November 18, 2005

Interviews.

Some press releases simply have to be shared. Here's the first paragraph of one of the very few worth actually reading (I'll post the whole thing as a comment below):

Open House

Culver City - Bugeater Films confirmed today that due to popular demand, next week Wellspring Media is releasing a special "One Week Anniversary" DVD edition of Dan Mirvish's real estate musical film, Open House [more], starring Anthony Rapp. Rapp also stars in Sony's big screen version of Rent that opens one day later on November 23rd. In a massive promotional blitz this weekend, there will be over half a million "Open House" signs planted on street corners and front yards throughout North America. "It's the ultimate grassroots promotion," said Mirvish. "People will not be able to avoid seeing a sign with our film's name on it."

This news hook, if you will, provides an excellent opportunity to launch a modest feature here at the Daily. It's been an extraordinarily busy season for interviews over at the main site and names and little red New!s have been popping up and rolling down the "Recent Reads @ GC" list over there on the right at a ridiculous pace. So, not often, but occasionally, a little reminder will likely be in order.

So when Jonathan Marlow, who's recently interviewed film noir connoisseur Eddie Muller and that purveyor of art school smut, Eon McKai, spoke with Dan Mirvish, they covered a lot more ground than Open House. Particularly interesting are Mirvish's recollections of the earliest days of Slamdance.

One Bright Shining Moment Two interviews need to be mentioned immediately because they're pegged to events in Los Angeles this weekend. Opening at the Laemmle tonight is One Bright Shining Moment: The Forgotten Summer of George McGovern. As Francine Taylor discovers, director Stephen Vittoria actually campaigned for McGovern in 1972 - when he was 15. McGovern's landslide loss to Richard Nixon disillusioned Vittoria to the degree that he became a "political atheist," but Bush has managed to rekindle the fire.

The Masters of American Comics exhibition opens this weekend at the Hammer Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles before setting off next year for Milwaukee in April and New York in September. David D'Arcy, who, just over a week ago, spoke with Jarhead author Anthony Swofford and, a tad earlier, right here, reviewed Who Gets to Call It Art?, talks with Art Spiegelman about how comics and film have informed each other for over a century.

Many have been startled by David Lynch's plans to raise $7 billion to found seven Universities of World Peace but what may be even more startling for some is that Lynch has been practicing Transcendental Meditation daily for over 30 years. "For Mulholland Drive, many ideas came in one beautiful string of pearls," he tells John McMurtrie. "During meditation, out it came, the way to make the pilot into a feature."

Other recent interviews: NP Thompson with Ellie Parker director Scott Coffey, Sara Schieron with Brother Minister: The Assassination of Malcolm X director Jack Baxter, Craig Phillips with Capote director Bennett Miller and another generous handful from talker extraordinaire Sean Axmaker: Christopher Nolan, George A Romero, David Strathairn and Walter Hill.



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Posted by dwhudson at November 18, 2005 2:01 PM

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - November 17, 2005

RENT's Rapp in another real estate musical...
OPEN HOUSE announces special "One Week Anniversary" DVD

Culver City - Bugeater Films confirmed today that due to popular demand, next week Wellspring Media is releasing a special "One Week Anniversary" DVD edition of Dan Mirvish's real estate musical film, Open House [more], starring Anthony Rapp. Rapp also stars in Sony's big screen version of Rent that opens one day later on November 23rd. In a massive promotional blitz this weekend, there will be over half a million "Open House" signs planted on street corners and front yards throughout North America. "It's the ultimate grassroots promotion," said Mirvish. "People will not be able to avoid seeing a sign with our film's name on it."

"The response to this past week's version of the film was simply overwhelming," said Open House director Dan Mirvish. "I was getting calls from all over the country from fans who said the disc was sold-out or unavailable. Thankfully, the folks over at Wellspring sprung into action to get this new One Week Anniversary issue out to the stores and to the public."

"With the successful anniversary releases last week of such classic movie musicals as State Fair, Oklahoma! and The Sound of Music, which are a combined 150 years old, it became clear to us that to generate even more interest in Open House we, too, needed to issue an anniversary release of the DVD," said Mirvish. "And unlike those other films, why not do it while the cast and crew are still breathing?" As movie musicals go, Open House is a rarity in that it was not based on a stageplay, and all the actors sang live on set, with no lip-syncing. The Academy Awards® rewrote their rules last year after Mirvish spearheaded a campaign to reignite the dormant Oscar® for Best Original Musical.

While it is simply coincidental that Open House will now be coming out just a day before the Rent theatrical release, Rapp compares working on both films on the Open House commentary, "It was one of those times when I was really grateful to sing live in person rather than lipsyncing, although doing Rent, I got used to the lipsyncing thing." Open House was made for about $20,000, which is several million less than what Sony spent on Rent.

"We're hoping all the Rent fans watch copies of Open House on their portable DVD players while they're waiting in line for Rent," said Mirvish. "It'll be a good way to tune up with Anthony before seeing him on the big screen!"

In addition to Rapp, Open House also stars Oscar®-nominee Sally Kellerman (M*A*S*H), Kellie Martin (ER), Jerry Doyle (Babylon 5), James Duval (Donnie Darko) and Ann Magnuson in a madcap musical that follows a group of real-estate hungry homebuyers and agents as they search for stolen jewels, lost love and the perfect 2-story Spanish colonial in the film that Film Threat called, "A funny, fast-paced and above all very unique film."

Unique highlights of the Open House DVD are the first ever "Musical Commentary" featuring the new song, "This is the DVD Commentary!" as well as an audio option to watch the film along with the Park City festival audience (patent-pending "Slamdance-arama" audio). Numerous more extras include step-by-step guide to creating your own Oscar® category, and sing-a-long lyrics.

For more info or to receive a screening copy of the DVD, call Bugeater Films at 310-839-2569 or contact Wellspring's publicists, Jill Goldstein and Maggie Cortes at JGoldsteinPR at 212-463-7300. For more info on the film - including DVD extras details, hi-res stills, production notes, etc. - go to: http://www.OpenHouseMovie.com and for a video podcast with web exclusive clips, go to iTunes.

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Posted by: David Hudson at November 18, 2005 2:05 PM

Wow, lot's of interviews to check out. Here's one more recent one: the mini-interview I did with Caveh "I Am A Sex Addict" Zahedi on Tue 11/15 when he was in Silver Spring, MD to show his movie & talk about it:
http://filmmakingforthepoor.blogspot.com/2005/11/brief-conversation-with-caveh-zahedi.html

Posted by: Sujewa at November 18, 2005 6:10 PM