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Fans to raise funds for awards campaign for "Welcome to the Rileys"

Poster by graphic and video game designer Kol Crosbie.

Guest Blog by Heather Willis
Twitter: @twidictedteach

“And the nominees are….” Movie studios spend millions of dollars to hear their films, actors and directors announced as nominees for Golden Globes and Academy Awards. For one movie, it is the fans who are planning a campaign for award consideration.

The independent film Welcome to the Rileys, starring James Gandolfini (The Sopranos), Melissa Leo (The Fighter) and Kristen Stewart (The Twilight Saga), has had limited distribution throughout the U.S. to date, but has found a following that believes the film and its actors deserve to be recognized with nominations. 

WTTR shows the journey to New Orleans for businessman Doug (Gandolfini) that leads him to Mallory (Stewart), an underage stripper, who reminds him of his daughter who died in a car accident. Doug decides to stay and help Mallory attempt to change her situation. After calling and telling his wife Lois (Leo) he isn’t coming home, Lois confronts her agoraphobia and travels to Louisiana to be reunited with her husband.

WTTRS (http://welcome-to-the-rileys-saturday.blogspot.com/) site owners and operators, Stephanie Rodriguez, Dayna P. and Tammi T. have begun using their site and social media sites Twitter and Facebook to raise $50,000 to fund an awards campaign for WTTR.

“We believe that Kristen, James and Melissa delivered some of the year’s best performances," WTTRS team said.

After viewing the film at the Sundance Film Festival, WTTR made an immediate impact on Dayna.

"When I came back from Sundance, the first thing I said was that if this movie and its stars weren’t nominated, it would be a travesty,” Dayna said.

WTTR has touched many of those who have seen it with its story of loss and hope and how the actors brought out the emotional connection with their characters through their performances.

“Welcome to the Rileys is a raw, emotional movie. As may of said, it’s a movie that stays with you, a movie that you think about when you leave the theatre, and drive home, and enter your house and then days later. The critic reviews for the movie may be mixed, but reviews for the cast are stellar. These are the types of performances that should be rewarded or at the very least recognized,” WTTRS team said.

To those who may think it is Stewart’s Twilight following that is promoting this campaign, WTTRS believes that if people see her performance in WTTR they will see an incredibly brilliant performance by Stewart.

“It has nothing to do with Twilight or Kristen’s role in Twilight. We aren’t trying to get her anything for Twilight or any other movie. This campaign is based solely on the merits of her work on Welcome to the Rileys. Her portrayal of an underage stripper was as real as it gets. She spent a lot of time and hard work to become what thousands of girls become every year. To those people that believe that it’s ‘all about Twilight’ I say, to and see the movie, watch her. Then I say, go to the little club down the street. You’ll see parts of Mallory are there in each and every one of those girls,” WTTRS team said.

All of the money being raised at http://igg.me/p/13178?a=56739&i=shlk will be used to promote the film in trade magazines and online.

“This is how the nomination process begins. Ads are placed in the magazines and then the magazines go to the voters. The more people who see these ads, the more voters are to going to be inclined to check out screens or go and see the movies,” Rodriguez said.

Because of the amount of money spent by some studios to campaign for their movies, sometimes smaller movies can’t compete and that was a major factor in WTTRS’s decision to raise money for WTTR.

“What many people don’t realize is what it takes to get people nominated in these categories. It’s not like it’s a bunch of people that sit around a table and say, ‘You know, I saw this really great performance.’ The movies that usually get nominated are the bigger movies, the ones with the most press, the ones that have the most ads in the trade magazines. Welcome to the Rileys is such a small movie that there just isn’t going to be the same ability to throw money into these ads and promotions. That’s where we come in. If we can raise enough money, we can get enough ads in the magazine that might make the voters take a second look,” WTTRS team said.

For those who support the film but can’t afford to donate, there are other ways that they can help WTTR.

“Spread the word about the campaign. Share the link on your Twitter or your Facebook or your Tumbler or whatever other social media site you are a part of. Also review (WTTR) on every site you can find; Rotten Tomatoes http://www.rottentomatoes.com/, Flickster http://www.flixster.com/, Meta Critic http://www.metacritic.com/. And, of course, go and see the movie,” WTTRS team said.

For information on the Oscar and Golden Globe campaign, visit http://igg.me/p/13178?a=56739&i=shlk.  Or check out WTTRS blog http://welcome-to-the-rileys-saturday.blogspot.com/.  Or contact any one of WTTRS on Twitter Dayna: @bellasguardian Stephanie: @byrd009 or Tammi: @TeamPattzStew or blog Twitter @wttrsaturday

Best. Cover. Ever.

 

The proposed cover of Carrie Fisher's next book, out in June 2011.

