Monthly Archive: December 2013

Michael Davis: An Open Letter To Debbie Allen

Michael Davis: An Open Letter To Debbie Allen

Next week, Milestones: African Americans in Comics, Pop Culture and Beyond opens at the Geppi Entertainment Museum. The show features unbelievable art from amazing artists and have been in the works for almost two years.

I was fortunate enough to be asked to curate a show on African American pop art by Missy Geppi, the president of the museum. I was and still am humbled to be chosen for such an honor. I immediately reached out to Tatiana EL-Khouri and John Jennings. Tatiana as co-curator John as adviser. I’ve known both Tatiana and John since the start of their careers. I was a mentor to Tatiana and I’ve advised John over the years and now he’s advising me.

Every now and then Tatiana or John will, out of nowhere, thank me for something or other I’ve frankly forgotten about. It’s always nice to hear and although I may have forgotten exactly what I did or said they are referring to they always remember me.

I’ve been in L.A. since 1994 and it seems I’ve been reminding myself since then to look up and thank Debbie Allen. Debbie’s former husband Win Wilford, then head of publicly at CBS Records, gave me my third professional job. I designed and illustrated an invitation for a Luther Vandross after party. The party followed Luther’s first performance as a solo act opening for Chaka Kahn.

Debbie Allen is an actress, dancer, choreographer, television director, television producer, and a member of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities.

She’s done remarkable work from choreographing the Academy Awards for ten years, six of which were consecutive to developing and producing Amistad directed by Steven Spielberg.

Below is an edited version for ComicMix of a letter I sent to Debbie. I’ve taken out all my career highlights so as to focus not on what I’ve done but why I was able to do it and that was because of words of encouragement from people like her.

Dear Debbie,

I’m sure many in emails, letters, and social media have told you how much of an inspiration you have been.

Although you may not have met them you have reached them as you reached me. In fact I can remember the very moment when you did. I was in your Mount Vernon home for a New Year’s Eve Party (81? 82?) sitting by myself in your kitchen.

I was a young artist at the start of my career attending a party filled with all sorts of successful people. An artist, (a broke ass one at that) was not, I felt a worthy enough occupation to roll with those I’d seen on TV or who’s music I’d heard on the radio.

You came into the kitchen, saw me sitting there and asked me why that was. I’d like to say I spent at least some time trying to avoid sharing my self-pity…nope.

I started to tell you how I was feeling but after a few (if that many) sentences you stopped me and said what to this day I’ve never forgotten; “Michael, Win and I invited you because you are a talented artist, we like you and know you will be a success. You belong here and would not be here if we thought otherwise.”

What you said next is what I hope will make you remember me. “I didn’t drive all the way to Queens to pick you up so you can sit in the kitchen.”

Yep.

You and a driver who’s name I don’t remember drove to my apartment in Queens on New Year’s Eve to pick me up.

Your former husband Win, commissioned a number of paintings from me. One, a large watercolor of a proud 1930’s black man was the centerpiece in your Harlem brownstone even before the renovation was done.

I had no idea it was framed and displayed such as it was until I came to your new home to show Win sketches for a new commission. I was blown away.

“Debbie choose that spot.”

Yep. ;-)

I’ve been blessed in my career thanks in no small part to you, Win and a handful of others.

I’ve wanted to reach out to you for years. Something always came up. Well, I’ve never been as busy as I am now. It’s Thanksgiving Debbie and I’m thankful for your part in my life and career. So, yes I’m busy but this thank you is just as important and long overdue.

I’d love to sit and catch up and if you like I’ll pick you up. I owe you a ride ;-)

From the very bottom my my long winded heart,

Thank you.

Win Wiford took an interest in me and because of that he and Debbie were my first and only patrons. One year, the sale of art to them was my only income.

Without that income who knows what decision I would have made as to my career choice? If Debbie had not spoken those words to me maybe my self-pity would have gotten the best of me and the next day I’m applying for some job I didn’t want doing something I didn’t love.

That didn’t happen and what did happen Debbie was a part of and for that I’ll be forever grateful.

