I&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-7664381366746674535?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com'/></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com5http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2009/09/city-island-arrives-at-deauville.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-53365379712981530992009-09-07T12:45:00.000-07:002009-09-07T13:08:26.431-07:002009-09-07T13:08:26.431-07:00<img src="http://www.egodesign.ca/_files/articles/blocks/6795_1934_brassai_foggy_paris_l.jpg" alt="paris30" /><br /><br />In answer to a comment asking what's going on in Paris with the movie? NOTHING! Just hanging here.<br /><br />And as far as comment two goes, are you kidding? Leave technology behind? If a tree falls in the forest and there's nobody there...right? Well, if a blogger travels and fails to post...same thing. You dig?<br /><br />Paris in the 1930's awaits. My suggestion for the following ten minute video of hypnotic views of the city from a lost time: go to full screen for the viewing, uncork a good bottle of wine and slap on some Charles Trenet. Glance away from the screen as often as you glance toward it. Act only half-interested--in other words, act French. Paris is its own best imitation of itself--you can't call the truth a cliche and every cliche about Paris is true. Cheers, baby...<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/hkIhJXbLEtY&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/hkIhJXbLEtY&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-5336537971298153099?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com'/></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com8http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2009/09/paris-stock-footage-journal-pt2-30s.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-20697984983478207362009-09-05T13:16:00.001-07:002009-09-05T13:29:49.729-07:002009-09-05T13:29:49.729-07:00<img src="http://lovelystamps.ru/50411.jpg" alt="Paris1919" /><br /><br />A full day in Paris and tonight, after a lustrous (luscious? lushy?) dinner, I come home to my hotel room and start searching YT for the Paris stock footage. There is so much that I'll just throw up a sampler every day or so as a tribute to the city that is quickly becoming my second favorite (NYC first, natch). <br /><br />Now dig this: though labeled "Paris in the 20's", I think this footage is more like at the dawn of the twenties--even, say the late teens. A few repeat watchings of it reveal soldiers still in uniform (which makes it like 1918 or shortly thereafter), horses and carriages in abundance on the streets and men wearing...are you ready? BOATERS. Yes, back when straw hats weren't period costume gear, people actually wore them to look hip and up to date. And here those people are, long dead, lives and trials and tribulations all flushed away by the toilet of time...and yet, thanks to the miracle of film (largely, like aviation, a French invention that the French somehow didn't get the full credit for) preserved here for us.<br /><br />After just a day and half here I'm amazed: like New York, nothing really looks different when you check out the old movie footage--except the lousy clothing we wear now and the stupid cars that have replaced the lovely old ones. And as always with old stock footage, two-thirds of the fun is the ghostly nature of the captured events, sans sound, sans "meaningful" context...which only makes it more profound and meaningful of course Enjoy...<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/VV22eqGjOCw&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/VV22eqGjOCw&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-2069798498347820736?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com'/></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com4http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2009/09/paris-stock-footage-journal-pt1.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-11314213741484566462009-09-01T04:38:00.001-07:002009-09-01T11:39:54.038-07:002009-09-01T11:39:54.038-07:00<img src="http://rosenblumtv.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/sjff_03_img0918.jpg" alt="anouk" /><br /><br />Tomorrow I leave for Europe. "City Island" will screen at Deauville on September 11th. (Later in September we'll screen in a festival in Rio and in October at the festival in Ghent, Belgium). Andy Garcia is, along with Harrison Ford, this years Major American star at the festival--there's a tribute to him, a dinner, screenings of his other movies all of which finally climaxes with a screening of "City Island". I'm deeply thrilled by all of it--Deauville has always been my favorite film festival.<br /><br />My first experience with the high-flying international film festival circuit came when my first feature, "Cafe Society", was selected to be part of the Cannes Film Festival's "Director's Fortnight" in 1995. I had turned thirty, made my first film and gotten into Cannes. Whoopee. A goal/mission/dream accomplished. Alas, Cannes wasn't quite the lovefest of art, music an la friggin' vie that I'd always hoped it would be. Loud, crowded, filled with loathsome business types and impossible to navigate politics, my film had its screenings, got a mixed review from Todd McCarthy in Variety and quickly was shuffled out of contention for any major awards, sales or even good old fashioned notoriety. We were, in short, like most films at most festivals; simply one of the many that aren't one of the ones that "breaks out". Oh well. Boo hoo. Waaa. Pass the gin and vicodin. Did they even make vicodin then? Is that even how you spell "Vicodin"? (You'd think I'd have figured out how to spell something I use so much...like "coffee" or "MacBook"...)<br /><br />Anyway, a few months later we were invited to Deauville with the film and I was delighted to find myself in the midst of precisely the experience I had thought Cannes was going to be and wasn't. The festival was chic, well-organized and attended by a mix of cinema loyalists, show-biz headliners and locals curious to get a glimpse of whoever that years special attraction was. I went with Peter Gallagher who starred in the film--and he brought his golf clubs and played quite a bit of golf with Patrick Stewart. Kevin Spacey was there with his movie "Swimming With Sharks". So, I seem to remember, was DeNiro--in fact there was a speial honorary dinner for him that we went to before winding up in a noisy club chatting it up with Valerie Kaprisky. (Hm. What ever happenend to her--she was in the Richard Gere remake of "Breathless" and was a charming, very<br />bright lady as I recall...)