SCREEN DAILY RAVES 4 CITY ISLAND

Click here to read Jan Stuart's fine review of "City Island" in Screen Daily. In it he refers to my 2000 Sundance Audience Award winner "Two Family House", likening the tone and subject matter (the lives of the bridge and tunnel crowd) to "City Island". This is the sort of thing that dissertations are someday written about. I never thought of myself as the Proust of the Outer-Boroughs but maybe I should think again; perhaps next time I need to shoot something in Queens. And I haven't done Brooklyn yet for that matter. But that's so Spike Lee/James Gray/Noah Baumbach-ish. I'll let them keep it.

Our Brookfield Group panel on Monday evening went very well. Andy Garcia and Julianna Margulies joined me and we were interviewed by James Saunders, author of an excellent book called "The Celluloid Skyline", which belongs on the shelf of anyone who loves either New York, movies, New York in the movies or all of the above. James has a superb website which gives you more than a taste of what his book is like. You can click here to check it out.

The panel itself was focused on New York as a place to film in as well as a place to film. Here's a good write-up which captures the essence of what was discussed. It also discusses the after-party in which I played a piano duet with Andy Garcia. Apparently the response was a favorable one...

Yesterday's Four PM screening was another sell out, after which I did a q&a. Lots of good questions and one curious one: a young man asked me if I had ever made any other films. Twenty years of incessant toil in show-biz and this is what I get? Without wanting to seem touchy or rude I said: "the answer to that question is: go to imdb.com and look me up."

Oddly there's an Awards ceremony tonight. I say oddly because it still feels to me like the festival just began--but apparently it's all but over! On Saturday night, Heineken throws a party at which the Audience Award is announced. I have no real desire to be judged by ones peers so I'll skip tonight. But the Audience vote is a truly important one and--whatever the result--I'll be there to hear it.

As a good deal of the activities at TFF seem to center around Union Square (the area of Manhattan just north of 14th Street), I thought I'd post this look at the neighborhood, a mere 105 years ago. This is a piece of film shot in 1903 showing Broadway at Union Square. You will see two horse-drawn streetcars, one coming and one going, each letting off and taking on more passengers. It isn't exactly action-packed (and it only runs 25 seconds) but to me this little glimpse into the early last century --and of a neighborhood that I've been spending a good deal of time in--is mesmerizing. Enjoy...

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CITY ISLAND: REVIEWS ARE COMING IN

Welcome to "Link Heaven". Click below for lots of goodies--articles, reviews etc. all positive. I'm off to more press. Our next screening is tomorrow (Wednesday) afternoon.

HDFEST.COM: Gerald Wright’s positive review is posted to this site.

NEWSDAY.COM: Positive write-up of the film and photo from the premiere are posted to this site.

ABOUT.COM: Pamela Skillings’ four star review is posted to this site.

ZIMBIO.COM: Photos from the premiere are posted to this site

FILMMAGIC.COM: Photos from the premiere are posted to this site.

GETTYIMAGES.COM: Photos from the premiere are posted to this site.

REXFEATURES.COM: Photos from the premiere are posted to this site.

Ask not why Benny Hill? Ask why not Benny Hill?

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CITY ISLAND: BIG FAT HIT!

Above: Mickey Rourke and Andy Garcia chumming it up at our premiere night. This photo appeared in AM New York and will no doubt go down in history as one of the great "odd couple" pairings of all time. Andy told me that Mickey loved the film...

NOTE TO PEOPLE WHO ATTENDED THE SCREENING: If you want to leave comments about the movie, go to our official website:
www.cityislandthemovie.com

Leave your comments on the part called "Share Your Secret". Or just share your secret. It's a bit confusing and I think we'll fix things so there'll be a separate "share your comments" section. But until then, leave your comments on the movie on the "share your secret" section. It's very important to us--as I explained before the screening last night--to build an on-line support community for this movie. So if, in addition to leaving your comments, you could also give us your e-mail addresses, we could begin to form a "City Island" community--one in which you will play a vital and important role in helping get this movie out to the public.

So, at the risk of sounding self-consumed, hyperbolic and hype-driven let me tell you what happened last night: our film was a BIG FAT HIT. Almost constant laughter from the beginning of the film to its conclusion, broken only by applause for individual scenes (Andy's "audition scene" seems to stand out as a set-piece tour de force) and by the audible sounds of crying at the conclusion. I didn't know we'd made a film that caused laugh out loud reactions and I can't begin to explain the feeling it gives you to know that what you've created actually moves a room full of people (and there were 900 OF THEM) to openly express their emotions. At the end of the film, the audience rose and gave us a standing ovation. Can you imagine? I saw it from backstage where I was preparing to bring on the cast for a q&a. But a standing ovation is the same as viewed from the back or the front: an incredible and heartfelt group gesture of delight and support. We were, frankly, stunned.

Once the applause finally died down I introduced Andy and he came to the stage. Together we invited the rest of the cast to join us. And the q&a was quite delightful--not a lot of questions so much as a lot of vocal support for the movie. People just wanting to say out loud how moving and funny and thoughtful the felt the film was. One lovely woman said something to the effect of: "I have troubles in my life but your movie made me forget them and also made me understand that we all have them..."

Two parties followed: the official post-screening party--at which a number of people who worked on the film but who couldn't attend last months cast/crew screening dropped by and seemed awfully pleased at the finished product; then a private dinner at a lovely restaurant in Soho (but what the hell was it called?) for the producers, investors and cast...

Kudos to all involved. The selling of the film is now underway. If we could have bottled last nights reaction, we'd have the ability to change the world...or at least the slice of the world held under sway by the entertainment industry. More to follow.
Much much more...

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CITY ISLAND: PREMIERE NIGHT IS HERE

Click here to see AMC’s video coverage from the press day. It's me and Andy Garcia squeezed uncomfortably together on a couch, looking like two guys in a crowded airport lounge.

I'll be back with a full report on the premiere night tomorrow (Monday). Meanwhile, the aptly named "Hullabaloo" will
provide today's video clip.

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CITY ISLAND COUNTDOWN: TFF-2!

TUNE IN NOTICE!!!

TONIGHT, SATURDAY, APRIL 25TH
“ACCESS HOLLYWOOD”
7:00-7:30PM EST
NBC-TV, Channel 4 in NYC

WATCH
Andy Garcia and Dominik Garcia-Lorido’s interview
about “City Island” and the Tribeca Film Festival
on “Access Hollywood” with clips from the film.

