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Issue #80 [Spring 2009]

The Halcyon Company Promotes Diversity in the Workplace
By Jennifer M. Wood
Anyone with more than $1 to save knows the first rule of investing is to diversify. And, at its most stripped down, isn’t making a movie just that—an investment? So shouldn’t the same rule apply to the business of making movies? That’s the theory that Victor Kubicek and Derek Anderson, co-CEOs of The Halcyon Company, are banking on as they prepare to release their first major feature—Terminator Salvation—into theaters.

How They Did It: The Last Lullaby
By Jeffrey Goodman
Imagine we all have times in our lives when we look back and wonder where we got the courage to do something out of our comfort zones. Raising the money for The Last Lullaby is one of those moments for me.

Taking a Bite Out of Big Apple Moviemakers
By Eric Kohn
When Michael Bloomberg accepted an honorary Gotham Award in 2007, the New York City mayor’s sense of humor later proved all too prescient. Referencing his cameo in the Sex and the City movie, Bloomberg noted that, “New York film and television does go far beyond my acting career, if you can believe it.”

Marlett & Me: Cuff Links, Handcuffs, Swords & Sausages
By David Marlett
As sure as passions blossom each spring, so do the passionate hopes of selling your film or getting an actor attachment. Such passionate hopes, longings, despairs and frustrations are felt in the private vestiges of every indie moviemaker. But our inflamed dreams for our projects are valued not so much on what we hope for, but how we conduct ourselves in their pursuit.

Battling the Blockbusters
By Christian Toto
Summertime means summer movies: Big and loud sequels, remakes and franchise-starters. So where does that leave independent movies? Those micro-budgeted affairs that traffic in nuance and feelings, not CGI splendor?

Gregor Jordan Informs The Informers
by Gregor Jordan
I remember when the novel Less Than Zero came out. It was the mid-1980s and suddenly everyone was talking about this glamorous young author, Bret Easton Ellis. He was not much older than me—in his early 20s—and already famous (or infamous) around the world.

Nia Vardalos' Life in Ruins
By Jennifer M. Wood
Prior to 2002, Nia Vardalos was best known as a television character actress with one-off appearances on such shows as “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place.” But all that changed in the spring of 2002, when My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the family comedy she wrote and starred in, began a box office domination that lasted well into the next year and culminated in total grosses of more than $350 million worldwide.

Brad Silberling Visits Land of the Lost
by Brad Silberling
Brad Silberling takes you behind the scenes with this first-person account of the genesis and creation of Land of the Lost, starring Will Ferrell, Anna Friel and Danny McBride.

Seth Rogen, Anna Faris & Jody Hill are Seriously Funny
By Brian O'Hare
Seth Rogen, Anna Faris and Jody Hill are the future of Hollywood. Try and tell them that, though, and they’ll laugh in your face. Yet it’s true. Few work harder than these three. Few are smarter, or as willing to take risks. Few are as free from the poison of ego, or as willing to get as dirty as they do in the development, production and ultimately the performances of their films.

Their approach to creating is more provincial than Hollywood, probably the product of a regional “bubble,” each reflecting his or her own rich, often absurdly hilarious life experiences and an intensely personal point of view. Moviemaking for these three is a partisan effort, more akin to French Resistance fighters planning to blow up a bridge. It’s a collaborative effort rooted in shared histories and an unerring sense of what makes them laugh. But trust is the biggest component.

Gerard Butler: Law Abiding Citizen
by Ryan Stewart
Arriving on the Philadelphia set of Law Abiding Citizen, I’m ushered into a small, out-of-the-way room where a Catholic priest in full canonical dress is waiting. Luckily, I’m not in need of last rites; this priest is actually producer Alan Siegel, in costume for his cameo as a clergyman who attends the execution of a prisoner in today’s scene. Siegel is the longtime manager of actor Gerard Butler (300, P.S. I Love You) and the film is the first under their new production banner, Evil Twin.

The Zen of Rodrigo Santoro
By Anne Norda
Actor Rodrigo Santoro,a native of Rio de Janeiro, exudes peace. Despite his pacifist aura, Santoro masterfully played sadistic Persian king Xerxes in Zack Snyder’s intensely violent 300. Though Santoro seems to believe that serendipity has catapulted his career, the truth is his own preternatural intuition, talent and dedication to his craft (not to mention good looks and charm) have blasted him to the pinnacle of Brazil’s film and TV industry and landed him on a rapidly expanding career track in Hollywood.

Stan Lee’s Cinematic Superheroes
by Stan Lee
Although I hate giving away all our secrets, because some of our competitors may be reading this article, when it comes to superhero movies, everything depends on characterization. I don’t want to make it sound too easy, but in a superhero movie you expect there’ll be special effects and all sorts of exciting visuals on the screen. But you get that in a lot of rotten movies, too. It’s caring about the characters that makes a movie great.

Steve Zahn Takes 10
by Jennifer M. Wood
Whether he’s losing 40 pounds to play a POW for Werner Herzog in Rescue Dawn, plotting against George Clooney as an ex-con/stoner in Out of Sight or voicing a wise-cracking bear in Dr. Dolittle 2, Steve Zahn knows how to make an audience laugh. (And an editor, too.) As he continues the leap from comedic sidekick to leading man as Jennifer Aniston’s mismatched love interest in Stephen Belber’s Management, the Minnesota native opens up about his introduction to Hollywood—and why he’s not ashamed to admit he’s never seen Citizen Kane.

25 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee: 2009
by Mark Hurley, Nora Murphy & Kyle Rupprecht
Every moviemaker has dreams of his or her film landing at Sundance or Cannes and instantly acquiring the enduring acclaim that fests of that caché can offer. There’s nothing wrong with striving for those rarified venues, but moviemakers need not get their celluoid in a bunch if it doesn’t happen, because now more than ever there are excellent alternatives—festivals that go the extra mile to make certain that a moviemaker’s efforts are well-compensated.

Film Commissions in Crisis
by Julie Jacobs
It was a close call for the New Jersey Motion Picture and Television Commission (NJMPTC) in July 2008. Despite the millions of dollars and thousands of jobs the organization had brought into the state’s economy over the years (in 2007 alone, a record 972 projects, including 95 features, generated $121 million), it still teetered on the brink of elimination due to state budget cuts. As fiscal figures were bounced around in Trenton, a cautious optimism for restored funding prevailed among the commission’s small staff, which lobbied furiously behind the scenes. And then “Save New Jersey Film” was created, which by most accounts helped to seal the deal on the commission’s survival.

James Toback vs. Mike Tyson
By James Toback
Legendary indie director James Toback challenges Mike Tyson to show his true self in the documentary Tyson.

Family Matters on the Set of Lymelife
by Derick Martini
Have you ever heard the cliché “don’t work with family?” Well, it’s all true—yet entirely false. For my directorial debut, Lymelife, which I co-wrote with my only sibling Steven, I found myself not only working with my brother, but also casting brothers Rory and Kieran Culkin alongside Alec Baldwin, who comes from a well-known family of brothers.

Sugar Is One Sweet Tale
by Jessica Rhys
Following the screening of their new film, Sugar, at the recent Bahamas International Film Festival, I had the good fortune to spend some time with Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, the acclaimed moviemaking team behind Half Nelson. While we spoke outside the theater in the gentle Bahamian night air, we saw a rat nosing through an old popcorn tub. It occurred to me that its presence in this unpretentious, un-touristed sliver of Nassau was a strikingly real contrast to the opulent, resort-based festival we were attending, and somehow it all seemed very appropriate.