<br /><br /><p>A few years later, my film "Two Family House" was invited back and that time I had the rather extraordinary experience of partying down with Bob Altman, Barry Levinson, Julie Taymor and Neil Jordan at the Mayor of Deauville's house. The "special guests" at the festival that year were the uneasy combination of Robert Altman and Dino DeLaurentis--two men who famously disliked each other, De Laurentis having fired Altman from "Ragtime" many years earlier. De Laurentis didn't show up at the Mayor's house for the dinner--I wondered if he was avoiding Altman. Finally, somebody who didn't understand the history between the two men innocently asked Altman if he'd be going to "the DeLaurentis Party later". Altman gave them a withering glare and answered, "No thanks--I've already <span style="font-style:italic;">been</span> to the De Laurentis party." <br /><br />Later that night we all wound up in a hotel lobby, drinking more..stuff. Gradually I became aware of the fact that the lovely woman I was sitting next to was<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anouk_Aimée" target="_blank"> Anouk Aimee, </a>international iconic star of, among others, "A Man And A Woman". She was alone and as the party disbanded I realized that she was staying by herself down the beach at the other big hotel. Anouk had that certain look/style/carriage of someone who is used to be accompanied places--indeed she looked somewhat startled to suddenly not being surrounded by the others. We'd exchanged only a few words through the evening but I decided to gallantly offer to walk her back to her hotel. She was pleased and accepted. On the way down the beach, she said to me --a rueful laughter in her tone--"You know, thirty years ago the men would have been falling all over each other for this opportunity". What could I say? To disagree would be an insult to her celebrity and to agree would be to tacitly acknowledge that the parade had in fact passed her by. I settled for a ruminative nod and made a mental note to self: how frigging lucky was I to be strolling down a French beach one evening with a woman once considered one of the most desirable in the world?</p><br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/OZgOU3Y2mD8&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/OZgOU3Y2mD8&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Otsz5iiR-Y4&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Otsz5iiR-Y4&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-1131421374148456646?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com'/></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com9http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2009/09/city-island-goes-to-deauville-my-walk.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-19352228727913599992009-08-22T19:44:00.000-07:002009-08-22T20:07:15.167-07:002009-08-22T20:07:15.167-07:00<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_bk9QWQYYXDo/SpCyAl32N0I/AAAAAAAAARs/IRSlCrZBz9Q/s1600-h/Cover_44488_919.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 278px; height: 400px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_bk9QWQYYXDo/SpCyAl32N0I/AAAAAAAAARs/IRSlCrZBz9Q/s400/Cover_44488_919.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5372990078689097538" /></a><br /><br />Who knew? "City Island" not only has made it Poland, Brazil and Russia without so much as a "thank you" from the international distributors to the filmmakers, but now we seem to be something of hit in Tel Aviv. Thanks to a lovely man who found me on Facebook, I've been made aware of our films positive reception--and "O" as I'll call him also enjoyed it along with his wife. This thrills me . For the movie to work outside of the Eastern Tri-State New York kind of nabe is terribly exciting. Initially, O wrote me to tell me that:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">My spouse and I have just seen City Island today here in Israel and it was absolutely brilliant!!! The crowed was laughing hysterically from the very beginning in a way seldom seen in none-Hangover type movies and people were discussing it all the way to the parking lot. The endless fightings around the dinner table, the secret smoking and the BBW (!?) parts were hilarious but I personally find Andy Garcia's audition scene to be one of the funniest things I have seen in a long tim</span>e.<br /><br />After we made personal contact (i.e. "face off on facebook") I asked about how he found out about the movie and how it was<br />being advertised, distributed etc. Take it, O:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Surprisingly, unlike most movies, the local distributor didn't translate the movie's title to some weird Hebrew name, but kept it as the original, just in Hebrew letters. At the top, it states the movie won the Audience Award at the Tribeca film festival. Up on the right, it says the movie is being distributed by Shapira Films (or Shapira Movies). <br />The movie premiered on Thursday (August 20) and as far as I can tell is shown in 9 cinemas, including the two leading complexes - Cinema City and Yes Planet, both in the greater Tel Aviv area. As far as press coverage - I haven't really seen too much of it. There was an interview with Andy Garcia on Pnai Plus, a sort of entertainment magazine, but I believe we'll see more of this in the coming week. I actually didn't hear about the movie until last week, when my gf won two tickets to see it as part of a special screening organized by Walla, one of Israel's leading websites -http://www.facebook.com/l/;special.walla.co.il/cityisland/<br />Walla is doing this kind of thing once or twice a month and I think it's a great way to spread the word on new movies, since I mostly trust my friends' recs and not the media's.</span><br /><br />So now we know. BIG TIME THANKS to O, our man in Tel Aviv. I'd dearly love to hear from anyone who saw the movie in Russia or Brazil (aside from the Brazillian guy who found me on Facebook and told me to cut the last five minutes of the movie--go make yer own movie, fer chrissakes!) Meanwhile, a nod to my ancestry-a lovely old recording made ninety years ago by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band called "Palesteena". This was America's notion of the 'homeland' as Jewish people like my grandparents poured into the American cities and began to make their lives here. What's that? Yeah, I'm Jewish. Me. De Felitta. You wanna make something of it? <br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/8wh8CCbxjAY&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/8wh8CCbxjAY&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-1935222872791359999?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com'/></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com8http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2009/08/oy-ve-city-island-goes-toisrael.