Joe M. O'Connell: May 2012

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

'Machete Kills' seeks extras

Machete is back in Robert Rodriquez's Machete Kills starring the ultra-cool Danny Trejo, and they need extras. An open casting call is slated for Saturday, June 2, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Austin Studios' red building. Men and women ages 18 and up are sought and there is money (though don't expect a lot) involved. Knowning Rodriguez, you'll end up signing some sort of confidentiality agreement.

Some interesting names have joined the cast including Sofia Vergara, Amber Heard and Mel Gibson.

Now the big question is whether they'll seek Texas filming incentives...

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Terrence Malick's Oklahoma film gets a new name

Formerly The Burial, it's now To the Wonder according to The Playlist, and, who knows, this completed film about a love triangle and shot in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, featuring Ben Affleck, Olga Kurylenko, Rachel McAdams, Rachel Weisz, Javier Bardem, Barry Pepper, Michael Sheen and Amanda Peet, may come out soon. First it has to find a U.S. distributor. But, hey, it's rated R for tasteful nudity and is said to have a similar tone to The Tree of Life!

Meanwhile, we're still awaiting more info on Terrence Malick's Texas-set (and to be Texas shot?) films whose names may or may not at this moment be Lawless and King of Cups and what this all has to do with pal/mentee David Gordon Green moving to Austin.

Saturday, May 12, 2012

'GCB' goes to TV heaven

ABC has officially cancelled GCB, the Dallas-set show starring Kristen Chenoweth, based on the book Good Christian Bitches and at one point known as Good Christian Belles. Controversy over the title and subject of religious hypocrasy wasn't the killer; it was bad ratings. The pilot shot in Dallas, but the series was made in Los Angeles.

Friday, May 4, 2012

'Road Stories' photo exhibit is up

Nicholas welcomes you to my latest photo show!

My photo show titled "Road Stories" is up at Star Co. coffee shop in downtown Round Rock, Texas, for the month of May. A party is set from May 12 from 5-7 p.m. featuring a reading of road poems by W. Joe Hoppe.

You can also find the show online here.

What they're saying about EVACUATION PLAN

"Tales alternately gentle, dramatic, surrealistic, that collectively affirm the beauty of being alive, even as they acknowledge that all of us face the necessity of making our own 'evacuation plan.' "
-- Brad Buchholz, Austin American-Statesman

" The chapters about Matt and the short stories demonstrate O’Connell’s ability to develop sympathetic, true-to-life characters using intriguing details and compelling dialogue. The stories remind us of those times when a brief encounter with a stranger left us wondering about that person’s past. In Evacuation Plan, O’Connell satisfies that curiosity. "
-- The Texas Observer

"It was very hard for me to put this book down. It carries us through the deepest meaning in life and most painful, most hopeful memories for a wide range of fascinating characters. Based in a hospice, this book could have easily resorted to cheap sensationalism, or whacked us upside the head with stereotypic melodrama, but instead it was respectful, honest, and tender. The characters will stay with you - you may even recognize some of them within your own life. "
-- Award-winning author Carmen Tafolla

"An excellent, thought-provoking diversion from our own inevitable plummet toward the grave, and we highly recommend it to you, the living."
-- Wayne Alan Brenner, The Austin Chronicle

"O’Connell has drawn some colourful and believable characters. The material relating to the hospice and terminal care rings true, all the way to reconciliation and forgiving."
-- Dr. Roger Woodruff, International Association for Hospice & Palliative Care

"The tales are nicely written, and some are quite compelling; “The Male Nurse,” for one, is a dreamlike reverie."
-- Texas Monthly

“Evacuation Plan: A Novel From The Hospice by Joe M. O'Connell is nothing short of remarkable … a novel that walks hand-in-hand with death and yet, somehow, the reader finishes the book feeling inspired to live.”
– The Paisano

"A wonderful blend of lives ordinary but with sometimes extraordinary elements. We all share these stories of life in some way, despite moments of harshness or unforgiving pain. There is always a common thread of humanity and ultimately forgiveness to be found, even if it's in the last moment of life."
-- Elaine Williams, author of A Journey Well Taken

"Reading Evacuation Plan is akin to unwrapping a series of small perfectly-chosen presents. Both human and humane, The book resembles a modern Spoon River Anthology with its vivid, touching glimpses into the lives of those in and around a hospice."
-- Tim McCanlies, screenwriter The Iron Giant, writer/director Secondhand Lions

"In Evacuation Plan Joe O'Connell does for the process of dying what Sherwood Anderson did for middle America in Winesburg, Ohio--he shows us in brief flashes the aching beauty of the grotesque, and shows us how extraordinary small lives and quiet deaths can be."
--John Blair, Drue Heinz Literature Prize winning author of American Standard

"Here's a book so rich with stories of the living, so filled with people's bountiful problems, as well as incidents of wry forgiveness, one realizes over and over the circling forces of life's completeness. It's not a sad tale nor a needless feel-good account but a balanced, sometimes comic, affirmation of what is here and what we all know is waiting."
-- Carolyn Osborn, award-winning short story writer

"The broken, the hopeful, the frustrated, the clueless, and the forgiving touch one another with words, remembrances, and hands. Inevitably, readers will quietly wonder about their own evacuation plan."
-- Will's Texana Monthly

O'Connell's protagonist skillfully navigates under the guise of a writer seeking raw materials for his craft in the stories of the dying, but mines and refines instead the stuff we're all made of. In this finely crafted novel, we come away with much more than the astute observation that many of the best stories begin at the end. But, then again, that notion is also worth a lot.
--Jesse Sublett, cancer survivor, rocker and author of Never the Same Again

"Joe O'Connell's Evacuation Plan--this Decameron of the hospice--encompasses a paradox. Death comes for everyone, but death is the only human universal because everyone dies, and witnesses dying, with private, unspeakable shame. Yet there are a few minutes left to speak. As people die, they tell stories which spawn new stories, which remind us that death is agony, a violent struggle, but so is living."
-- Debra Monroe, Flannery O'Connor Award winning author of Newfangled and Shambles

Joe M. O'Connell

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

'Machete Kills' seeks extras

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Terrence Malick's Oklahoma film gets a new name

Saturday, May 12, 2012

'GCB' goes to TV heaven

Friday, May 4, 2012

'Road Stories' photo exhibit is up

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