“Moonrise Kingdom” with Bruce Willis, Frances McDormand and Bill Murray was shot here last year:

Here’s a rerun of an old post, answering a question that comes up every year at Christmastime. -TN.

Over the weekend, a friend of mine mentioned how annoyed she was to find that despite the arrival of the holiday season, “It’s a Wonderful Life” was nowhere to be found among the movies available on demand from her cable company or Netflix. She wanted to show the movie to her husband, who has never seen it.

Readers of a certain age will recall that back in the 1970s and 1980s, you couldn’t avoid “It’s a Wonderful Life” on TV at this time of year. Since 1994, though, the Jimmy Stewart classic has been exclusively shown on – ahem – a network that isn’t CBS or Fox.

Don’t blame Mr. Potter – the culprit is copyright law. In 1974, Republic Pictures failed to renew its copyright on “It’s a Wonderful Life,” so the movie entered the public domain. That meant TV stations could broadcast the film for free, and they did so with abandon.

(more…)

Jonathan Nelson is Rhode Island’s wealthiest citizen, with a net worth of $1.7 billion, according to Forbes. The Brown grad and East Sider made his fortune as founder of Providence Equity Partners, the powerhouse private-equity firm that part-owns Hulu, the Yankees’ cable network and other media properties.

But not even a billionaire can bat 1.000.

In 2005, Nelson miscalculated big time when he led a $5 billion takeover of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the storied Hollywood studio that’s been a mess since its glory days ended in the 1960s.

“MGM’s financing roller-coaster ride over the past decade, if nothing else, illustrates how the insiders in Hollywood still manage to enchant outsiders on Wall Street,” Edward J. Epstein reports at The Wrap. He relates the fascinating story of how Sony and Comcast enlisted ProvEq’s cash to fight a video format war:

To accomplish this coup without risking much of its own capital, Sony put together a consortium of investors to do a leveraged buy out. Most of the equity financing came from Wall Street private equity funds. Sony itself, the insider, invested only $300 million of its own funds. Another $300 million came from the Comcast Corporation. For both these industry insiders, it was a no-lose situation. …

Sony and Comcast achieved their objectives and lost little, if any, money, but the Wall Street players lost almost all of their billion-dollar investment. …

Finally, in December 2010, the hedge funds and other creditors, with no hope of repayment, swapped their debt for shares in the bankrupt company. So MGM was once again debt-free and able to borrow money. Now thanks to its rescue by Wall Street, and half-billion dollar line of credit, it can produce James Bond movies again under its Ars Gratia Aris (Art for Art’s sake) motto – at least until it again runs out of money.

ProvEq’s MGM misfire wound up costing the firm some $400 million when the studio finally filed for bankruptcy last fall.

(picture: Wikipedia/LBM)

By Claire Peracchio

The trailer for “Hall Pass,” the new Farrelly brothers comedy that topped the box office last weekend, opens with a shot of the Providence skyline.

But despite its setting and the Farrellys’ Rhode Island roots, “Hall Pass” was filmed in Atlanta.

We asked Steven Feinberg, the Rhode Island Film & TV Office’s executive director, why the Cumberland natives’ latest film – which stars Owen Wilson and Jason Sudeikis as buddies whose wives give them a week off from marriage to relive their bachelor days – wasn’t shot here in their home state.

Feinberg said his office always makes a point to lobby the Farrellys to shoot their films in the Ocean State. “We always encourage Bobby and Peter to bring projects home to Rhode Island,” he wrote in an e-mail to WPRI.com. “And their desire is to film in Rhode Island as much as possible.”

Feinberg said the studio backing the movie, a Warner Bros. release, made the decision to move the production south because filming began in late February – a tough time to be shooting outdoor scenes in wintry Rhode Island.

If filming had started in June, “Hall Pass” probably would have been shot here, according to Feinberg.

But “Hall Pass” isn’t the only Farrelly brothers movie that won’t be shot in their native Rhode Island.

Marc Fischer, the movie’s executive producer, told Variety Magazine last May that the brothers’ next film, the much-talked-about “Three Stooges,” will also be shot in Georgia. He cited its generous film tax credits and Atlanta’s “amazing shops” as among the perks of filming in the Peach State.

But “Hall Pass” and “Stooges” aside, Feinberg argued that Rhode Island is still a major destination for film and television production.

With productions such as the new ABC series “Body of Proof,” which premieres later this month, “2010 and 2011 have probably been the most productive filming years ever for our state,” Feinberg said.

The film office is getting ready to announce another high-profile project that will be shooting here in May and June, he added. Though Feinberg didn’t offer specifics, Wes Anderson’s upcoming project “Moon Rise Kingdom” is supposed to begin filming in Newport this spring.

Claire Peracchio is a student at Brown University and a WPRI.com intern.

(photo: Time Warner via Wikipedia)

Here’s something that should be right up the alley of some Nesi’s Notes readers: Common Cause Rhode Island is sponsoring a screening tonight of “Gerrymandering,” a documentary on redistricting written and directed by Brown University grad Jeff Reichert.

The movie will be shown at 6:30 p.m. at Providence’s Cable Car Cinema, and Reichert will be on hand to do a Q&A after the screening.

“We’re looking to raise awareness of what is the ultimate insider’s game,” Common Cause’s John Marion told me. Rhode Island and Massachusetts will start redrawing their political districts soon now that the new Census data is out.

“Gerrymandering” won praise from The Boston Globe last fall for its “brisk editing, perky infographics, and genuine curiosity.” Projo columnist Ed Fitzpatrick wrote a piece on the movie last summer, too.