Item: I will be appearing at the Barnes and Noble store in Union Square on 17th Street tomorrow, April 26, at noon. I'm on a panel with some other writer/directors discussing what it's like...to be a writer/director (I suppose). If any of you in the New York area decide to drop by, please feel free to intro yourself--I'd love to meet any and all readers...

Yesterdays press day went exceedingly well, thanks to the superb organization of Janice Roland and her lieutenants at Falco (our PR company), to say nothing of the enthusiastic particpation of Andy Garcia, Julianna Margulies, Dominik Garcia-Lorido and Ezra Miller. I was paired up with Andy for several interviews, Ezra and Dominik were paired up for most of theirs, Julianna did a lot of solo and a few with Andy (and one with me). Some of the outlets were print (AP, Reuters), some TV (AMC, IFC etc.) and a number were internet based and radio. Where will it all air and when? Who the hell knows? But it's a lot of damn fun talking about yourself for four hours and not being in a therapists office.

Afterward, Andy, Dominik, one of our producing partners and I went to lunch at Pastis--a fashionable downtown spot which is--for my money--the loudest, least pleasant place I have ever dined in Manhattan. Over lunch Andy got to talking about the great director Hal Ashby ("Harold and Maude", "Shampoo", "Being There"). Andy was a great admirer of Ashby, who cast Andy in one of his earliest roles--as a Latino drug dealer named Angel in a 1986 flick called "8 Million Ways To Die". I remember seeing the film in its first run and deeply enjoying the interplay between Jeff Bridges and this young, swarthy Latino guy who I'd never heard of. Now twenty-two years later, the drug-dealer and I are partners in a movie that both of us have great pride in and hopes for.

One of the things Andy admired about Ashby was his looseness with actors, his positive urging them on spirit. In a sense, an actor could do no wrong with Ashby. Andy said his usual direction was "That's great. Now do it again but differently". The huge variety of ideas that this inspired led to the performances in his movies being loose, funny, inventive and totally natural.

I've posted two scenes from "8 Million Ways To Die" below--look how y-o-u-n-g my actor/producing partner/friend looks. (Personally I think he's much more handsome and mature now as Vince Rizzo...) The first scene is a wonderful bit of cat and mouse with Jeff Bridges. The second is a "drug deal gone awry" scene which, Andy told me, wasn't really scripted at all; all that screaming and all that nuttiness was the result of Ashby letting the actors take off and do what good actors know how to do best: make something happen where previously there might not have been nothin' happening...

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CITY ISLAND COUNTDOWN: TFF-4!

Click the above to enlarge and read my fabulous interview with Lou Lumenick which appeared in today's New York Post.

Click here to watch the excellent (three out of four apples) review Neil Rosen gave "City Island" on New York 1--it will run all weekend, I'm told.

(The print version is abridged--click the TV box to watch the full review and see some nice clips of the film).

And now for something completely different. Click here to read a very astute blogger named James van Maanen who writes a superb film blog called TrustMovies. It just so happens that he wrote a fine piece on my documentary "Tis Autumn: The Search For Jackie Paris" (now available--PLUG--on Amazon)--though this has very little to do, of course, with why I like his blog. No seriously, he's good--apparently wrote for Green Cine for years...

I'm told that NBC.com will post my interview which aired this morning, but as yet I can't seem to find it. Anyone out there who can help I'd much appreciate it.

Item: the new Woody Allen film, "Whatever Works", is one of his best in years. Very funny indeed, with a brilliant Larry David as the Woody stand-in character. The whole cast was great--Ed Begley Jr., Patricia Clarkson (did she turn down my movie for this one?) and Evan Rachel Wood all superb.

Tomorrow is "press day"--hours of round-robin media gabbing. I'll be joined by Andy Garcia, Steven Strait and Julianna Margulies and don't know how long it will take. So forgive the no-post zone if such is this case and I'll be back this weekend.

Meanwhile, while Asher Burstein isn't affiliated with our movie, here's his "City Island" song...for better or for worse...

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CITY ISLAND COUNTDOWN: TFF-5!

Item: See above for Cindy Adams modest but still important mention of our film in her New York Post column today.Click to enlarge and go to the far right column for the mention.

Item: an interview I did for WNBC in New York will air sometime between 5AM and 7AM tomorrow (Thursday) morning. I can't believe anyone will bother to wait around for it, but if for some reason you do tell me how it turned out. I'll be asleep.

Item: the filmmaker party was quite nice. I even ran into a couple of people I went to college with--TWENTY YEARS AGO. Mark Street, a filmmaker with a short in the festival, and Jim Brown, a programmer. Amazing how the circle closes on its own...

Item: Watch for Lou Lumenick's interview with me in tomorrow's New York Post. Of course I'll post it...

So there I am, sitting across from Julianna Margulies at DeMarchlier on 86th and Madison. We're less than two weeks away from principle photography and as soon as I sit across from this foxy, magnetic and totally down-to-earth woman I suddenly realized: everything truly does happen for a reason. She was exactly the combination of elements that I wanted for Joyce Rizzo. Attractive, open, funny, unafraid.

We talked around the subject for a bit. How happy she was living in New York again, how much I like it as well etc. etc. Then we got into the script and I found she had a lot of insight into the role. She also really liked Andy--we talked about their previous work together. All the while I'm thinking: this is who always belonged in the movie...why did it take such a stressful and circuitous route to find her?

And then I started thinking: when is the other shoe going to drop? When is she going to tell me what she doesn't like about it?
But that didn't happen. Instead, after quite a bit of conversation she said: "So when are you guys looking to try to make this movie?"

Pause. Try to make this movie? As if it were a faraway prospect, still unfinanced and unready to roll. Apparently nobody had informed her of the emergent nature of the situation. There was the other shoe! She had no idea we were days away from going...and no doubt she had other plans for the summer that was already upon us.

As calmly as possible I replied: "A week from next Thursday."

Now the pause belonged to Julianna. She took this in. Looked away for a moment. Then she said: "Oh. I get it. You're in trouble."

Yes, I replied. I'm in trouble.

Now we understood each other. Another long pause as she no doubt contemplated her still open options. Then she nodded and said: "Well...a lot of the time it's much more fun for me to just jump into somethng without overthinking it too much. There's one thing that I really would need from you."

At this point I'm thinking: ANYTHING! Even script changes...

"What's that?"

"I have this great custom-made wig that would be perfect for Joyce. It'll also save you guys lots of time because my hair is a big deal to deal with every morning. If I can use the wig, I'll do the movie."

Done.

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CITY ISLAND COUNTDOWN: TFF-6!

Item: Today I've posted below a new clip from the movie--a warm, friendly and gentle family dinner table moment, a la the Rizzo's.

