[Sven2]

Mr.Milch certainly has a lot to teach. If anyone is in LA in October, has desire and an entrance fee, here's your chance to hear the master.

"Los Angeles, CA—The 2010 Screenwriting Expo is set to kick-off October 7-10 at the Hilton LAX, with an acclaimed Guest of Honor line-up, featuring screenwriters John August, Shane Black, David Milch and Jennifer Salt. Additional speakers will be announced in the coming weeks. "

from:
http://www.prlog.org/10920982-the-2010-screenwriting-expo-announces-speakers-john-august-shane-black-david-milch-jennifer-salt.html

[Sven2]

Garret Dillahunt
'Raising Hope'will premiere on Fox on September 21, 2010. The half-hour single-camera comedy is set to air on Tuesdays at 9 pm.

"That guy!: Where hasn't he been on TV? Dillahunt has had recurring roles in 'Burn Notice,' 'John From Cincinnati,' 'The 4400' and 'ER,' played two characters -- Jack McCall and Francis Wolcott -- on 'Deadwood' and was John Henry/Cromartie on 'Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.'
Now playing: He's Burt, who, with wife Virginia (Martha Plimpton), had son Jimmy when they were 15 years-old. Now, 23-year-old Jimmy is about to become a single dad (his babymama is in jail), and he's bringing his new daughter home to live with his (unhappy) parents."

from:
http://www.tvsquad.com/2010/09/08/fall-tv-2010-that-guy-that-woman/

[Sven2]

Luke Perry recently starred in a Canadian direct-to-DVD film, Final Storm, which a biblical apocalypse thriller.

The review is here, if you're interested. Seems a dud.
http://www.dreadcentral.com/reviews/final-storm-the-2010

[SaveJFC Admin]

I get the feeling that Luke Perry takes projects for money and not the writing/directing/etc.  It's too bad.  I really liked him in "Jeremiah".

[Sven2]

I am willing to watch about anything with Garrett Dillahunt.

"He has another regular gig, on "Raising Hope," Greg Garcia's new FOX comedy about a young slacker (Lucas Neff) who decides to turn his life around when he inherits the baby girl he fathered with a Death Row inmate. (It debuts Tuesday at 9 p.m.) Though I think a little of Garcia's "My Name Is Earl"-style humor goes a long way, I did laugh several times during the "Hope" pilot, including some things Dillahunt does as Neff's none-too-bright father".

He speaks about his career and Milch:

Why did you want to be an actor? Who are some actors you admired?

I originally (wanted) to be a writer. I wanted to be journalist. My degree is in journalism.  I don't know that I'm a very good writer, but this is very similar, I've found.  Sort of like writing live or something and I feel like a similar itch is being scratched, you know? And it might also be why I love writers so much, because I always feel I need a writer and I need to find a way to make those words work.  I'll go there before I try to improve or go off script.

I think your reasons (for going into acting) change, but in college it was a great therapeutic thing for me. My brother passed when I was very young, when I was 16.  And I was just determined after that to do something that I loved and not that I felt I had to do or just to pay bills. Life became very short and very fragile all of a sudden and I think the acting thing was very therapeutic for that and then it became a lot of fun. I enjoyed standing in a lot of different people's shoes, which is very annoying politically because you sort of feel like, "Well, I see this side, but I kind of see this side too," but I just like it.  I like experiencing different things and meeting new people and change. I like change.

Speaking about the change in writing, Milch famously will not only give new pages at the last minute, but give new dialogue like right before the camera would roll. How was that experience for you?

I love it.  I know it's difficult for a lot of people but I find that I think It's the perfect kind of atmosphere for doing what we do. And the reason he does that is because he's seen you do something that sparked an idea in him, so that he throws it back.  So it's this thing where everyone on-set is awake and proud and really trying to do something unique. And it's kind of happening on "Raising Hope" as well, because Greg will see you do something and then we'll do a riff on that. And who knows which take he'll use, but he'll be like, "Now try this line, and try this line, and try this line," because he will have seen you do something. I think that's the best kind of atmosphere to be in for what we do".

from:
http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/whats-alan-watching/posts/interview-raising-hope-co-star-garret-dillahunt

[Sven2]

Possibly Dillahunt will take part in Milch's "Luck":

"Al Norton: Are there shows that you watch that you'd love to appear on?

