Make A Movie

Has anyone not heard that "Titanic" is the most expensive movie ever made? Is there a citizen at large who doesn't know of the problems that bedeviled its production, from director James Cameron's explosive temper to the PCP-laced lobster chowder? Anyone out there remember that the two studios behind "Titanic," 20th Century Fox and Paramount, almost came to blows last summer while deciding when to release the film?Well, forget it all. "Titanic," a three-hour, wide-screen historical romantic epic, steams over its advance hype, leaving the tatters of gossip columns and inside reports in its prodigious wake.

It appeared that another body was about to turn cold on a hot summer night in East Baltimore. A middle-aged man stood tense as three dozen young men surrounded him in a back alley. He recognized a handful of them as the group he had earlier shooed away from loitering. They had returned for revenge - with reinforcements. "We'll shoot you in the face!" they shouted as some seemed to reach for concealed weapons. Just then, two patrol cars showed up. Everyone froze while police stared at the confrontation - and also at a track of spotlights on a nearby rooftop, loads of cable wire and someone barbecuing a few feet away.

If you want to scare the bejabbers out of a big Hollywood director, mention the words "satire" and "message" while discussing his latest work.For Jonathan Lynn, the British-born director who surprised the movie world this year with the hit "My Cousin Vinny," those two words dropped casually into a recent conversation were cause for a panic attack.It was just a few days before the opening of Mr. Lynn's latest directorial effort, the Eddie Murphy comedy "The Distinguished Gentleman," and he was in no mood for bad-luck charms like the "s" and "m" words.

Courtney Upshaw once lived in a house with no electricity or running water. He slept some nights on a worn couch that barely contained his growing frame. He arrived at the University of Alabama with little more than the clothes he was wearing. April 26, 2012 was supposed to be the night Upshaw would be rewarded for his perseverance. Yet as he sat in Radio City Music Hall in New York City, surrounded by friends and family, Upshaw fought back tears. He watched four of his college teammates become first-round draft picks.

Sorry, Phantom, but the purple suit has got to go. No amount of buff bod can make an audience take a superhero in bright purple seriously.And while we're at it, that script has got to go, too. Screenwriter Jeffrey Boam apparently studied the first two "Indiana Jones" movies so thoroughly -- so that he could write "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" -- that he's carried many of the motifs to "The Phantom."The result is not breathtaking excitement, but rather a stunning lack of originality.

WASHINGTON -- Perhaps it's the rough Bronx accent with its blustery crescendos that jab the air like one-two punches. Or the brusque facade that many have long associated with the cantankerous characters he's played, like Murphy Brown's boss Stan Lansing in the 1990s TV sitcom. Director Garry Marshall doesn't come across as a romantic spinner of fairy tales. But with box-office triumphs ranging from Pretty Woman to Runaway Bride, that's exactly what he's been -- a writer, actor and director who has pooh-poohed these increasingly cynical times and stuck to his belief that life on the big screen should always be better than reality.

Neal Fredericks knows what you're thinking.The 1991 Towson University graduate is the cinematographer on "The Blair Witch Project," the low-budget horror film that opens in theaters today. But the movie was shot entirely by the three stars of the film. So what did Fredericks actually do?"First, I taught them how to photograph," Fredericks, 29, said yesterday in a phone conversation from his home in Los Angeles. "But giving them the cameras didn't eliminate my having control of the visuals.

Shooting on yet another John Waters film was coming to an end last week, so it was essential that Bob Adams make it to the set of "Cecil B. Demented" before the final wrap. He had presents to deliver.Adams is a card-carrying member of the original Dreamland Players, the group of eccentrics who helped Waters create his first guerrilla films more than a quarter century ago and who have remained fiercely connected ever since. Every Waters film doubles as a reunion for the Dreamlanders, who often marvel over how seminal has been their association with the filmmaker.

Here's probably the only fact you need to know about JimmyO and April Monique Burril: They were married on Halloween 1998 in costume. She was dressed as some sort of demented fairy-type thing, he as a werewolf. Need another fact? Try this one: They've made a movie together, Chainsaw Sally, that has nothing to do with chopping wood. Yep, they're one of those couples. "In this neighborhood, we're definitely the weirdos on the corner," says April, 32, chatting amiably at the dining-room table of their Perryville home, an unassuming end-of-the-row duplex a stone's heave from where the Susquehanna River flows through town.

George Udel, who almost single-handedly created the Baltimore film culture he was such a crucial fixture of, died yesterday. He was 69. Udel, who had fought heart disease for 20 years, succumbed to kidney failure at Union Memorial Hospital.At a time when Baltimore enjoys a bustling film culture -- with the Maryland Film Festival, a rejuvenated Charles Theatre, the Cinema Sundays series and countless other opportunities to screen rarely seen films -- it's easy to forget that when Udel became involved with the newly founded Baltimore Film Forum in 1969, local filmgoers had far fewer choices at their disposal.