Tis a sad day, for the Little Rock Film Festival is now a year away, and I didn’t get to see nearly as much of this year’s incarnation as I’d hoped. I did, however, get the honor of meeting and introducing Carol Dysinger, the filmmaker behind a wonderful documentary called Camp Victory: Afghanistan. From the website:
“Camp Victory, Afghanistan is a verité documentary that tells the story of several U.S. National Guardsmen stationed in Herat, Afghanistan and the Afghan officers assigned as their mentees. These Americans along with a band of Afghans have been given the enormous task of building the 207th Corps of the nascent Afghan National Army into an institution capable of providing security, stability, peace and justice to a tattered, volatile nation.”
Dysinger said in the Q&A following the Thursday showing that her goal was to bring back what she saw over there and show it to people – a good, clean honest look. In turns it’s funny, sad and scary. Above all, it’s poignant. And it’s definitely worth seeing. Dysinger said she’ll continue to make the festival rounds and plans to sell DVDs of the movie through the website later this year. Stay tuned.
In other festival news, my friend and colleague Jeff LeMaster had a chance to sit down and talk to some folks involved with a project they’re hoping to get off the ground called Arkansas Traveler. It’s too late to get to the teaser screening, but I’m fascinated by the plot and hope to see this film get made.
Lastly, I got the email below this week from the festival’s Levi Agee and wanted to pass it on. I recognize the short notice, and that’s my bad for not being quicker about an update. Story of my life.
Friends,
We’re doing auditions this Saturday for a Southern Comedy entitled “Cotton County Boys” that has a great script and a big heart. It’s kind of a throwback to old fun comedies. Just think Buttercream Gang meets Jackass. My friend and colleague Collin Buchanan is directing it, he’s won ton of awards for his docs and shorts in Conway and screened at Hot Springs and at a Filmmaking Professor Convention in Colorado recently. We shoot in July and August and are auditioning this Saturday. If you know anyone funny with a lot of time on their hands and can act and look like some good Southern folk please send them our way. Please put this on facebook, twitter, myspace, hollywood.com? Just get the word out because the film will be special like me. Here is the details on the film and the audition:
Southern Comedy Film – Open Casting Call
June 12th 2:00 – 6:00PM
The Public Theatre – Little Rock
616 Center Street Little Rock, AR 72201
Inquiries: email kwadfilms@gmail.com or call (479) 871-0801
This is a non-SAG shoot.
Title: COTTON COUNTY BOYS
Producer: Allison Hogue
Production Company: KWAD Films
Director: Collin Buchanan
Exec. Producers: Levi Agee, Collin Buchanan
Dir. of Photography: Jonathan Childs
SHOOTING DATES: mid to late July and August 2010
Paid meals, gas/transportation and film credit
GENRE: Southern comedy
SYNOPSIS: Three simple-minded brothers enter an “America’s Funniest Home Videos”-style game show in an attempt to win the money to save their mother’s house from foreclosure.
FEATURED ROLES:
- BOBBY (MALE, 20s) – Shy and soft-spoken, but warm and intelligent
- SAMUEL (MALE, 20s) – Dimwitted and somewhat irritable, mostly good-natured
- HATTIE (FEMALE, 20s) – Sweet and compassionate love interest of BOBBY
- BETTES (FEMALE, 40s or 50s) – Good Southern woman with a powerful presence, mother to BOBBY and SAMUEL
- MERLE (MALE, 60s) – A man of few words, deceptively wise, boyfriend of BETTES
EXTRAS
Other smaller roles and Extra parts available.
If you are unable to attend one of our auditions, email your photo, resume, and contact information to: kwadfilms@gmail.com
I’m not lazy
Thursday, July 22nd, 2010Story of my life.
Ok, so maybe I am. This post was actually stolen straight out of the July 7 issue. It’s the first in what I hope will be a continuing column of mine that is supposed to talk about movies. I’m easily distracted, so there’s a good chance other topics will come up. But this first one is on target, just like Luke bullseying womp rats in his T-16 back home. And because I’ve feeling productive, I’ll even throw in a few illustrations that you can’t get anywhere else (except out on the web where I found them). But I mean you can’t get them in the print edition…. which you really can’t get anymore because it’s been off stands for a while. So, yeah, here’s the column.
Redo redux
Last week three of the top five highest grossing movies in the country were either a) a sequel or b) based on a 1980s franchise. Prevailing wisdom seems to think that this is because Hollywood has gotten lazy or uncreative. Why bother coming up with something new when you can just steal something bankable from the past?
I’m not so sure that’s really what they’re thinking, though. I believe they’re far more perceptive than we tend to give them credit for. The Spanish philosopher George Santayana said those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, and I would posit that those who remember the past too fondly will suffer the same fate. I’m not so sure if this recent spate of nostalgic reminders of childhood isn’t more than a reflection of the collective narcissism of a generation.
Lesser known quote: "You folks from the '80s are screwed."
Admit it, whether called Gen Y, the Millennials or Boomerspawn, kids who spent even part of their childhood in the 1980s have an almost uncanny ability to wax romantically about how awesome things from their youth were, be it the Thundercats or OK Soda (technically of the early 90s). And I’m not judging here; I include myself in that group.
The epitome of awesome.
Thing is, Hollywood is full of smart people. They might be money-sucking vampires, but they’re not stupid. They see this collective obsession and run with it. And can we blame them? Obviously people are willing to fork over good money to see these re-imaginings or in cases reboots like Batman (which for people like me will always be a 1989 movie because we won’t talk about the 1966 version). Are they the bad guys for capitalizing on that?
My problem is that I’m afraid it’s going to get out of hand, if it hasn’t already. Hollywood is traditionally not exactly a poster child for restraint. I’m afraid they’re going to go to the well a few too many times here, and instead of movies like the A-Team and Karate Kid – both of which I’ve actually heard good things about – they’re going to be strip mining the past for anything that will strike a resonating chord enough to get us to the box office.
For example, a re-imagining of Small Wonder. Except to make it grittier, combine the franchise with a reboot of Terminator.
(In case anyone from Hollywood is reading this, I’d appreciate royalties for the idea).
She'll be back.
Here’s how I imagine that going:
Studio Executive: The A-Team and Karate Kid are killing us! Can’t you feed the writers some LSD? Give them a magic marker, a turtle and a grand piano and see what happens.
Underling: Well, sir, we have this idea. It’s not very good, but it involves sending a Voice Input Child Indenticant cleverly named “Vicki” back in time to kill the leader of a human resistance. The working title is Terminal Wonder.
Executive: That’s garbage! But if we had her go back in time to kill the TV writers who created her, that would make us original…
Underling: Magnificent idea, sir! But that wouldn’t really make us original since the movie would be fiction, and we live in reality.
Executive: Not if I say we don’t. Green light.
Granted, I’ve never worked in Hollywood, but I’ve been to production meetings that sound something like this. I just imagine the view is better in California.
If it comes to that, though, I’m not sure we’ll have anyone to blame but ourselves.
Tags: A-team, column, film, money, movies, ok soda, remake, small wonder, terminator
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