Canadian made Tourism

Brokeback' Sparks Interest in Wyo. (By JENNIFER BYRD Associated Press Writer)

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) -- Fans of "Brokeback Mountain" don't seem to care the movie was actually filmed in Canada.

They want the Wyoming experience.

The Wyoming Business Council's travel and tourism department has received hundreds of calls asking about scenery in the movie, which is based on Pulitzer Prize-winner Annie Proulx's short story about two gay Wyoming cowboys....

As some one employed by American film and television, I tend to restrain from watching American made films from Canada. I personally enjoy the country and have no beef against anyone who lives or works there, but its bad for business for me to support Canadian made film.

On principal, I have not yet seen the film though I have heard plenty about it. The AD staff jokes about fake love affairs, many of the grips joke about it love within the crew, and the background actors have passed along good reviews.

Meanwhile, I have been trying not to listen to all the buzz because I'll never want to see it myself if all I do is hear about Heath Ladger's "amazing performance". I'm sure that I will eventually see Brokeback on DVD.

At this point in my jealous rant, it is important for me to point out my own hypocraicy. Capote was also a film about the one of the middle state of America and was also made in Canada, a fact I did not know until I watched the credits roll. Visually, I believed that Capote was filmed in Kansas. The landscapes were breath taking and I have never been to Kansas so who am I to know the difference.

Granted watching Capote didn't make me want to hop on a plane and go to Kansas, I can see how the popularity of both Capote and Brokeback may inspire Americans to explore the middle lands.

At least Canadian film is generating American business somewhere. If any one ends up visiting the great state of Wyoming, let me know if it looks any different than the Canadian version in the film.

Self portrait

Self portrait
Originally uploaded by feliciawill.

I can't figure out how to put this in my profile. Does any one know how?

SAG Awards

After spending the better part of my day plastered to my couch watching decade old movies on TBS, I resolved to stay home and watch the SAG awards. Mariska was up for an award and I heard Chris was presenting, so I decided that I might as well see who the actors chose as their best this year. I'm not big on watching award shows, partially because I very rarely get the chance to watch tv.

My friend Emac who also works in the biz came up to my neck of the woods and we grabbed a bite at this Argentinean pizza place then stocked up on popcorn and ice cream for the main event.

Two most memorable moments:

Dakota Fanning presenting the lifetime achievement award to Shirley Temple Black. Watching such an accomplished young actress express her own love and admiration for an actress who had become a legand in our society. Fanning's passion and excitment shown through her presentation and the maturity with which she was able to honor an actress who paved the raod for her own success.


Paul Giamatti thanking the cast and crew with whom he spent time with at the craft service table when he accepted an award for his supporting role in Cinderella Man

If you didn't catch the show, don't lose sleep over it. The overall presentation was not overly exciting or stimulating. No hideous attire or noticeable wardrobe malfuctions.

However, there was some problem with the prompter. It was sort of funny to watch actors who spend their lives memorizing lines to be delivered to the masses struggle their was through their speeches, many reading of off crumpled pieces of paper.

I wasn't shocked be any of the wins and I was happy to see Phillip Seymore Hoffman's win for best male actor in a motion picture.

Leprechaun in the Hood

I hopped into the crew van this morning and the rain was so dense you could see out the window. I was tired. Like, I have just worked the past seven days in a row and my bed is jealously implying that I am having affair with another, tired. So naturally I feel asleep.

I crawled out of the white fifteen passenger van some where in upstate New York and water was already finding it’s way up my coat and down my sleeves.

The morning was I hated myself for still working the job. The rain was making the whole staff impatient. Everyone was biting the others neck seeing who would bleed first. And I just didn’t feel like dealing with the pressure, the blame, or the lack of appreciation as one of the film businesses lowest paid staff.

I stuck to my assigned task, minding a pair of 8 year-old twins whose mother sat to the side and waited for my instruction before she herself would wrangle the kids.

The rain had stopped and the sun hid some where behind the still heavily clouded sky and I found myself in the basement of a multi-million dollar mansion.

The children who resided in the house where holed up with the twins and myself, occasionally the stand-ins or one of our principal actors would come down and escape the on- set mayhem. The finished basement was equipped with a pinball machine, pool table, poker table, and of course a movie theater with plush leather seating.

