HBO's New Series LOOKING Stars AUGUST's Murray Bartlett

The official trailer went online today for the new HBO series LOOKING and it is looking good. I'm especially excited about the show as it stars Murray Bartlett, one of the leads from the feature AUGUST that I co-wrote with Eldar Rappaport. So it was very exciting to see him in the first shot of the trailer (and the promo image too!) as part of what looks to be a breakthrough show for the depiction of gay men on TV.

Though it's been informally referred to as "the gay GIRLS", the show seems like it will have quite a different tone and take given the creative team behind it. Andrew Haigh whose feature WEEKEND was one of the indie highlights of 2011, is directing with San Franciso-based filmmaker Travis Matthews whose infamous short I WANT YOUR LOVE and then feature with James Franco INT.LEATHER BAR pushed the boundaries for depictions of gay sex and intimacy in indie films.

LOOKING premieres on Sunday January 19th and will follow GIRLS when that show returns for Season 3 in January. I may just have to finally sign up for cable too and stop watching HBO GO at my friends houses to support this new show.  :)  "Looking" forward to it!

Fanboy Podcast Looks At STAR WARS, Minute By Minute

I recently discovered an unusual podcast which started back in June and, since then, has been doing daily episodes which examine the original STAR WARS film, minute by minute. The show is hosted by two self-professed SW super-geeks, Alex Robinson and Pete The Retailer. For each episode, they have a guest host who joins in a discussion in which they go over one minute of the film with a geeky microscope, talking about fan theories, SW trivia and cracking jokes too.

I listened to minute 116 which was a precise dissection of the moment in which Luke fires his mysterious photon torpedoes (or were they heat seeking cruise-style missiles?) into the Death Star causing it's spectacular destruction. I learned that this is not called the Battle of the Death Star but the Battle of Yavin (after the planet the Death Star nearly eliminates). Also, there was much citing of something called the Wookie-Pedia, which is a complete and incredibly detailed online glossary of all thing SW.

I thought I was a STAR WARS fan with a decent knowledge of the original trilogy and behind-the- scenes stuff. But these guys take it to a entirely different level. One of the hosts, I believe it was Pete, says he saw the original film about 35 times when it first came out in 1977, spending many afternoons at the multiplex watching it over and over. [I actually remember getting into a fight with my parents when I wanted to go see it a second time, which they considered to be a waste of money since I had already seen it!] Anyway, the podcast will end this week at minute 119 (skipping the 2 minutes of credits). They may move on to the next two films but no official word yet -- you can check their Facebook page for updates.

NYC Cops Have Keystone Moment With Broadway Bomb

I came across this hilarious viral video recently of the NYPD trying to arrest skateboarders during the  Broadway Bomb. The Bomb is a 8 mile skateboard excursion down Broadway from Columbia University down to the Battery.

Of course, the police were not too happy about this and tried to set up a sort of moving dragnet on the Upper West Side in hopes of netting some of the renegade boarders. But as the video shows to humorous effect, it didn't quite work out as planned. Though the theme music here is Benny Hill which is pretty appropriate this reminded me more of the old Keystone Cops movies from the Silent Era, which were not sped up intentionally but were faster due to a lower frame rate in those days of 18 frames a second.

Anyway, in the end, police issued about 35 summons in the end for a group that was estimated at 1,500 skaters.

New Book Features Hollywood Stars In Gorgeous Kodachrome

There are many actors like Errol Flynn and Gregory Peck who we are used to seeing in black and white. But a new book about Hollywood's transition to color, specifically to that electric brand of high contrast color known as Kodachrome, is out which features some glorious color shots of those and other actors like Danny Kaye and Marlene Dietrich.

David Wills new book HOLLYWOOD IN KODACHROME has more than 200 photos like this which show us these and other actors in living color (as they used to say). Doesn't Peck look absolutely charming in that red turtleneck? While Flynn looks downright sexy and almost contemporary (Ryan Gosling-esque?) in his dapper suit.

The book was featured recently on Vanity Fair's Hollywood blog along with 14 other shots from the book, including people like Cary Grant and even Ronald Reagan. It conjures up the height of the glamour during the studio system heyday of the 1940s, a era that I am espeically fond of when it comes to the films themselves. Thus, I am adding this to my Amazon Wish List in advance of the holidays (HINT).

One Of the MALTESE FALCON's Is Up For Auction

One of the original Maltese Falcon's from the classic film of the same name, starring Humphrey Bogart, is up for auction today. This Falcon, which is made of resin and weighs only about 5 pounds, was used during filming when Bogart or others had to carry the statue as the two main Falcon's were made of lead and weighed nearly 50 pounds. This lighter bird was also used in the iconic publicity photos for the film with Bogie and the bird.

This falcon was discovered at a NJ yard sale back in 1991 by a film producer who noted the Warner Brother's serial number on the bottom and set out to research its provenance. High resolutions scans of the press photos and of the bird in question showed similar bubbles in the plastic which confirmed the authenticity, along with some interviews with people who worked on the film who were still alive.

If you're interested, the bird will probably go for a cool half million. Not bad for a legendary hunk of plastic!