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-91187381588364485642009-08-19T11:51:00.000-07:002009-08-19T13:03:03.058-07:002009-08-19T13:03:03.058-07:00<img src="http://z.about.com/d/militaryhistory/1/0/z/2/-/-/SopwithCamel.jpg" alt="sopwithscamel" /><br /><br />First, thanks for the many lucid and adventurous ideas about selling our movie. Resolved: the internet has become the omnipotent source for information--these days the newspaper ads seem to exist largely to direct you to a theater where you can see a movie you've heard about on the web--and we'll be regularly Facebooking and Tweeting. As the release nears, I'll be posting production stills galore which will also hopefully drive up people's interest in the movie. <br /><br />Over the past couple of weeks I've been dropping my son off at soccer practice at a park adjacent to the Santa Monica Airport--an airfield devoted entirely to flight schools and private aircraft. The sight of all of those cool little Cessnas and Piper Cubs got me thinking again about aviation (many MANY years ago I took a lesson or two) as well as wondering about the history of Santa Monica Airport. It turns out that it was formerly known as "Clover Field"--and that name still exists as a nearby street and an exit off the Santa Monica Freeway (Cloverfield). In the twenties and early thirties Clover Field was the location of choice (and probably necessity as well) for Hollywood Aerial stunt movies--"Hells Angels", "The Dawn Patrol" and others used the skies right over my sons soccer field for some of their awesome stunt work. The stunt work, or course, was anti-digital in the extreme which is to say totally analogue. No special effects yet existed. (Or does the purity of the actual stunting in fact make it "digital" in the extreme? Hmm...) Flyers were routinely killed doing these movies and it all seemed to be part of the culture--in those days movie making was a kind of all-purpose halfway house for people who'd knocked about in various roughouse pursuits--cowboys, flyers, stunt people, slapstick vaudevillians...failed drunken writers.<br /><br />What has this to do with "City Island"<span style="font-style:italic;">? Does everything have to have something to do with "City Island"</span>? Yes. At least for the next few months. Bear with me...<br /><br /><p>So I'm having coffee at the "Spitfire Grill", checking out the nifty planes and get it into my head that a little field trip to see some vintage planes might be a good Saturday activity for me and the kid. Off we go to <a href="http://www.planesoffame.org/" target="_blank">"Planes Of Fame",</a> in Chino (yes, for Goddsakes, Chino!) California--one of the greatest collection of vintage aircraft ever assembled and the site of one of the best air shows on earth (so goes the publicity...I haven't seen it). While touring the many hangars filled with planes--and there are some rather amazing finds: old Japanese "human missiles", Nazi war planes, a B-17 that is being restored that you can climb in etc.--we found a Sopwith Camel.</p><br /><br /><img src="http://www.earlyaviator.com/archive/image3/Snoopy.gif" alt="snoopypiloting" /> Now if you are or have ever been a reader of "Peanuts", you'll know that the Sopwith Camel is the plane Snoopy flies while battling the Red Baron. The damn things exist. And in Chino! (For Goddsakes, Chino...) Before moving on to how all this intersects with City Island, allow me to share an extraordinary piece of film with you. In ghostly silence, observe a forgotten day back in the spring of 1917 and watch the brave men of the air load up the ammo, hand push the beastly Sopwith down the field, and then take this spectacularly effective fighter plane off into the blue. Dig... <br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/NDz5Yoh6E9I&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/NDz5Yoh6E9I&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />Now back to how this intersects with "City Island". As mentioned at the top of the post, we are preparing to enter "sell hell"--the mode of thinking in which EVERYTHING is geared toward getting peoples asses in theater seats on the opening weekends. Somehow one assumes that this wasn't a problem back in the old days--that movies were more of a habit and people just went to see whatever was thrown up on the local screen. But the below clip exposes this as the canard it is.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.solarnavigator.net/inventors/inventor_images/howard_hughes_boeing_army_pursuit_plane.jpg" alt="howarhughes" /> Apparently, Howard Hughes felt the need to seriously hype his World War 1 aviation epic "Hells Angels" and did so by creating the following promotional reel. I don't know who the poor man is who is forced to deliver the following lecture, but it must rate as one of the least effective, dullest and most poorly conceived attempts at hype ever produced. Then again, things were different in 1930 and it's possible that the below clip sent people into paroxysms of frenetic, mouth-watering anticipatory glee. Somehow, I doubt it. Still, here we are looking at it eighty years later. "Hells Angels", by the way, took so long to make that after two years of photography (1927-29) sound had come in, rendering the finished product useless. Hughes had to go back and reshoot all the diaglogue scenes, adding another year to production--reference is made to this unusually lengthy time span in the below reel. By the way, the clip at the opening features brief candid glimpses of celebrities attending the "Hells Angels" premiere. FIrst is Dolores Del Rio, followed by a somewhat drunken Buster Keaton, and then a brief and tantalizing glimpse (but no voice) of Charlie Chaplin, au natural sans moustache... <br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/KijoYiD9ioU&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/KijoYiD9ioU&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-9118738158836448564?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com'/></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com3http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2009/08/city-island-meetshoward-hughes-snoopy.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-6460846123333301432009-08-13T18:46:00.001-07:002009-08-13T19:28:17.517-07:002009-08-13T19:28:17.517-07:00<img src="http://www.gardenstatehomes.com/paramuswel.jpg" alt="paramus" /><br /><br />A few nights ago, "City Island" was screened at a mall in Paramus, New Jersey, in what is known as an OTX screening. Basically, an audience is recruited from a shopping mall and asked if they'd like to see a free movie that hasn't been released yet. The victims are asked in return to fill out a questionnaire which asks things like "which parts did you enjoy most", "which did you enjoy least", "tell us your favorite scene" , "tell us your least favorite scene" etc. (The questions aren't these exact ones and may be just slightly more sophisticated...but only slightly). There is also a "focus group" afterward, wherein the moderator asks participants what other movies they would liken this one too and--the hundred thousand dollar question--would you recommend this movie to your friends and/or family?