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HOLLYWOOD SPIN by Richard Horgan

:: Richard's Latest Blog Entries

A Belligerent Sideways
	That’s how brothers Damon and Eric Ristau have described their upcoming feature-length drama The Best Bar in America, for which they have shot 500 gigabytes of footage in Arizona, Utah, Idaho and Montana, and released a trailer earlier this month. The spring 2009 feature tells the story of two – and then three – men making their way across Montana by way of some of the state’s bars, taverns and saloons. Though the elderly co-lead character of Northway is played by David Ackroyd, the actor who was once Gary Ewing on the TV series *Dallas, the most notable sexagenarian in this one is author and poet Jim Harrison, of Legends of the Fall* fame. Having once pitched the project to Harrison during a drinking session in Salt Lake City (!), the brothers were able to get the author to make a cameo appearance in the film, which they shot at the Old Saloon, a watering hole located in Montana’s Paradise Valley, not too far from the north entrance of Yosemite National Park.
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Pining for a Quantum Leap
	Forget about the colossal domestic and international box office totals being racked up by the very mediocre *Quantum of Solace. For my money, any one of the following hybrid entertainments would have been preferable to the morass put together by Marc Forster. Zack and Miri Make a Bond Film: Imagine what Seth Rogen* and Elizabeth Banks could have done as a low-rent 007 and sassy female sidekick. Especially with the added benefit of Kevin Smith scripted dialogue steering our hero in the direction of His Majesty’s Secretly Horny Service. Sample line: “Ever since my girlfriend died, I’ve been sporting a scrotum of solace…”
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A Meeting of the Coffee Minds
	This summer in San Francisco, Amy Ferraris, a UCLA MFA film program graduate who has made a documentary called *The Perfect Cappuccino, sat down with touring circus trumpet player Nathan Slabaugh* to compare notes. Turns out the latter has been on a quest to find the perfect Mocha Latte and, along with hosting a podcast on the subject, has a little black notebook with notations about which of the more than 500 sampled beverages merit a callback. The confab of course took place at a coffee joint, the Blue Bottle Café, and Slabaugh had to admit that the house Mocha (made with sweet stuff from local chocolatier Michael Recchuiti) ranked pretty high on the list. While Slabaugh, who roasts and serves coffee out of his trailer to other circus performers, continues on his caffeinated way, so too does Ferraris with ongoing screenings of her doc at various festivals and related events. For example, how many other films can point to an engagement at last weekend’s Kaldi’s Coffee Roasting Company’s Barista Jam in St. Louis.
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From Broadway to Bookstores
	It started with the murder of a Hollywood A-list male actor, found in the back of a limousine with his Best Supporting Actor Oscar rudely re-deployed for his anal consideration. And it will soon continue with the notion of paparazzi werewolves battling deeply embedded Tinseltown bloodsuckers and the appearance of a naked (and walking dead version of) Orson Welles, without clothes because he has just shape shifted from the physical countenance of a rat back to human form. Welcome to the wonderful new world of actress Adrienne Barbeau who, after publishing her memoir in 2006, has moved on to this summer’s saucy Hollywood mystery novel Vampyres of Hollywood and is currently working on a sequel. Not bad for someone who just a few years ago walked blind into an L.A. writing course that was also attended at the time by actresses Mariette Hartley, Tess Harper and Michael Learned.
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A Collection of Critics
	Can a film about movie critics that is directed by one such professional (the *Boston Phoenix’s Gerald Peary) and scored by another (the Washington Post’s Desson Thomson) get anything but positive reviews? I‘m guessing, no. As far as when the critics and the movie ticket buying public will get a look at the documentary For the Love of Movies: The History of American Film Criticism* is, at this point, unclear. But I can tell you that it took Peary (pictured below) seven and a half years to make his recently wrapped project, and that the Internet portion of the program includes a visit to the cluttered Austin, Texas home office of *Ain’t It Cool News* founder Harry Knowles.
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:: Hollywood Spin Archives

The Stovepipe Hat Fraternity
A Grievous Story
Seeking Nigerian Restitution
A Health-Conscious Frankenstein
Gearing Up for More Genghis?
Some Very Offensive Chronicles
Finding Joy at Jungle Jim's
Reconnecting with Hollywood East
A Quixotic Quest
A Deranged Dexter Fan
Crushing on the Secretary of State
These Vampires Really Sucked
Rating the Junior Critics
A Hankering for Hef
He Still Sees Dead People
Swapping Out St. Louis for Sarsgaard
Following in Fireproof’s Footsteps
Two Flew Over The Cuckold’s Nest
A Preternatural Actress-Model
Hoy Say Can You See...
The Other Ghost Town
Riffing on Hitchcock, Serling
Chasing a Different Career
From Arizona to Tennessee
Rounding Up the Dummies
Capitalizing on Another Palin Power Play
The Daffy Dad from Down Under
Concocting a Killer Title
The Original Hollywood Bad Boy
Movie Publicity Patrol: 10/10/08
For Whom the Blogs Toll
The Edge of Insanity
Why Jay Leno Should Host the Oscars
Newman Was Nobody’s Fool
A Long View of Life
Lionsgate Should Not Feel Lucky
King of Candelabra
Max and His Marvelous Madame
Channeling Christine Lahti
It’s All About the Line Reading
A Wild and Crazily Talented Guy
You Don't Mess with the Zetas
A New Tomato Patch
America’s Got Anaconda
These Protest Groups Don't Know Jack
All in the Retrograde Family
A Knight in Shining IMDB Armor
Mission: Impersonation
American Contrarians
Consigned to the 'Trash Ben'
Dennis the Melrose Menace
In Step with Depp
A Touch of Pure Evil
Can You Hear Me Now?
Shades of Midnight
A New Pinnacle of iPlacement
Cue the Crusaders
When Cars Are the Stars
The SNL Summer Scorecard
The Heidi Fleiss Chronicles
Banner, by Way of Bourne
It Was a Dark and Stormy M. Night
The Half-Year in Review
Redefining Indie Distribution
Hot Her Career Is Not
Sex and the Critics
The Way He Was
Walking Her Own Way
Reconstructing Harry
Two Things About Indy
The Mickey Rooney of Publicists
Potential Cannes Wildcards
Memo to Tom Cruise
The Daily Show Deluge
Made in Japan
Tony Stark's Media Empire
From Malibu with Love
Memo to Wesley Snipes
Harrison vs. Heath
The Pursuit of Hancock
Missed Marketing Opportunities
The Greatest Actor Who Ever Lived?
Translating Tales of Violent Teens
The Evolution of Ben Stein
Memo to Matthew McConaughey
Something Charlie Chaplin Would Star In
Genuine Imitation Leather
Making the Wrong Kind of Noise
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of No Junket
EBay Employee Number One
Keanu Kicks Ass
Everyone's a Critic
A Go-Getter Grandma
Cuckoo for Coco Pics
Chiwetel Ejio-for President