Montcalm County native goes from “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” to “Three Rivers”

Updated 5/21/09:  This fall, “Three Rivers” will air Sundays at 9pm after Amazing Race on CBS.  Avi the TV Geek says: ”Hard time slot. Up against football, Desperate Housewives and Family Guy. It’ll be interesting to see what happens.”

Daniel Henney is on the big screen this summer in the blockbuster action movie  “X-Men Origins: Wolverine”, but he’ll soon be starring in the CBS medical drama “Three Rivers” with Alex O’Loughlin (”Moonlight”).

CBS is expected to announce “Three Rivers” in their lineup tomorrow.

The Carson City native will play a doctor in the show written by Carol Barbee from “Jericho” and Judging Amy”.   

British actress Ormond will portray a doctor at Three Rivers Hospital, while Henney will portray a kidney, liver and pancreas transplant specialist.

“Three Rivers” is described as a medical show about organ transplants seen through three points of view: the doctors, the donors and the recipients.

Thanks to the TV Geek for a Heads Up on this one!!

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Connelly and Neeson will shoot “What’s Wrong with Virginia” in Michigan

News straight out of Cannes Film Festival… Jennifer Connelly and Liam Neeson will shoot the movie “What’s Wrong with Virginia” in Michigan.

Oscar winning writer Dustin Lance Black (”Milk”) wrote the screenplay and will also make his directorial debut.

Gus Van Sant, Jay Froberg, and Greg Suess will be Executive Producers.

Holland’s TicTock Studios’ CEO Hopwood DePree and Scott Brooks of West Michigan based private investment firm Brooks Capital Management, LLC will finance the picture and will produce along with Christine Vachon and Eric Watson of Killer Films. 

Production is planning for a late summer start date in Michigan.

CinemaBlend gives this synopsis: Connelly will play a psychologically disturbed woman who’s been having a 20-year love affair with the local sheriff (Neeson). Things get even more complicated when her teenage son starts dating his daughter.

Variety gives this synopsis: Connelly will play the charming but psychologically disturbed mother of a 16-year-old son. Her 20-year clandestine love with a sheriff (Neeson), who is running for the state senate, is tested when her son begins a relationship with his daughter.

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Casting call for “Monster Garage” in Detroit

Michigan mechanics and auto body specialists, here’s your chance to use your skills and be on national tv…

The former Discovery Channel TV show “Monster Garage” will be returning with Detroit as its new location of operation.

The shows premise is transforming cars in strange and unusual ways.

An open casting will take place this weekend: Saturday, May 16 and Sunday May 17, 2009 at the Atheneum Hotel at 1000 Brush Avenue, in Detroit from 9 a.m. until 7 p.m. each day. All applicants are asked to bring video, photos, and other media that shows off their skills.

The show will begin filming new episodes in late May and could take six months.

The show is expected to air in the fall on the Discovery Channel.

Burbank, California based Original Productions says the show will also have a new host.   The original host, Jesse James, will not be returning. James, who is currently appearing on “The Celebrity Apprentice” is launching a new series on SpikeTV next month.

The Detroit News and WXYZ have more details on the casting call.

Good luck! 

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“Chaos Experiment” limited in first weekend of release

Returns for “The Chaos Experiment”, were limited at just two Grand Rapids area theaters over the weekend with just 225 tickets sold for the R-rated thriller.

The movie that was shot in Grand Rapids over 16 days in September 2008 stars Val Kilmer and Armand Assante, and some noticeable Grand Rapids landmarks like the Amway Grand Plaza, the Van Andel Museum Center, the Grand Rapids Police Department, the Bull’s Head Tavern, and the Grand Rapids Press.

In an earlier press release, we were told that the movie would be out on DVD in June… but now it looks like it will be closer to an August release.   June is just around the corner and “Chaos” has not posted for release on any of the major DVD release websites.   Amazon.com has the release date as August 4th.   But, a spokesperson at Genius Products tells me “we haven’t officially announced the DVD street date, but I can tell you that if it were in June we would have already announced it”.