Garret Dillahunt: I've been really digging what I'm seeing for Boardwalk Empire. I'd love to be on that thing. It's just a monster cast. David Milch talked to me about playing a part on Luck but I'd already signed for Raising Hope so I'm hoping maybe to guest on it. There are a lot of great shows out there. It'd be nice to play a role where I get a girl legitimately, not by force."

from:
http://www.tv.com/raising-hope-interviews-andndash-show-premieres-tonight/webnews/152239.html

[Sven2]

As we "talked" in e-mails with Ocean Flower, (who was previously known by a different name), this place presently looks like  a mausoleum, in need of nothing, lest a breath, but against all odds.....
Some still  speak about  "John from Cincinnati" with love, unexpectedly, irrationally, the way it is only possible to speak of love.

You already know that HBO ordered the second season of "Boardwalk Empire", after only one episode, and comparisons of that show with Mr.Milch "Deadwood" abound, but JFC?

From a blog about television by TIME's TV critic James Poniewozik.
"Because I watched advance screenings, I had yet to see the opening titles, an HBO specialty. They were nothing like what I'd have guessed—a surreal, dreamlike sequence in a very naturalistic series; they recalled less The Sopranos than the opening titles of John from Cincinnati (which I loved)."

from:
http://tunedin.blogs.time.com/2010/09/20/boardwalk-empire-watch-land-of-opportunity/

Would it make one think if the show might be interesting to watch? Probably not so. Although  "Deadwood" "Femme Fatale", Molly Parker, appears in a photograph as late  Nucky's (protagonist) wife, I'd assume she has a part in some future episodes.  
Who wishes to learn more about the ancestors of Sopranos - that's your chance.

[Sven2]

Couldn't believe my own eyes, finding a question about JFC on - hold your breath - "best birding binoculars for birdwatching.com"! No rational explanation as to why, of all places, birdwatchers would be discussing JFC! It must be because of Zippy.
Anyways, here's the short Q and A:

"Anybody watch HBO's John from Cincinnati? What's going on here?

Where is 'John' from?
Why does Mitch float?
What does 'The End is Near' mean?
Why did Shaun have the power to bring life to the dead bird?

There are so many things going on in this show, which is entertaining, but when will ANY answers come? They just keep adding to list of characters, drama and story lines. I don't have a clue, do you?

1. Sara W says:
      I'm in the same boat! I watched the making of special and I know that the director is setting up John to be an example of how each person he interacts with can be his or her best, identifying their flaws, etc. "The End is Near" -to me- means that the end of goodness in humanity is coming. Shaun is the only character in the show – with the exception of John- that still has innocence (life). What I love is John's pants! What else can he pull out of those pockets? Watch the making of special on HBO on Demand, if you have it. Hope that helps!"

from:
http://bestbinocularsforbirdwatching.com/anybody-watch-hbos-john-from-cincinnati-whats-going-on-here/

The "wish fulfilling" article of clothing that John wears made quite an impression on Sara W.!
"The end is near" is a tough one. So, is it about the end to our world when the "goodness in humanity" is gone?

I'll be watching those birdwatchers and report any news on the subject of the end of anything.  ;)

[Sven2]

Some tidbits about Luck and Michael Mann, from a rather long article  that you can find here:
http://www.fox4kc.com/entertainment/la-ca-1010-michael-mann-20101010,0,7418144.story

"Mann and Milch, who each have an executive producer credit on "Luck," have been described as talented tyrants when it comes to putting their visions on the screen. "They're very respectful ... but, as Michael describes it, 'not great with committees,'" said David Lombardo, the HBO programming president who brought the pair together. Hoffman, who is not exactly meek himself, says he sits back and watches it all.

