Posts Tagged ‘massachusetts’

It’s summertime summertime sum sum summer-FILM-time! What a fabulous twenty-twelve film season it’s been! The shooting just keeps rolling on in Hollywood East with all this Heat and Labor Day.

Grown Ups 2 is wrapping up this week, in the insanely awesome dome set, and The Way Way Back called it a wrap early last week. Thank you New England boys, Adam Sandler, and Steve Carell! You make our digs bright.

Sure, we crush on cool stars like Kevin James and Sandra Bullock. We are in love with movies made in Massachusetts, but when we get to have a fling on set. Score! Casting notices galore. The LA based Sande Alessi Casting has had us floating in Columbia Pictures extra work this month, even work tomorrow. Boston Casting and C.P keep us smitten all year long.

Have you been on set? Do you want to? Here’s your chance with a  “Club Goer” notice from C.P  looking for EXTRAS EXTRAS early next week for The Heat. It’s a two day commitment and they are seeking attractive, dynamic and fun EXTRAS!  Check out C.P for all the deets.  Also read about the latest posting: An On-Camera acting course at BU. It’s FREE!

Boston Casting is looking for Non- Union Stand Up Comedians/Improvers for a new show going to be shot here in Boston early September. HEC submitted. They are also casting your 70′s car for Labor Day!

In a biz, where we always need to watch what we eat. It was nice to digest the latest bon appetit article with The Way Way Back, Marshvegas boy Steve Carrell who had Dorchester Mark Wahlberg’s back! Questioned about what his last meal on Earth would be. Carell said, “A cheeseburger, fries, and a shake from Wahlburgers, which is owned by Mark Wahlberg and his brothers Donnie and Paul. That burger holds up against all others.” Now that’s two Boston boys sticking together!

As we hang out in the Way Way Back. Let’s continue to support each other too in the roles we all play in the Hollywood East film community of brilliance! Hollywood surrounds us big and small, but what matters most is that we all meet in-between with the passion to be here. Go New England Film and Television.

Massachusetts native and “The Tonight Show” host Jay Leno is heading back to New England to perform live at Connecticut’s Foxwood Resort Casino.  The legendary comedian will be at the resort’s MGM Grand on August 27.

Leno grew up in Andover, Massachusetts and later attended Boston’s Emerson College, earning a degree in speech therapy.  While attending school in Beantown, Leno got his start performing at local comedy clubs. His career really took off when Leno took over for Johnny Carson as host of “The Tonight Show” in 1992. He was involved in a controversy with fellow Massachusetts comedian, Conan O’Brien last year after Leno briefly left the show to O’Brien, only to return as host a few months later.

Tickets are on sale now for Leno’s Foxwoods’s appearance and prices range from $50-$70.

The Peabody Essex Museum will feature installations by experimental filmmaker Peter Hutton, opening July 30.  The exhibit, Freeport : Peter Hutton, will feature two silent films, At Sea and Two Rivers.

Hutton is renown for his silent films of cities and landscapes worldwide, having spent many years voyaging the world as a sea merchant.  He has taught filmmaking at multiple universities including New England schools, Hampshire College and and Harvard University.  The Museum of Modern Art in New York City exhibited a retrospective of Hutton’s work in May, 2008.

“Through the medium of film, Hutton creates quietly astonishing works – reveries of landscape that are akin to slowly moving paintings,” says PEM’s curator of contemporary art, Trevor Smith. “Their patient and meditative quality harkens back to the traditions of painting and the primitive origins of film while connecting broadly to the themes of maritime exploration and environments in transition.”

Both At Sea and Two Rivers reflect Hutton’s oceanic background.  The films track ships on their separate journeys, including Korea, Bangladesh, China and New York.

Located about 15 miles north of Boston in the historic, Salem, MA, The Peabody Essex Museum presents art and culture from New England and around the world.  Check out some local color in Salem and don’t miss this experimental filmmakers work!

Jazz pianist and composer Tuffus Zimbabwe will play a concert next Sunday, at Roxbury’s historic Highland Park.  Zimbabwe, who is a Roxbury native and graduate of Boston’s Berklee College of Music, is currently the keyboardist for the Saturday Night Live Band.

The concert on August 7, will feature Zimbabwe and his group, as well as special guest vocalist Danny McClean.  This free event is a part of Berklee’s Summer in the City concert series, which promotes the preservation of cultural events through music.

Zimbabwe began playing music at the age of 5 and started exploring gospel music at a Roxbury church when he was 12.  He then began to study jazz through Berklee’s City Music Network, which offered him a full scholarship to attend the college as a member of the class of 2005.  He has since taught music through the program as well as at the Piano School of New York City and various youth centers.  Besides his gig on SNL, Zimbabwe plays concerts around the United States with his band.