I’ll keep you posted!!

Read more about “The Chaos Experiment”, formerly “The Steam Experiment”

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Update: Grand Rapids is in the running for “Tribes of October”

Between comments from folks at Cinepro Pictures, director Phillipe Martinez’ recorded comments at the “Chaos” premiere, and a few of my sources, I can tell you that Grand Rapids is being scouted for Martinez’ next movie “Tribes of October”.

The $25 million budget CGI heavy post-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller needs big open spaces to shoot, and I’ve learned that DeVos Place and some big warehouse-size buildings around Grand Rapids are also being considered for possible shooting locations.

Also today, new pre-production images (above) from Cinepro Pictures.

Originally posted May 5, 2009: (more…)

Its great to see Grand Rapids and its local talent looking so good on the big screen.   There were numerous spatterings of applause and cheers during the premiere of “The Chaos Experiment”, a movie that shot in Grand Rapids for 16 days in September 2008, the first since Michigan’s generous tax incentives were passed.

Too bad the applause and cheers were limited to noticing local landmarks like the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel, the Grand Rapids Police Department, the carousel at the Van Andel Museum Center, the Bull’s Head Restaurant, the Grand Rapids Press and local actors (like Doug Alchin and Michael Travis) getting their few minutes of screentime and delivering their handful of lines… because the movie itself hovers around average.   Anyone who wasn’t involved or isn’t somehow connected to Grand Rapids, or a fan of Val Kilmer should wait on seeing this movie.

Warning to parents: this movie is rated R for its violence, nudity, and language.

Its sad to say, but this movie had the potential to be so much better, in the end its appeal will be limited to Grand Rapidians, the people involved with or interested in this project, and die hard Kilmer and Armand Assante fans.

Director Philippe Martinez told us on set that this was going to be a Hitchcock-like thiller, but somewhere along the way, it lost its connection to the famed director that set up many of our modern suspense thrillers.

The pacing is off… the violence is more graphic than implied… the movie drifts in and out of being serious… the plot doesn’t have a building climax that gets more and more intense… and I was never on the edge of my seat.  I cringed a couple times at the violence, but not from suspense.

This is the second time in less than a year I’ve said this, but this movie felt like a director’s cut… you know, when you’ve seen a movie and loved it, and get to see the slightly longer versions of scenes or different scenes than you saw before.    But this is the opposite… here a vasy majority of scenes needed to be tightened up, moving to the next scene and move the story along.

I can appreciate the dark, twisted nature of the movie, and the cinematography was good, with a eerie and ominous mix of music weaved through the film.  I like the fact that the first two minutes or so of the movie has no dialogue and that the scenes in the steam bath used a lot of close-ups to convey emotions, while the outside scenes used a lot of wider shots.

The six subjects inside the ’steam bath’, a set constructed at a soundstage in Grand Rapids are: Eric Roberts, Megan Brown, Patrick Muldoon, Cordelia Reynolds, Eve Mauro, and Quinn Duffy.

The movie’s flashes between Kilmer and Assante’s tense interrogation and the subjects in the steam bath tied to establish pacing, but this is one case when more would have been better.   If Kilmer would have explained each stage of the ’steam experiment’, then cut to the ’subjects’ going through his theory, it wouldn’t have been so scattered.   That change would stengthen his theory that in this enclosed, warming environment, people will begin to de-evolve into basic instincts of survival while others go crazy.  Its implied and later referenced, but too late in the film.

Kilmer carries this movie with his portrayal of a crazy, delusional scientist with theories that are radically beyond the believable.  His moments without dialogue or limited lines are strong as he conveys lines of screenplay without opening his mouth.  When he does, he’s often quick witted and intelligent compared to Assante’s character of the bruting police detective.   Assante’s acting is polished and solid, with the audience easily sold that he is a transplanted policeman from New York.   He’s got a sense of humor, he’s tough, and a ladies man all in one movie.

