Saturday, March 21, 2009

Joe Pantoliano and Sarasota Film Festival filmmakers

This Wednesday, March 25 at 10pm EST/ 7pm PST (and anytime on replay):


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Actor Joe Pantoliano discusses his new documentary effort ‘No Kidding, Me Too’, which will celebrate a premiere at this year’s Sarasota Film Festival (SFF).

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PLUS…a conversation with several filmmakers whose new works are featured in this year’s SFF program including Robert Kenner (Food Inc), Darius Marder (Loot), Tze Chun (Children of Invention), Rahmin Bahrani (Goodbye Solo), and Jody Lee Lipes (Brock Enright).

Hear it all at www.blogtalkradio.com/moviegeeksunited.

The Art of Editing with Bobbie O'Steen

Sunday, March 22 at 6pm EST/ 3pm PST (or anytime on replay):

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Her husband, Sam, edited some of our most memorable films from the past forty years (The Graduate, Chinatown). Now, Bobbie O'Steen (an Emmy-nominated editor in her own right) demystifies the art with her new book 'The Invisible Cut'.

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What's it like to be a part of the worst movie ever made...and have millions of fans the world over for it? Michael Stephenson, George Hardy, Darren Ewing and Jason Wright share the story behind 'Best Worst Movie', which was the hit of this year's SXSW film fest.

Tune in and get your geek on at www.blogtalkradio.com/moviegeeksunited.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Burt Young dishes on Stallone and 'Rocky'

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Now we know why Burt Young played Sylvester Stallone’s dyspeptic bother-in-law Paulie so convincingly in the penultimate Rocky picture: He was peeved at the he-man.

Interviewed on Movie Geeks United, the legendary character actor says it was only his daughter’s fond memories of his earlier collaborations with Sly that repaired an epic rift.
CAPTION: Burt (above): Much, ah, happier in the final Rocky flick.

Burt (above): Much, ah, happier in the Rocky finale.

“Rocky V…was a clinker. I was sore. In fact, he and I didn’t talk because I was sore about what we didn’t do to help that movie,” Burt tells host Jamey DuVall of the 1990 film.

“We really didn’t talk for years and years and years – until they told me he’d written another story [which] was turned down. But he believed in it,” Burt continues.

“My daughter…grew up with the Rocky things, and she was reminding me how we used to work together – write together, rehearse together – and the joy we used to have out of each other from working.

“So I was invited as part of the audience when [Sly] was doing that Contender [TV] series with Sugar Ray Leonard. And it was the first time we said hello in many years.
Yo, Paulie! With on-again pal Sly at the “Rocky Balboa” premiere.

Yo, Paulie! With on-again pal Sly at the “Rocky Balboa” premiere.

“And he said, ‘Burt, I’ve been turned down on this,” he adds of Sly’s script for Rocky Balboa, which would be brought to the big screen in 2006.

“But I only want to hear what you have to say about it.’ So he sent me a copy. And it was magnificent.”

Burt also chats with Jamey about working with co- star Jon Voight and the late director Hal Ashby on the 1982 comedy Lookin’ To Get Out, and about working with the late Rodney Dangerfield on 1986’s Back to School.

“At the beginning, we got off the wrong start,” Burt says of Rodney.

“So for a while I barred him from my trailer for poor conduct and deportment.”

To hear Burt’s full interview, go to http://www.blogtalkradio.com/moviegeeksunited.

Jon Voight discusses lost Hal Ashby film

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Talk about art imitating life, or vice-versa – or something like that.

Here’s the story: In 1981, Jon Voight signed on to star in a comedy called Lookin’ To Get Out, which he’d co-written.

Co-starring would be Burt Young of Rocky fame, and the stunning Ann-Margret.

Directing would be Hal Ashby, a maverick who’d made such hit flicks as Harold and Maude (1971), Shampoo (1975) and Being There (1979), and who would die of cancer 1988.

Jon had been pals with Hal since 1977, when Hal directed the golden boy opposite Jane Fonda in Coming Home, for which Jon won his first and only Oscar (just as Jane won hers).

Cut to 2007. “A young Scottish writer by the name of Nick Dawson, who’d fallen in love with Hal’s work. . .called me up and said, ‘I’d like to interview you. I’m doing a book on Hal Ashby,’” Jon tells Movie Geeks United host Jamey DuVall.
CAPTION: Fatherhood, interrupted: (l-r) Jon with Angie and Ann-Margret in “Lookin’ to Get Out.”

Fatherhood, interrupted: (r-l) Jon with Angie and Ann-Margret in “Lookin’ to Get Out.”

A few months later, Nick called again, to arrange a meeting with Jon.

“May I bring Hal’s daughter with me?” said Nick.

“I didn’t know he had a daughter,” said Jon.

“She was trying to get in touch with [Hal] during his lifetime,” Jon tells Jamey. “But they never met. . .I’m sorry I didn’t know about this, because I was close enough to Hal that I definitely would have been able to get them together.”
Angie: Lookin' to get in – to pictures.

Angie: Lookin' to get in – to pictures.

A few days later, Jon met with Hal’s daughter, Lee Ashby McManus, and Nick.

“They started to talk about how much they loved Lookin’ to Get Out. And I asked Lee, ‘Why is it your favorite film?’” says Jon.

“She said, ‘Because I think the girl in it’ – the little girl at the end, played by Angelina Jolie as a little baby – ‘was me,’” adds Jon of his daughter, to whom he has barely spoken since 2002, when he said in a TV interview that she had “severe emotional problems.”

“And I thought about it and I said, ‘Yes, it’s very possible that it was you,’” he continues.

“I remember the discussions [Hal and I] had. We were thinking of going with a little boy. But Hal wanted it to be a girl.”
CAPTION: “He was a very loving man,” says Jon of Hal (above). “He cared for everybody.”

“He was a very loving man,” says Jon of Hal (above). “He cared for everybody.”

Tonight, March 18, at 10 p.m. ET, Jamey unspools his full 20-minute chat with Jon, in which the actor also dis- cusses how he discovered the lost director’s cut of Lookin’ To Get Out; working with Hal on Coming Home; making the film that made him a superstar, Midnight Cowboy; and why his brother, who wrote the rock anthem Wild Thing, changed his name from James Lesley Voight to Chip Taylor.

And if that were not enough, Burt (as in the aforemen- tioned Burt Young) will be joining Jamey live to offer his on-set recollections of Lookin’ To Get Out.

Also on the show will be Nick Dawson, whose new bio is titled Being Hal Ashby: Life of a Hollywood Rebel.

The director’s cut of Lookin’ To Get Out makes its world debut April 3 at the Sarasota Film Festival. For more information on the event, click here.

To hear Jon’s full interview, go to http://www.blogtalkradio.com/moviegeeksunited.