A snowy scene in a Ridge Street neighborhood backyard.6:57am: The light dusting of snow that fell last night wasn’t enough to delay schools, but it provided proof that winter really is on its way. Daytime forecast for the rest of the week calls for temps between 40 and 50, but expect nighttime temps to dip below freezing. Brrrrrr….
At a time when the indie film industry has been so hammered that even its flagship festival, Sundance, is seeking a government bailout, producer Barry Sisson is distributing his own film; and he just outgrossed James Bond, at least at one theater in Fairfax.
Familiar Strangers, the first theatrical release from home-grown Cavalier Films, sold out Friday night, November 14, at Fairfax’s Cinema Arts Theatre and beat— by two tickets— that theater’s sales for Quantum of Solace, the new James Bond thriller. Sisson made this announcement to a Charlottesville audience that had just watched his picture Saturday night at the Regal Downtown, where it also was the top grosser over the weekend.
In Fairfax, Familiar Strangers came out on top at Friday night and Sunday screenings, and Cinema Arts owner Mark O’Meara attributes that to the Cavalier’s grassroots marketing, particularly the film’s trailer, which he’d been running for a while and which he believes is the best promotion.
“I ask people after the trailer runs whether to show the film,” explains O’Meara. “They can boo.”
Like Junebug, a critically acclaimed 2005 indie, Familiar Strangers involves a son returning from a big city, here played by Shawn Hatosy, trying to make sense of his quirky family back in a small town (here played by Staunton, using its real name).
Like Junebug, which earned Amy Adams an Oscar nomination as a super-sincere little-sister wannabe, Familiar Strangers has D.J. Qualls as a young adult still living at home.
Even though Junebug earned about one percent of what the Bond film is expected to bring, just $2.7 million in box office, Sisson, who makes films for about a million each, wouldn’t mind matching that.
“It’s a nice, easy going movie with quirky characters,” says Cinema Arts’ O’Meara. “The characters are believable. You like ‘em.”
He’s giving the movie another weekend, as is the Charlottesville Regal Downtown. And then it runs into the glut of Thanksgiving openings.
Even though Junebug earned about one percent of what the Bond film is expected to bring, just $2.7 million in box office, Sisson, who makes films for about a million each, wouldn’t mind matching that.
“What really would be great would be to renew through Thanksgiving,” says Sisson, noting that this is a Thanksgiving movie.
–Story expanded 11:45am November 18.
The elected multi-jurisdictional board serves four counties plus the city of Charlottesville.A second public body has moved to seek a halt to further work on a financially and environmentally questionable water project that would flood a sensitive nature area and place a reservoir around Interstate 64.
The Thomas Jefferson Soil & Water Conservation District sent a letter Friday November 14, that aligns itself with the City of Charlottesville, which voted November 3, in pressing the halt until dredging and other studies determine how best to meet the community’s long-term water needs.
“We want to see these studies go forward and get some better numbers before we commit to that dam,” says District chair Nick Evans, a hydro-geologist.
One of the larger issues looming in recent days is the fact that the dam would be practically worthless as a water source without a 9.5-mile, electricity-dependent pipeline that even its backers admit is just a concept.
Some folks, such as Jeff Werner, who spoke during a public hearing two days earlier, declared that the dam-reservoir project has been unfairly maligned, particularly by this newspaper, and that (more)
In November 2004, then-UVA student Annie Hylton filed a complaint with the Department of Education claiming UVA violated federal law in its handling of sexual assault cases.
FILE PHOTO BY JEN FARIELLO
Four years after the college safety nonprofit Security on Campus filed a complaint against UVA for its mishandling of sexual assault cases, the Department of Education has ruled that the university has, in fact, violated federal law by threatening victims of sexual assault with punishment if they spoke about their cases.
The ruling has major implications for victims of sexual assault on college campuses across the country, according to the man who filed the complaint on behalf of then-UVA student Annie Hylton, now Annie Hylton McLaughlin.
“It means that victims can’t be silenced at UVA or anywhere else,” says S. Daniel Carter, director of public policy for Security on Campus.
UVA’s handling of sexual assault came under fire in November 2004 when McLaughlin went public in a Hook cover story describing her alleged December 2001 rape in a UVA fraternity house by fellow student Matthew Hamilton.