Unfortunately the strength of Kilmer and Assante’s scenes are not enough to lift this movie’s rating up.

Michigan actors Doug Alchin and Michael Travis should be happy with their performances in their first big movie.   Alchin, from Okemos, Michigan plays Assante’s Lt. Clark at the Grand Rapids Police Department, delivering several convincing lines of dialougue as Assante’s antagonist in a couple scenes.   Travis, from Grand Rapids, Michigan plays Sam, a security guard, at a hotel, sharing screen time with both Kilmer and Assante and despite just a few lines, he holds his own with the two pros in the one scene he’s in.

THE BOTTOM LINE:

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GRPS board meeting, May 4, 2009.

A team of Grand Rapids Public Schools students took top honors in nationwide math and language competitions at the National Academic Games tournament in Tennessee. (more…)

A senior from Kalamazoo’s Hackett Catholic Central High School has been named one of 141 “Presidential Scholars” by the U.S. Department of Education. (more…)

Free movies offered by Emagine Entertainment for qualifying moviegoers next week in the Detroit metro area

HIGHLIGHTS FROM A PRESS RELEASE:

Troy-based Emagine Entertainment, Inc. announced (Tuesday) that it will offer a complementary movie experience
for the state’s unemployed from April 27th through April 30th at all 3 of its locations:

Emagine Novi on 12 Mile Road just west of Novi Road
Emagine Canton on Ford Road just east of I-275
Cinema Hollywood on Dixie Highway in Birch Run

Qualifying guests and their immediate family members will receive free movie tickets, soda, and popcorn from Monday, April 27th through Thursday, April 30th.

Tickets will be available beginning on April 27th, and they will be offered to qualifying patrons based on the honor system.  Any Michigan resident 18 years of age or older and actively seeking employment may simply come to the box office and request Emagine’s “Movie Magic Package.”  Immediate family members who accompany a qualifying individual are also welcome.  

Tickets will be offered on a first come-first serve basis from Monday, 4/27/09 through Thursday, 4/30/09 until 11 p.m. each day.

The state is considering eliminating funding for the Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital Poison Control Center in Grand Rapids, a move that could force the center to close, a Spectrum Health spokesman said.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s budget proposal cut state support for both poison centers that receive funds, including the one in Grand Rapids and one at the Detroit Medical Center’s Children’s Hospital of Michigan. A spokeswoman for the governor said it was one of the many cuts proposed for all state departments. “It was an extremely painful budget,” said the spokeswoman, Megan Brown.

Some in the state House have considered consolidating state funding to support just one poison control center, the one in Detroit.

A Spectrum statement said the possible closure of the Grand Rapids center would not interrupt statewide poison control service.

The Poison Control Center at DeVos Children’s has an operating budget of $1.4 million, and 17 percent of it — $250,000 — is an annual subsidy from the state of Michigan, according to the Spectrum statement. Another 21 percent of the funding comes from the federal government and three percent is support from the United Way. But the majority of the center’s funding — roughly 60 percent — comes from DeVos Children’s itself and the Spectrum spokesman, Bruce Rossman, said the possible state funding cut would force the children’s hospital’s patients to subsidize the poison center.

The state subsidy covers an ever-decreasing share of the cost of the center as expenses continue to rise, Rossman said, “And if they’re going to put all their funding to one poison center, we can’t in good conscience continue to run this service.”

He stressed that Spectrum will not make a final decision on the status of the facility until the state’s funding plan is clear.

The Grand Rapids center employs 17 people, including some part-time workers, and two doctors who also work elsewhere at Spectrum Health. It is unclear how a possible closure would affect those employees, Rossman said.

The centers in Detroit and Grand Rapids already share the same phone number,  1-800-222-1222 .