After I refused to play poker for the fifth or sixth time, the resident boy asked me if I “want to watch something funny.” The boy, if I had to guess I would say he was 10 or so, and Ice T were sitting in the movie theater and Chris was either back upstairs or working his magic on the pinball machine when I stepped in and took a seat.

The first few minutes were frightening. I have never been a fan of movies about the small evils that lurk in the night. As the title sequence scrolled I had to walk out and check on the twins. I walk back into the theatre just as Ice T pops his head into frame. With a foot high afro tweed bellbottoms, platform shoes, and a fur blazer, Ice T now in a leather coat and suit pants watched himself in Leprechaun in the Hood.

And there I sat awkwardly trying not to laugh at his costume in the film, how on screen Ice acts just as pimp as he does in real life, and the sheer ridiculousness of me sitting in a mansion watching a Leprechaun terrorizing the hood.

General Assembly

This weekend I found myself honored to be one of the few to work inside of the UN. My job when I first arrived at 5 in the morning was to securely check in background actors and make sure they were who they said they were and had clearance into the UN. As the line formed half way down the block, I repeated yelled for every one to take out their photo ID and SAG cards for identification.

Going down my detailed list checking each actor off one at a time, a middle-aged man who had crazy written all over him started yelling at me because I wouldnt let him pass. "I am sorry sir, if you don't have a picture ID I can not give you a security badge." Twitching with anger, the man started passing and getting up into my face. I found myself hastily fighting back with this undeserving man. The line of people who did have their ID's was becoming impatient so I called casting and made them come and deal with the crazy.

It was then that I realized that going inside the UN was a big deal. You just can’t walk in and if you have no reason to be there, you may never be granted access inside its doors. Guerrilla the Steven Sodenburg film about the life and career of Che Guevera was the second film to ever shoot inside of the UN (Interpreter was the first).

Hours later I walked amid those same background actors, now dressed in period clothing, in the middle of the General Assembly room. This room where many of the decisions of the world are made for better or for worse and each word said greatly affects the world.

I stood at the center of the world and I took a breath for peace. I hope that every person there that day did the same. Because that room has taken many lives and resolved to save others. It is a place that almost doesn’t seem real, one that the faces of the suffering will never see.

OAR

Some time this fall, I had the pleasure of working with OAR and their whole crew. I was working on a tv show called the Bedford Diaries, which the rock band made a guest appearance on. The series was supposed to start airing in January but I haven't seen any ads for it nor have I heard any buzz about Bedford making it into the mid-season line up.

I remember how cool the boys were, just regular guys. At the end of the work day at Hell's Gate Studios, I was exhausted but still sad to see them go. I ended up going out to drinks with a few of the guys from the band one night and I would have loved to hang with them more but they were of to their next gig and to shoot a big music video.

This weekend while cleaning my room and I found the number of OAR's tour manager in a pile of old papers and production related stuff. I thought about dropping him a call just to say hi. I wondered what they were up to and how things were going with the band and thier video. But, instead I put it on the top of a stack of number of people I wanted to see or needed to call but just haven't had the time to.

Which ordinarily wouldn't have mattered, but today I was walking home from work, talking on the phone and half paying attention to the noise, the lights, the bustle of Lexington ave. I think that in my 30 block hike I may have only stopped at two or three streets to let cars pass. And I definately wasn't paying attention to the people in front, back, or on either side of me.

I just focused down at the pavement in front of me and I keep moving forward always staring down and ahead. It helps in bad weather, a long walk or in my case both not to look at the signs or count the blocks. If you don't know how far you walked, you tend to not care or get tired.

Almost home, I was weaving in and out of couples and from the corners of my eyes the scenery was looking more and more familiar. Stopping for a brief moment, I saw an OAR poster. I could believe that they played a sold out show in New York this Saturday, the same night that I found the paper, and I never called them. I can't believe that they were in town and I had my head so far off into lala land that I missed them.

Though I would have liked to go to the show, there is always next time they hit town. I am more bummed out about missing the oppurtunity to catch up with them.

To all the boys of OAR,

Congrats on your new album. Best of luck! Hope all is going well for you...

Clue

I think that I, Mrs. White killed the man in the Ballroom with the Candlestick.

"Damn you" my roommate bellows in a theatrical expression and a loud echoing voice. "I knew it. I knew it. I knew it." She slides her cards onto the table and start shuffling for another round. "Well you did have all of the weapons,” I say to her as if to justify my win. " She balances a cigarette between her lips.

