Joe M. O'Connell

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Bryan Poyser's 'Lovers of Hate' gets Cassavetes nom

Austin filmmaker Bryan Poyser's Lovers of Hate is a nominee for the John Cassavetes Award given by the Film Independent Spirit Awards. Poyser was also nominated by the group in 2005 as "Someone to Watch" for Dear Pillow.

The awards are to be presented Feb. 26.

Zellner brothers want your holiday help

Austin-based indie filmmakers Nathan and David Zellner (Goliath) want your help to complete their film Kid-Thing. The word is shooting is done on the film, but they're trying to raise $10,000 for post-production. Donations get you such goodies as DVDs of their films and a hand-drawn caricature of you by both the brothers. Not good enough? For just a bit more you get the brothers' tap-dancing photo above with a personal inscription. Now that's tempting...

Here's their description of the film:

"Kid-Thing is a fever-dream fable about Annie, a rebellious girl whose existence is devoid of parental guidance. She spends her time roaming the land, shoplifting, vandalizing and making prank phone calls. Her routine is broken one day while playing in the woods; she hears an old woman calling from a mysterious hole in the ground, asking for help. Scared and untrusting of the unseen stranger, Annie deliberates on her course of action."

Friday, November 26, 2010

SHOT IN TEXAS: On the set of 'Boneboys'

That's Boneboy's co-director Justin Meeks on the left with writer/producer Kim Henkel on the right. In the middle is an actress starring in the day's scene.

My SHOT IN TEXAS column in The Dallas Morning News concentrates on Kim Henkel's Boneboys this month. Check it out.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

CBS mulls modern-day western set in San Antonio

I've heard rumors of a potential TV series looking to shoot in San Antonio. I guess this is it!

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Desperado is about a band of lawmen who enact cowboy-style justice on modern-day criminals in San Antonio. And, no, Robert Rodriguez has nothing to do with it, despite the title. Instead it's from CSI creator Anthony Zuiker.

Is 'The Good Guys' a goner?

The Dallas-shot Fox series The Good Guys airs its 20th episode on Dec. 10, but Fox has announced it will not order more episodes. Does that mean the show has been canceled? Not officially. On Facebook, the Dallas Film Commission is urging fans to sign a petition to save the show.

Monday, November 15, 2010

'Chase' gets new spring time slot

Dallas-shot Chase gets to keep running despite iffy ratings with new Wednesday 8 p.m. CST time slot beginning Jan. 12 on NBC.

That's good news in North Texas which has already lost Lone Star to poor ratings and is wondering about the future of The Good Guys, which is set to air on Dec. 10 the last of the 20 episodes shot amid predictions it will not be renewed.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Kim Henkel's 'Boneboys' chows down on human flesh

Kim Henkel's claim to fame is as co-screenwriter of the original The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Today he was on the set in Taylor, Texas, for the final days of shooting Boneboys, a comic horror film. He wrote the script based loosely on Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal, which means there's some flesh-eating going on. The film is being directed by Duane Graves and Justin Meeks, Henkel's former students whom I last interviewed when they were tubthumping their ultra-low-budget horror flick The Wild Man of the Navidad. They've made a major step up with this film.

Co-directors Duane Graves and Justin Meeks.

Some other shots from the set...

Duane and Kim Henkel

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