The JIMMY HOLLYWOOD trailer commentary track.

https://soundcloud.com/terry-mccarty-92671538/the-jimmy-hollywood-trailer-commentary-track

Play the above over this 1994 trailer:

https://youtu.be/w_lphmbPUwE

On its 20th anniversary, surveying and surviving the trauma of JIMMY HOLLYWOOD.

On this date twenty years ago, the comedy/drama JIMMY HOLLYWOOD opened.  I was one of its three stand-ins; none of us received screen credit for our seven to eight weeks of labor--ce'st la vie.

JIMMY HOLLYWOOD opened against the cinematic competition of MAJOR LEAGUE 2 and FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL.  It stiffed.  The audience didn't like it/didn't think it was funny or involving/didn't care for its takes on would-be actors and Instant Fame in an era seven years before SURVIVOR unleashed a floodtide of TV stars cast for reasons other than talent or conventional training in acting.

A few months after its release, JIMMY HOLLYWOOD was recut for VHS/DVD release (in some ways, an improvement over the theatrical cut).  Though it has some supporters, it sank into the cinematic equivalent of the La Brea Tar Pits, now so devoid of market value it can be seen for free by clicking the following link:
http://viooz.co/movies/19930-jimmy-hollywood-1994.html

Perhaps the lasting impact of JIMMY HOLLYWOOD was that it served as a laboratory for its director.  The shoot-an-A-picture-fast approach was later applied to WAG THE DOG, more universally acclaimed critically and successful at the boxoffice.

I've written before about the unpleasant work atmosphere of JIMMY HOLLYWOOD as I perceived/experienced it.

Here's a quick precis: some crew members on the film were decent and generous to me (and I tried my best to reciprocate).  Others' behavior ranged from patronizing to contemptuous to hostile to downright vicious, seizing on any mistakes I may have made as a way of venting anger they couldn't display to people equal or higher on the filmmaking ladder.

I was scared of not measuring up and being fired--and two decades later, time and distance have enabled me to accept that other crewpeople were fearful for the same reasons and there were some things I could and should have taken less personally.  But, at the time, it was quite difficult for me to be detached enough to have a Big Picture view of what a key crew member of JIMMY referred to as "this madness."

Twenty years later, I write poetry and try to sell books and e-books of my work.  It's not always an easy vocation/avocation, but at least I've moved on with my life.

And, if I make a mistake, I can correct it without the paralyzing worry that I'm causing a hundred crew members to stop in their tracks and wait for me to get it right.

When stand-up comedy becomes Theatre of Casual Cruelty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNOwXkGyXPQ

There's a story behind the not-that-funny stand-up comedy video I've posted here.

Two decades ago this summer, I worked on a film called JIMMY HOLLYWOOD as a stand-in for Joe Pesci.  Carlos Kotkin, in his pre-comedy days, was a production assistant on the film; part of his duties involved being an assistant to the female lead, Victoria Abril.

I remember Carlos as being deadpan and with a bit of a sardonic edge.  He worked hard and made it through the film shoot (which, from my point of view, was uberstressful).

On one hand, I'm glad that Carlos has a show business career (in addition to doing stand-up, he has a book titled PLEASE GOD LET IT BE HERPES, for which the following is a promotional video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFUP_hGyHfo), but it seems like he's content with doing lowest-common-denominator comedy where you make people laugh in a lazy, uncreative way by merely feeding the audience's prejudices about homeless street people and dating disasters (whiff of misogyny here) back to them.

But he's making a living--even if it's derived from figurative urination on misfortune, dysfunction and poverty for audiences his age and younger.

And I'm hoping to never be part of his audience and/or be a subject of one of his routines.

Mel Gibson then and now.

I posted this on Facebook last night:
Was a stand-in for Joe Pesci on LETHAL WEAPON 3. Never met Mel but he was mostly subdued and seemed to only speak to his male assistant. There was one day (filming at the Warner Ranch inside the interior Murtaugh house set) when work stopped for Jeffrey Boam to do some rewriting--and Mel, Darlene Love and other crewpeople sat around talking to each other. Normal behavior from him on that occasion. One day, a boy accompanied by parents came to the set (assuming it was a meet-and-greet sort of thing). Mel had lunch with him (during the regular cast-and-crew break) and was cordial.



So, no forebodings of bad behavior to come--which began surfacing a few years later when his homophobic comments appeared in the U.S. press.


We're witnessing a spectacular and horrifying implosion of soneone consumed by a plethora of demons.
[UPDATE 7/12/10: Here's another of the leaked-to-RadarOnline tapes of Mel arguing at high R-rated volume with Oksana, with the most ugly statements coming in the final portion--http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2010/07/exclusive-new-audio-mel-gibson-admits-hitting-oksana-threatens-kill-her-listen-it]

Yes, it's true: Barry Levinson's JIMMY HOLLYWOOD to get a Blu-Ray DVD release.

