May 26, 2009, Cannes, Regent, Coverage, Peckinpah and Scrabble

I haven't updated things in a while, so thought I just let my mind and fingers wander and try to come up with something to say.

I was excited to hear that Michael Haneke, who along with Pedro Almodovar, are my favorite filmmakers working today, won the Palme d'Or for his film The White Handkerchief.

For a complete list of Cannes winners

http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/cannes-film-festival-winners/

I had a meeting with a director this week who is excited about my script Rough Trade and wants to start promoting it as his next project. The meeting was great and very ego building. Of course, all of us in the industry know that this is a who knows situation, but keep your fingers crossed for me. The main thing we're looking for is a producer who loves the script and knows how to raise money. Hey, we can dream, can't we?

I'm been inundated with scripts to read from Here! Networks/Regent, Final Draft and it looks like Slamdance is about to start up with coverage work. It's great, though daunting at the same time. Regent had a great article in the LA Times last week about how they are increasing their distribution of foreign, independent and art house movies even in this day of difficult economics.

I was involved in a wicket Scrabble Game on Monday. I started out with the word Swollen, using all my letters and on a triple word score (76 points). I only mention this to show you have desparate I am to come up with something to put in my blog.

I'm almost through with the biography of Sam Peckinpah. He's about to direct the Osterman Weekend. As I've been saying, I also just read a book on the making of Rebel Without a Cause and on Orson Welles and I no longer feel as sorry for these directors as I do for the studios, producers, writers and actors who had to put up with them. One interesting bit of trivia: the actor who played Mapache, Emilio Fernandez, is one of Mexico's most important filmmakers and was the model for the Oscar statuette.