<br /><br />The purpose is to give the company releasing the film information on the the films strong points and weak points. Presumably this helps the marketing team decide what things about the movie to focus on in terms of selling it. And, frankly, it serves as a preliminary indication of the likely answer to that all-important and all-terrifying question that must be faced: do we have a winner? Or do we have a dog? The truth is, most movies are flops--if you define flop strictly in terms of "did they make their money back". The movie business exists on the backs of a very few very big hits. The OTX screenings are highly reliable early indicators of whether or not a movie "speaks" to an audience. Generally the overall approval rating of a movie doesn't rise above 65 percent--this is considered good because it's well above average and no movie can please every age/sex/class group of filmgoer. And what were the numbers on "City Island" you may well be wondering?<br /><br />Well. I hate to be the one to tell you (being as I'm the creator of the subject of this little lab experiment) but our movie scored a mind-boggling 91 percent approval rating. I wasn't at the screening (my producers Lauren Versel and Zachary Matz were) but I was told that the laughter steadily built and was more or less continuous through the second half of the movie. (Odd since my intention was to make a tragic tear-jerker). (Joke). Let me quoth Lauren who put this in writing this morning in an e-mail to our various producer-investors/supporters etc.:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">These scores mean the filmgoers are saying they would definitely recommend the movie to others and that they believed the movie to be “excellent or very good.” Also, these results were seen in what they are calling “four quadrants,” which means across the board - with young and old women and young and old men. This is very difficult to achieve with one movie. I have been told by many savvy insiders that they have never heard of a film scoring so high in a test screening. We are consistently getting laughs in the same places at all of the screenings. This is very good for us and our movie! We all know the expansive potential of CITY ISLAND, and it was wonderful to watch the Anchor Bay team witness the incredible audience reaction firsthand. These results will be very helpful as Anchor Bay begins to develop and implement their marketing campaign for the film throughout the fall and winter...the current plan is to first open in New York and Los Angeles in one theater. We will all have to help fill the theater that weekend for all of the screenings! If the film plays the way we believe it will, they will then platform release it, or build it to more screens in more markets. It is thrilling to see our baby go out into the world!</span><br /><br />Thanks, babe. Mind if I quote you? Should I have asked first?<br /><br />Seriously, though, check out the last few lines. The subject of this increasingly uni-movie-centric blog is bound to get only more intensely uni-minded as the release date of "City Island" approaches. As Lauren says, we need to fill the theaters that opening weekend and during the rollout into the other major markets. And I will be shamelessly pandering to all of you who have followed the progress of the movies journey thus far to help me achieve a 21rst century sort of digital miracle wherin we create enough buzz via the web to get butts in seats on those weekends. I'm not sure quite how to effect this and I'm looking for suggestions. I would offer to sponsor a contest but what could I offer as a reward--allowing you to buy me dinner? Perhaps I will resort to the auctioning off of memorabilia. I believe I have an ashtray that is still dirty from a cigar that Andy Garcia left in it.<br /><br />Or perhaps I just need to extend myself to you, dear City Island followers, and ask once again--with gracious modesty and some embarrassment--to HELP US PUT THE DAMN MOVIE OVER THE TOP AND MAKE IT A HIT. (Like you did with Tribeca--I'm quite convinced that blogathon and the air of good-vibeyness resulted in our Audience Award and thus our sale to Anchor Bay). Any ideas would be welcome--mass e-mailing? Invasive internet stalking on sites that would draw audiences? Free Heineken? I'm up for anything but we do need your help. <br /><br />Leave ideas in the comments section. And by the way, thanks for the translations from the Brazilian/Spanish/Portugese, everyone. Now dig John Pizzarelli in his tribute to my new favorite state, New Jersey...<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/L8G2rUl7Oc0&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/L8G2rUl7Oc0&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-646084612333330143?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com'/></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com15http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2009/08/city-island-goes-toparamus-new-jersey.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-6242375963671439832009-08-05T21:44:00.000-07:002009-08-05T22:07:18.639-07:002009-08-05T22:07:18.639-07:00<img src=" http://www.cancercontrol2007.com/images/head_brazil.jpg" alt="brazil" /><br /><br />Yet another country that's not America seems to be showing "City island"--this time it's Brazil! So you see, upside is down, wrong is right and, as far as I can tell, the best way to get your film shown around the world in every possible exotic locale is to make sure that it takes place in a small, working-class neighborhood in the United States and has nothing whatsoever to do with anything that could possibly be construed as having "global" appeal.<br /><br />Unless, of course, all families really are the same and thus the movie translates beyond borders. Below, dig the poster that's being used--and can anyone accurately translate the title? (I read it as "Confusion Is Family" and the tag line as: "His Cousins Genetics Explains It". Could this possibly be correct? If so, heavy...) The ad was sent to me a couple of days ago for "approval"--as if I was somehow going to brave the multiple language and time-zone issues and try to re-direct the poster art from my garage studio in LA. Ultimately I shrugged and said that this poster art was fine. For Brazil, that is. If Anchor Bay/Overture were to present this to us as a sales concept, I'd toss a chair across the room and demand a thorough accounting of how the advertising people got their frigging jobs to begin with. That is, I would do that after cleaning up the vomit that covered every surface of the room. Still, viz:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_bk9QWQYYXDo/SnphwXavJaI/AAAAAAAAARk/ID7-yHJhRFI/s1600-h/image-5.