Though there are a lot of great Christmas songs, Irving Berlin’s simple “White Christmas” remains my favorite. Like some other classics of the genre – “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” come to mind – the song has a yearning quality, which may have something to do with its having been written during World War II.

Bing Crosby’s original recording of the song is the best-selling single of all time, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, and it’s still played regularly on the radio and in the malls. Massachusetts’ own Roy Harris had a nice essay about that in The Wall Street Journal last year.

To my mind, though, Bing’s best version of “White Christmas” isn’t the famous one with the orchestra – it’s the simple, stripped-down rendition he sings at the beginning of the 1954 movie of the same name. Thanks to YouTube, you can decide for yourself:

I won’t be blogging on Monday – I’ll either have the day off or be covering the snowstorm if necessary. (Let’s hope it’s the former, for all our sakes.) But I’ve prerecorded a few fun items for you, so check in if you can. Things will be back to normal on Tuesday.

A safe and happy holiday to you and yours.

Over the weekend, a friend of mine mentioned how annoyed she was to find that despite the arrival of the holiday season, “It’s a Wonderful Life” was nowhere to be found among the movies available on demand from her cable company or Netflix. She wanted to show the movie to her husband, who has never seen it.

Readers of a certain age will recall that back in the 1970s and 1980s, you couldn’t avoid “It’s a Wonderful Life” on TV at this time of year. Since 1994, though, the Jimmy Stewart classic has been exclusively shown on – er, a network that isn’t CBS or Fox.

Don’t blame Mr. Potter – the culprit is copyright law. In 1974, Republic Pictures failed to renew its copyright on the movie, so it entered the public domain. That meant stations could broadcast it for free, and they did so with abandon.

(more…)

While writing about the Film & TV Office yesterday, I wondered whether it was really true that the hip 1956 musical “High Society” was filmed in Newport, as opposed to being set there but filmed in Hollywood.

Steven Feinberg, the office’s executive director, wrote in to tell me that indeed it is. Not only that, he said, but the late state Rep. Paul Crowley‘s father actually let MGM’s crew use his station wagon to secure the camera as they drove down Bellvue Avenue to film the opening sequence.

“High Society” was a remake of “The Philadelphia Story” with Cole Porter supplying the music, and featured an all-star cast including Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly and Louis Armstrong. It’s not the only toe-tapping flick set in 1950s Newport, either; the classic “Jazz on a Summer’s Day” documents the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival.

And Feinberg’s e-mail gives me a good excuse to post the opening sequence he described – dig that Satchmo style:

you paid for 6.75 of those dresses

Rhode Island’s tax credit for movies and TV shows has been controversial ever since it was enacted back in 2005. The law offers companies a credit to get back 25% of their production costs if they film here so long as the production costs at least $300,000. Since it was created, state taxpayers have helped subsidize flicks like “27 Dresses” and “Dan in Real Life.”

Gov. Carcieri proposed eliminating the credit when he put together his budget proposal for this year but lawmakers opted to keep it, although they did cap its total cost at $15 million last year. The credit is managed by the Rhode Island Film & TV Office, which has an annual budget of $278,157.

It remains to be seen whether the film credit program will survive next year’s $300 million budget deficit – but Rhode Island won’t be alone in dumping it if that’s what winds up happening, Bloomberg News reports:

Incentives for Hollywood have been scaled back in Wisconsin, capped in Rhode Island, suspended in New Jersey, Iowa and Kansas and scheduled to expire in Arizona. While states continue to expand and introduce subsidies, programs around the country face allegations of corruption, doubts about job-creating power and, most of all, questions about affordability.

“We are starting to stem the tide of state government pandering to the film industry,” said Bill Ahern, policy director for the Washington-based Tax Foundation, which advocates lower taxes.

In the last five years, $3.5 billion in tax credits, rebates and other financial assistance have gone to makers of films, television shows and commercials, according to a calculation by the foundation. In the next fiscal year, states will face $72 billion in budget deficits, the National Conference of State Legislatures estimates.

The subsidies began in Louisiana in 1992 and today are offered by 42 states. A shakeout will halve the number in the next decade as lawmakers conclude they can’t sustain funding, according to Larry Brownell, head of the Association of Film Commissioners International in Redondo Beach, California, which represents every state with incentives except Massachusetts.

Speaking of which, the Film & TV Office’s website lists the 1956 musical “High Society” as a past project – I know that movie’s set in Newport, but was it actually filmed there?

This seemed like an appropriate choice for a TV station’s website.

Andrew Shears, a geography expert at Kent State, created this map identifying all 50 states by the most representative TV show set in each one. He picked “Family Guy” to represent Rhode Island (“No competition”) and “Cheers” for Massachusetts, though he noted that the Bay State is home to a lot of legal procedurals. Check it out:

This is actually Shears’ second version of the map. He remixed the original based on the huge amount of feedback he got in the two weeks after he first posted it. From Shears’ comments, it sounds like Minnesotans were particularly aggrieved that he originally chose “Coach” rather than “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” for them.

As it happens, Shears was inspired by a similar map on The Huffington Post that went through the same exercise with movies instead of TV shows. “There’s Something About Mary” stood in for Rhode Island there, with “The Departed” doing the honors for Massachusetts.

Shears has offered his own take on that map, too. He stuck with “Mary” for Rhode Island but switched to “Good Will Hunting” for Massachusetts. (I support that.) Here’s his film one:

Other suggestions? Leave them in comments.