Casting call for indie film

Casting call for John Fuess' "Mailcall," a short indie film set in Midtown.
Aug. 6 at 1 p.m. at MeDiA Co-op at First Congo, 1000 South Cooper
Main characters:
Female 25-28, strong-willed, confident, recovered addict
Male 25-28, exec, money manager, high-flyer
Male 25-28, easygoing, laid back Midtowner
Other parts: 2 bartenders (1 male, 1 female), shopkeeper, gamers, bar patrons, etc.

The mojo of art films in Memphis

I recommend Memphis Mojo to keep up with arts and entertainment events around town. This week there's a reminder of Malco's Highland Quartet in its new role as a $4 art moviehouse. This week's lineup is stellar: "Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill," "Howl's Moving Castle," "Yes" and "The Bridge of San Luis Rey." Pretty birds, a Miyazaki animation, a screenplay entirely in iambic pentameter and Kathy Bates. How fine is that?

How *%&#@ is it?

Bruce Ryan advises that "The Aristocrats" is "screamingly funny, and worth checking out if one's sense of humor isn't too fragile. After the movie I said, 'This will NEVER play within 500 miles of Memphis!' " He found out, however, that it is scheduled to open at Studio on the Square Sept. 2 but still says, "I suspect it won't be in town for long (the city's 'champions of decency' couldn't possibly let that happen). See it while you can!"

The film, if you don't know, is an documentary/comedy, an examination of a joke, not just any joke but the filthiest one imaginable, told by and discussed by top comedians. It is a study of creativity although of the most obscene sort. It's not about the punchline, but rather the process of telling the tale -- it is a story that comedians tell other comedians.

So we have a film that's gotten excellent reviews and wallows in sublime vulgarity. Do you imagine the city's "champions of decency" will be mobilized?

Well, I don't know about that. It's been a long time since some form of public outcry got a movie banished around here. I recall some ineffective picketing at Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ" in 1988. But the reality is that the champions of decency -- and who are they anyway? -- are unlikely to mount much of anything. First of all, take note of the statistic cited below (in the blog entry "The video window") that a mere 9 percent of the population goes to movies. Second, it's a documentary and thus doomed to limited exposure anyway. And what may be most determinative, the decency brigade has for years focused inward, developing its own entertainment in music, theater and movies. Just look at what the churches have in the way of performing arts facilities. Plus, the enormous variety of entertainment possibilities makes it hardly worth the efforts of crusaders to do much more than write a press release condemning a movie, TV show or song before interest peters out. Even papal grumpery hasn't diminished the magic of Harry Potter.

Audition workshop notice

This was posted on the eCallboard from the Colors Agency and I'm just passing it on. Click here for more on Moore Casting.

Master audition workship with Regina Moore of Moore Casting

Aug. 20th 2005
9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Nashville
$125.00

Regina Moore is without a doubt the busiest casting director in this region. She casts feature films, TV pilots, commercials, music videos and all other areas of on-camera performance. This is a rare opportunity to be one of a small group to study and audition for this very in-demand talent specialist in an intimate and informal atmosphere.

Topics:
* Advanced audition techniques
* Scene work
* Improvisation
* How casting directors and talent agents communicate
* Important relationships for performers
* Learning who you are professionally
* Promotional materials and marketing yourself
* First impressions
* Evaluation

Call (615) 831-0039

Shall we gather at the river?

Today's CA has details on The Pyramid's role in Craig Brewer's upcoming movie:

"Black Snake Moan" will be shot entirely in Memphis and the Mid-South, despite economic incentives that would have saved the production $875,000 if it had relocated to Georgia, a state that has been trying to recruit Brewer's film for months. "To be honest, this is the deal that kept us here," said Brewer.

Here's more from the article by John Beifuss:

• About 350 extras will be hired, along with numerous crew members.
  
• Shooting begins Sept. 12.
• Producer Stephanie Allain and Brewer have formed a company, Southern Cross the Dog, that has a two-year deal to develop projects for Paramount. It will develop "an extensive slate of local projects, including a television series set in Memphis."
  

Movies about the South

Phil Morrison, the director of "Junebug," gets a story in The New York Times that looks at Southern sensibilities. (You may need to register to read the story on the NYT site, but let me know if you can't get to it.) If you've lived in Memphis for a minute or more, then you've seen how often stories/movies cancheapen the Southern experience or get it flat wrong.

Mr. Morrison was not content to merely dash or discard Southern stereotypes. He calls that a "fool's errand," and ridicules the clichés that await those who try: "Salt of the earth. Simple people have greater wisdom. Blah, blah, blah."Instead, his film ... quietly skewers not only Southern caricatures, but also the Northerners who condescend to them, and the Southerners who allow and even encourage them to do so.

And there are degrees of authenticity:

"We Southerners are complicit in defining our region by what is peculiar about it," Mr. Morrison said. This may be lost on some viewers, he acknowledged, but it should be all too familiar to anyone who has exalted barbecue or Elvis for effect. "It quickly becomes kitsch," he said. "It's broadcasting what is idiosyncratic, as opposed to just being good."

So the question is, who's getting it right?

Though, with Hollywood taking up Southern subjects ranging from the cartoonish "Dukes of Hazzard" to "Elizabethtown," Cameron Crowe's version of an awkward homecoming scheduled to open in October, Mr. Morrison's small film could hardly be called exploitative.
By contrast, he pointed to three other Sundance films set in the region - "Hustle & Flow" and "Forty Shades of Blue," both stories about music in Memphis, and Tim Kirkman's "Loggerheads," a film with gay themes set in North Carolina - as the kind of company he hoped to keep.
"It may be nothing, but it may be something," he said of the spate of specialty films from Southern filmmakers. "Maybe it's people wanting to speak for a multifaceted South, and we all wanted to take that on, and say, This is what it means, to me."

The video window

The Hollywood studios call the shots, but what happens when they're no longer sure what to do? Distribution is the ponderous question in the second article in Slate on the survival of Hollywood in Slate. The first one (posted below) wonders about the so-called box office "slump."

"Back in the 1940s, when studios owned the movie houses and television was not yet available, more than 60 percent of the population went to the movies every week. Today, about 9 percent of the population goes."