"The sharing of the paintbrush is always a tenuous thing," Hoffman said. "In film, the writers hand over the paintbrush, but in television the directors have less power. But with this one, Mann is more active because he's not just a one-time director, he is the [executive] producer of the show too. It's exciting to see Mann do some scenes there and then talk to Milch and Milch is glowing because it's just wonderful work."

Milch was uninterested in any projected clash-of-egos subplots: "There are challenges in every collaboration, and a challenge is an opportunity in disguise." When asked what Mann brings to the project, Milch did have a glow in his growl. "He brings what he brings to every piece of work of his that I've seen. He's an extraordinary shooter. Michael realizes the visual possibilities of the material with a compression and an intensity that is very, very gratifying. The final product is extraordinary.

Mann said he went for a ride with "Luck" for one reason alone: "Milch's script is one of the best I've ever read."

Mann said the Milch script for "Luck" was one of the richest and most compelling that had ever crossed his desk. Milch certainly is no tourist when it comes to the subject matter — he owned Val Royal, the French-bred colt that won the 2001 Breeders' Cup Mile — and Milch said it only increases the pressure to get the voice, vocabulary and vibe just right.

The pilot opens with a career bookmaker named Chester "Ace" Bernstein (Hoffman) leaving prison and wearing a shirt that still has the department store packaging creases. Waiting for him in a Mercedes is Gus Economou ( Dennis Farina), an old crony who's ready to help the parolee with his mysterious revenge plans. At the track, the show introduces a conniving trainer ( John Ortiz), jockeys and the betting regulars who seek their fortune at a venue that is sinking into bankruptcy. Underpinning all of it is the juxtaposition between the majestic horses and the desperate people who exploit them and one another.

Mann is especially pleased by the shadows in the plot. Who is the target of Bernstein's vendetta? What is the past of Nolte's secretive loner, a trainer who confides only in the horses when he speaks of a dark past on the East Coast? All of it is a puzzle to be solved, and Mann, the detective, seemed giddy to be on the case.

"To make these characters be alive, you have a sense of them intuitively and viscerally," Mann said. "The challenge of it is obvious, but the economy of it is wonderful — if you can make it work."

[Sven2]

Interview with David Milch about "Luck"

David Milch aims for 'visceral experience' with HBO's 'Luck'
October 13, 2010 |  7:00 am



"HBO hit the trifecta with the creative team for the upcoming series "Luck" — writer David Milch, director Michael Mann and star Dustin Hoffman bring a lot of Hollywood horsepower to a series about racetrack culture and the dark deals made by gamblers and gangsters. Los Angeles Times reporter Geoff Boucher wrote the first major piece about the show on Sunday with a major profile of Mann, but here's more: A Q&A with Milch, the creator of "NYPD Blue" and "Deadwood" and a fan of racing who also has owned champion horses. 

Q: It's intriguing to see you collaborating with Michael Mann. What can you tell us about him as a creative force so far?

A: He brings what he brings to every piece of work of his that I've seen. He's an extraordinary shooter. Michael realizes the visual possibilities of the material with a compression and an intensity that is very, very gratifying. The final product is extraordinary.

Q: Are there any special challenges you've seen in this partnership so far?

A: You know, you say "challenges" — there are challenges in every collaboration. I think a challenge is an opportunity in disguise. There's always a process of adaptation that goes on. You try, given the coordinates of the relationship and the situation, you try to maximize the end product. I hope you'll agree that the end product is a pretty compelling and inviting piece of work, inviting in the sense that you want to see and get more.

Q: It must be exciting for you to build a show around Santa Anita Park. You've spent a lot of time in your life at racetracks ...

A:  No, that was a cousin. I had a cousin who spent a lot of time at racetracks. [Laughs] The setting is exciting, yes, but there's some nervousness in making it too. You want to get it right. You always feel a particular duty of care to whatever world you're trying to portray, but then you especially feel it when there is a lived experience against which you're measuring the activities of the imagination. I think that sense of responsibility is compounded. That's one of the reasons I was so grateful to Michael, to bring that separate eye. That really enriched the end product.