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 272px; height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_bk9QWQYYXDo/SnphwXavJaI/AAAAAAAAARk/ID7-yHJhRFI/s400/image-5.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366709389513139618" /></a><br /><br />Thanks, JC, for posting the Russian trailer and finding the site with the dozen or so production stills. If any of you readers are interested in seeing this stuff, go to the comments section of my last post and click on JC's links (or paste them in your browser).<br /><br />And yes, Marianna, if "City Island" can hit Poland, Russia and Brazil, I'm more than certain it will appear in Greece. Probably well before the US premiere in fact. <br /><br />Below, a little touch of Brazil via good old "Ugly American" entertainment. Sinatra, of course, singing a song that acutally charted number 6 in 1946 and that is, alas, available only as an audio recording--at least I couldn't find any live performance footage of Frank doing it on youtube. Cheers to you, Brazil. Enjoy our damn movie. And may your cousins genetics explain the confusion in your family....<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/wg5O4gLXBuY&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/wg5O4gLXBuY&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-624237596367143983?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com'/></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com19http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2009/08/city-island-goes-tobrazil.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-45755509609683668702009-07-29T22:23:00.000-07:002009-07-29T22:46:35.076-07:002009-07-29T22:46:35.076-07:00<img src="http://www.travelbrochuregraphics.com/Images_All/russia_images/ussr1.jpg" alt="ussr" /><br /><br />Imagine my surprise when I heard that "City Island" opened last weekend in...the former USSR? Really? Before America gets to see it in wide release, the Russkie's do?<br /><br />But--delight of delights--it turns out that our Bronx based family comedy seems to have a fairly universal appeal. Below I pasted a blackberry-ish communication from our Foreign Sales company, who seems genuinely delighted with the business we did on opening weekend in...the former USSR?<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><span style="font-style:italic;"></span>Subject: FYI: City Island - Russia - first weekend BO<br />admissions: 37,133<br />$244,692<br /><br />They are releasing with 120 prints or about, this is a very good start!!!</span><br /><br />Imagine--a hit in Kiev! A sell-out in Moscow! A smash in St. Petersberg (?)...To celebrate, why not post my favorite number from the only true Cold War musical, "Silk Stockings"--music and lyrics by Cole Porter, natch. The song is the "Red Blues" and the damsel who kicks it into gear is, of course Cyd Charisee. The number is magnificently staged and directed by Rouben Mamoulian--a Russian himself and the versatile stage director of "Porgy and Bess" and "Oklahoma" as well as the director of movies such as "Love Me Tonight", "Blood and Sand", "Golden Boy" etc. Mamoulian, by the way, would be a good subject for one of my "Auteur Theater" posts--though not a writer, he truly did leave his thumbprint on every one of his movies (and he didn't make a lot of them). I'm currently working on a post about Robert Rossen ("The Hustler", "All The Kings Men") and will have it up momentarily (screenplay writing has been occupying my time, thus the paucity of posting). Last night, had the opportunity over dinner in West Hollywood with Peter Bogdanovich to discuss Rossen, as well as the truly sublime Jean Renoir. Peter didn't cotten much to Rossen, but positively glowed when discussing Renoir--the ultimate auteur of course and one of those spirits who it seems nobody has a negative word for. I'm sure there are some good Renoir interviews on the YT--once I come up for air I'll dig in...<br /><br />Hang in, dear and loyal "City-Islanders." More on our movie--and forgotten auteurs--in a minute. Now here's that number I promised...<br /><br /><object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/1UvBs6z3xZs&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/1UvBs6z3xZs&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object><br /><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-4575550960968366870?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com'/></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com8http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2009/07/city-island-goes-torussia.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-47763294128585859792009-07-22T13:36:00.000-07:002009-07-22T13:54:37.989-07:002009-07-22T13:54:37.989-07:00<img src="http://www.chicken-scratch.ca/DeauvilleFrance1985.jpg" alt="frenchchick" /><br /><br /><p><a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003995648" target="_blank">Click here to read the Hollywood reporter piece announcing "City Island'" appearing at the prestigious (and wonderful) Deauville Film Festival, on September 11.</a></p> <br /><br />Apparently the folks at Deauville are doing an homage to Andy Garcia--clips of his other films I imagine, perhaps full screenings?--and then presenting our movie. I love this idea as I very much want people to view Andy in "City Island" both as the character he portrays (and he effortlessly inhabits Vince Rizzo--never for a moment do you think it's Andy being Vince) as well as the wonderful movie star who you know from a pile of movies going back twenty years and who here is showing a side of his performing talent that you may not be familiar with. Andy's comic and emotional turn as Vince is, I say immodestly, a career highlight and I love that Deauville (and I hope other festivals) are interested in putting his work in perspective, and using "City Island" as a lens to filter it through.<br /><br />I've been to Deauville twice before--in 1996 with my first film "Cafe Society" and in 2000 with my film "Two Family House". Unless it's changed radically, it was by far the most enjoyable, sociable and least smarmy of all the major festivals. For one thing, the town itself has two enormous old turn of the century hotels right on the water...and that's all! So a great many well known actors and filmmakers are thrown together in what amounts to two large lobbies...and you are all forced to socialize. Rather than inhibiting people, this serves to bring out the egalitarian in even the snootiest of people. A very clubby, friendly spirit pervaded the place the two times I went and I was delighted to find myself sitting around having drinks and eats with a slew of people who I'd admired for years--Bob Altman, Barry Levinson, Neil Jordan, Julie Taymor, Anouk Aimee, Leslie Caron...and Kevin Spacey (I suppose)...