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HOLLYWOOD SPIN by Richard Horgan

:: Richard's Latest Blog Entries

Putting On a World War II Show
	Before he became an influential American fashion designer, the late Bill Blass held a most unusual position: soldier-artist with the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, a top-secret Word War II outfit also known as the Ghost Army. Alongside painter Ellsworth Kelly, photographer Art Kane and the many other lesser-knowns who comprised the 1,100-person Camouflage Battalion, he was tasked with helping with some of the 21 large-scale deception maneuvers staged on the Continent during the waning days of the conflict, using weapons such as inflatable tanks, sound effects and even playacting. Not to be confused with the First United States Army Group, a task force featured in the 1978 Ken Follet novel Eye of the Needle and subsequent 1981 film adaptation, the Ghost Army is now - finally - the subject of a documentary of the same name by Rick Beyer. Though still in rough cut form, it is scheduled to be sneak previewed on Wednesday, March 17th at the University of Michigan’s Hatcher Library, which is running a concurrent exhibit of photos and drawings supplied by the filmmaker.
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Catching Up to a Kentucky Tragedy
	The school bus accident that formed the basis of both the Russell Banks story and subsequent Atom Egoyan Oscar-nominated 1997 drama The Sweet Hereafter took place just over 20 years ago in the small town of Alton, Texas. Tragically though, the fatality count of 21 chilren drowned does not make it the worst such accident in U.S. history; that morbid distinction belongs to an earlier 1958 mark on the psyche of residents of Prestonsburg, Kentucky that claimed the lives of 26 children. This February 28th, 1958 tragedy is the focus of *The Very Worst Thing, a documentary screening on Wednesday, February 24th* at the Kentucky Theatre in Lexington after premiering last Friday in Prestonsburg to a massive audience of 1,040 people. Taking its title from the summation by local Josephine Fields that the crash was “the very worst thing to ever happen in Floyd County," Michael Crisp and Andrew Moore’s film features interviews with only one living survivor willing to talk about it on camera, relying for the rest of its talking-head documentation on eyewitnesses, emergency personnel and others.
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Getting a Handle on Michigan Moviemaking
	Michigan’s obscenely entincing tax incentives for filmmakers are in the news a lot these days, but not all of those making movies in The Wolverine State are doing so under the auspices of runaway savings. Case in point: Rebel Pictures, Michael McCallum and Anthony E. Griffin’s Lansing outift; founded in 1999, the company is set to unveil its second feature, Handlebar, on Sunday, February 21st, at the Celebration Cinema. Clocking in at 70 minutes and shot over a scant two weekends, the farcical mafia comedy may be a tad on the feature-length light side, but it marks the continuation of a journey that began at the same Celebration Cinema in January of 2007 with the launch of *Fairview Street, a more serious offering starring McCallum* in the title role of a paroled ex-con. McCallum sports the titular handlebar moustache in this new film, and is already at work with partner Griffin on the 2011 comedy-drama *Lucky*.
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Shifting Gears in Potomac
	Writer-director Michael Merino is certainly far from a household name, but in the last few years he’s managed to make a heist film (*The Deal), some suspense horror (502) and some slasher horror (The Milkman). Now, to his credit once again, he’s raised several hundred thousand dollars in financing for Our Last Supper, a change-of-pace drama set to roll from late March* through early April on location in the wealthy equestrian enclave of Potomac, Maryland. The film, about five male friends in their late 30s who gather for an annual catch-up steak dinner, also marks the first time Merino, a one-time L.A. acting hopeful, is taking a co-starring role in one of his productions. In a way, the story sounds a little bit like it could be a sequel to fellow Maryland native Barry Levinson’s 1982 classic *Diner*, wherein a group of lifelong friends grow older to face a different set of issues such as caring for a sick parent and ageing out of a sports profession.
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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 inspired 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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:: Hollywood Spin Archives

A Projector Runs Through It
From Corn to Cottage Industry
Love Means Never Having to Say You're Saw-ry
Leaning on Lavorsia
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