Monday, December 26, 2005

Cat in a Christmas Tree

The cats were pretty good at first, but now Mozart has learned that climbing the tree and pawing at the ornaments and bows is more fun than chasing his tail. So far we've lost four ornaments and I shudder to think what we're going to find when we take the damn thing down. And he just doesn't climb the thing, he sits in it and sticks his head out like a monkey. Stephanie says there should be a way of wiring the tree so he gets an electric shock.

After a tumultous two weeks, filming on CHRISTMAS went on hiatus and hopefully the director will pick it up again sometime in January.

In the meantime, I'm busy writing, what else. I'm between and betwixt this script and that, and my co-writer in California is working on a "vomit draft" of our thriller SNOWBLIND. Just before Christmas, I hooked up with a LA manager who wants to bring my rom com ORACLE OF ORCHARD STREET to her contacts. She loved the script and called it a mix of MOONSTRUCK and MBFGW, so I have high hopes that something good will come of it. That was a nice little Christmas present!

Friday, December 16, 2005

Trump to Randall: You Blew It

My dearly beloved PROJECT RUNWAY deserves its own post, so I'll save my thoughts on that for another day as I feel the need to vent about the bizarre finale of THE APPRENTICE last night. I was so upset that this morning I even called The Trump Organization to tell them how disappointed I was.

Up until the last two minutes, I would've been happy with either Randall or Rebecca, although I leaned towards Rebecca. Her street smarts, her ability to think fast, her tenacity, her loyalty, all in my mind, made her the perfect Apprentice.

Randall, for all his celebrated book smarts, showed an appalling lack of common sense. Let's not forget that Randall was the one who put the wrong radio frequency on a poster during one task, and in his final task, had no backup plan in place when the charity softball game was rained out.

Let me also point out that even though the guests at the Yahoo event failed to pony up cash for the Pediatric AIDS Foundation, that wasn't Rebecca's fault. The Yahoo execs were skittish about directly shilling for dollars. But in the end, Yahoo did the right thing and donated $100K to be split equally between the two charities. So a case could be strongly made that due to Rebecca, the Autistic charity got an extra $50K.

However, I was willing to let all that slide...up until Randall showed his true colors in the selfish, embarrassing way he declined to co-share with Rebecca. Even more disheartening was Trump's reaction. He seemed pussy whipped, totally befuddled as he stammered. Worse was the way the audience booed. It was a dismal end to an otherwise fine season.

Was I the only one who thought Randall reeked? I guess not, because at MSNBC, the headline was (to paraphrase) "Randall Proved Himself To Be A Selfish Lout And Asshole." Not the headlines Trump was hoping for.

I was also stunned by the vicious remarks by some of Rebecca's female teammates. Allah was so out of line, even Trump cut her off. Marshawn's critical remarks wasn't surprising, because Rebecca had been the one to step up to the plate when Marshawn declined to give a presentation because she was afraid that if her team lost, she'd be blamed. Trump saw through Marshawn's phony excuse and fired her sorry ass.

Even at the end, with the audience booing, Rebecca maintained her poise and grace while Randall cavorted like a greedy buffoon. Her two words to Trump summed it up nicely: "That's unfortunate."

If I had been Trump, when Randall came out with his lame explanation of why there should only be one Apprentice, I would've stopped the show, admitted that I had made a blunder, stripped Randall of the win and awarded it to Rebecca.

A pox on both Trump and Randall. An entire season down the drain in the last two minutes due to Randall's boorish behavior and Trump's waffling. Good going, guys.

Thursday, December 08, 2005

Lil Xmas News

Hubby still working on the press release. He needs an updated list from the director as I know one actress had to be replaced at the last minute due to a death in the family. Haven't heard anything more about how the shoot is going.

On a side note, I was interviewed by a reporter from our paper of record, Newsday (and my employer though I haven't been paid since June, still on disability, and they won't transfer me to an office closer to home), so it appears as if they're going to do a story on it. Let's hope its a positive one!

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Christmas Updates

I spoke to John the director last night. He sounded tired, but happy. Yesterday he did a script read with the main cast. So far, the feedback from the rewrite I did over the weekend has been favorable (save for my sexy Santa Elf scene) and everyone thinks I'm "brilliant." (John's words, not mine.). And we got a nice little blast of snow last night, only a couple of inches, and today is cold, bright and sunny---the picture perfect backdrop for the first day of shooting.

My hubby is still working on the press release (when he's done tinkering with it I'll post it) and contacting local media, but the cast includes Carol Alt, Matt McCoy, Austin Pendleton and Hunter Gomez. John is trying to get celebrities to show up for cameos for the big Christmas tree/holiday festival scenes. Keep your fingers crossed!

Saturday, December 03, 2005

The Town That Banned Christmas

So...finally the director got the rest of the moolah he needed, and everything so far seems to be a go for Monday. I did a last minute revise last night and am still waiting to hear back about it. I had to beef up one character and add two new ones...and naturally they wanted it ASAP.

Next chapter to follow....