Q: The pilot is very unhurried. There's a lot of mysteries and histories that are left unexplained ...

A: Yeah, a lot like life.

Q: Clearly, but it's nice to see that television, especially cable drama, has reached a place where you don't have to explain every single aspect of a character the moment they arrive on screen.

A: Yeah. I think that as far as any kind of ambiguity or obscurity that registers as calculated, I don't have much time for that. There was a wonderful jazz muscian, and they asked him why the pace of what he was doing was rather slow, and he said, "It just took that long to say it." For the pilot, for whatever is unresolved, I hope you do have a first-level visceral experience and it's a world you want to come back to. 

— Geoff Boucher

from:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2010/10/david-milch-hopes-for-visceral-experience-with-hbos-luck.html

[Sven2]

De Mornay - not in a big part.... as a mother, with a "vintage" hairdo and dress, in a teenagers' love story "Flipped" (2010)

[Sven2]

It seems that Milch has got interesting episode writers. This one, Bill Barich,  is from Ireland.
Not clear from this article,  if the idea of a horse racing show was conceived by Milch himself even, although that's not very important for the  viewers.

"Bill Barich has taken up temporary residence on the back stretch at Santa Anita, where, after spending much of his adult lifetime in the company of fellow broken-down horseplayers, his ship appears finally to have come in.

No, he didn't make a big score backing a longshot nag. Barich might be one of the most astute and analytic handicappers I know, but as a punter he tends to err so heavily on the side of caution he was never going to become rich – or poor – based on the whims of a four-legged animal.

But earlier this year the expatriate American writer got a phone call from California. To his surprise, given the modest commercial success enjoyed by the nine critically-acclaimed books he had authored over 30 years, the executives at HBO liked the idea of a racetrack-based mini-series he had floated, on spec, from Dublin, and wanted him to come out to Hollywood to put the finishing touches on a proposed pilot episode.

Nine months later he's still there. HBO has ordered a full season's worth of Luck, and signed Dustin Hoffman and Nick Nolte for its principal roles. With David Milch and Michael Mann, both of whom have shown a Midas touch, at the helm, the racing series will debut in January.

"If all goes well," Barich wrote from California with word of his good fortune, "this gig, as opposed to my books, may keep me out of the Trail's End trailer park in Santa Rosa."

Whether the reflected buzz surrounding Luck will help focus attention on Barich's latest book, Long Way Home: On the Trail of Steinbeck's America , published this month, remains to be learned, but one suspects that however widely it is read, Long Way Home may turn out to be as widely misinterpreted in certain quarters as was the half-century-old classic that inspired it."


from:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sport/2010/1021/1224281619785.html

(The book mentioned here recreates Steinbeck's trip across the country in "Travels With Charley".)

[Sven2]

Details about the pilot episode of "Luck":

In the pilot episode of Luck, Dustin Hoffman's character, Ace Bernstein, is freshly released from prison and revered by his friends who greet him on his return to the outside world. But he is stiff, rigid and so tightly wound he looks ready to explode. On the other hand, Nolte's character Walter Smith is alone, sad and fixated on a racehorse that looks like it has champion potential. "Nolte exudes a sense of isolation, shame, some scandal in his past without you knowing anything about it," says Mann afterwards.

Mann's ability to crank up the tension is evident even in the few minutes of the Luck episode that I see. The viewer is thrown into the middle of a horserace at the Santa Anita track, horses panting, hooves pounding the dirt".

Hoffman about his role:

"Luck is Hoffman's first foray into television drama. He plays the central character, Ace Bernstein, a seasoned gambler fresh out of prison. He explains that the role necessitated a change in the way he approaches character development.

"I had to rethink the way I've been working for the last 40 years. A play is a play, a film is a film – that's all I have done. But the preparation is different [in television].