Item: Thanks in large part to you, dear readers, the "City Island" screenings sold out. Thankfully, the good people at Tribeca have added a screening--on Sunday, May 3rd. Click here to buy tickets to the new screening. And by the way, don't be put off by the "sold out" thing with the other screenings. It turns out you can get tickets on the day of the screening. These are called "rush tickets" for reasons I don't understand.

Item: Last night I was the second guest speaker at Peter Newman's NYU class which examines the business behind independent filmmaking. The first guest speaker was Geoff Gilmore, one of the greats of the Film Festival world. (For many years Geoff was the head programmer of Sundance. This year he's moved back to New York and is heading up Tribeca). I recounted much of what you've been reading in this blog over the past couple of weeks--the slog to get the movie put together and up and running.

Item: Tonight is the "filmmakers party" for TFF. I will dutifully go and report back to you on what is sure to be a dull and uneventful evening.

Item: Tomorrow night is the Woody Allen premiere, with pre-party at the Essex House. I will dutifullly go and report back on what is bound to be an infinitely more amusing evening than tonight's...

The Sinister Saga of Staging City Island will continue tomorrow--where last we left it, Julianna Margulies and I were poised to have lunch and discuss the possibility of her being in the movie. Meanwhile (as if you didn't already know the outcome) here's Julianna--and for that matter the whole cast except Emily Mortimer--in that dinner table scene. Enjoy...

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CITY ISLAND COUNTDOWN: TFF-7!

Yeah, yeah, I took the weekend off again. You wouldn't think blogging required quite the amount of dedication and energy that it does--prior to this blogathon I normally posted only a few times a week but this daily grind is quite seriously enervating. (My friend Marc Myers--whose writes a superb blog called jazzwax--literally posts every day. And no exceptions. And none of these little tiny lazy posts that I sometimes take refuge behind--his posts are never less than elaborate and scholarly).

Anyway, we're seven days out from Tribeca and I'm trying to draw out the saga of how we got the film made. I believe I left off with the casting of the role of Joyce--Marcia Gay Harden had dropped out and we were going out to other actresses, our confidence high. The role is one that most actresses of a certain age--past, say, 35--loudly complain about rarely getting offered them: a smart, motherly, sexy, honest woman--not just another Cameron Diaz bauble...

So we went out first, I think, to Ellen Barkin. She and Andy had worked together before and we liked the idea of the two of them as Bronx parents.

She passed. Was making another indie at the time and wanted to take the summer off.

Next was Patricia Clarkson. She was shooting something in Austrailia as I recall. The time zones made our offer and her response a bit complicated (we needed to give each offer "hard out" as we were already in prep--three days, I think, was the longest we could wait for an answer.

She passed. Next, I believe, was Laura Dern. Not sure why we thought this was a good idea--she's a splendid actress of course, but not quite what I'd had in mind for the Bronx wife of a corrections officer. And I guess she agreed with me. Because--

She passed. I wouldn't say panic was setting in by now but certainly concern. We were now a few weeks away from shooting and to our surprise we'd collected a series of turndowns for a fine female role in a go movie starring Andy Garcia. Oh well. Keep trying. Next was Mary Louise Parker.

Surprise. She liked it. I talked with her on the phone. She wanted to do it. Until...

Custody issues came up with her husband. She couldn't leave for New York for the allotted time we needed her. She passed.

Things were getting embarrassing around the office. We had a full crew prepping a movie and I could tell from their averted eyes that the news had spread: were they all working on a movie that was going to fold like a cheap stack table due to lack of interest from an actress?

I don't remember who passed next but I do remember banging my fist on the table a lot and upping the xanax. (I had also, by this time, taken to adding a shot of Vodka to the morning orange juice and NOT THINKING THIS WAS WEIRD TO DO).

Somebody suggested Rebecca De Mornay. Fine actress. I had a problem, though, in imagining her as a mom since her signature role was, of course, as a hooker in "Risky Business". My producer Lauren Versel, when I said this, replied: "Oh it makes sense, Raymond. She went from whore to mother, like all of us do".

And then Andy suggested Julianna Margulies. Why had we not thought of her earlier? A fabulous actress, a name, and someone who Andy had worked with in the past ("Man From Elysian Fields"). One reason she hadn't occurred to us was that she was somewhat publicly "retired"--she'd had a baby and didn't seem interested in going back to work. Figuring that the worst she could do was laugh in our faces, we offered her the part. While waiting for her turndown, we started taping and interviewing a number of other "non-name" actresses, women who could have chewed the part up but who simply lack name value. At this point, it was looking like I might have to play the damn thing in a wig. Who the hell says there are no good roles for strong, middle-aged, sexy women? There are--the women just don't want the gigs.

And then we got a call saying Julianna Margulies wanted to meet with me...

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CITY ISLAND COUNTDOWN: TFF-10!

The saga continues. But first, here's a lovely review of "Tis Autumn: The Search For Jackie Paris"--now available on DVD from Amazon.

So: we were in Cannes with Clint Eastwood and Andy Garcia, where I stared glassily out at the Mediterranean wondering if--having lost our two actresses--a night of gambling and a dawn suicide might, in fact, be the best route to take at this juncture.

But back in New York it was clear that the only course was action. We had enough money to get prep started and seemed to have more on the way. So we started offering the parts to other actors and never stopped heading for our start date--which was shaping up as June/July. The first person we offered the part that Chloe Sevigny bagged on to was Emily Mortimer. Andy had worked with her in The Pink Panther movies and I'd loved her in a couple of indies--with names that, frankly, elude me. To our surprise and delight, she responded to the script and asked to meet me.

This meeting took place, as I recall, in Brooklyn near her home. It was a kind of coffee house setting--the kind of place that Brooklyn, once the home exclusively of bars and laundromats, now specializes in. Emily was so enchanting, so charming and so easy to talk with that after the meeting, I got into the car to leave and realized I hadn't actually asked her to be in the movie. I mean, I took it for granted that if she liked the script well enough to meet me and our meeting went well, then the rest would follow. But you never know. Actors can be touchy about being...wanted. I told this to her via e-mail a few days later and she was dumbfounded. Of course she wanted to do the movie! Feeling like a bit of a twit isn't usually the best way to launch an actor/director relationship but there I was. She held nothing against me. I still feel like a bit of a twit.

