PREVIOUS ISSUES : NEWS Last Updated: March 15, 2008 - 3:24 PM   Winners and Losers By SFR Staff Published: December 5, 2007   Email this article   Printer friendly page   WINNERS Santa Fe writers This may be a slightly tenuous winner, since writers don’t get paid when they strike and New Mexico Film Office Director Lisa Strout has been telling the media that the strikes will have only a minimal effect on the state’s film industry. In a show of solidarity with their striking Writers Guild brethren, 11 northern New Mexico writers (including Rambo-writer David Morrell) beg to differ and tell SFR they’re planning to begin picketing local film productions by the end of the year. Homegrown filmmakers The state of New Mexico is handing out $170,000 in grants to 11 homegrown production companies, each ranging from $2,700 to $20,000. Included among the recipients is Debra Anderson of Santa Fe, who’s working on a film called Split Estate, which focuses on the oil and gas boom in the Southwest. It’s a particularly crucial issue as Tecton Energy pushes to begin drilling for oil in the Galisteo Basin. The grants do come with strings attached: Recipients will need to provide services to the state, including training high school students in film production. Pornotopia While the Santa Fe Film Fest was stroking the high brows, Albuquerque sex shop Self Serve had filmgoers from across the state stroking…er, actually, Self Serve co-owner Molly Adler reported that its annual Pornotopia Independent Erotic Film Fest went on without a semen-spilling hitch. In fact, The Guild, Abq’s art-house theater, bucked the city zoning board’s no-lewd-stuff warnings and put on the fest anyway; it expects to receive a citation this week. Adler says that SFFF didn’t draw away viewers from Pornotopia’s turnout and, instead, Pornotopia pulled in the late-night Santa Fe filmgoers looking for racier fare. LOSERS Albuquerque While No Country for Old Men may be the best Coen brothers film since O Brother Where Art Thou, it’s currently slacking at the box office, taking in only $23 million since it opened four weeks ago. Perhaps that’s because the film, based on the book by Tesuque resident Cormac McCarthy, is playing at tiny UA DeVargas theater rather than the big Regal Stadium 14. The big loser, though, is southeast Albuquerque. Albuquerque may brag about being featured prominently in the film, but passing as El Paso circa 1980 ain’t much to be proud of. SR Sidarth SR Sidarth, the kid who destroyed former US Sen. George Allen, R-Va., by capturing the candidate’s “Macaca” moment, is living in Santa Fe these days, working for Gov. Bill Richardson’s presidential campaign. However, producing the viral Internet video often credited with cementing 2006 as the “YouTube Election” hasn’t done him any favors. As The Washington Post reports, he’s no longer a “tracker,” but a run-of-the-mill news-compiler/press-release writer. Chickens CBS’ über-controversial Kid Nation, a reality show about 40 kids living on their own in a New Mexico ghost town, has pretty much fallen off the media scandal radar. Yet die-hard critics were blood-lusty over a recent kiddy standoff between kids who wanted to kill and eat their chickens and kids who’d come to think of them as pets. “Greg,” a 15-year-old dirt biker, eventually played butcher. © Copyright 2000-2008 by the Santa Fe Reporter Save This Page to del.icio.us Top of Page