"When you're doing a play or a film, you have to declare who you are as a character. If it's a play, you can grow from performance to performance. You grow into the part, even though the lines are the same.

"In film, you can't do that. But with television, you can continue to develop and alter the character. Nothing is set in stone ... where you would not make a left turn with a film character, suddenly you can make a right turn."

The Bernstein character will change and grow with the writing as the story progresses week to week and as new obstacles and challenges are placed in his way. Michael Mann wanted Hoffman for the role because he thought it would test a side of the actor he hadn't seen before. "When I had the first meeting with Michael Mann and David Milch, Mann said, 'I looked at your work and you tend to be a counter-puncher.'" Hoffman's characters, the director told the actor, "tend to react to something that's taken place".

But Mann envisaged a different character in Ace Bernstein. "He told me, 'Here, you instigate things ... you are the aggressor.' And I thought that was interesting."

M.Mann about "Luck" and Mr.Milch:

"It's one of the best pieces of writing anyone has ever passed to me," says Mann matter of factly, when I ask what drew him to the project. It has a motley crew of characters, including a quartet of degenerate gamblers who could have walked straight off the pages of a Charles Bukowski novel."

from:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/f71b5774-dd62-11df-beb7-00144feabdc0.html

[Sven2]

'Luck' Resumes Production at Santa Anita


"With the pilot for HBO's highly anticipated "Luck" already complete, production for season-one will resume at Santa Anita Oct. 31. Both the pilot and first season are scheduled to air in the fall of 2011.
"Luck" is the creation of writer/producer David Milch, who also created such blockbuster hits as "Hill Street Blues," "NYPD Blue," and "Deadwood." Milch, who is also a multiple Breeders' Cup winning Thoroughbred owner, is an ardent supporter of horse racing and has long wanted to do an episodic series of this nature, which will take the audience inside the sport in a very creative and in some cases, stark way.
The pilot, which was shot almost entirely at Santa Anita, was enthusiastically received by HBO executives and the cast, including actors Dustin Hoffman, Nick Nolte, Dennis Farina, John Ortiz, and retired Hall of Fame jockey Gary Stevens, will remain intact for season-one. It is also expected that current jockey, Chantal Sutherland, will appear in a number of episodes.
"Touch wood, I think it's going to be an incredible series," said Stevens, who made his highly acclaimed debut as an actor in 2003's blockbuster hit movie "Seabiscuit. "I'm very excited about production resuming. This is going to be a very candid and very vivid look at our sport. 'Luck' has every right to be a winner on every level—from the acting to production, directing and writing, I really think this series is going to blow people away."
The first episode of season-one will be shot at Santa Anita and at Rod's Diner, a nearby coffee shop on Huntington Drive. Filming will also take place at the 100 to One Club, a cocktail bar just east of Santa Anita's Gate 5.
Action in the first episode includes interaction at Santa Anita's Clockers' Corner, box seat area, winner's circle, paddock and barn area. Action will also emanate from Santa Anita's press box, and racing and operations offices.  
Action will shift to Santa Anita's main track as soon as the all-natural dirt surface project that is currently underway is completed and it is deemed safe for horses to compete.
Production for season-one of "Luck" is scheduled to continue throughout Santa Anita's upcoming winter/spring meeting, which runs from Dec. 26 through April 17."

from: BloodHorse.com
http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/59551/luck-resumes-production-at-santa-anita

[Sven2]

Joan Allen has signed on to HBO's forthcoming drama "Luck".

"The multi-episode arc will be Allen's first TV series gig. Luck, produced by Michael Mann and David Milch, examines the horse racing world through the owners, jockeys and gamblers. The cast includes Dustin Hoffman, Nick Nolte and Dennis Farina.


Allen, 54, will portray a woman who runs a program that uses prison inmates to care for broken-down racehorses.

The three-time Oscar nominee most recently appeared in the Lifetime TV movie Georgia O'Keefe, which earned her an Emmy nomination earlier this year."

from:
http://www.tvguide.com/News/Joan-Allen-Luck-1025051.aspx