We backed into our actual start date by finding out our actual end date. Labor day, the end of summer, made a convenient endmark for production. Backing up six weeks created a start date in mid July. Backing up another six weeks gave us a pre-production start date of end of May, beginning of June. It was now mid-May. So we had to start prep without having filled the role of Vince's wife, Joyce--the part that Marcia Gay Harden had passed on. This was not terribly daunting, though, since we knew it was the kind of part actresses always complain they don't get the chance to do: a mother, a real woman, still a sexual being and a tough cookie who loves her family but isn't afraid to go out and take for herself what she needs. How many times have you heard actresses (in print or in interviews) complain that Hollywood doesn't give women enough of these kinds of strong female characters--that all they're interested in are young, shallow, sexy, air-headed male desire objects?

Casting the role of Joyce would be a piece of cake. We'd have it wrapped up in tissue paper and tied with pink ribbons in a week or so. Right? In the words of Sidney Falco: "you're walking around blind without a cane..."

The below clip is for you, Dan Fisher! Dan was our property master and remains a faithful reader/commenter of this blog. Here he is, "customizing" the car that Vince "drives"...

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CITY ISLAND COUNTDOWN: TFF-11!

Here's the newest clip from the completed film--a simple, cozy family exchange filled with warmth, good will and gooey sentiment. Enjoy!

Back with more of the Sinister Saga of City Island tomorrow. Today, however, madness reigns...

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CITY ISLAND COUNTDOWN: TFF-12!

Thanks in large part to you lovely participants in this blogathon, the "City Island" screenings at Tribeca SOLD OUT within about
five minutes of having gone on sale. The massive 900 seat theater will, it appears, be at full capacity for our premiere on Sunday the 26th. A few frustrated readers were unable to get tickets. I've been assured that a good number will be held by the festival for the Wednesday and Friday screenings--"rush tickets" they're called. So please don't give up--try to make it.

I'm on my way to do an interview with the great Lily Tomlin for my new documentary on the history of cabaret. So today's
installment of the sinister saga of etc. etc. will be brief. However, to make up for this shoddy entry, look tomorrow for another
clip from the finished film.

As I was saying, just before embarking upon our journey to Cannes (pictured above-duh) last year, we were rudely awakened from our hyper-active, let's-make-a-movie state with the news that Television--the medium itself--was giving us a royal screwing. Marcia Gay Harden had shot a pilot which was apparently going to get picked up, making it unlikely that she would be available if we went in the summer (and by now a summer '08 start was what we were aiming for). About five seconds later, we learned that Chloe Sevigny's supposedly loose schedule on "Big Love" was about to get a lot more complicated as her part in the show was being enlarged.

Coincidence? Bad luck? I hate both terms. The truth is, whenever a movie gathers enough steam to happen it follows that it needs to blow some of that steam off. Every movie I've been involved with has--on its way to the starting gate--suffered sudden setbacks. Often it's simply actors getting cold feet at the last second--"that script read okay and the meeting with the director was pleasant, but do I really want to be in this thing?" I call this syndrome "fear of photography". Though I don't think this was the case with these two actresses. Perhaps it was. The hell with it. One day I'll ask them...

Fortunately, our foreign sales company Westend didn't blink. After all, the primary element they were selling was Andy Garcia and he was totally committed to the film. Nonetheless, we had to start recasting and trying to stick to our production schedule which was due to begin shortly after Cannes in May. Indeed, the "pre-prep" period--the hiring of staff, finding of offices, beginning of paperwork, end of dealmaking period--was already heavily upon us.

By the way, I mentioned that Andy's band was playing in Cannes. They'd been hired to play a seriously snooty event thrown by some perfume people. That was a lovely coincidence as it was great having him in Cannes--he's a pro at pitching in and making himself available for whatever you need to promote things. Still, having lost half our cast weighed heavily on me (though I didn't show it) and I couldn't help feeling that perhaps the whole bubble was about to burst. And then one day, we were having lunch at the Hotel Du Cap and Clint Eastwood sauntered by. Andy went over to say hi to him and it suddenly occurred to me that maybe making the film was beside the point. Maybe if it didn't happen it wouldn't be the worse thing in the world. After all, the hours are tortuous and the stress enormous. Perhaps the simple perfection of the terrace at the DuCap, the sparkling Mediterranean and the nearby presence of Andy and Clint was all I needed to make the whole damn experience worthwhile...

Jesus, I just re-read this and shoddy it ain't! Nonetheless, I'll get that clip up tomorrow. Meanwhile, here's a rough cut of a deleted scene from the movie--a classroom full of actors telling their "worst secrets". All of these actors were wonderful. But the sequence got dropped due to time...

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CITY ISLAND COUNTDOWN: TFF-13!

Dig today's clip, posted below--it's a surprise even to me. Apparently they did a local news story on our shoot last summer and some wonderful youtuber actually taped it off their tv set and posted it. I get more screen time in this little piece than usual--even though I look fearfully tired. (I must have been--I don't recall actually taping this segment...)

Anyway, back to the making of saga...

So it's the spring of 2007 and Andy Garcia and I are sitting around LA with a lovely cast, a script we want to make and--as yet--no real money behind us. You get used to hearing a lot of stupid things when people turn down your projects, but there's no term I find more irritating then "tweener"--as in, "we like the project a lot but we're afraid it's something of a 'tweener."

Meaning: between two genres. Not artsy enough for art house, not commercial enough for mainstream fare. In other words, just the kind of film that made me want to make films to begin with.

Enter my friend Zachary Matz, veteran independent film producer. He loved the project and the cast we'd assembled and started talking budget with me: how could the movie be made for less, where could it be shot etc. Even though these questions didn't directly address the lack of funds, they filled the "reality gap" and got us all thinking about the practicalities of the project. Somehow this sort of thinking--following a positive line rather than a negative one--really does sort of shift the momentum of things. Though the summer was upon us and clearly we weren't going to be shooting a film, things somehow didn't seem entirely hopeless.

And then another old friend came to the party and suddenly the game changed. Lauren Versel, who I'd known for years, was a former performer and screenwriter who'd wisely given up show-biz to raise a family. But you can never truly rid yourself of this druggy pursuit and Lauren had started a production company called Lucky Monkey. While seeing her socially in New York, I told her about the project, who was involved etc. She asked to read it and--with remarkable alacrity--called me to say she loved it, wanted to help finance it and wanted to get to work right away. She had an investor who had committed some money to another movie she was going to produce that had fallen apart. That investor was now willing to switch projects and commit the money to "City Island".

By now it was the end of the year and soon the Berlin Market would be coming up (in February '09). Going to the market with a viable project that had cast and some money attached would give Lauren and her company a tremendous advantage in securing more interest (and funds). So many movies at these foreign markets are half-assed amalgams of non-scripts with one actor "loosely attached" and no real money behind it. We were not that. We were a viable thing that could--with the proper alignment of stars--actually come together.

