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Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, who championed the Greenlight concept, theoretically drew inspiration from their experience as the Oscar-winning writers of Good Will Hunting. Yet more cynical observers see the entire experiment as a case of Hollywood striking back, with [Pete Jones], and now [Efram Potelle] and [Kyle Rankin], having essentially been set up to fail. A disastrous film shoot, after all, makes for a more engrossing TV show, which is arguably the more significant component when you amortize the film's puny $1-million budget over a dozen episodes.
Project Greenlight needs a red light -- it's headed for the big train wreck
HOLLYWOOD -- Among the messages conveyed by television's onslaught of "reality" programming is the notion that anyone, given the opportunity, can become famous -- as talent, dating and contest shows keep birthing instant stars, even if most tend to go nova faster than the average boy band.
Lately, however, there have been a few reminders that with Hollywood, breaking in is hard to do -- best demonstrated by the awkward flailing of two fellows simultaneously tossed behind the cameras to make a movie and in front of them for our amusement.
That would be Efram Potelle and Kyle Rankin, the directing duo currently featured on Project Greenlight, the HBO series that chronicles a film production from unproven writers and directors chosen via an Internet contest. In the latest documentary (at least as it's been edited), the two come across as inept tackling dummies, stumbling through their assignment each week in what has become a less-than-enticing prelude to The Battle of Shaker Heights, a coming- of-age tale due for theatrical release by Miramax later this month.
Departing from all those shows that depict Hollywood as being more about geography than talent, Greenlight flashes a red light, in its way saying, "Hey losers, this isn't as easy as it looks." That was certainly true of the film that came out of the first Project Greenlight in 2001-02, writer-director Pete Jones' Stolen Summer. Times critic Kenneth Turan spoke for many by calling it "feeble," proceeding to label as flawed the premise "that anyone off the street is fit to write and direct a motion picture if only they want it badly enough."
From what TV viewers have seen, it's hard to imagine Shaker Heights is going to be much better, which hasn't prevented a small but loyal audience from growing addicted to the "making of" show -- proof that watching trains hurtle toward each other is often more fun than viewing the actual wreckage.
Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, who championed the Greenlight concept, theoretically drew inspiration from their experience as the Oscar-winning writers of Good Will Hunting. Yet more cynical observers see the entire experiment as a case of Hollywood striking back, with Jones, and now Potelle and Rankin, having essentially been set up to fail. A disastrous film shoot, after all, makes for a more engrossing TV show, which is arguably the more significant component when you amortize the film's puny $1-million budget over a dozen episodes.
By turning the winners into sacrificial lambs, the series teaches a not-too-subtle lesson to the world's wannabes that insiders are there for a reason. This idea that succeeding in show business requires more than hunger is similarly reinforced, wittingly or not, by Gay Hollywood, an AMC special premiering Monday that focuses on five young men looking for their break.
(Copyright Vancouver Sun 2003)