Sunday, February 27, 2000
Peck saw talent in 'Malcolm'
Former Cincinnatian cast Muniz in 'Skip'
BY MARGARET A. MCGURK
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Former Cincinnatian Marshall Peck knows all about the value of good timing in the movie business.
When he went to work last year casting My Dog Skip (opening in Cincinnati on Friday), he recognized the potential in the young actor who portrays writer Willie Morris as a child. Since then, Frankie Muniz has gone on to national fame and critical acclaim as the star of the new TV series Malcolm in the Middle.
Mr. Peck, who in the past year made his debut as a producer, was quick to offer the young actor the lead in a new comedy called Bumptious. Nothing is official yet, but Mr. Peck is optimistic the script will be made into a movie.
“Frankie loves it, his mom loves it, his agents love it,” said Mr. Peck. “We're just waiting to see if everything works.”
In the meantime, Mr. Peck is overseeing completion of his first film as a producer, The Rising Place, an ensemble film from writer-director Tony Rice. featuring — among others — Elise Neal, Frances Fisher, Tess Harper and Gary Cole. The movie boasts several original songs by Broadway star Jennifer Holliday, who also plays a part in the film. She recently touted the music during an appearance on The Rosie O'Donnell Show.
At the moment, he is in San Francisco casting a remake of Sweet November starring Keanu Reeves.
Mr. Peck, an alumni of Walnut Hills High School and Xavier University, once cast his mother, Rosalie, in a small role in Primary Colors. His parents recently sold their Amberley Village home to move closer to another son in the Washington, D.C. area. Still, Mrs. Peck calls her show-business son every time she receives a small residual check from the movie.
“The litte actress still gets so excited,” he said, “You would think she was getting a million.”
FILM FEST UPDATES: Cincinnati commercial director Alphonzo Wesson debuts a short-short film (less then two minutes long) today at the Second Annual Hollywood Black Film Festival in Los Angeles.
“This is my 4-year-old son's favorite underground railroad story,” Mr. Wesson says in the festival's program notes.
Other Tristate features that have been collecting credits on the festival circuit include The Last Late Night, which screened during February at the Texas Film Festival at Texas A&M University in College Station; at the AngelCiti Film Market in Los Angeles; and at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival in Manhattan.
Producer Rick Barlow, working as producer with his writer-director son Scott, said he has been concentrating on using the festivals to build word-of-mouth support for the film and its Web site (www.lastlatenight.com), in hopes of impressing potential distributors.
April's Fool,another Cincinnati-
made movie hunting for distribution, also screened at the New York fest. Filmmaker Paul Geiger and producer Mark Turner said they plan to screen the film in Cincinnati and other cities on April 1 this year with or without a distributor.
AUDITION ALERT: Willing to work for free to get your face on film? Show up between 4 and 6 p.m. on March 15 in the Kentucky/Indiana room in the University Center on the Xavier campus for open auditions for an independent movie.
The production needs six men for characters aged 15 to 50, and four women for characters whose ages range from 22 to 50.
The unpaid roles will require full-time work for about two weeks in May or June.
Potential crew members are also invited to contact writer-director Matthew J. Freudenberg at 924-1138.
Details about the movie and the auditions — including directions to the XU campus — are available online at www.freudyfilms.com.
INDIE FILM SCREENING: Self-distribution is the term for filmmakers who don't wait for a bigger company to place their movies in theaters. Instead, they do it themselves.
That is exactly how a film called Trois (as in menage a trois) ended up with a March 8 opening date at Showcase Cinemas Cincinnati in Bond Hill (off the Norwood lateral).
The thriller stars former Miss USA Kenya Moore (Waiting to Exhale) and Gary Dourdan (Alien: Resurrection), and was produced by the Atlanta-based Rainforest Productions by filmmaker Rob Hardy.
COMING TO VIDEO: Walt Disney Home Entertainment will not confirm it yet, but the filmmakers will: Perfect Game, a family film about a baseball team starring Patrick Duffy and Ed Asner, will be coming to video shelves this year.
That's according to cinematographerJohn Gunselman of Anderson Township, who shot the film for his brother Dan, who wrote and directed the film. Dan Gunselman made his name as a director and producer with such TV series as WKRP in Cincinnati and Growing Pains.
Look for Perfect Game to arrive in video stores as early as this spring.
STUDENT OSCARS DEADLINE: Applications for the 27th Annual Student Academy Awards must be submitted to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences by April 3.
Submissions are accepted in the categories of alternative, animation, documentary or narrative film. Format must be 16mm or larger, and entries must have been finished after April 1, 1999, “within the curriculum of an accredited college or university in a student-teacher relationship.”
Entrants are judged in a first-round regional competition, which sends winners on to final, national judging. Students from Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky compete in Region 2.
Application forms are available online at www.oscars.org/saa or by sending a stamped, self-addressed, business size envelope to AMPAS, 8949 Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills, CA 90211.
Margaret A. McGurk is Enquirer film critic. Reach her by mail at 312 Elm St. Cincinnati 45202; fax, (513) 768-8330; or e-mail, mmcgurk@enquirer.com.