And indeed our second big investor was found at Berlin. Even though we'd accumulated only about a third of our necessary budget, the momentum was suddenly on our side. Though these things can fall apart at any moment, I had a feeling they wouldn't; when you've done this work long enough, you get a weird, "gamblers feeling"--that the dice are about to shift in your favor. I remember telling my wife around this time: "This one is going to happen..."

Like dominos in reverse--rising instead of falling--the next thing to fall in place came about naturally as a result of the previous occurences. You could say it went something like this:

Because I had written a good script, I found a great actor.
Because the actor and I teamed up, we found other fine actors.
Because of the script and actors, producers who believed in the project appeared.
Because of their belief and skill, money began to appear.
Money and cast and script equal viable project.
Viable project attracts foreign sales companies who will pre-sell the film to different countries, creating enough cash to complete the budget.

And that's what happened. A number of different foreign sales companies were suddenly chasing our project, eager to become our partners. By now the Cannes Film Festival was coming up--a major market for pre-selling unmade films--and the pressure was suddenly upon us to pick the company we felt would do the best job. We picked Westend Films-a new company run by some of the best foreign sales veterans in the business. And the next thing I knew, I was on a plane going to Cannes with Lauren where, coincidentally, Andy Garcia would be performing with his band...

But before that happened, there was a slight glitch. Just a little matter of half of our cast suddenly disappearing from the project...

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CITY ISLAND COUNTDOWN: TFF-14!

What kind of a supposedly blogathoning blogger takes the weekend off? A psuedo one. So sue me. What can you do me? I spent Saturday traveling to LA and Sunday with the Easter Bunny. I thought of blaming my non-existent Catholicism but that particular religion takes it on the kneecaps so often these days that why add to the bad publicity?

Instead I'm offering up an apology by posting the FIRST EVER CLIP FROM A CUT SCENE FROM CITY ISLAND. This is a one-minute teaser for what I consider to be the best scene in the movie--Vince Rizzo going on his first acting audition. Enjoy, I hope, and look for a few more clips in the coming days.

Please send this blog entry to friends and encourage them to pass it on as well. As previously mentioned (or nagged about), our goal is to sell out the screenings and show the distributors that we've made an enormous crowd-pleaser of a movie--one that deserves a wide general release. You can help me by getting people into the screenings--and then, hopefully, by sending in your highly positive comments on the film.Tickets go on sale tomorrow so click here and follow the link to grab them while they're hot.

Tomorrow I'll continue with the Sinister Saga of Staging "City Island". Meanwhile...

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CITY ISLAND COUNTDOWN: TFF-17!

So I'm sitting there with Andy Garcia--finally having found my Vince and certain that between us we can figure out how to get this film made.

One thing that was clear to me early on: I didn't just want Andy to be "attached" as an actor. I wanted us to be producing partners.

Now some filmmakers are scared of partnering with a movie star--fearing, I suppose, that the more powerful person in the equation (and no matter who the filmmaker is the more powerful person is ALWAYS the movie star) will trump the other in any important creative decision.

And there are those who might wield their power that way. But that wasn't my sense about Andy. His respect for my material and our general simpatico with each other gave me confidence that we could, in effect, help each other by being mutually invested in the cause of getting the film made. Though the first few months were spent shopping the project--my script, me directing, Andy starring, us producing--to various companies, we ultimately didn't get any traction this way and decided that the best thing to do was get more cast. Once a script has enough good actors interested in doing it, the people with the money tend to take it more seriously and--naturally--have less strident objections to why the film should be made in the first place. It's almost as if they're thinking: "If all these well known talented people want to do this, why shouldn't I be in on the game?"

Andy has scrupulously maintained excellent relationships throughout his career and he was happy to, in effect, open his phone book and see who we could get the script too. First stop for the role of his wife was Michelle Pfeiffer. And--who'd a thunk--for a minute she appeared to like it. We waited to hear if she wanted to meet about it. Her agents were somewhat surprised but ultimately want to support their client and told us to "hang in" while she thought about it. Which she appeared to be doing for a few weeks.

Until she passed. You never why these passes happen. No need to ask. No answer will be forthcoming.

Next we brought in Sheila Jaffee--superb casting director of "The Soprano's" who I've worked with on every feature I've made. Sheila drew up lists of actors for all the major roles. Our next choice for the wife was Marcia Gay Harden--great actress and someone who has consistently proven to be both fearless in her acting choices and open to working in all different kinds of films for all prices.

She read it, bumped into Andy at an awards show and told him how much she liked it. The official word came from her agency shortly thereafter: she wanted to meet with me. As I recall it happened at the Four Seasons Hotel in LA, where she was doing press for another movie--think it was the Richard Gere/Lasse Hallstrom movie "Hoax". Ms. Harden is as magnetic, attractive and fascinating a woman as you can ever hope to sit across from. And she has that peculiar quality that some (certainly not all) actors have--of going right to a personally intimate place with a stranger so as to quickly assess how honest and how giving they should feel free to be in expressing their own thoughts. She and I had a fine talk. She liked the project and Andy. I left knowing we had another cast member.

The role of Molly--Andy's "muse"--engendered a long list of interesting younger actresses: Zooey Deschenel, Amy Adams, Maggie Gyllenhaal etc. A lot of the time these names start to get crossed off the list based on their availability; a heavily booked actor not only won't get back to you quickly enough about your project, but may not really be available in your time frame. Such was the case with most of the above women.

By the way, let me address time frame; we didn't have a dime to make this movie. Not one company was out there promising us anything. This was strictly me and Andy riding a wave--trying to drum up interest in what we wanted to do and force a fantasy into becoming a reality. Steven Soderbergh once said that the best way to get a movie made is to set a date: once you're sure of when you want to start, the world will have less to say against your desires. It doesn't guarantee you're going to go, but what's the better alternative? At this point, I think we were in early 2007, optimistically aiming for a summer start.

Marcia Gay Harden's CAA agent was now part of helping us package the project. He suggested I meet with a young, up and coming actor for the role of Tony--the mysterious prisoner who Andy brings home. Steven Strait had played a caveman in "10,,000 BC" and been a model as well. He was also a Stella Adler trained New York actor and I liked the unusual combination of his various selves. Once I met him, I really liked him: as sincere, sweet and enthusiastic a guy as one could hope to meet and potentially work with. Steven and I bonded on site--I remember having a drink with him at a hotel and suddenly hearing myself say: "I feel like we could talk all night". He was on board.