<br /><br />I have news on the movies US release as well, but have been asked by our distributors not to release a date yet, until they can make the official announcement. Let's just say the month begins with the letter "M" and doesn't end with the letter "Y".<br /><br />And by the way: yesterday, according to my producer (procurer?) Lauren Versel, was the one year anniversary of the start of principle photography. Jesus!<br /><br />Here's more Sam Fuller...<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/3oEhyCFCytU&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/3oEhyCFCytU&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-4776329412858585979?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com'/></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com16http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2009/07/city-island-goes-to-deauville.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-83402344898538162992009-07-19T16:43:00.000-07:002009-07-19T17:27:06.627-07:002009-07-19T17:27:06.627-07:00<img src="http://www.geraldpeary.com/interviews/def/fuller.jpg" alt="samfuller" /><br /><br /><p>Apropos of inspiration seeking and the whole auteur-ism business of the bizness of the bidness, I'm reading <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002087/" target="_blank">Sam Fuller's</a> massive autobiography "A Third Face". Nobody can dispute Fuller's place in the pantheon as an early auteur--though he didn't always operate within the studio system like his friend Richard Brooks (see previous two posts). Fuller frequently found independent financing back when that was even more unusual then Brooks taking no up-front money from a studio in exchange for artistic control was. Indeed, Fuller's earliest "angel" was a man named Robert Lippert, the owner of some drive-ins in northern California who had a hankering to produce his own movie. Somehow he and Fuller got hooked up and this led to Fuller's first feature as writer/director, 1949's "I Shot Jesse James".</p><br /><br /><p> <img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/__ECMaMvhL2E/Rvx3B2KwjwI/AAAAAAAAA70/MFdmqHSS354/s400/i+shot+jesse+james+poster.jpg" alt+"jesseposter" /> I haven't seen this film in years but remember enjoying it quite a bit on television as a young'n. It's bare bones stuff, to be sure, but Fuller-esque in the extreme--which is to say stuffed with tense, squirm inducing moments built around a series of set-piece shock moments. But let me say, at this juncture, that Fuller remains, for me, a filmmaker whose existence I admire more than any one of his films. I've enjoyed a few of Fuller's films--but none draw me back for repeat viewings and frankly all have things in them too absurdly stupid to allow me to consider them as much beyond shock-kitsch. I know this is a grossly unfashionable attitude--Tarantino, Tim Robbins et. al having come to late to the resuscitation and made it stick with their enthusiastic (and loving, if slightly goofy) reconsiderations of some of Fuller's most iconic (and often silliest) works. Indeed, it was my friend Peter Bogdanovich who initially led the parade (at least the American one) that helped rally support to reconsider Fuller as a major film artist. We've never spoken about it.</p><br /><br />Still, I love the man for his straight forward, no-punks-get-in-his-frigging-way attitude. It certainly is the American autuer spirit incarnate and the only way for the writer/producer/director to make any headway in a world that did not, contrary to popular opinion, only recently turn cold; the film industry was always cold toward the individualist, no matter how important, generation after generation, those individualists were to the growth of the art.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.posteratati.com/jpg/S2/SHOCK%20CORRIDOR%206SH.JPG" alt="shockcorridorposter" />As far as Fuller's films, I like "Jesse James" and "Shock Corridor" best. "The Naked Kiss" promises much (the bald Constance Towers opening scene is , of course masterful) but peters out, in my opinion, rather quickly and ludicrously as the prostitute is redeemed by her work with the children. (Apropos of a bad girl turning good perhaps not being the strongest story line, Billy Wilder once remarked about female characters: "Unless she's a whore, she's a bore". Comments, anyone?) But even the Fuller films that I like are best taken in small doses. For instance, dig the trailer of "Shock Corridor":<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/-m2RY7ln-wI&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/-m2RY7ln-wI&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />Now, you may very well be intrigued to see the film after having watched this...but unlike so many good movies with trailers that can't do them justice, this one does the film perfect justice. To the extent that you've essentially seen the best of the movie within the above hot little trailer. Yes, yes, "Pickup On South Street" is a good, tight noir...and "Underworld USA" has its supporters. Fuller's long gestating masterpiece, "The Big Red One" was, I'm afraid to say, something of a disappointment once he got around to making it--thirty or so years after he scripted it. There's much talk of his directors cut being better and I can't say having not gotten up the gumption (nice word, that, been using it quite a bit of late, derives from the root word "gump") to actually sit through it. Is it necessary to like the artists work as much as the artists symbolic place in the world? I like the fact of Fuller, more than the fact of his films. He doesn't need my fandom, anyway. He's secure in his spot...<br /><br />Anyway, look what the hell I found today picking through the detritus in the gigantic Fibber McGee video closet known as YouTube. First, a terrific scene from Fuller's debut film, "I Shot Jesse James." And then, buried in an eight part documentary on Fuller (made in France) are <span style="font-style:italic;">home movies of Fuller directing his first movie, shot by none other than his friend Richard Brooks. </span> As you'll see, the barroom set in the first clip is the same as the set depicted in the behind the scenes footage--said footage begins about one minute and fifty seconds into the ten minute chunk of this quite interesting looking doc (I'll post more of it through the week). A thrilling little bit of kismet, this linking of Brooks and Fuller, as I procrastinate with my own writing and channel these two Hollywood mavericks for a bit of inspiration. Dig...<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/2HTepB-6xFs&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/2HTepB-6xFs&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Hw-XeqY1-NE&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Hw-XeqY1-NE&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-8340234489853816299?