When Charlottesville prosecutors declined to press charges, McLaughlin decided to seek justice through UVA channels and was granted a hearing with the Sexual Assault Board, a specialized offshoot of the University Judiciary Committee. Her experience with the SAB was “devastating,” said McLaughlin, who couldn’t understand how even though Hamilton was found “guilty” by the Board, he was allowed to stay at UVA until his 2003 graduation. (more)
Lexis Nexis bought up the Michie Company in the early 1990s.Eight months after a London Daily Telegraph article sparked fears of local layoffs at Lexis Nexis, more than 20 Charlottesville Lexis employees are out of jobs– including 12 who were laid off last spring and as many as nine who were notified just last week that they’ll soon be out of work.
A Chicago-based Lexis spokesperson declined to comment but provided a company statement that reveals Charlottesville’s Lexis municipal code group has been sold to Tallahassee, Florida-based Municipal Code Corporation. In exchange, the statement explains, “LexisNexis will license existing and additional code content from MCC, enabling us to add more than 900 new municipal codes to our current online library, making LexisNexis a leading provider in this area.”
Multiple sources close to Lexis have long said the company is looking to outsource more of its labor. Messages left for Municipal Code Corporation were not returned.
The six-member Albemarle Board of Supervisors.A new set of rules to prevent the dreaded “two-step,” a property subdivision trick to circumvent zoning law, collapsed Wednesday November 12, after a litany of speakers denounced the proposal— even after Albemarle planning director Mark Graham claimed the County was suffering “death by thousand cuts” as new driveways pop up as safety hazards.
Speaker Morris Foster, a surveyor, wasn’t buying the fear factor. He said he couldn’t recall any serious accidents stemming from someone pulling out of a driveway, and he proposed simply creating a time limit.
The proposed rules declared that adding a single extra lot to an existing driveway would unleash the county’s more stringent standards for small subdivisions— which would have forced rural driveways to be 14 feet wide with three-foot shoulders.
“I just think this is overkill for the creation of just one lot ” said Western Albemarle landowner David Carr, who works as an environmental lawyer.
Another part of the proposal would have (more)
Tom Frederick, left, tells the four water dealers— Mayor Dave Norris, waterworks board chair Mike Gaffney, Albemarle Supervisors chair Ken Boyd, and County Service Authority chair Don Wagner— that the dam “could exceed $70 million.”The four leaders wore grave faces at the hastily called press conference. What they wished were a $37 million dam might, the press release said, cost around $70 million. But the financial news is worse– at least $20 million worse.
As revealed by the Hook September 22, the day of the press conference, millions in costs to shore up Interstate 64 from reservoir waters were missing from the new tally— with water boss Tom Frederick’s explanation that he didn’t agree with the numbers. Now the Hook has uncovered further costs totaling over $8 million unaccounted for by the Rivanna Water & Sewer Authority.
“This doesn’t surprise me,” says local businessperson Keith Rosenfeld. “It’s the same pattern we’ve seen throughout this process— conveniently hiding costs that don’t support their preconceived notions.”
Authority board chair Mike Gaffney referred all questions on the matter to Frederick, who declined (more)
Cavalier Films takes a do-it-yourself approach to distribution.When Barry Sisson and Marc Lieberman decided they didn’t need to be in Hollywood to make films, they formed Cavalier Films and shot Familiar Strangers in Staunton in 2006.
Two years later, when they couldn’t find the distribution deal they wanted, the duo decided to release the film themselves. The characters in Familiar Strangers come home for Thanksgiving, and the film’s producers hope an audience will come out two weeks before Turkey Day to to support their homegrown feature, which opens November 14 at the Regal Downtown and in Fairfax.
“Regal has been good to us, and they like the film,” says Sisson. But Regal isn’t going to give the picture an indefinite run, which makes the opening weekend numbers and word of mouth crucial, he says.
The following weekend, the movie opens in Staunton at the Visulite and in two theaters in Tennessee, and then expands to Richmond and Kansas City.
“In the industry, it’s called a platform release,” explains Sisson. “You start small and widen.”
Movies typically open in Los Angeles and New York. Creative Artists Agency, the powerhouse agency founded by Michael Ovitz that formerly represented Cavalier, “felt it was a heartland film,” says Sisson. “It’s a heart-warming film, and they felt it would do better in the heartland than in taste-maker cities. That (more)
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