Welcome to Forgotonia

As some of you know, I have an annoying habit of quoting Entertainment Weekly.

I’m really not trying to annoy you.

I just do it because I soak up a lot of interesting information from this publication on a regular basis. [Ok, lame excuse. True reason = I just kind have a Cliff Claven-ish part to my personality.]

But once a week, I do go to the Audio Information Services department at Tri States Public Radio to read aloud and record 30 minutes of material from the mag. It is later broadcast to people with vision- and learning disabilities in the Tri-State area.

[The reason I'm telling you this part is not because I'm Cliff Claven-ish but because I obviously want a ticket straight to heaven. Hee hee jk, jk.]

I really like my little gig of reading Entertainment Weekly.

In case you think this is nothing to really be excited about, consider my heightened status within the Audio Info Services:

when I first started volunteering for them, they had me reading “Cat Fancy.”

As in, a magazine with detailed–highly, highly detailed–articles about things like Feline IBS. Which, for the uninitiated [like, you must live in another country where they don't air pharmaceutical commercials 24/7], stands for Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

In cats.

Anyway.

All of this is to say, I have a sweet gig within the Audio Info Services system, and while I am doing my good deed for the week, I get to soak up stuff that serves my own selfish purposes.

Like this update on the new Johnny Depp movie, “Public Enemies.”

As I mentioned awhile back, this movie–which is about gangster John Dillinger– has a tie to our region.

The little-known fact [copyright Cliff Claven] is that a guy from Galesburg allowed for the use of his car, a 1935 Hudson Terra-plane, in the movie.

So here’s the recent deets:

In the latest Entertainment Weekly, (in a movie preview for 2009), Depp talks about how artifacts and 1930s period items lent a depth of reality to the filming that helped him get into character.

[I can't seem to find the article online, but EW did post a sidebar, a short Q&A with Depp about playing Dillinger, here.]

For example, Depp got to see an actual suitcase of Dillinger’s–fully preserved–in which the man’s dress shirts were still neatly folded. Depp told EW that seeing this gave him an insight into the fact that Dillinger had to be economical and prepared and always on the run.

And, perhaps more intriguingly, Depp said he even got to wear the actual pair of pants Dillinger was wearing when he was shot down [although I don't quite get how-- I mean, like, hello bullet holes? That's a situation where having Shout Wipes handy is just not going to help.]

So it’s interesting to wonder: maybe the Galesburg guy’s car also helped Depp feel really tied to the time period too?

Next: I wonder if there’s any news on the Matt Damon / Decatur, IL front? [See “My Friend’s Dad and Matt Damon: Six Donuts of Separation.” I’ll keep you posted.

I’m going to see “Sex and the City: The Movie” tonight! Whoo-hoo!

However, I, along with my gang of gals from Forgotonia, will be making a mad dash out of Macomb after work to make the hour-long drive to Galesburg, and squeeze in a meal beforehand, to catch the 6:40 showing.

(The two-screen megaplex in Macomb is still offering “Caspian,” I think, and the cinematic genius that “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan*” appears to be.)

Then we’ll be rushing back home in the darkness to try to get home in decent time, since we all have jobs/kids/lives to tend to tomorrow.)

If we were Carrie and the gang, of course, being out late on a weeknight would not bother us. (And none of us would actually ever be doing any work, either…but that’s beside the point…..)

*I still have yet to find an exception to the rule that you can judge the quality of a movie, sitcom or band by the crappiness of its title.

My friend’s dad has a new movie gig.

It’s been several years since his appearance as an extra in “Legally Blonde II.”

(For scenes that were supposed to be taking place in the White House, the “Blonde” film crew came to Springfield, IL, to use the more accessible state capitol building. My friend’s Dad drove from his home in nearby Rushville to get a chance to appear in the background.

At the time, he enjoyed a red-carpet-roll-out, literally, at the local movie theatre. And, if you make it to the end of at the very end of that painfully bad movie, if you’re looking out for him, you can catch a two-second flash of him in the background.)

Anyway, ever since then he’s hoped to do more movie stuff.

But it’s hard to get movie work if you’re a downstater.

If you live in Chicago you could probably turn exra-ing into a part-time job.

I met a kid last year, a Western student from the suburbs who, every time he was home on a break, would make a few bucks by popping into the city and appearing as a crowd member any time he could. He said he thought he was on set of the Jennifer Aniston/ Vince Vaugh pic “The Breakup,” but he wasn’t sure because, as he’d learned by this seasoned point in his career, the real name of a movie-in-progress was rarely revealed.

And btw, as we speak, Hollywood filmmakers are in Chicago. They’re filming a Johnny Depp pic about the 1930′s gangster John Dillinger. Which, by the way, has a pretty cool connection to Galesburg. And the subject of which, by the way, should not be confused with Rick Derringer of “Rock And Roll Hoochie-coo.”)

Anyway, it’s a bit less frequent, of course, that Hollywood filmmakers, when coming to Illinois, would be filming anywhere other than Chicago.

Arguably, with its sports legends, legendary underworld mob bosses, skyscapers—and, um, population—it’s only natural that the camera crews, if they come to Illinois, land in Chicago rather than a place like… well, say Decatur.

But Decatur is where Matt Damon is now filming a movie. (And according to this web site, his character requires him to look like Ned Flanders.)