Denis Leary’s critically acclaimed series, “Rescue Me” premiered its final season on Wednesday, but the comedian is keeping busy with multiple projects, including his charity, The Leary Firefighters Foundation.  The Worcester native maintains a longtime connection with the firefighter community that began long before he starred as fireman Tommy Gavin in the FX dramedy.

After a fire in his hometown claimed the life of his cousin, childhood friend and four other firefighters in 1999, Leary started the foundation to provide financial support for the victims families and providing new equipment for fire departments.  Through his foundation Leary raised over $2 million dollars for the families of firefighters who died on September 11 and donated over a dozen boats to New Orleans fire departments after hurricane Katrina.

Leary’s comedy career is also booming.  He just completed his #ThinningTheHerd Tour, which featured Cambridge native and “Rescue Me” co-star Lenny Clarke.  Leary also recently released a stand-up DVD and a snarky new book.  Also in the works for Leary is the fourth installment of the Ice Age films, in which Leary reprises his role as Diego.

“Rescue Me” premiered in 2004 and will conclude when the seventh series ends on September 7, 2011.  The season will reportedly center on Tommy Gavin’s struggle with 9/11 sightings and his anger at those who continue to benefit financially from the disaster.

Brookline, MA.  native Conan O’Brien has documented his difficult year in late night TV.

“Townie,” Andre Dubus III’s memoir of his youth in Haverhill, Massachusetts, is getting the silver screen treatment.  Dubus announced this month that he signed a contract to penn the screenplay of his best-selling book.

The book chronicles Dubus’ violent teenage and young adult years in the old mill town and how it contradicted the world of his father, a prominent writer.

Dubus did not identify the men who bought the rights to the story, but did say they are two brothers working as actors and producers on the west coast.  He also declined to announce how much he was paid in the deal.

Dubus did say that he plans for a majority of film to be shot in Haverhill and Newburyport, the town his family resided in before his parents’ divorce and their subsequent move to Haverhill.  Dubus revealed it was too soon to say who would be cast in the film, but he plans on being intimately involved in the casting process.

“Townie” will be the second of Dubus’ books to be made into a film.  His 1999 novel, “House of Sand and Fog” became a film in 2003, starring Jennifer Connelly and Ben Kingsley.  The film was nominated for three Academy Awards.

Listen to Dubus’ announcement below to make “Townie” a Hollywood film!

The nanny from Queens is back with a sitcom based on an interesting twist in her marital life.  Fran Drescher’s “Happily Divorced” satires the star’s life after her husband of 18 years revealed he is gay. Portraying Drescher’s newly-outed ex-husband, Peter is Boston native, John Michael Higgins.

Higgins was born in Beantown and attended Amherst college, where he was the leader of the school’s all-male a cappella group.  His acting credits include Boston-based shows “Ally McBeal” and “Boston Legal,” as well as major films, The Break Up, Evan Almighty and Couples Retreat.

“Happily Divorced,” a TV Land original series scored big ratings with its premiere on June 15.  The premiere and three encore episodes drew in 4.4 million viewers, a great success for the ‘Nanny’ and the network.

The series airs on Wednesday nights at 10:30, following TV Land’s smash hit, “Hot In Cleveland”.

Peabody, MA was abuzz this week when Adam Sandler and the cast and crew of his new film,  I Hate You Dad took over the town.  A casting call was held in Boston last month for the new comedy and shooting began in Massachusetts on Monday.

The film crew took over a Peabody apartment complex, converting the building into a graffiti-covered drug house.

While some residents were pestered by the crew’s presence, others were excited to do some stargazing in the Bay State.  Adam Sandler was seen on set, as well as one-hit-wonder Vanilla Ice, who plays a wedding planner in the film.  Sandler was said to have stopped at nearby, Carroll Elementary School to speak to students about summer reading.

Andy Samberg, Leighton Meester, Susan Sarandon and Ian Ziering also star in the comedy, due in theaters next summer.

Jeffrey Donovan, Amesbury, MA native and star of USA’s “Burn Notice” is back for the show’s fifth season, premiering June 23.  Donovan stars as Michael Westen, “burned” spy, forced to start over in his hometown, Miami.

Donovan comes from humble beginnings in Amesbury, where he graduated from Amesbury High School as a member of the school’s drama program.  Thanks to a private scholarship he was able to attend a summer theatre program that jump started his acting career.  He began his college career at Bridgewater State University before transferring to University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he graduated with a BA in theatre.

Giving back to the community that spurred his career, Donovan donated to the Amesbury Education Foundation to create a $10,000 for ten students each year pursuing a fine arts education.