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com'/></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com2http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2009/07/i-shot-jesse-james-sam-fuller-joint.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-83382485916710131842009-07-14T22:06:00.000-07:002009-07-14T22:37:28.190-07:002009-07-14T22:37:28.190-07:00<img src="http://www.nndb.com/people/534/000032438/richardbrooks02.jpg" alt="richardbrooks" /><br /><br />The year is 1982. I'm a pisher of eighteen or so, intensely interested in and committed to filmmaking, film history, filmmakers etc. And one of the last of the old Hollywood characters to still be at it this late in the game is Dick Brooks (see previous post)--though I hesitate to think of him as "old Hollywood". The truth is, his best films were made later in his career and hardly feel like the work of a writer/director bred in the B unit at RKO and MGM (which he was, more or less). But Brooks always defied easy characterization--although he started writing for movies before World War 2, his breakthrough work wasn't a screenplay but instead a novel called "The Brick Foxhole" which was filmed as "Crossfire" in 1947. Even then, Brooks had a flair for the outrageous and lethally incorrect; the plot of "The Brick Foxhole" revolved around a group of war veterans who murder a homosexual. Forget the gay angle--daring enough in its day. The fact that he wrote about the revered returning vets in terms less than holy was the real news. (Indeed the movie version substituted anti-semitism as the motive for the killing and was just as controversial). Brooks claimed to have been court-martialed for writing the novel. Maybe he was. Like I said in the previous post, he was a great anecdotalist.<br /><br />Anyway back to 1982. Brooks penultimate film, "Wrong Is Right" starring Sean Connery hadn't gone into general release yet but was being screened at Arthur Knight's USC Thursday evening class, where Knight would usually show a new film and interview the director. (The class was known among students as "Thursday Knight at the Movies"). Because of a personal friendship between Arthur and my father--and myself for that matter--Arthur invited me to attend the class.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.impawards.com/1982/posters/wrong_is_right.jpg" alt="wrongisrightposter" />The word on "Wrong Is Right" was that it was a mixture of "Network" and "Dr. Strangelove" and supposedly as good or better than either. Alas that wasn't the case--though I haven't seen the film in a long time and wouldn't be surprised if it looks quite a bit better now than it did then. According to some IMDB posts, the film accurately predicts the rise and domination of the 24 Hour news cycle. Certainly Brooks wasn't looking backward for inspiration--he was then in his early seventies and deeply engaged in and concerned with the world as it was now...in other words, he was an artist who saw his job as a filmmaker to depict the difficult and often unpleasant truths in the world he was living in (for his best stab at this, see two great movies that he wrote/produced/directed and rather single-handedly and single-mindedly forced into the American consciousness: "In Cold Blood" and "Looking For Mr. Goodbar"--though both were hit books, neither were obvious book to film adaptations).<br /><br />After the screening of "Wrong Is Right" Brooks showed up and took questions. He reiterated his preference for writing the dialogue the night before shooting to keep the actors fresh (could Connery have put up with this madness?) and talked at length about the amount of research he'd done at think tanks before launching into writing his screenplay. I remember this because it left an indelible impression on me--the fact that the writing of a screenplay was so sacrosanct an act to him as to require real research made me realize how truly important the work could be.<br /><br />And then some USC student raised his hand and asked for his advice on how to break into the business. Apparently this kid had already been out and about Hollywood and hadn't been pleased with the reception he'd been accorded. Brooks stared at him as the kid recited his litany of woes. He'd been all over looking for a job--any job--on a movie and nobody would hire him. He even bought his own Nagra tape recorder but couldn't get into the sound union. He'd written a screenplay but couldn't get anyone to read it. "Mr. Brooks, if you were me, would you keep trying or give up?"<br /><br />Brooks peered at the kid, his navy style crew cut giving him a drill sergeants demeanor, the pipe clenched in his mouth adding a professorial touch. The pause after the kids speech and before Brooks answer was akin to the pause in "Patton" after George C. Scott hears from the traumatized soldier that he has a bad case of "nerves". <br /><br />Brooks started gently. "You couldn't get a job, huh? And the sound people don't want you? Hm. And you wrote a script--a whole script, start to finish--and you can't get a read. Is that right?" The kid nodded. Big pause. And then, as if chipping each word off a rock, Brooks said: "Kid...let me give you the best piece of advice anyone will ever give you: if you want to make it in this business...<span style="font-style:italic;">you have got to be prepared to EAT SHIT UNSALTED!</span>"<br /><br />The applause was as much for the sentiment as well as the old storytellers theatricality. Later, leaving the screening, I noted that Brooks had a limo waiting for him to take him back to wherever he was living. So maybe he really was "old Hollywood" --or at least was tied to the vestiges of that vanished world which had made him--after all. <br /><br />Here's part two of the interview with Brooks from 1985.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/FYc3rVglMpU&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/FYc3rVglMpU&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-8338248591671013184?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com'/></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com3http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2009/07/autuer-theater-richard-brooks-pt-2.