Vachon's fresh kill.A Killer Life * Christine Vachon, Austin Bunn, and John Pierson John Pierson can refer to:
Out producer Christine Vachon's first book, 1998's Shooting to Kill, laid out a how-to--and how not to--for indie filmmakers. A Killer Life, her follow-up, is a more personal survey of her life at the helm of New York's Killer Films. Loaded with details of the financing, casting, production, and distribution of Killer films like Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Happiness, and Velvet Goldmine, A Killer Life follows the production company from its bag-lunch days to buffets at Cannes. The astute but tetchy tetch·y also tech·y adj. tetch·i·er, tetch·i·est Peevish; testy: "As a critic gets older, he or she usually grows more tetchy and limited in responses" James Wolcott. Vachon goes on the festival circuit and learns how to survive Cannes without picking up a drinks tab (while sipping $30 Bellinis at the Hotel du Cap) or making eye contact with enraged en·rage tr.v. en·raged, en·rag·ing, en·rag·es To put into a rage; infuriate. [Middle English *enragen, from Old French enrager : en-, causative pref. agents. She's an engaging guide to a mostly hidden world of meetings, phone calls, and shouting matches. Some of the people in the book appear anonymously so that Vachon can keep letting off steam without attracting a libel suit. The most gripping story in A Killer Life is the making of Boys Don't Cry. The odds against it were nearly insurmountable, given Killer's typically low budget ($2 million in this case), a first-time writer-director, Kimberly Peirce, and a competing production starring Drew Barrymore in development at Fox Searchlight. Fox had bought the rights to a true-crime book about Brandon Teena's murder and threatened a lawsuit, but Peirce, whose "passion was unimpeachable un·im·peach·a·ble adj. 1. Difficult or impossible to impeach: an unimpeachable witness. 2. Beyond reproach; blameless: unimpeachable behavior. 3. ," had been to Nebraska and interviewed Lana Tisdale, Brandon's girlfriend. Killer acquired the rights to Tisdale's story and pushed their film into production. When early screenings of Hilary Swank's amazing performance began to appear, the big studio realized it had been outfoxed. But one of Vachon's best success stories is also one of the smallest. First-time filmmakers Rose Troche troche /tro·che/ (tro´ke) lozenge (1). tro·che n. A small, circular medicinal lozenge; a pastille. and Guinevere Turner sent their unfinished 12-minute tape to Killer after burning through their life savings of $15,000. Vachon found them the money to complete Go Fish "without making it look too polished. That was part of Rose and Guin's movie's charm: its homemadeness.... If the movie had been too full of itself, you would have said, 'Excuse me, your acting's bad and you're in black and white!'" Go Fish sold for $700,000 at Sundance and opened an entire market for gay films. Vachon's two stints on the jury at Sundance allow her to expand on what she loves about film as an art form, when she's not talking a director off the window ledge window ledge n → alféizar m; repisa window ledge n → rebord m de la fenêtre window ledge window n after an NC-17 rating or humoring a cost-conscious line producer. No longer quite the underdog, Vachon can still get up her hackles hackles the hairs over the neck and back that are elevated by arrector pili muscles in response to fright or anger. A mechanism to threaten opponents, perhaps by appearing larger. up when one of her babies--like her Capote film, Infamous, due out in October--is threatened. Spotting Philip Seymour Hoffman For other persons named Philip Hoffman, see Philip Hoffman (disambiguation). Philip Seymour Hoffman (born July 23, 1967) is an Academy Award-winning American actor. Biography Early life Hoffman was born in Fairport, New York to Gordon S. out at lunch after his Oscar win, she described his look of pity for her as "This must be so hard for you, but damn, am I happy!!" |
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