One of the names that came up for the role of Molly was Chloe Sevigny. We liked the idea, heard she was working on "Big Love" but had holes in her schedule and--of course--Chloe has a long history of indie-film participation. We sent her the script...

And the next thing we were sitting at the Chateau Marmont (Sunset Blvd. and Crescent Heights) having breakfast with her. She liked it. Andy and I liked her. Once again I think she was there doing press for something else--but who cares? We were now a movie with no money but with a cast: Andy Garcia, Marcia Gay Harden, Steven Strait and Chloe Sevigny. In "City Island". A Raymond De Felitta Joint. The rest would be easy. We would be shooting in good old New York City in the summer of '07...wouldn't we???

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CITY ISLAND COUNTDOWN: TFF-18!

Item: I just shot an interview about "City Island" for NBC. It was taped--not live--and I wasn't really paying attention as to when and where they said it would air until...

They mentioned the word "taxi". In New York City, all taxi cabs now have little tv screens in the back with white noise kind of programming, usually of a New York promotional variety. As often as not I simply turn the damn things off--I pretend to find them an annoyance, another example of technology run amok.

But now I must confess: the fact that I might appear in the back of taxi cabs plugging my New York movie has made me idiotically happy, thrilled beyond my normal complacency. Indeed, I feel suddenly like a spokesman for the whole damn city, one of the stalwart, upstanding, "I love New York" heads, the kind of man who is proud of his city--and wants to make his city proud of him. I may cry.

Item: The hits on this little blog have close to doubled since we began this countdown-to-Tribeca blogathon. I guess some of you actually have called my bluff and passed the link on to others. Thank you for that. For those new readers, I feel it necessary to repeat the mantra of what this entire experiment is all about. So:

If you are interested in my movie and would like to participate in helping us achieve our goal of getting it out to the audience it deserves,PLEASE E-MAIL THIS BLOG ENTRY TO TEN OF YOUR FRIENDS. I know our readers come from all corners of the earth and I'm delighted by the globality of it all; but if you happen to have friends in the New York area I would appreciate your making them your primary targets as I'm hoping to get people to buy tickets to our screenings at Tribeca. And if you don't know anybody in New York, that's okay too--maybe they'll take a roadtrip to the greatest city in the world to see our movie! Just tell whoever you think might be interested about our mission and its daily progress. If nothing else, they might enjoy my occasional rantings and postings of musical acts from "Hullabaloo".

Once people start seeing the movie, I'm hoping to encourage them to text an as-yet unknown number to leave (hopefully) enthusiastic comments--this will be of real help in convincing the currently timid distribution companies that we've made a film that will be a real crowd-pleaser.

I'll be back with more of the "Sinister Saga of Staging City Island"--along with more behind the scenes video clips and stills later today or tomorrow. For now, in tribute to the lovely springtime day we have here in New York City and the general air of good vibiness that comes with learning that I might be on TV in the back of taxi's, I offer you the Four Tops-- courtesy of the ever more valued "Hullabaloo" (NBC 1965).

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CITY ISLAND COUNTDOWN: TFF-19!

By the way, thanks to the Tribeca Film Festival for linking to this blog. Tomorrow morning I'm supposed to be heading to the Bronx to do a little WNBC interview on City Island itself.

Anyway, back to the Sinister Saga of Staging City Island.

For close to three years, I tried--with my producers at Echo Lake--to gain enough traction to get "City Island" off the ground. Budgets were made and discarded. The part was offered here and there to actors but never with an official offer--i.e. money--and this often means that the script goes straight to the bottom of the pile. In the meantime, I made two films: "The Thing About My Folks" with Paul Reiser and Peter Falk (shot in 2003, released in 2005) and my documentary "Tis Autumn: The Search For Jackie Paris" (shot and edited over 2004 and 2005). In late 2005, Echo Lake's option was up on "City Island" and they elected not to renew. I wasn't surprised and was frankly relieved; even though I liked Doug and Andy and knew their interest in the movie was genuine, we simply had burned out on figuring out how to get the thing made.

For the next year I was busy adapting a novel by Oscar Hijuelos, "A Simple Havana Melody". I forgot about "City Island" for awhile, figuring that its time had come and gone. And then I got a call from my agent. "What about Andy Garcia for 'City Island'?"

Indeed, thought I. Why had we never approached him before? Somehow he hadn't seemed a logical choice. But why not? He's played Italians before--in The Godfather 3, no less.

My agent said: "We represent him here and he's very independent-film friendly. I have a hunch he might respond to the script."

Send it, said I. I liked the idea the more I thought of it. But I knew the truth about actors: no offer, not much of a chance.
Nevertheless, the project was dormant and what did I have to lose?

A week or so later my agent called and said that Andy would like to speak with me. That was Thanksgiving week, 2006. We met at his office in LA (actually a house that he and his family once lived in which he keeps as a sort of catch-all office, center of the universe space). The three years of nowheredom suddenly vanished. I was meeting my Vince--and he wanted to do it. We talked about all manner of things the first day--not just the script but life, filmmaking, cigars (he smokes, I used to) and--big subject for both of us--music. By the end of the day, "City Island" had more life pumped into it than at any time since the script was first composed five years earlier.

The question was: now that I finally had the right man for Vince...HOW THE HELL DO WE GET THIS THING MADE?

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CITY ISLAND COUNTDOWN: TFF-20!

Continuing the sinister saga of making "City Island" (with apologies to Richard Rush for stealing the title of his "Stunt Man" making-of doc--really quite good and ultimately more interesting these days than "Stunt Man" itself--Christ, stop me!), I finished the "City Island" script in early October of 2001. My agent Lucy Stille and manager Gary Ungar both were enthused but--as with most of my work--cautious of what, exactly, its chances in the marketplace were. It was not an obvious spec script sale--nor was that what I was looking for. Clearly it needed cast and a produer, though not necessarily in that order.

First up for my choice for a producer was Richard Gladstein ("Cider House Rules", "Finding Neverland"). I'd known Richard on and off for a few years and at one point we almost had launched another movie together. He liked the script but felt it was "small"--and coming off of the above mentioned Oscar winners was a bit reluctant to take it on with full force. I understood and moved on.

Next came Doug Mankoff and Andrew Spaulding, partners in a company called Echo Lake. Two very good guys who were very taken with the script and wanted to work with me. They optioned it and we got to work...on a rewrite. Now, rewrites are something of a given in this business but I've had a lot of lousy experiences watching things that are in perfectly good shape get screwed up--or become a "victim of bad notes" as a friend of mine puts it. So I was a bit stubborn about this process as I felt, and still feel, that the script as written was sort of...what it is. I mean you can't tell this story too many different ways and I wasn't all that enthused about experimenting. I wanted to make the damn movie!