Clue requires not only a fake British accent, but beer and good company.

When my roommate and I tired of our regular deck of 52, we both grew rather fond of the only board game ever purchased for our home. Just before the holidays, I bought a nostolgia version of Clue that came in a little wooden box with the original artwork and wooden painted pieces. She had never played.

I used to play the "mystery game" with my older cousin, who would watch my sister and I when I was young. But, I hadn't played a board game since my pre-college years.

In our first few round, I taught my roommate the lies, the deception, the down right debauchery that is this Hasbro board game. And our lazy drinking days will never quite be the same.

Jam Cruise

Billy G is sound asleep on my futon couch. Feet cold as they poke out of my white cotton blanket in my drafty space. "Billy" I scream from the other room. "Biil''lll'yy" I wildly taunt him, making noises and flashing the lights. No response. No Movement. Not even a flinch.

A long time friend, who once posed as my husband in high school sex ed., Billy G called me early this afternoon. We grabbed a bite at Fetch, a doggie themed restaurant a block from my place, and caught up on recent times. This summer, when he lived at his uncle's a few blocks from my pad, Billy G was a welcomed staple in my home but I haven't really seen or talked to him since.

He's lost weight since high school. His pants have gotten more form fitting and they are not his trademark home stitched corduroy that he darned back in the day. His hair is still nappy with dreads about shoulder length. But, Billy G is no hippy. In comparison to most, he's the biggest hippy I know (mostly because of his music choices and medicinal habits) but he is going places. Billy G. recently graduated college unlike many of my friends from high school. But for now, he lays passed out on my couch.

And I let him because Billy is a victim. A victim of life and of insanity. A victim of Jam Cruise.

Billy G spun into town late last night on business, serious business involving a recently acquired lady friend. I spent the greater part of this afternoon hearing the endless brouhaha that is Jam Cruise. Basically, it is a cruise a week after New Year's that allows field frolicking folks from the country to flock to warmer climates and jam to their favorite bands, who like them are trapped aboard ship for the week. Each band plays twice once at night and once in the afternoon and their are stages built all over the ship so that you can pretty much listen to live music all day, night, afternoon, midday.

And it only happens once a year. Billy a three-time veteran had me sold into next year's Voyage about 30 minutes into our convoy. I'm a huge cruise fan as it is, but Jam Cruise takes the Cake for me. Music, mania, no sleep, and all the food you can eat...

This is a life a rarely live, though Billy sucks me in from time to time. He invites me to follow his favorite bands from time to time, see festivals, and go to shows. I barely ever go... you know how it is maintaining that busy New York life and all. But, I feel like Jam Cruise is not to be missed...maybe next year.

Capote

I was at March of the Penguins early last Fall when I saw the first preview. Philip Seymour Hoffman was not an actor who I liked or disliked but I respect him as a good character actor with a range of acting talents. The cinematography looked and the editing of the preview was suspenseful yet gripping. I was determined to see it opening day.

Well I never got to the theatre opening day nor did I make it there for two months of its New York city release. I was busy, it was the holidays, and I couldn't really find anyone particularly excited about seeing the film.

Wednessday my roomate saw the film and raved about the the cast, visual, the content the next morning. When I found myself getting jealous of her having seen I film I could have seen and have wanted to see for the past two months, I decided that I not only had to see this movie but I had to see it this weekend.

Over all I found Capote compelling. The pacing was fair and the dramatization of the historical figure and event seemed well portrayed.

At times, I found the movie mildly humorous on account of my own knowledge about certain details of the topic. For example, I knew that Capote read about the killings in the New York Times and there is a small segment in the film where Copote stares at the story and the page and cuts it out as if he knows that this story will change his life.

When such details were acted out by Hoffman to show the historical accuracy of the film I found inexplicibly humorous. Though the details that where implyed and acknowldged through in his acting were one of the movies greatest strengths.

Phillip Seymour Hoffman portrayed Capote as a effemmine man who spoke softly and was insecure about his abilty to evade the small town. Hoffman's gestures and mannerisms, the soft way he would tie a robe or button a coat, showed the flamboyant and socially questionable side of Capote. The script Capote and was prone to suffer from his own emotions and express details of his life in a way men at the time would not. I think that Hoffman's performance of Capote's storytelling gave a sense of akwardness and misplacement that was neccesary for the time and the content.

