My peeps in the UCLA library sent this on to me today. I think it's one of the best ways to help those affected by the WGA Strike. Anyone who's gone to an industry props & costume sale knows the treasures one might find.


As you may know, a great many people in the film and television industry - especially those "behind the scenes" (grips, techs, designers, etc) - are out of work (and out of an income) due to the ongoing Writer's Strike. To try to counter this effect, the Local 705 Costumer's Guild has set up a "Welfare Fund" to help support it's members who are unable to work during this time.

The 705 is having a HUGE YARD SALE on Saturday, February 9th from 9 a.m. til 2 p.m. The union members will be selling a wide variety of costumes and jewelry (and I'm not talking just the hokey kind of stuff - some awesome, wearable - and often unique - threads & accessories!). Each individual vendor will donate a portion of their sales to the Welfare Fund AND there will be a number of tables full of strictly donated items with 100% of those proceeds going to the Welfare Fund. So do some SHOPPING and help support some of those affected by the WGA strike. Come early to get the grooviest, funkiest and coolest stuff!!


Saturday February 9th, 9 a.m. - 2 p.m.
Local 705 Costumers Union Yard Sale
History for Hire Prop House (a great big parking lot...)
7149 Fair Avenue
North Hollywood, 91605
Just SW of the Sherman Way/Vineland intersection

Labels: local, shopping

Film: Michael Clayton (2007)
Date: 2/1/07
Place: AMC Media Center, Burbank

Advice from me to a film snob: Every once in a while go see a movie at a mall movie theater. It's a much different experience in LA to see an Oscar nominated flick with the Friday night mall crowd than at some other industry hoopla.

Michael Clayton is one damn fine film. It's a fairytale for this modern age. I chalk it up with the other beautifully bleak Oscar contenders from this year (There Will Be Bloood, No Country For Old Men). Tilda Swinton plays a wonderful villain and Tom Wilkinson is consistently stunning. For the first half of the film George Clooney distracted me. His charisma is sometimes too much to take on one screen and fights the smaller character driven moments a film like this demands. But by the end I was hooked. The end title sequence, by the way, is one of the best I've ever seen. There's a silence and lyricism that you don't usually find in Western filmmaking. In fact, it might be a Wong Kar-Wai or Hou Hsiao Hsien rip-off. If not, then filmmakers take note. That is one effective ending.

Michael Clayton comes out on DVD 2/19 for those not lucky enough to have mall movie theaters bring back movies for Oscar season.

Labels: film journal