Nonetheless, Doug and Andy pushed me a bit and for this I'm grateful. Though the changes they suggested were essentially minor--nothing structural was altered--they made the script better, tighter, a little more thoughtful and a lot less windy. When nobody could stand anymore notegiving or notetaking we went out to get an actor to play Vince.

Usually this is a hopeless process, taking months for actors to read (or not bother reading) scripts and then, inevitably, turning them down for reasons that will remain buried with them. But the very first actor we sent it to, the excellent Michael Chiklis ("The Shield") loved it. He and I met and liked each other. He would have made a fine Vince Rizzo and he had a break coming up in the summer from his show. So I thought "Let's get moving".

But his enthusiasm provoked an ambivelence on the part of my producers. In effect they felt: "Even though we love Chiklis, if the first actor we sent it too loved it, maybe we can get..." And then, of course, the second-guessing game began. What about Bruce Willis? Robert De Niro? Al Pacino? Hell, Brad Pitt, Russell Crowe, Tom Cruise...I'm exaggerating but you get the idea.

The longer we dithered, the less enthused Michael Chiklis grew. Who can blame him? He thought I was for real in making this film with him. I thought so too. Soon his participation was a memory and we began a torturous two year process in offering the script to actors who--as I anticipated--really didn't want to bother with reading it after all. By the way, all of the above is pretty normal stuff for the movie business. If that's normal, imagine the bad stuff--plenty of which happens.

Meeting Michael and trying to make the movie with him was far from being a total waste. I visited him on the set of "The Shield" one day and the director of that particular episode was David Mamet. We had a nice talk. Mamet told me that Michael "has spoken very highly of your work"---which coming from Mamet (even though it wasn't him directly complimenting me) made me feel touched by God. Best of all, I had a meeting with Kim Cattrall (can't remember how this came about--perhaps she was a friend of Michael's?) Kim --a lovely woman then at the peak of her "Sex In The City" success--and I had coffee at a place on Madison Avenue and then took a walk. The stares I got from other women on the street--along the lines of: "If he's with her, he must be very special"--made me briefly understand how a sixteen year old girl might feel when walking into a sports bar...

Below is Andy Garcia in a clip from the movie doing some driving work and talking with his director via walkie...

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CITY ISLAND COUNTDOWN: TFF-21!

"City Island" began life as a spec screenplay called "Make Someone Happy". I began writing it on Labor Day Weekend, 2001 and was on page fifty on September 11th, when the World Trade Center was attacked. I will always be able to root the creation of this script in precisely that astonishing moment in history as it was one of those days in which you never forget where you were and what you were doing.

I was writing about a middle-class New York family, filled with their own problems, frustrations and neuroses. And just as I was picking up steam with these people--and the script really did "write itself", the voices of the characters were coming at me fast and furious--the very world that they embodied was shaken to the core. For those reading this who are not New Yorkers, the local reaction to the tragedy was really quite astonishing. Many people hanging "missing" signs for their certainly dead relatives and friends; a denial and anger so fierce and conflicting that fights began to break out in Union Square; and through it all the sudden and blinding appearence of the American Flag just about everywhere you looked. People swung into action. Cleaning up the mess--Ground Zero as the disaster site came to be known-became the priority.

The general reaction of most people I knew in the arts was: why bother going on? Do we really need "Legally Blonde 2"? It seems strange now--after all, many cities have been attacked, pillaged, destroyed and still the creation of art has gone on unceasingly. But at the time there was a feeling of being left winded . Some hearty souls braver than I decided to get their ass down to GZ and help with the clean-up. I, alas, am the sort of person who if given a broom to help sweep up will probably wind up breaking the glasses stacked on the table. So I stayed home.

And my characters, the Rizzo's, sat there. Immobile. Without animation. Not knowing why they'd been created or where they were headed.

I think about ten days later I picked them up and dusted them off. After all I wasn't helping New York City in any concrete way by NOT WRITING. And they were, one way or another, emblematic of the kind of New Yorkers I've always most admired--indeed the kind that I come from: the outer-borough, working class familiies who are the true support--the true infrastructure of the greatest city in the world. What better for me to do in the wake of the attack on our city then let them have their lives and see who they were, what they wanted, what prevented them from getting it and how they would solve the dilemma of living?

Tomorrow I'll continue the saga of the eight years it took to get from script to finished film. Meanwhile here's a deleted scene from "City Island" featuring Andy Garcia, walking the streets of the Bronx.

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CITY ISLAND COUNTDOWN: TFF-22!

Here's a clip of Steven Strait and Julianna Margulies riding the process-trailer (i.e. the rig that carries the car that she's pretending to drive) and self-slating themselves--a necessity when doing driving stuff as there's usually no room in the car for a camera assistant to crouch in and perform this antiquated but still highly necessary task. Despite the mega advances in technology, movies still rely on several very old-fashioned customs to achieve the simplest ends and the slate--which provides the editor not only with necessary shot/scene/take information but a definite sync mark for sound and picture--remains the quaintest of the "analogue" steps that still exist.

Tomorrow I'll begin a multi-part saga on how the movie actually got financed and made--something I haven't gone into any detail about previously. And don't worry--more and newer clips (cut scenes) really are on the way.

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CITY ISLAND COUNTDOWN: TFF-23!

Okay. I lied. I can't spread the TV clips wealth at this very moment--it turns out our publicity team (the awesome Falco Ink.) is hoping to get us an exclusive on one of those show-biz shows (ET? Extra? Who Knows?) One must use whatever is in the arsenal and, alas, I have to preserve the clips until said show airs. Please don't hate me. Oh, hell. Hate me.

Let me tell you about Falco. They're New York's first stop, top movie/indie/pr/press firm--but trying to characterize them in terms of their job is less than accurate. They are, in fact, master hand-holders at the most vital and sensitive moment of the whole filmmaking process--the moment of the unvailing of the work. For about ten years, I've been privileged to work with them--only it's not really work. They're family--"meshpuca" as the yiddish would say (although they'd probably spell it differently). Led by the galvanizing Janice Roland, these are folks whose hands you willingly and fearlessly can put your child into and expect the best from. They handle the press, the film festivals, the public perception of your film and its future life and do so with real concern for the future of the product you've created. They practice a craft which also becomes an increasingly personal connection. An uneasy mixture at best, but one they handle with grace and ease.