I’ve lived my entire existence in Illinois, but couldn’t locate Decatur on a map without a lit bit of finger-hovering. I know there’s some connection between it and “MacArthur Park” (?). I’ve heard people say it’s somehow a “rough” town—although in “lots-of-crime” way or “blue-collar-dominated” way, I’m not sure.

So it’s a pretty big deal that this movie is being filmed in such a very un-Chicago location.

The Decatur paper even offers a web site chronicling Decatur-area Matt Damon sightings.

And as this story confirms,

Matt Damon Headed To Decatur
Reported by: Amanda Evans/ WCIA 3 News
Friday, Mar 7, 2008 @10:12pm CST

DECATUR- A real life corporate scandal is bringing a big time move star to Decatur. Matt Damon has set his sights on the soy city to play a whistle blower caught in the 90′s in a multi million dollar price fixing scam by ADM.
Although the film digs up some dirt about a major corporation in Decatur. [sic] Most the people in town sound pretty excited.. to hear their town could see it’s [sic] name in lights on the big screen.
Skip Huston, theater owner says, “I think it’s pretty groovy tell you the truth.”

When my friend’s dad, named Jim, found out about the movie being filmed in Decatur, he headed out to see if he could get a spot. But on his way out of town, he decided to stop by a place in Rushville to purchase a gift for the casting crew.

(Perhaps this would be a good place to mention that my friend’s dad is, [as you will surely agree by the time you read his quotes below], is one of the real “true characters” you will ever meet in life.)

Anyway, he arrives at the casting trailer, or whatever, for this upcoming Steven Soderbergh film, bearing… gifts.

Several weeks go by.

Jim drives back, and, apparently, sees his picture up on a wall “next to a bunch of women.” (This meant, he says, “He liked me.” He meaning Soderbergh.)

He tries to put a word in for himself, ask around, etc. And, apparently, he is told by some official-seeming person, “Yeah, we remember you–hey, where did you get those donuts? Do you know where we can get some more like that again? Everyone really liked those…”

Eventually—on his own merit or because he came bearing braids is, I suppose, up for debate—Jim got himself a job. He’s going to be a lawyer. (Interestingly, his “role” in the Reese movie was that of a senator.) He’s been told to wear khakis and polo shirts.

He also may be providing his 1995 purple Camaro (which, my friend reported with a roll of her eyes, her dad showed to the head honchos by providing pictures he had taken in that year. Pictures in which my friend, in what was our senior year of high school, has “my bangs all, you know [waves hand above forehead]. Great.”

Unfortunately, I cannot offer visual proof of said bangs.

BUT, thankfully, this week brought written proof of my dad’s friends story, thanks this article from The Rushville Times:

Rushville Man Bidding for Role in Matt Damon Film
By ALAN ICENOGLE [who btw I think is my own relative!]

He wants to be in pictures and he’s done it twice now.

Rushville resident Jim Farrar, who many will remember for his role of sitting in the legislature in the 2003 film “Legally Blonde 2, Red White and Blonde,” starring Reese Witherspoon, probably will be showing up alongside (or well in back of) Matt Damon when the movie “The Informant” is released in 2009.

The film is based on the book by the same name by Kurt Eichenwald, chronicling the Archer Daniels Midland price fixing scandal in the early 1990s. Damon plays the role of Mark Whitacre, a rising star in the ADM corporation, who blew the whistle to the FBI on a price fixing scheme by the corporation.

Filming for the movie is being done in Decatur, Springfield, Chicago and other areas in Central Illinois. [Come west! come west! You know there's got to be a scene in this movie written for Colchester or Tennessee! Please, pretty please?]

Farrar and his Camaro recently responded [um, sic] to calls for extras and travelled to Decatur where he was hired to appear as an extra in a scene. Farrar said he and one other man are in the background of the scene shot at a Decatur motel swimming pool with Damon and co-star Scott Bakula.[the dude from "Quantum Leap"!! Yess!]

Farrar’s Camaro also may make an appearance since the producers also needed vehicles from the early 1990s for the movie.

“I really like doing this and getting into these movies,” said Farrar, who is retired from the City of Rushville. “It’s the best work I’ve ever done – a lot better than mowing yards.”

When first visiting with the casting agency for the job, Farrar said he took a box of doughnuts from Rogers Bakery in Rushville as a gift.

“They loved them,” he said. “They called me the doughnut guy.”

Farrar knows better than to get his hopes too high about the movie business, however. “It’s a cruel business,” he said.

“I think that since there are just the two extras in the scene I could get mentioned in the credits, but it could end up on the cutting room floor with the other broken dreams.”

How cool is THIS?

Last night, during the Oscars, Javier Bardem’s speech was one of the night’s first heartfelt, sincere-seeming moments; after starting out in English, he then thanked, in Spanish, his family and the people of Spain—which got my attention because I thought he was from Mexico.

During a commercial break I called my mom to say hi, and we chatted about the show, Bardem’s speech, and how our weekends had been going.

Then, like totally as an afterthought, she goes, “Oh, listen to this.”

She told me that several years ago, a guy from Carthage, (a guy whose father is a well-known Carthage businessman) lived in Spain for awhile working as an English tutor and teacher, and one of his former students? None other than Javier Bardem.

And what’s even cooler than that?

The person who taught Javier Bardem’s tutor how to speak Spanish?

Mi madre!