I would recommend this film. The cast was excellent overall. Visually it was beautiful to watch. It was entertaining and like Capotes book In Cold Blood, and interpretaion of the truth that was composited through various historical sources.

In Cold Blood

In Cold Blood inspired me as a writer, as a preservationist of the truth. I remember the first time I read a book by Truman Capote. I was a junior in college taking a class that seemed like a reformatted version of a several classes that I had already taken. The teacher was charismatic though not exceptionally different from my other college professor. The topic of media and society had been ingrained into my skull and every day I sat in the classroom making the same points, talking about the same concepts.

At this time, I figured that non-fiction writing was basically textbook or an article in National Geographic or the New York Times magazine. The only reading I ever did was for class and these non-fiction works comprised most of my curriculum.

I read In Cold Blood in less than a day. The imagery and word choice inspired me. I found the truth powerful and compelling. But the words and the style in which the book was written allowed me to imagine my own truth of the incident. Like a novel, I had my own image of the boys who murdered and the friends who suffered. And though I may have imagined details that were left out in the novel, my characters were not much different than the people who actually filled those roles. This was a real account and the author spent many years building it.

I learned as much as I could as Capote as a person. I read bios of his life, of his brilliance, and of his oddities. The more I learned about Capote, the more I was overtaken by the power off his book and his innovation in the field of journalism and non-fiction.

I tend to be draw to revolutionaries who overcame great adversity to make change. Artist who suffered and endured out of passion or dedication. I believe that there is a certain selfishness that takes over when making art for passion. And in the case of Capote, he was trying to humanize demons partially because he was a victim but also because there were demons within himself.

For all of these reasons, I was thrilled to see a movie made about Capote and the period of his life when he was writing this historic novel.

Che

While trying to recover form the cold that never ends... about a month I believe is the current tally. The symptoms always changing and morphing into something new.

I heard a buzz from the other room. I picked up my phone to find a text message from one of my fav. production pals.

Fish is a stand up guy who knows how to take care of his peers and keep the atmosphere light when working conditions are harsh. I worked with him this past summer on the Departed, which was by far my favorite film to work on. The cast and crew were beyond dedicated and arguablely the best in the business.

In New York and more importantly in the film business, my next job, my next pay check is completely dependant on who I know and how well I do my job. Recently, I have been working on Law and Order: SVU which has dragged me away from the film loop. I haven't seen or talked to many of my film friends, who I usually try to keep up with and go drinking with regularly.

Fish is assembling an all-star production team for the Steven Soderburg film that will be shooting in New York for just over a week and before it moves to Mexico. Re-uniting many of my favorite people from The Departed, I am more than excited to spend 4 days on the New York crew of the new film about Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara .

Though I don't know how well the job will prove for my overall recovery. I'll be working 10 straight days between the film and SVU but it will be well worth it I'm sure.

Sa Doku

Nine squares, nine columns, and nine rows. The numbers one through nine drive me wild as I sit and stare at each square puzzle.

I picked up a book of New York Post su duko. For any one who is unfamiliar with the game, it is a "crossword without words". And I can't put it down. Every free moment, I find myself digging through my over sized purse to find my slim, traffic tattered book.

I recommend to any one who either has a reasonable amount of free time or is looking for a new addiction to pick up a book of puzzles. Even more importantly try to find one with different levels of expertise. I flew past easy and am currently 10 puzzles into mild. Some sickly competative part of me is anxiously awaiting difficult in hopes of one day being able to complete a single fiendish puzzle.

And for all of those who suffer from the itch with me, if you ever find yourself su duko-less you can play online for free. Personally, I need to print it out and scratch away with paper and pencil so that I can make notes to myself and erase. But one feature that I do wish I could carry with me in my pocket version is an electronic built-in pep talk that may save you time. It's a How am I doing? button that allows you to affirm your progress.

All this talk and my book placed next to me ... I must.. play.. one more game.

Happy New Year

This year I rung in the new year in the French Quarter of New Orleans with a guy I barely knew. Why... is a long story. But I had fun. I rode a machinical bull, drank in public while walking the cowded streets of the city, and rang in the New Year at Pat O'Briens. At 12: 03 I was being kissed on the cheek by french men and sharing the moment with people of all ages, people who had suffered and for just one night were on vacation from their lives just as I were.

Happy New Year to All!
May 2006 bring great joy to all of your lives and may you endure every moment with heartfelt emotion.