JIMMY HOLLYWOOD on Blu-Ray--http://www.amazon.com/Jimmy-Hollywood-Blu-ray-Joe-Pesci/dp/B003H14DG6/ref=sr_1_55?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1278406667&sr=1-55

No need to discuss this again--suffice to say I was a stand-in for Joe Pesci on this film during its shoot from mid-summer to early fall of 1993.  And, to give cinematographer Peter Sova (who also lensed DONNIE BRASCO and LUCKY NUMBER SLEVIN, among other credits) his due, JIMMY HOLLYWOOD (if well-transferred), should retain the grit-and-gloss feel of its theatrical presentation on Blu-Ray.

Although Joe's blonde wig (for the character of Jimmy Alto) these days reminds one of Phil Spector's hairpiece in the circa-2003 interview clips promoting the new documentary THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY OF PHIL SPECTOR.

Some films to create your own Dennis Hopper retrospective with.

Some suggestions for at-home cineastes who want to program their own Dennis Hopper festival before museums and revival theaters follow suit:
EASY RIDER, REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, TRUE ROMANCE, APOCALYPSE NOW ORIGINAL AND/OR REDUX, RUMBLE FISH, BLUE VELVET, HOOSIERS, BACKTRACK [one of Hopper-as-director's most idiosyncratic films with a spectacularly diverse cast including Hopper, Vincent Price, Joe Pesci, Bob Dylan and Jodie Foster], OUT OF THE BLUE, THE RIVER'S EDGE, ELEGY, SPEED, COLORS, WATERWORLD.

THE LAST MOVIE--a rather controversial art-and-life-imitate-each-other curio from the days (specifically 1970-71) when Universal Pictures gave Hopper, Peter Fonda and Monte Hellman carte blanche to make low-budget counterculture extravaganzas--isn't on DVD yet, but will be worth seeking out for the serious Hopper appreciator. Brad Stevens of the British Film Institute makes a case for THE LAST MOVIE's artistic validity in this article: http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/exclusive/dennis-hopper-obituary.php

Also, KID BLUE (a 1972 comedy-Western with Hopper as a man who doesn't fit in well with early 20th-century life) is worth a look if it resurfaces on Fox Movie Channel.

Taylor Hackford's LOVE RANCH--either a third act or a coda to Joe Pesci's film career.

http://www.avclub.com/articles/longunseen-helen-mirrenjoe-pesci-prostitution-movi,39858/

Having worked as Joe Pesci's stand-in over a two-year stretch in the 90s (THE PUBLIC EYE, LETHAL WEAPON 3, JIMMY HOLLYWOOD), I'd like to see him get one more bite at the apple in the sense of being appreciated as an actor.

Take a look at THE PUBLIC EYE and Pesci's cameo in A BRONX TALE if you don't think he's capable of subtlety and nuance.

Celebrating the upcoming 15th anniversary of the release of JIMMY HOLLYWOOD.

Here's a film-workplace story with some humor and some horror:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYw1Ho9AVec&feature=channel_page

And I'm glad I write poetry now. It satisfies any remaining desires of mine to be a part of show-business-of-sorts without being yelled at and/or being made to feel responsible for the fates of 149 other crewpeople on a set.

In terms of the finished product--
Here's a comment I wrote for Amazon.com in 2004, with some updates:
Barry Levinson's comedy/drama about an actor-turned-Hollywood crimefighter (JoePesci), his skeptical lover (Victoria Abril in a rare English-language performance)and his addled but adoring young friend (Christian Slater) was a fast flop in the spring of 1994--perhaps due to the public's lack of interest inseeing a film about a "loser" eager for a chance to become a "legendary" starlike Errol Flynn and live the glittering Hollywood lifestyle (with a home infashionable West L.A.) and his frustration over that lifestyle remaining forever beyond his reach.

In the 10 years since JIMMY HOLLYWOOD's release, the advent of both the internet and the glut of reality television series make Levinson's taleof an ordinary man thrust into a sort of fast-food version of stardom more relevant than ever [particularly with Nadya Suleman's current fifteen-minutes-plus-fourteen-children period of notoriety].I was Pesci's stand-in on the film, so my opinion isn't completely objective.But I do believe that Barry Levinson is noteworthy for treating audiences with intelligence and respect [although I have some issues with MAN OF THE YEAR,which fumbled its comic-becomes-President premise]. And I believe that JIMMYHOLLYWOOD, underrated and largely unseen over the past nine years, deserves to be rediscovered and re-evaluated on its DVD release.

I'm presuming that this is a bare bones DVD [it was]. But some interesting outtakes should still exist--including a scene of Pesci and Slater singing aLeonard Cohen song called "Democracy".

Since the above piece was written, JIMMY HOLLYWOOD is now available from Lionsgate (offloaded from Paramount) as half a double-bill DVD along with Ron Howard's pretty-much-forgotten American/Japanese culture clash comedy GUNG HO (with Michael Keaton, Gedde Watanabe and Mimi Rogers).