Exclusive Q&A: TV and movie memorabilia go-to guy Joe Maddalena on hunting and finding studio-dispersed "Hollywood Treasure"

In this exclusive chat with Retroality.TV, Profiles in History owner Joe Maddalena gives us the studio backlot back story behind his work as the entertainment industry's foremost TV and movie memorabilia auctioneer--all of which led to his starring role in the reality series Hollywood Treasure, premiering tonight on the SyFy network.

In your estimation as the go-to guy for Hollywood memorabilia, when did studios and networks begin to get savvy about preserving props—for auctions, for the collectibles market, for posterity.

I want to give you that answer, but you have to understand what happened first to understand the answer. In the 60s and early 70s they broke up the studios. All of the big studios were busted apart. FOX—they built Century City (in its place). MGM—they liquidated the lot. They broke up the studio system. The contract players, everything changed. So all of the studios liquidated all of their assets. So the stuff was scattered to the wind.

So you start with that aspect that very little of the old stuff was saved to begin with. This (set, prop and costume) stuff is a byproduct of the finished product. It’s really so ancillary to what they’re making with a TV show or motion picture. This stuff takes up tremendous amounts of room. And in Los Angeles this room is precious. So I think what happened was, after Planet Hollywood and Hard Rock Café kind of popularlized the idea of memorabilia—because they really were the pioneers of the field and brought a lot of awarness to the field—after that, more in like 2000, there was a systematic effort. There was Disney online, New Line online—a lot of the studios were able to start selling stuff online because ebay was a new venue and they thought it was a cool thing to sell things online.

They did that for a while and I think realized how much work it was and kind of stopped doing that. And I think now they outsource what they want to outsource and archive a tremendous amount of stuff. I think now most studios want to maintain archives and keep a few pieces. But I think they’re also learning that it’s probably a smart marketing idea to start selling stuff.

Last year, Michael Bay called me in the heat of Transformers 2 and said, “I want to sell a bunch of stuff. I want the fans to have it.” I went to the archives, I pulled out a ton of stuff and sold it. People were happy about it. There was so much that his attitude was, “Of course the fans can have it.”

I think it’s great that the studios do this, because I think it’s a worldwide currency. You go anywhere in the world and they know who the Terminator is. They know who Alias is, they know who Bladerunner is, (and) Edward Scissorhands. You tell a guy in China that you have the 1952 Mickey Mantle baseball card and he goes, “What?” And you go, here’s Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Terminator. And he goes, “Oh, yeah!” It’s a different experience.

It’s exciting to see this culture of pop culture preservation evolve in the last decade or two. When I wrote my Three’s Company book, I asked the show’s producers what happened to the trio’s couch; their response was, basically, “That’s a really good question.” If someone like me came up to you and said, “Can you help me find Jack Tripper's couch,” what might be the process you’d undergo to find such a treasure that hasn’t been seen in 25-plus years?

Something like that would be very hard to find. I would tell people who asked me, other than what you did when you wrote your book, it’s probably going to be a dead end. Because it’s a couch and it’s not unique (as a set piece) … My guess is it’s either sitting in someone’s living room or it doesn’t exist anymore. Those pieces are really hard to track down.

It’s more things that you’ve heard of that could still be in existence—and then it’s literally detective work. The good thing about my business is that I’m coming into contact with so many people all over the world—the public. People will call in and say, “My uncle was a set decorator. We have this …” We just got a fantastic thing in for our December auction. This lady worked at Warner Bros. and they had a lot sale one day. Her husband was a pilot and she went up and bought this cool, leather aviator cap. They came in to me and said, “We always wondered…” Inside was a Warner Bros. label that said, “Jimmy Stewart, Lindberg.” It’s the actual flight cap that Jimmy Stewart wore in the Lindbergh story (1957's The Spirit of St. Louis). It’s probably worth $10,000. That cap was not known to exist. If you’d asked me to find it I wouldn’t know where to (begin). But the fact is people did save this stuff.

I think what’s happening is because of what we’re doing and now because of this show, I think more things are going to surface. I think more of this stuff is out there than people ever imagined. I think with public awareness we’re going to find more and more and more of it—which is why I wake up in the morning.

Sad Days: Tom Bosley doesn't live here anymore : (

Tom Bosley with Linda Lavin and Jennifer Lopez in 2010's The Back-up Plan.

Another day when Facebook welcomes you to the world with a big fat (though well-intentioned) beeyotchslap. Mr. Cunningham, I just the other night watched you offer counsel to Richie and Potsie after they dressed in drag. Now who will they turn to? RIP, Tom Bosley ...

 

And if you see TV's other Bosley, David Doyle, on the other side, I hope the angels (you know, other than Farrah) don't get you two mixed up. And God, if you're on Facebook right now, please leave Mrs. C and Laverne and Shirley and company with us, okay? We need our '50s- (and '60s-, '70s- and '80s-)centric sitcom stars, too.