Friday, August 10, 2007

cowboys herding cats

A Crying Shame and a Waste

My old friend, Michael Berry, has been charged with 23 more sex offenses.

Regardless of how this may resolve, of how guilty or innocent he may be, let me put something on the record.

I feel sad for anyone who may have been victimized by Michael, and I also feel sad for Michael.

He is described in the press as a man who taught acting and who directed.

Well, he was a great teacher and a great director.

Anyone who knew him, knew that he was fatally hot-wired for young women. What we didn't know was that he may have also been a pedophile and pornographer, and that's a disaster for all.

He was a friend and colleague and wonderful director.

Rip-Off Films May Leave - Boo Effing Hoo


Kirk Shaw is full of it.


And Yvonne Zacharias tells only half the story.


Mr. Shaw, the President of the hysterically Over-Named Insight Films, has threatened to close down his movie making Maple Ridge shop and move it to Hungary or somewhere if the IATSE union keeps trying to sign up members who work on his dreadful movies.


Bye, Kirk.


Ms. Zacharias has written a wonderfully slanted piece in today's paper.


What she has forgotten to tell the uninformed reader is that a) Mr. Shaw's movies are unwatchable (I've been in several lately and tried to watch...yikes! Kill the DVD and go back to Deal or No Deal), and b) that he has been making a personal fortune for years by getting away with paying starving and desperate actors minus 25% of scale wages to drive out to badly made sets and freezing trailers in Maple Ridge at 6 in the morning, and c) even his casting people are incompetent amateurs. (Last week, a girl hired to read with me in an audition started in the middle of the scene. Last month, the camera operator started fixing her pony tale in the middle of a scene.)


The movie business is all smoke and mirrors. That a reporter for a major newspaper would not see through the obvious bull is a crying shame and an indicator of somethingorother.


Kirk, baby...have a nice trip and watch out for the potatoes and cole slaw...they'll mess with your digestion.