I first worked with Janice and her late partner Gary Hill (who died far too young this past fall) on my film "Two Family House". Their presence at Sundance made that frankly nightmarish festival a much lovelier experience than it deserved to be in retrospect (these public events where you unvail your work can be much less glamourous and more daunting then you might imagine). Gary was a lovely southern man--a Texas boy destined for the big city-- with a wry and witty take on the whole nasty mess that passes for normal life in show-biz. I do believe it was he who named the company--after Tony Curtis' character Sidney Falco in "The Sweet Smell Of Success" (see above photo). In that great film--one of my five favorites of all time--Curtis makes sure to pronounce his self-named public relations firm (in fact just a grubby one-room apartment which he uses as an office) "Falco comma Ink." Thus was Falco Ink anointed--a whole company was born and named after a line in a movie. So taken with Tony Curtis and his role in SSOS was Gary Hill that he somehow managed to actualize his obsession into dinner one night at that venerable New York nightspot 21 with Tony Curtis himself--and 21 was the setting for several scenes in "Sweet Smell..." In a sense, Gary figured out a way to put himself into "Sweet Smell Of Success"--re-staging, as it were, an encounter with Sidney Falco at 21, only including himself in the scene.

Stage managing that coup and telling me about it at the bar of the Warwick Hotel--which is primarily where my meetings with Janice and Gary always took place--remains my fondest memory of Gary. In tribute to him--as well as his and my mutual obsession with "SSOS", here's a clip from the movie. "You're walkin' around blind without a cane!" is the great line in this two minute stretch--and "SSOS" is a movie with a gem of dialogue at least every minute.

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CiTY ISLAND COUNTDOWN: TFF-24!

From the sublime to the sleazy: above is the luminous Emily Mortimer in a scene from "City Island" and, in the below clip, I've offered an outtake (complete with slate) of the opening scene of the movie, set in the prison where Vince Rizzo (Andy Garcia) works. How does a guy who hangs out in prison wind up involved with Emily Mortimer? This and many other questions will be answered if and when you show up at the "City Island" screenings at the upcoming Tribeca Film Festival. Click here for festival information--specifically "City Island" related festival information. And click on the above photo to enlarge. Emily makes a fabulous screen saver.

As I announced yesterday my intent in this blogathon is to spread the word about the movie and the screenings by asking you to send the link to this blog to ten friends (five will do if you're like me and don't have many friends). Then--hopefully--we will accumulate enough grass roots support to help cross the finish line in getting the thing sold. I've already been asked by a few stalwart readers if it matters if they don't have any friends in the New York City area. The answer is: Hell No! While it would be helpful in getting people into screenings, the real fun here is in seeing how truly global a community we are. One way or another, everyone will eventually see this movie--even people in prison.

Starting tomorrow I'll be posting some TV clips of the film--the little segments that they show when reviewing the film on air. These segments represent the first edited scenes of the film to be posted and, as such, their arrival is deserving of mega-fanfare. So keep your eyes on the blogathon for this not-exactly-once-in-a-lifetime experience. And don't forget to annoy your friends on behalf of my film!

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CITY ISLAND COUNTDOWN: TFF-25!

Welcome to a brand new day on this weblog--the countdown to the official US premiere of "City Island" at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 26th.

I will be posting every day between now and then--not this shilly-shallying couple of times a' week stuff that I've fallen into of late. Furthermore, I'll be posting stuff YOU WANT TO SEE! (Sorry but couldn't resist the hyperbole). I'll have stills, clips from the movie, insider stories and, when I don't, the usual crap I like to post (clips of forgotten old tv shows, movies etc).

Why this sudden awakening? What possesses me? Simple. I NEED TO SELL THIS MOVIE. And this is no small task in the current Post-Bush, Post-Hollywood, Post-Wall Street, Post-Money, Post-Business, Post-Entertainment, Post-Cultural landscape we are all quietly drowning in. Making a movie like "City Island"--an independent project nurtured by its writer/director for years and made because of the belief and support of people like Andy Garcia and my principal producing partners Lauren Versel and Zachary Matz--isn't the whole game; SELLING the damn thing is now the mission.

I've been delighted by the readership that I've attracted--I had a feeling that the progress of the making of a film might be interesting to some people but was surprised at how heavy our hits were during the actual production. So now I'm inviting whoever is out there who is still interested into the next most intense phase of this process; HOW THE HELL WE'RE GOING TO GET THIS FILM OUT INTO WORLD. As I said, I will be posting every day, sharing the intense activity that is now accumulating around the movie's future.

Here's step one: years ago there was a mysterious phenomenon known as the "chain letter"--it usually arrived in the mail unmarked and promised to bring you good luck if you passed it on to ten people and ill luck if you ignored it. My mother disapproved of this and told me to always throw them away. So it is with a certain amount of chagrin that I find myself participating in a viral mock-up of precisely the same idea--minus, of course, the "ill luck" thing:

If you are interested in my movie and would like to participate in helping us achieve our goal of getting it out to the audience it deserves,PLEASE E-MAIL THIS BLOG ENTRY TO TEN OF YOUR FRIENDS. I know our readers come from all corners of the earth and I'm delighted by the globality of it all; but if you happen to have friends in the New York area I would appreciate your making them your primary targets as I'm hoping to get people to buy tickets to our screenings at Tribeca. And if you don't know anybody in New York, that's okay too--maybe they'll take a roadtrip to the greatest city in the world to see our movie! Just tell whoever you think might be interested about our mission and its daily progress. If nothing else, they might enjoy my occasional rantings and postings of musical acts from "Hullabaloo".

Once people start seeing the movie, I'm hoping to encourage them to text an as-yet unknown number to leave (hopefully) enthusiastic comments--this will be of real help in convincing the currently timid distribution companies that we've made a film that will be a real crowd-pleaser.

And "City Island" is that. I know nobody reading this (except JC and a few crew members) have seen the film and I appreciate your taking my egotistical rantings on faith; but the reason I've put more work, love, hope and enthusiasm into this movie than anything else I've ever done is because it really is my ultimate statement on what I think of life; that we're all trapped by fear, enraptured by life, and--if we rise to the occasion--capable of change and ever deeper love at the oddest moments of our lives. The message of "City Island" is that its never too late to change and never too late to discover who you really are.

By the way, the movie's also really funny.

In addition to posting some clips of the movie, I'll be reaching into the grab-bag of stuff we posted this past summer during the making of the film. I apologize to you faithful readers for repeating material but this is for the edification of those new readers who I'm hoping you will be generous enough to introduce me too. Also, what the hell else am I going to post? I hope a few of you (or more) will join me on this new-world adventure and I appreciate any and all help, support and comments that you may have. Let's roll...

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