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HOLLYWOOD SPIN by Richard Horgan

:: Richard's Latest Blog Entries

A Dwindling Slice of Paradise
	The words Te Henua E Nnoho are a lot harder to pronounce than An Inconvenient Truth, but the message of this new Kiwi documentary is in many ways far more incontrovertible than the slide show arguments presented by Al Gore in his Oscar-winning documentary. The title comes from the Polynesian words "There Once Was an Island," and sure enough, that is the very imminent reality faced by inhabitants of the tiny southwestern Pacific atoll of Takuu in Papua New Guinea profiled in this Grand Prize winner at the recent 2010 Pacific International Documentary Film Festival. Shot during the winter of 2006-2007 and in the last few months of 2008, *Te Henua E Nnoho* shows how residents Satty, Endor and Teloo must struggle with the very real effects of global warming, man-made or otherwise. Producer Lyn Collie and director Briar March were initially insipired by the writings of Richard Moyle, an Auckland, New Zealand anthropologist who has been visiting and studying the island for two decades. Onscreen, that scientific perspective is taken up by oceanographer John Hunter and geomorphologist Scott Smithers, who work with the local trio to quantify what is occurring.
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A Projector Runs Through It
	It’s probably a safe bet that the overlap between the filmmakers at the recently completed 27th edition of Sundance and the just-started fourth year of the traveling Fly Fishing Film Tour is nil. But Robert Redford, one-time writer-director of 1992’s *A River Runs Through It, might do well to head down to Salt Lake City* when the lesser known road show stops there later this month. Tonight in Billings, Montana and onwards to dozens of other U.S. locations throughout 2010, this collection of seven documentaries of varying lengths is the brainchild of Thad Robison, a former partner of AEG (Angling Exploration Group) Media. He’s reeled in an impressive batch of corporate sponsors, set up a solid website with online screening room and snared titles that belie the gentility of the subject matter (Nervous Water, *Trout Burn Diaries III: The Final Chapter*...)
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From Corn to Cottage Industry
	As the independent film business splinters into a million, mostly unprofitable directions, the search is on for successful 21st century grassroots paradigms. Two guys who appear to be well on their way to figuring out such a model are Yale University alums Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis (pictured below, left to right), the pair of filmmaking novices who burst onto the scene with the 2007 Peabody Award winning documentary *King Corn. Take for example the Cheney-directed 2009* effort The Greening of Southie, an in-depth look at the construction of the Macellan Building, Boston’s first LEED-certified green edifice. The company behind the project, Pappas Enterprises, also provided most of the funding for the documentary, which meant that although *Greening* could not veer towards the realm of expose, it could still provide Cheney with a slick canvas from which to work.
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Love Means Never Having to Say You're Saw-ry
	Once upon a time, the 1965 British film The Collector garnered three Oscar nominations (Best Actress, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay) for its tale of a disturbed bank clerk (Terence Stamp) who kidnaps a pretty art student (Samantha Eggar). Now comes Twisted Seduction, a just-wrapped $30,000 project that expands upon the same general territory with a pair of unknown leads, Tom Broadwell and Caroline Brassard. Along with a killer title, *Twisted Seduction* boasts a (brand new) killer trailer, whose compelling music by Adam Pietrowski and crisp RED Camera images should resonate with fans of the *Saw* franchise. Debuting UK native Broadwell, who lives in Leeds, met French-Canadian writer-director Dominique Adams in 2008 when the pair worked as fitness instructors on a cruise ship; they soon discovered a shared ambition for moviemaking and after discussing, post-contract, an idea of Adams’, the latter was able to crank out a script in two days.
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Leaning on Lavorsia
	Much was made at the outset of Seth Rogen’s meteoric Hollywood rise about the fact that he launched his stand-up comedy career at the tender age of 13 in a Vancouver lesbian bar. But in terms of west coast precociousness, writer-director Bill Cornelius has him handily beat – when he founded his company B.C. Films back in 1991, he was all of eight. Still, it wasn’t until the age of 14 that Cornelius wrote the screenplay for *Lavorsia, a cliffhanger love story about a pair of outcast high school students (Blake George, Anna David). The short film won a prize at the 2006* edition of the University of Western Kentucky’s Western Film and Video Festival and Cornelius is now hoping to gain traction for feature-length expansion by offering it up online.
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:: Hollywood Spin Archives

Bowling at Las Cruces
Script Coverage from Hell
Cobbling Together a Cathedral
Coming Together for Celadon
Playing the ChipIn Game
An Officer and a Christian Man
Ring of Faith
Houston, We Have a Premise
Reconnecting with Raimi and Reiner
Sharing an Inspirational Story
Parking a Benefactor's Donation
A Four-Legged Genesis
Riding the Zombie Trail
Another Bigfoot Goof
A Social Networking Thriller
Artemis Needs Your Assistance
Teeing Up the Velvet Revolution
Connected to the Cayman Islands
Thor Grabs More Vegas Thunder
Raising Hell at Heygate
Scrambling in Doug Flutie's Hometown
Running Back to the Circus
Leading Investors to the Gate
Brooke Adams, Writer-Director
A Break for the Prison Team
Plumbing Horror's Great Beyond
Ditching the Greenest Movie Tour Ever
Dusting Off the Maxmobile
A Strasbourg Logline
A High School Touchback
Their Home and Native Land
No Easy Task
Hoping to Channel the Farce
An Unholy Trinity
Score One for Leo's Body Double
Some Nifty Nepotism
A Deluge of Dogs
A Real-Life WALL-E
Early Bird Cinema
Scaring Up Some Parody Pie
Working with a Crappy Camera
Little League Leap Years
Gender Bending in Jordan
Going the Final Yard with Foote
Conjuring Up the Centralia Massacre
More Projects Around the Corner
A Tantalizing Triple Play
In the Shadow of Fantasia Barrino
Percy vs. Goliath
The 75-Year-Old Script Advisor
Out of South Africa
Hoping for Trending Topic Status
A Real-Life Se7en?
Adam and Tom
A Stomach for the Movie Business
Dances with Fastballs
Strong-Arming the Sommelier
No Room for a Drama Queen
From the Boardroom to a Burger Palace
Defending the Almighty Dollar
A Drama Teacher Takes Aim
A Texas Family Affair
An Academy Award Winner’s Swan Song
Roman Polanski’s Foot Fetish
Where There's a Will, There's Away
Film Pro on the Fairways
The Waning Days of Segregation
Showing Wicked Promise
More Hillbilly Hijinks
Madoff, Moore and Polanski
Labeling Spurlock a Fat Head
Angling for a Full-Length America
A Soulful Shopping Cart
Squeezing Out a Zombie Flick
A Ten-Round Filmmaking Bout
Serial Killer Schlock
A Zucker-Abrahams Derivative
A Rising River
Admirers of Alexandra Palace
An ROTC Cadet Brings It On
A Role Intended for Ledger
Reeling in Uncle Tony
Marques on the Marquee
From Paris to Prineville
The Grande Dame of Feature Film Casting
The Toast of Amity High
From Judo to Judoka
A Century's Worth of Brush Strokes
A Heck of a Quote, Brownie
Still Headless After All These Years
Trying to Pin Down a Movie Career
The Return of Victor Decimus
Where There’s Smoke…
Treading in John Waters Territory
Bookending the Rotterdam Film Festival