WEDNESDAY MORNING: Mike Gold

THURSDAY MORNING: Dennis O’Neil

 

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The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Tweeks Special

The-Tributes-of-the-75th-Hunger-Games-catching-fire-movie-35052815-2498-916 Because last weekend was jammed packed with awesomeness for The Tweeks, we’ve got an extra installment this week! On Friday November 22nd, Maddy and Anya caught an Imax screening of the blockbuster The Hunger Games: Catching Fire on opening day. They even wore costumes to the theater! Here’s their review, brimming with the fever pitch excitement and enthusiasm for the event tweens the world over have been waiting for!

 

Watch now! Then go see the movie for yourself (if you haven’t yet!)

Mindy Newell: Stuffing Ourselves

Newell Art 131202I may have been a nice Jewish girl, but my family loved Christmas time. It started at Thanksgiving, when we watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade and watched Santa on his sleigh welcome the holiday season to New York. We lived on a block trisected by three streets, and in the middle of this triangle was an island. On this island was a tall, beautiful spruce fir. Every year after Thanksgiving all us neighbors went out and had a block party and the fathers hung lights on the tree, making it into our own private tannenbaum.

Every year my mom took my brother, two of our friends and me into the city on Christmas Eve. We skated at the ice rink at Rockefeller Center and then went across the street to watch the movie (I particularly remember Father Goose, with Cary Grant and Leslie Caron) and the Christmas Show at Radio City Music Hall, which always included the nativity scene with camels and elephants and horses and donkeys walking across the stage and the angels singing O Holy Night and Adestes Fideles (Come, All Ye Faithful) and ending with the Rockettes performing the “March Of The Wooden Soldiers,” complete with the high kick line.

Sometimes when we came out of the theater it was snowing, and we would walk with flakes falling on our shoulders and our hats and feeling the magic of the night down Fifth Avenue to look at the Christmas windows of Saks and Lord & Taylor, which were always amazing, animated dioramas and for which there were always lines and lines of families enjoying the night, too. And then we’d get home and my mother and father would tuck us into bed and hang up our Santa stockings and my brother and I would go to sleep with visions of sugarplums dancing in our heads.

And it all started with Thanksgiving, when we stuffed ourselves on turkey and brisket and family and friends and love.

That was once upon a time.

“I think commercialism helps Christmas and I think that the more capitalism we can inject into the Christmas holiday the more spiritual I feel about it ”

Craig Ferguson

“Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before! What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas…perhaps…means a little bit more!”

Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

“Money’s scarce

Times are hard

Here’s your fucking

Xmas card”

Phyllis Diller

“Thanksgiving openings are the new normal.”

Jose Pagliery, Money, CNN.com, November 30, 2013

Here’s a list of chain stores that were open on Thanksgiving: Wal•Mart. Target. Best Buy. Sears. Staples. J.C. Penney. Macy’s. Toy R Us. Old Navy. Kohl’s. Lord & Taylor. Michael’s. Express. Dick’s Sporting Goods. Abercrombie & Fitch. K-Mart. And most of the larger shopping malls.

I am disgusted.

I thought it would stop after the 2008 death of Jdimytai Damour. Remember him? As the New York Times reported on November 29 of that year, “Mr. Damour, 34, who was known to his friends as Jimbo, or Jdidread because of his dreadlocks, got his job at Wal•Mart through Labor Now, an agency for temporary workers. He had been trying to hold back a crush of shoppers pressing against the store’s sliding-glass double doors, the authorities said. Just before the store’s scheduled 5 a.m. opening, they said, the doors shattered under the weight of the crowd. Mr. Damour was thrown to the floor and trampled”

Wal•Mart was fined only $7,000 by the Occupational Safety Health Administration (OSHA), the branch of the Labor Department responsible for employee health and safety. And, according to the Huffington Post, they are still fighting that charge – “For a company with sales of $466 billion last fiscal year, the $7,000 fine from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration represents little more than a single store’s rounding error. Wal•Mart would have vastly outspent that sum simply in legal fees devoted to fighting the penalty. But the world’s largest retailer is less concerned with the monetary fine than with the broader implications of the case. A negative ruling could compel Wal-Mart and other retail companies like it to take additional safety precautions for workers or face new liabilities.”

And you wonder why I’m disgusted?

