Oral Distractions

^{Ali Selim}

Though Burstyn, and her aura, have yet to call him back about his screenplay, Berdahl has managed to hook a number of prominent local film folk onto Butter City. This includes: Ali Selim, director of Sweet Land, who described how he broke into the industry by picking up dog feces on a set he was a production assistant on (adding verisimilitude to the ancient proverb that ends "What, and leave show business?" ); and Patrick Coyle, writer-director of Detective Fiction, who detailed how, when his film was accepted at Sundance in 2003, he had to raise an additional $65,000 in a matter of weeks in order to transfer it from video to celluloid. Easily their best guest — Myron, Heinz, Dan and everyone else agrees — was Melody Gilbert, the state’s biggest name in documentary filmmaking, whose effervescence was such that she was invited to fill in for Dan when he was not able to host one show.

^{Melody Gilbert}

There are, of course, those stars who, though they may have Minnesota connections, have, so far, been out of reach of Butter City’s net. Among the names mentioned most frequently are: Bill Pohlad, producer of Brokeback Mountain and Into the Wild; the Coen Brothers, who have become so exclusive, they don’t even appear on network forums anymore; and some former exotic dancer who won an Oscar for a movie about teen pregnancy. Though Dan would be happy to have these and other luminaries on the program, he admits, "I never think about interviewing them. I would like to go drinking with them, and just sit and bullshit, when they know they’re off the record. Once I get them in front of the cameras, though, we’re basically going to be hemmed in by their image and we really won’t talk about anything new."

In any case, Orozco has had enough brushes with celebrity skin to not be starstruck much anymore, thanks to the ten-plus years he has spent as a First and Second Assistant Director on TV sit coms and major and not-so-major Hollywood releases. A particularly abrasive brush took place during production of the 1999 action flick, The Patriot, which had the misfortune of being completed shortly before the release of Mel Gibson’s historical pageant of the same name, and the even greater misfortune of starring Steven Seagal. "It was a negative pickup that had no distribution. It was a terrible movie. Seagal was a prick, a jackass. He was always trying to come off like a calm, pious Bhudda man to all the women. When the women left, he was a cussing, swearing cowboy."

^{Ira Livingston}

The two guests I observed that day, Ira Livingston, regional director of The 48-Hour Film Festival, and James Byrne, who directed a series of short works under the rubric of Flash Fiction Sinema, were Bhuddas of calm during shooting. It was the crew in the control room who were more
like cussin’ cowboys, dressing down one another, putting down the host and poking fun — playfully — at the guests. In addition to comparing Byrne’s profile (playfully) to that of Clint Eastwood they made note of how much the leading lady of one of the works he presented had the appearance and, well, aura of a stripper. All right, the latter notation was made by myself.

^{James Byrne}