CITY ISLAND COUNTDOWN: TFF-25!

Welcome to a brand new day on this weblog--the countdown to the official US premiere of "City Island" at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 26th.

I will be posting every day between now and then--not this shilly-shallying couple of times a' week stuff that I've fallen into of late. Furthermore, I'll be posting stuff YOU WANT TO SEE! (Sorry but couldn't resist the hyperbole). I'll have stills, clips from the movie, insider stories and, when I don't, the usual crap I like to post (clips of forgotten old tv shows, movies etc).

Why this sudden awakening? What possesses me? Simple. I NEED TO SELL THIS MOVIE. And this is no small task in the current Post-Bush, Post-Hollywood, Post-Wall Street, Post-Money, Post-Business, Post-Entertainment, Post-Cultural landscape we are all quietly drowning in. Making a movie like "City Island"--an independent project nurtured by its writer/director for years and made because of the belief and support of people like Andy Garcia and my principal producing partners Lauren Versel and Zachary Matz--isn't the whole game; SELLING the damn thing is now the mission.

I've been delighted by the readership that I've attracted--I had a feeling that the progress of the making of a film might be interesting to some people but was surprised at how heavy our hits were during the actual production. So now I'm inviting whoever is out there who is still interested into the next most intense phase of this process; HOW THE HELL WE'RE GOING TO GET THIS FILM OUT INTO WORLD. As I said, I will be posting every day, sharing the intense activity that is now accumulating around the movie's future.

Here's step one: years ago there was a mysterious phenomenon known as the "chain letter"--it usually arrived in the mail unmarked and promised to bring you good luck if you passed it on to ten people and ill luck if you ignored it. My mother disapproved of this and told me to always throw them away. So it is with a certain amount of chagrin that I find myself participating in a viral mock-up of precisely the same idea--minus, of course, the "ill luck" thing:

If you are interested in my movie and would like to participate in helping us achieve our goal of getting it out to the audience it deserves,PLEASE E-MAIL THIS BLOG ENTRY TO TEN OF YOUR FRIENDS. I know our readers come from all corners of the earth and I'm delighted by the globality of it all; but if you happen to have friends in the New York area I would appreciate your making them your primary targets as I'm hoping to get people to buy tickets to our screenings at Tribeca. And if you don't know anybody in New York, that's okay too--maybe they'll take a roadtrip to the greatest city in the world to see our movie! Just tell whoever you think might be interested about our mission and its daily progress. If nothing else, they might enjoy my occasional rantings and postings of musical acts from "Hullabaloo".

Once people start seeing the movie, I'm hoping to encourage them to text an as-yet unknown number to leave (hopefully) enthusiastic comments--this will be of real help in convincing the currently timid distribution companies that we've made a film that will be a real crowd-pleaser.

And "City Island" is that. I know nobody reading this (except JC and a few crew members) have seen the film and I appreciate your taking my egotistical rantings on faith; but the reason I've put more work, love, hope and enthusiasm into this movie than anything else I've ever done is because it really is my ultimate statement on what I think of life; that we're all trapped by fear, enraptured by life, and--if we rise to the occasion--capable of change and ever deeper love at the oddest moments of our lives. The message of "City Island" is that its never too late to change and never too late to discover who you really are.

By the way, the movie's also really funny.

In addition to posting some clips of the movie, I'll be reaching into the grab-bag of stuff we posted this past summer during the making of the film. I apologize to you faithful readers for repeating material but this is for the edification of those new readers who I'm hoping you will be generous enough to introduce me too. Also, what the hell else am I going to post? I hope a few of you (or more) will join me on this new-world adventure and I appreciate any and all help, support and comments that you may have. Let's roll...

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