Project Greenlight and Spike Lee's New Movie

I know Chris has been a fan of the show in the past, and I'm not sure if the rest of you have ever even seen it, but the third season of "Project Greenlight," which has moved from HBO to Bravo, is looking to be its best yet. This is of course the project headlined by Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and uber producer Chris Moore, where one script is chosen along with one director, and he and the writer get to go to Hollywood and make their movie.

After the first two seasons resulted in two disasters at the box office, 2002's "Stolen Summer," and 2004's "The Battle of Shakar Heights," the trio has moved their new film to Dimension; that's right, they decided to make a genre picture. In the hopes of funding a marketable film, they can make some money and keep this thing going for a few more years. This year they also brought in Wes Craven as a consulting producer, hoping he will help the up and coming writers and director chosen, so they can get a pretty kick ass and scary film out onto the multiplexes.

The script Dimension wanted and thought they could get behind is "Feast," this was not the one Affleck, Damon, Craven, and Moore liked, but given they need Dimension to make this for them, they decided to cave in. In one scene in the first episode while they were narrowing down their choices, one of the guys with Dimension is arguing how this is the film they think they can market. Matt Damon, getting extremely agitated, exclaims: "You are sitting two seats away from the master of horror, and he is telling you it sucks!" "Feast" is basically a direct ripoff of "From Dusk Till Dawn," which has oddly enough been the one comparison that has not been made, but the film replaces the vampires with some kind of flesh eating crew of bat creatures that take over a bar one night and start picking off the patrons and workers one by one. It's hard not to see Matt Damon's point that this is not what "Project Greenlight" was supposed to be about. He refers to the fact that in the beginning they wanted to give creative yet inexperienced filmmakers and writers their first big break. However, I kept wandering that if they wanted a company to back up a creative venture then why did they go to Dimension?Dimension is the company that is still milking out "Hellraiser" and "Wishmaster" sequels on video. Why not go somewhere like say Lions Gate which is making fresh and interesting genre pictures and don't seem as concerned about the top dollar?

However, Damon and co. do get their say where the director is concerned in one John Gulager. He's in his late thirties, I believe, dead broke, and loves to make little films. Judging from his short film entry that all of the directors have to submit, he seemed to have the most unique prescence. However, he's very shy, doesn't know how to stand up and take charge, has his own vision and does not want to listen to what anyone else has to say. He's as Matt Damon puts it, "like betting on the trifecta, and sometimes those guys walk away with thousands of dollars." Chris Moore quips back quick, "...and sometimes they lose their television show."

This past week was the fifth episode and the end of preproduction. Tonight, they start filming. And there's already been many problems of course. The funniest being how John Gulager wants to cast four of his family members in roles in the film. The only one with any kind of resume is Clu Gulager; he was on an episode of "Gunsmoke" or something. He even goes so far to say he's going to shoot a scene from the film with the four of them, fly to New York, and show it to Bob Weinstein, the president of Dimension (or at least was; the Weinstein's have since parted ways with Miramax and Disney). Chris Moore almost ends up firing him, and so he backs off. He does get two of the four in the film eventually, his dad will be playing the bartender, and his girlfriend will be playing "Harley Girl." Seriously, that's the name of the character in the script. The names of the hero and heroine in the script are, well, "Hero" and "Heroine." Another problem, is going into the first day of shooting they still don't have anyone cast as "Hero." Mark Wahlberg is supposedly thinking about it, but one of the producers actually said they might have to settle for Jean Claude Van Damme. There's also been some backstabbing on the casting director's part. She backdoored an actress into the film that Gulager and the producers didn't want. Financial problems were abound when Dimension wouldn't give them an extra million to get them another week of shooting. They finally found backing in none other than the Moolaf brothers, the owners of the Sacramento Kings, who are interested in getting into the T.V. and Film business.

As for the two screenplay writers that wrote this supposed low budget horror masterpiece that Dimension is actually going to try and market as a cross between "Evil Dead" and "Tremors," they're the least interesting part of the show. And the producers of the series obviously know this, because they've barely been in the last couple of episodes. However, they are the most agressive of the contest winners in any of the past seasons. Two weeks into preproduction they landed an agent at ICM, and they got hired to write a new "Highlander" movie. Now, granted, that might seem like a dud of a project, but at least they've got something to look forward to after this.

This really is an entertaining show. It's unfortunate that you have to take it with a grain of salt. The problem with "Reality Television" is mostly in it's name. It's an oxymoron of sorts. There is no reality here. They still edit this however they want to. You don't actually see what leads up to half of the arguments or celebrations. And depending on how they edit these scenes together, one minute Gulager acts like a buffoon, and the next he seems like a top notch director. One just has to hope that they are presenting this as realistically as possible. But come on people, no matter what the outcome is, it's still television, and that's okay. It's okay because it's one of the most entertaining programs on T.V. And I'm actually rooting for John, because he seems like the first person that could actually break out of this thing and have an interesting career. He seems like a cross between David O Russell and Tod Solondz. How fucking crazy would that be?

Up until last week, it had been airing at 9:00 on Tuesdays. Last week it was on Thursday. So, you'll have to check the TV listings this week, but it airs quite a few times throughout the week. Bravo doesn't have much to air. In fact, one day almost every week they air all of the episodes leading up to the new one. So, it is definately worth checking out.


In Other News:

Spike Lee is teaming up with Denzel Washington again to do a "hostage negotiator" thriller called "The Inside Man," Which sounds weird to me. This sounds almost too popcorn oriented for Lee, but maybe he has something up his sleeve that we don't know about. Spike Lee has always been one of my favorite directors. In fact, with the exception of "Girl 6" and "Bamboozled" I have liked or loved everything else he has done. I mean look at the resume, "She's Gotta Have It," "Do the Right Thing," "School Daze," "Malcolm X," "Get on the Bus," "Mo Better Blues," "Jungle Fever," "Crooklyn," "Clockers," "He Got Game," "Summer of Sam," and "25th Hour." Not to mention his documentaries like "The Four Girls" and "The Original Kings of Comedy." So, for him to be doing what could just be a run of the mill popcorn thriller seems a little dissapointing, but hopefully there's more to it than that. His film last year, "She Hate Me," I completely forgot to include on my underrated films of 2004 section. It wasn't great Spike Lee, but it was still a pretty good movie and should have been seen by more than three people. Love or Hate him, he's alwasy got something interesting to say.