Secrets of the City

Deja vu all over again.  If you missed the January screening of this flick, here’s your second chance.  City Island, a comedy starring Andy Garcia and Julianna Margulies tells the tale of a family guy and long-time Bronx resident, Vince Rizzo (Garcia), who secretly ventures into Manhattan for weekly – get this – acting classes.  In the course of revealing secrets in class, the entire cover-up and a whole lot more flies in the face of his family.   To win your pass for two to the advance screening on March 25, email MinneapolisRSVP@gmail.com with the subject line CITY ISLAND.  Advance pass required, and seating is limited and on a first-come, first-served basis.

City Island Advance Screening; Tuesday, March 23, 7:30 p.m.; Landmark Edina, 3911 W. 50th St., Edina

Local filmmakers Wendy Runge, of Polynation Pictures LLC, and Matthias Saunders, of Maximum Productions LLC, were accused Monday of unlawfully inflating values on applications for tax credits in Iowa totaling more than $10,000.

According to an affidavit filed by the attorney general’s office, Runge, Saunders and their companies were seeking tax credits for a science fiction film entitled “The Scientist.”

The filmmakers were awarded more than $1.8 million in tax credits, or about half of the cost of producing the film, according to invoices.

The filmmakers are being charged with first-degree theft, which carries a possible punishment of 10 years in prison.

Thanks to LOL OMG! for doing the job I didn’t have the time to do yesterday and giving you a brief look at Minnesota in the Oscars. I mean, it may not seem like it, but we’re always in there somehow, whether through writing, cast, or crew.

This year, give Minnesota-born writer Walter Kirn a hand for penning the novel behind best picture nominee Up in the Air. Looks like Jason Reitman really knows how to pick his writers!

Also on the roster is Bloomington native Pete Docter, co-director and co-writer of Up, nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. Damn, we really know how to write, don’t we?!

And last but not least is the Coen Brothers’ A Serious Man, shot locally with the help of many Minnesotan cast and crew members.

Go Minnesota!

According to Strib film critic Colin Covert, two locally produced films will be making their world debuts at Sundance this year: Howl, a Werc Werk Works-produced drama about Allen Ginsberg’s 1957 obscenity trial, and The Runaways, a River Road Entertainment (Bill Pohlad) biopic starring Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett.

It looks like Minnesota is going to hold its claim in the movie business after all.

Just last month, several Minnesotans attended the 2009 screenwriting expo in LA.

And John Kock’s The Seducer premieres tonight as part of the 2009 Minneapolis Underground Film Festival.

Also part of the festival is Greg Yolen’s Je Ne Sais Quoi.

Locally lensed comedy Nobody opens soon, produced by local-boy-made-good Josh Hartnett, and l’etoil has an interview with the director: Co-writer Ryan Miller and I choose to set the story in the Twin Cities because the vibe of the film felt right here. The tone of Nobody is sweet and charming and this town has that feeling in spades. Coincidentally, Sam Rosen, my leading man is from here. Josh Hartnett, as everyone knows, is also from here. So as we started scouting locations, everything kept pointing us to the Twin Cities. Even after scouting a few other cities, there was no other place we could shoot the film but here.

The new Coen Brothers’ film A Serious Man, set in St. louis Park in the 60s, opens this weekend, and reviews, from those who don’t find them inscrutable, are already glowing: Watching the film, one gets the sense that they know every character that passes through the frame, from the self-important rabbi who tells longwinded stories with no point, to the seedy MILF-next-door with a penchant for nude sunbathing, to the kid who tokes up in the synagogue bathroom right before his bar mitzvah. Granted, all of these individuals arrive onscreen filtered through the duo’s cracked gaze, but this will probably be the closest we ever get to a Coen Brothers autobiography.

Reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.

The Star Tribune’s Colin Covert is not impressed by the second film from Oscar-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody, Jennifer’s Body, a film set in Minnesota: Fans of … Cody (and I count myself a big one) can only hope her followup to “Juno” will soon be forgotten, an awkward asterisk in a proud career.

He’s not alone. The film is currently at a miserable 34 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

Here we are, at what looks to be the end of print publishing as we know it (whether it will survive or not is uncertainly, but newspapers, as we have known them, are certainly going through a massive transition.) This is an especially interesting time to look back on this documentary, Good Neighbors, produced by a Minnesota newspaper, the Star-Journal, at the start of the golden age of publishing, 1944. The documentary gives a fascinating overview of the then-extraordinarily labor-intensive process of putting out a daily newspaper. (Via.)

I09 introduces us to Serpent Lake, a film apparently set in Minnesota about a murderous lake monster. The trailer is pure cinema trash, but hilariously so.

The trailer for the new coen Brothers movie, A Serious Man, which is set in St. Louis Park in the 60s and was lensed around the suburbs of the Twin Cities (and also features a lot of local talent). I’ll send you to City Pages to watch it, as they also feature a breakdown of the film’s plot, which you’re not going to get from the trailer.