But surprisingly, at least to me, I discovered – after doing a little research on the web – that Wal•Mart, the most succesful “Big Box” store, did not start this atrocity. It was K-Mart, which has opened its doors to Turkey Day shoppers since 1991. Of course many supermarkets and grocery stores have always been open on Thanksgiving, at least for a few hours, to the “Thank God’s!” of all the cooks who find themselves suddenly short on stuffing or cranberry sauce or coffee or any of the numerous condiments used when preparing the big bird. I can remember making a few runs to Shop-Rite and Shelley’s for my mom over the years, and those memories are further back than 22 years. And of course I’m aware of the importance of Thanksgiving weekend to the year’s bottom line being in the black instead of the red for retailers.

But I’m still disgusted.

And I am sure that next year even more stores will be open.

Just so we can stuff ourselves on Thanksgiving.

TUESDAY MORNING: Glenn Hauman

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis

 

See Summit’s The Legend of Hercules New One-Sheet

Her_KA_R1_02_ps_f3.0SANTA MONICA, CA  November 12, 2013 – Summit Entertainment, a LIONSGATE® (NYSE: LGF) company, has acquired U.S. distribution rights to Millennium Films’ action-adventure HERCULES: THE LEGEND BEGINS starring Kellan Lutz (THE TWILIGHT SAGA, the upcoming THE EXPENDABLES 3) and directed by Renny Harlin (DIE HARD 2, CLIFFHANGER).  Summit will release the film in 3D and 2D nationwide on February 7, 2014.  The deal was announced today by Lionsgate Motion Picture Group Co-Chairs Rob Friedman and Patrick Wachsberger, and Avi Lerner, Chairman of Millennium Films.

Lutz stars as Hercules, the mythical Greek hero, demigod and son of Zeus.  Betrayed by his King and sold into slavery, Hercules must use his formidable strength to fight for his freedom and return to his true love, Hebe, the Princess of Crete (played by Gaia Weiss).

The supporting cast includes Scott Adkins (THE EXPENDABLES 2), Liam McIntyre (Spartacus), Liam Garrigan (Strike Back), Johnathon Schaech (Ray Donovan, The Client List), Roxanne McKee (Game Of Thrones) and Rade Serbedzija (Red Widow).  Screenplay is by Daniel Gliat.  Producers are Danny Lerner, Les Weldon, Boaz Davidson and Renny Harlin.  Executive Producers are Avi Lerner, Trevor Short and John Thompson.

“We look forward to working with Millennium to bring this larger-than-life hero to theaters and action fans in the new year,” said Friedman and Wachsberger.  “We are also very proud to work on a project starring Kellan, with whom we have grown very close throughout the release of all five TWILIGHT SAGA films as well as the production of THE EXPENDABLES 3 scheduled for release next year.”

“We’re thrilled to be expanding our relationship with the very talented team at Lionsgate and Summit, who had such extraordinary success with Kellan in THE TWILIGHT SAGA franchise and with whom we have a great partnership on THE EXPENDABLES franchise,” Lerner said. “And I’m very pleased that ours will be the first movie in the 21st century to reintroduce modern audiences to this classic, timeless story.”

The deal was negotiated on behalf of Lionsgate and Summit by Jason Constantine, Lionsgate’s President of Acquisitions and Co-Productions, Eda Kowan, Lionsgate’s SVP of Acquisitions, and Wendy Jaffe, Lionsgate’s EVP of Business & Legal Affairs for Acquisitions & Co-Productions, and on behalf of Millennium by Avi Lerner and Mark Gill.

Synopsis

In the epic origin story THE LEGEND OF HERCULES, Kellan Lutz stars as the mythical Greek hero – the son of Zeus, a half-god, half-man blessed with extraordinary strength.  Betrayed by his stepfather, the King, and exiled and sold into slavery because of a forbidden love, Hercules must use his formidable powers to fight his way back to his rightful kingdom.  Through harrowing battles and gladiator-arena death matches, Hercules embarks on a legendary odyssey to overthrow the King and restore peace to the land.

U.S. release via SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT on January 10, 2014.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0GMzQwO2l0&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]

John Ostrander: ‘Tis the Season

ostrander-art-131201-150x184-7689597Well, it’s the First of December and the Christmas Season is well and truly and legitimately upon us. As I’ve noted before, I really do love this time of year and I love Christmas stories, none more than A Christmas Carol, written by Charles Dickens and turned into umpty-bum versions in the movies, on television, and on the stage.