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5481449050530113032.post-13666030258240161872009-07-10T15:57:00.001-07:002009-07-10T16:46:35.545-07:002009-07-10T16:46:35.545-07:00<img src="http://www.cinematographers.nl/FotosDoPh/hallcl3.jpg" alt="brooks" /><br /><br />I'm sitting in my air-conditioned dustbin (aka converted garage) in the back of my house in LA getting ready to write my new screenplay. This is a fearsome prospect for some reason. As a young man, I thought nothing of sitting down, banging out a few scenes, seeing if there were characters and a story in there that I liked and proceeding onward, finishing up a draft over the next four to six weeks. Some of the scripts were good. A few have gotten made. Most were mere practice-- in Norman Mailer's classic phrase, "running existential errands". A few were lousy. <br /><br />But the older I get--and I technically entered middle-age last week as I turned forty-five--the more selective I get about what I think I'm getting into when I sit down to write. Actually that's crap. It's not just that I'm selective--I'm also less confident, less able to brush off failure. Although that's not exactly correct either--having experienced real failure, I no longer fear it as a fact. Rather, notional failure--the future failures-- can stop me in my tracks...enough said I think. This is one of those mind-bending processes that itself threatens to derail one from any road that remains open. Should I even be writing this blog? What if this entry sucks?<br /><br /><p>And so we come to <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0112218/" target="_blank">Richard Brooks.</a> What, say you? How dare you this non-transition? Simple. In getting up the gumption to get to work, I need to channel filmmakers I admire (preferably dead ones) and think about their accomplishments, who they were and how they handled the difficult task of sitting down and starting, from scratch, yet another mind-twisting experience-to-be involving the greatest puzzle ever invented by mankind--the motion picture. When I was growing up, the men who made me want to make movies were mostly from the past. And with a couple of exceptions--Hawks, Capra--they were writers who became directors. Wilder, Sturges, Huston--all were early heroes of mine because I sensed somehow that the films they made belonged more to them due to their having written every word. Even the not so good films of these directors were better than the not so good films of non-writing directors.</p><br /><br /><img src="http://www.dga.org/news/v25_4/images/richardbrooks.jpg" alt="richardbrooks" />Early on I began to seek out films made by other writer-producer-directors and soon landed on the work of Richard Brooks. I believe it was a two-night presentation on the KTLA 8:00PM movie of "Elmer Gantry" (for which Brooks won an Oscar for Best Screenplay) that initially impressed me. Later I saw "Blackboard Jungle", "In Cold Blood" and the marvelous "The Professionals". But more than any of Brooks' films, what I most admired were his interviews. At the time (the mid to late seventies) he was still working--indeed he made two of his best films that late in his career, the unjustly neglected western "Bite The Bullet" and the still difficult to watch and immensely powerful "Looking For Mr. Goodbar". So he was much in the press and not at all shy about racountering his long experience in Hollywood. <br /><br />Brooks' work has fallen into critical disfavor and has not really been rehabilitated--yet. But beyond the attitude toward the work, what I fail to understand is how cinema historians have overlooked his real place in the historical landscape of filmmaking: he was truly the first auteur who functioned within the studio system. In his 1970's press, he made much of the unusual, not to say maverick, ways in which he got his movies made. Some of these are now no longer so odd--Brooks bragged that he never took any money up front in salary, preferring to be "left alone" by the studio to make the movie he wanted and to share in the profits. This is now called independent filmmaking--or "the filmmaker getting screwed as usual." But in Brooks' Hollywood, it was the sign of an anarchist.<br /><br /><img src="http://wpcontent.answers.com/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/82/Elmer_Gantry_poster.jpg/215px-Elmer_Gantry_poster.jpg" alt="elmergantry" /> Brooks also frequently went into production without a finished script--something that nobody, NOBODY, would be able to pull off today, when scripts are around for years to be studied, teased apart, rewritten to death, resuscitated and finally either made or, more likely, put out of their misery once and for all. Brooks claimed that he wrote detailed enough outlines to budget and schedule a movie--and that he preferred to write the pages of dialogue the day before they were shot so as to keep the actors fresh. Could this really have been the case? Did Burt Lancaster put up with this blarney? There is no, so far as I know, official Brooks biography on the shelves so I can't say. But the stress of working this way strikes me as far worse than the alternative--writing a script before a massive production is underway and having to go home from a long shoot day to sit up and write tomorrow's damn dialogue. Then again Brooks directed 10 different actors in Oscar-nominated performances: Lee J. Cobb, Paul Newman, Elizabeth Taylor, Burt Lancaster, Shirley Jones, Ed Begley, Geraldine Page, Shirley Knight, Jean Simmons and Tuesday Weld. Lancaster, Jones, and Begley won Oscars for their performances in one of Brooks' movies. So maybe there's something to that whole "don't show the actors the script" bit. If, in fact, that was what was really going on...<br /><br />These strikingly individual methods, combined with Brooks' colorful anecdotes, made me anxious to meet the man in person. This was a guy who had survived the studio system as a writer only to bend it to his will as a writer/producer/director. His films were his responsibility alone and he seemed, to me, to exemplify the best of a forgotten breed: the maverick filmmaker/showmen of the early silent era--the Fairbanks/Chaplin/Rex Ingram/Von Stroheim clan--who made what they damned pleased in the time and fashion that suited them.<br /><br />This weekend I'll post on my one experience meeting Dick Brooks in the early 1980's. Below is part one of an interview with Brooks shot in 1985 when he was promoting his last film, the unfortunate "Fever Pitch". And below that, dig the trailer of the still terrific "Elmer Gantry."<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/7HTngdwb1jw&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/7HTngdwb1jw&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ku5Df5juY8Y&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ku5Df5juY8Y&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object><br /><br /><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"><img src="http://www.feedburner.com/fb/images/pub/feed-icon16x16.png" alt="" style="vertical-align:middle;border:0"/></a>&nbsp;<a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/MoviestilDawn" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml">Subscribe in a reader</a></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5481449050530113032-1366603025824016187?l=moviestildawn.blogspot.com'/></div>Raymond De Felittahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11566595501362288960noreply@blogger.com1http://moviestildawn.blogspot.com/2009/07/auteur-theater-richard-brooks-pt1.html