Scouts Update

“It’s Brilliant.”
Glenn Sumi, Now, http://www.nowtoronto.com/blog/view_post.cfm?post=160

“Scouts are Cancelled is …. one of the best filmed poetry books ever …”
Todd Swift, Eyewear, http://toddswift.blogspot.com/2007/08/stiles-council.html


Just before our initial screening at Hot Docs, Scouts got a very nice full page review by the Toronto Weekly, Now and another one just recently in the Blog/Zine Eyewear.

A National Arts Program on CBC Radio in Canada did a 10 minute piece on Scouts. In it John Stiles (the subject of the doc) calls me a “wind-up artist.” VERY INTENSE interview where Stiles and I duke it out on National Radio.
http://magpiemd.tripod.com/scoutsMovie.htm

Also there are some ONE MINUTE POEMS from the movie on my site and today I will put them on YouTube. (So modern!)
http://magpiemd.tripod.com/scoutsMovie.htm

At the screening at Hot Docs a handful of Ithaca College students braved the border police and came to one of the screenings. It was great to have a cheering section!

After a zillion unreturned calls, letters and emails I have been promised a National Broadcast Deal on Canadian Television. (Yay!) Though there’s still plenty of room for me to mess this up.

If you still haven’t seen it I will send out my last 6 dvds as loaners to the first 6 people who email me back and promise to review & rate it online at The New York Times site. (So far only one rating and no reviews there.) And yes you have to review it even if you hate it!
http://movies2.nytimes.com/movie/395714/Scouts-Are-Cancelled/overview

Those who have seen it already -- the world awaits your insight!
http://movies2.nytimes.com/movie/395714/Scouts-Are-Cancelled/overview

Strange but true the movie is being TRANSLATED INTO ITALIAN for the Festivaletteratura in Italy in September – apparently the biggest literature festival in Italy that also has a film component.

And in recent news I’ve been invited to present Scouts and an older movie Dear Pam in the fall as a guest filmmaker at THE CANADIAN FILM INSTITUTE in Ottawa. Director Tom McSorley called Scouts “masterful.”

(Not quite true.)

And to top it off the movie got a very gracefully worded rejection letters from a couple of high profile film festivals, a not so gracefully worded rejection from an arts program on Finnish Television (Finland!) (she hated it!) and a surprising invitation and then a prompt but complimentary rejection note from The Weinstein Company (formerly Miramax.) The Sundance Channel also said “no thanks.”