I appeared in a stage version at Chicago’s Goodman Theater for many years. The Goodman was and I think still is the biggest professional theater in the Chicago area but every year it hit a hole in its schedule around Christmastime. They took note that the famed Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, MN, performed A Christmas Carol. Starting in 1977, the Goodman decided to also produce a stage version of Dicken’s classic. They asked a veteran of the Guthrie production, Tony Mockus Sr., to direct their show.

I was cast in various absolutely vital roles like Fred’s Friend #3, Mr. Lean (or was it Mr. Round?), Dancing Man, and “Ensemble.” I did it for years and was always grateful for the opportunity if for no other reason than the Goodman paid top dollar to actors; it was great to have that bit of income at the end of the year. My very good friend, William J. Norris, was cast as Ebenezer Scrooge. Bill was and is a great actor but I used to joke that as Scrooge he really only had to “act” during the final scenes of the show, after Scrooge was reformed and loved everyone and loved Christmas. Bill sometimes is the original Humbug and takes pride in it, I believe.

For all the fact that A Christmas Carol has become a tradition at the Goodman (a rather lucrative one, I might add), it was far from a sure bet when it began. There were a lot of actors and even more costumes, sets sliding on and off, special effects and actors flying through the air. During the long technical rehearsals, there were serious questions whether or not it would all ever come together.

Due to the schedule, we had to work on Thanksgiving, doing a full dress rehearsal. Being away from my family was a little tough but the Goodman generously sprang for Thanksgiving dinner catered in the rehearsal room and we were allowed to invite guests. I invited my Mom and my stepfather and it was very cool feeling; I had often eaten Thanksgiving at her place and now she was, more or less, eating at my place – my current theatrical home. After dinner, all the guests were also invited to the dress rehearsal. They were warned we might have to stop if a problem cropped up (it was still a rehearsal, after all) but my memory of the night was it all came off well.

However, we were all still jittery as opening night came. Even if it all came off as we wanted, would the audience like it? The Goodman had a lot invested in the production; the sets and costumes et al would pay off better as they were used again and again in the following years. If this first production flopped, there would not be subsequent productions and the Goodman would have to eat the expense. It was not a cheap show to produce. It wasn’t in the vicinity of Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark costs but they were substantial for the time and the place.

Opening night went without a hitch, the audiences gave us a standing ovation, and as they left the theater a gentle snow began falling. We all wondered how the special effects team managed that. They never copped to it but had mysterious smiles that suggested more than they said.

Personally, I credit Tony Mockus, Sr., one of the nicest people I’ve ever met in the theater and a very religious guy. I think he put in a word with the Big Guy/Gal.

It was also during this first production of A Christmas Carol that I met Del Close. Del was already a legend in Chicago theater as director/teacher over at Second City and also for who he was. I had heard he was a Satanist, which was untrue. He was a practicing witch by his own admission (he even wore a pentacle under his costume for the show) and he had been cast as the Ghost of Christmas Present – who is a pretty Bacchus like character and thus good casting. I was pretty square in those days and he was a real Bohemian. He was also my roommate in the dressing rooms. To be honest, I was a bit terrified of him and his reputation.

I needn’t have been. Del was affable and cordial and, to tell the truth, a little bit nervous about his part (he needn’t have been; he got glowing reviews, as did the entire production). He was also a big fan of science fiction and of comics. He was just one of the best read persons I’ve ever met. Our working relationship in comics (Munden’s Bar, Wasteland) stemmed from sharing that dressing room.

My different parts in the show often required me to tear off my clothes in the wings on one side, throw on another costume, rush to the other side of the stage behind the back wall, and become part of a crowd scene. One year as I was doing that in one of the last performances of the year, I was crossing the stage, trying to “be in the moment” as we say in acting circles, and my mind was saying, “You know, you could be making a lot more money at the typewriter.” My comics writing career had started not long before and was in the upswing. As I exited offstage, I realized that my theater career was ending. I finished the run and then retired to be a full time writer.

I’ll never forget or regret those days in A Christmas Carol. I made a lot of friends and have nothing but fond memories of that time. Thanksgiving has just passed but I’ll just say that those productions are one of the big things in my life for which I am thankful.

God bless us every one.

MONDAY MORNING: Mindy Newell

TUESDAY MORNING: Not Emily S. Whitten, but…

 

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