The LES Goes Back To Its Past, Courtesy Steven Soderberg

I saw this remarkable picture on Twitter yesterday, shared by the Bedford & Bowery Blog (there are a few more shots on their site as well). This is not a Hollywood set but the actual corner of Orchard and Broome Street, redressed with hay and dirt to look like New York City circa 1900. All this effort was done for a new miniseries that Steven Soderberg is directing about the Knickerbocker Hospital, entitled THE KNICKS. The show is about doctors and nurses at the hosptial and the then-revolutionary treatments they used in an era of disease and high mortality rates.

It's amazing they went to this all effort to recreate this old fashioned street but, in the end, it was probably cheaper than a) building this on a backlot and b) doing it as a CGI-genereated faux street scape. As the price of EFX has risen sharply, the new mantra in Hollywood these days is "don't fix it in post"--- whereas the old mantra used to be the opposite.  

The Doc I AM DIVINE Is Divine

A couple years ago, I posted about an Indie Go-Go campaign that a friend and fellow filmmaker Jeffrey Schwarz was doing for his documentary about the actor Harris Glenn Milstead, who was infamously known as Divine. The feature I AM DIVINE hit festivals a year later and is now having it's NYC theatrical run.

After supporting the project, I finally got a chance to check it out last night and it was awesome. For a huge Divine and John Waters fan like myself, the film is a treasure trove of interviews from the Dreamland-scene and new information (to me at least) about Divine that I didn't know. Being more a film person, I was surprised to find out that Divine was such a disco star with multiple records and tours even. I just knew of her big hit "You Think You're A Man", which was a club staple in the 80's/90's. It was also fun to hear about Divine's theatrical work, here in NYC and also in San Francisco with the equally infamous Cockettes. And the personal story about his mother and his family was really quite touching.

Anyway, even though the film has been running for a few weeks the theatre was packed on a Tuesday night and even got applause at the end!  The last time that happened in a movie was when I saw LINCOLN last fall. Who knew that Divine would ever have something in common with one of our greatest presidents.  :)  Anyway, it's well worth checking out as the run has been extended to November 14th at Cinema Village...or looking for it at a local indie cinema near you.

DONUT SHOWDOWN Is An Awesome Competition Show About Donuts

I was recently informed by a good friend who knows me well of a newish show on the Cooking Channel called DONUT SHOWDOWN. It's actually a Canadian show in which a bunch of "donut chefs" come on and compete in the somewhat redonkculous manner that has become common on these crazy cooking shows (see CUPCAKE WARS).  But still, it was very entertaining to watch the finalists try to create the ulimate Japanese themed donuts. Wait--what? Let's just say rice and donuts are not two great tastes that go great together!

The show was so absurd that at times it played almost like a comic parody of a cooking show, ala SNL. This was not hard to do as when you take something like donuts dead seriously--it's just going to be funny when you start talking about the texture or mouth feel of a donut. The real revelation of the show was one of the contestants, Dan Dunbar who was not only super-cute but made some killer donuts.  He happened to be from Brooklyn too where, along with business partner Patrick Holliwell, he runs a vegan donut shop in Bushwick called Dun-Well Donuts. How is it I did not hear of this artisanal donut wonderland? Oh yeah--it is vegan. But I'm willing to give it a shot as many are calling it the best donut in the city, including the NY Daily News. Maybe even this weekend as i'm sure they've got a killer apple cider flavor just for fall.

Neil Patrick Harris Is Hedwig!

After singing and dancing up a storm at awards show telecasts, Neil Patrick Harris will finally have a Broadway show of his own. He is starring in HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH, which will make it to the Great White Way finally after a years-long off-broadway run, a feature film and countless productions around the world. The glittery/glam poster for the new show was released today and posted over on the Hollywood Reporter's website.

I saw the original show three times, with the show's writer/co-creator John Cameron Mitchell playing the lead and then Michael Cerveris and finally Matt McGrath. I even saw the show's first "workshop" production which happened at the infamous Squeezebox night at Don Hill's, where John took the stage in that feathered wig and started telling stories about being a East German/cross-dressing/babysitter. At the time, it was all kind of amazing, strangely funny, and somewhat baffling but when the band kicked in, Hedwig truly rocked and the crowd really roared.

Anyway, I'm excited to see NPH take on this iconic role and bring his own spin to this now-legendary larger-than-life character. And also to see director Michael Mayer, known for his work on SPRING AWAKENING and the TV show SMASH!, breathe new life into this classic show and score. Hedwig takes her wig off the shelf and takes the stage at the Belasco on March 29, 2014.

SNL Throws A Popular "Boy Dance Party"

Lately, it seems that the best material on SNL is often the pre-taped sketches. Last week, they did one of the more daring satirical pieces about the Republican party shutdown of the government with Miley Cyrus as Michelle Bachman. It was seriously out there--and almost reminded me of the edgy material from the show's original run back in the '70s. This week, they kept things a little bit lighter but it was just as funny with a sketch about a "Boy Dance Party" which happens in secret after the wives and GF's leave their men behind to watch football.

Taran Killam killed it with some awesome dance moves, particularly the "shake that sack" move. He is the go-to hot guy on the show these days, sporting some serious guns. Oh--and there's also Bruce Willis doing his best to keep up with the boys as well. Good stuff.