Happy Birthday Vincent!

Best wishes for a wonderful birthday!

Joe's Pub: THE GEORGE GERKIE COWBOY EXPERIENCE

Vincent D'Onofrio presents
THE GEORGE GERKIE COWBOY EXPERIENCE WITH SPECIAL GUEST SAM BISBEE
A benefit for The Heroes Health Project
Thursday, July 22 at 7:00 PM

http://joespub.com/

The Heroes Health Project is an extraordinary foundation set up to provide unique help through a successful detoxification program to uniformed personnel who suffer as a result of toxic exposure while in the line of duty. Thousands of police officers and firefighters exposed to toxic methamphetamine labs and soldiers exposed to burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan are suffering. It is our intent to help those who have put their lives on the line for their community and country and who have put the welfare of others before their own. They were the heroes we looked to whenever help was needed and who, in providing that help, lost their own health and quality of life. It is time to give back. We owe them. Please join us in this worthwhile endeavor by donating to the cause. $40 / $100 VIP ticket including preferred seating and meet & greet.

Parade Magazine: Vincent D'Onofrio 'Law & Order' Exit

Parade Magazine, June 27, 2010

Q Please tell me why my favorite actor, Vincent D'Onofrio, left Law & Order: Criminal Intent.--Lisa Carroll, Hinsdale, Ill.

A D'Onofrio says he left to explore other opportunities. But L&O creator Dick Wolf recasts the show periodically--some say to keep costs down. "I'm looking for work as an actor," D'Onofrio, 50, says, "but I have film projects of my own. I directed a slasher musical called Don't Go in the Woods. Whether anybody will like it or not is the question."

http://www.parade.com/celebrity/personality-parade/2010/06/27/vincent-d-onofrio-law-and-order.html

Thanks to Linda!

/Jenn

Own a Script from Law & Order: Criminal Intent Signed by Kathryn Erbe, Vincent D'Onofrio and Eric Bogosian

On Charity Buzz

Own a piece of TV history with this signed script from a 2006 episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent signed by its stars Kathryn Erbe, Vincent D'Onofrio and Eric Bogosian. The episode is entitled BLIND SPOT, directed by Norberto Barba.

The proceeds for this item benefit Summit School
Terms: In condition as donated. Cannot be returned or exchanged.

Donated by: Kathryn Erbe, Vincent D'Onofrio and Eric Bogosian

lot opened: Tue, 22 Jun 2010 12:00:00 PM EDT
lot closes: Wed, 14 Jul 2010 2:03:00 PM EDT
*****************************************************

Own Kathryn Erbe's Crime-Catching Ensemble from Law & Order: Criminal Intent

Feel like the real Detective Alexandra Eames with Kathryn Erbe's gorgeous outfit from an episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. This ensemble includes a beautifully-tailored Nanette Lepore duster and a stunningly feminine Marc Jacobs dress. Both items are a size 2.

The proceeds for this item benefit Summit School
Terms: In condition as donated. Cannot be returned or exchanged. Dress and coat are a size 2.

Donated by: Kathryn Erbe

More Info

Learn from the Best with Acting Lessons with Vincent D’Onofrio

Charity Buzz

Description

Vincent D'Onofrio is known as an "actor's actor". In fact, upon accepting her Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Cold Mountain, Renee Zellweger thanked Vincent "for teaching her how to act."

Now hone your acting skills with this highly-regarded professional with a series of three acting lessons in New York City. These lessons will take place once a week over the course of three consecutive weeks at a location and time to be determined.

The wide variety of roles Vincent D'Onofrio has played and the quality of his work have earned him a reputation as a versatile talent. He studied at the Actors Studio and the American Stanislavski Theatre. His debut on stage was in 1984 in the Broadway play Open Admissions, followed by work in numerous other stage plays. As a film actor, D'Onofrio's career break came when he played a mentally unbalanced recruit in Full Metal Jacket (1987), directed by the renowned Stanley Kubrick. For this role D'Onofrio gained nearly 70 pounds. He had a major role in Dying Young (1991), and appeared prominently in the box-office smash Men in Black (1997) as the bad guy (Edgar "The Bug").

Other films of note in which he has appeared are Mystic Pizza (1988), JFK (1991), The Player (1992), Ed Wood (1994), The Cell (2000) and The Break-Up (2006). In 1996 D'Onofrio garnered critical acclaim along with co-star Renée Zellweger for The Whole Wide World (1996), which he helped produce. He also made a guest appearance in the TV series Homicide: Life on the Street (1993) in a 1997 episode, where he played an accident victim who could not be rescued and was destined to die. For this performance he won an Emmy nomination. In 2000 he both produced and starred in Steal This Movie (2000), a biopic of radical leader Abbie Hoffman.

In 2001 D'Onofrio took the role which has likely given him his greatest public recognition: Det. Robert Goren, the lead character in the TV series Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001). Most recently, D'Onofrio acted in the Academy Award winning live action short film The New Tenants(2010) and also directed his first ever feature, a horror musical entitled Don’t Go In The Woods.

The proceeds for this item benefit Summit School
Terms: Lessons will take place once a week for three consecutive weeks at a mutually agreed upon date and location in New York City. Valid for one year from the close of auction. Cannot be resold or re-auctioned. Adults only please.

Donated by: Vincent D’Onofrio

lot opened: Tue, 22 Jun 2010 12:00:00 PM EDT
lot closes: Wed, 14 Jul 2010 2:18:00 PM EDT

Visit Charity Buzz for more information.

wicked humor

SRQ, 6.21.10
by Jacob Ogles


Dark humor radiates from Vincent D'Onofrio’s complete catalog of work. He first rose to fame as Pvt. Gomer Pyle—the one who shouted 'Sir, Yes, Sir!' as Sgt. Hartman destroyed his soul in Full Metal Jacket, not the one who exclaimed 'Shazam!' when Sgt. Carter sent him to peel potatoes on The Andy Griffith Show. Today, D’Onofrio is more recognizable as Detective Robert Goren, the Sherlock Holmes-esque homicide investigator he portrayed for eight years on Law and Order: Criminal Intent. And in between, he has portrayed any number of twisted and funny characters in television and on film. With his most recent TV stint done, D'Onofrio is trying out the director's seat, and bringing the black comedy with him. The celebrated actor grew up in Hialeah, so he decided to come to Florida in search of the first commercial audience for his feature-length film Don't Go In the Woods. When the movie screened here, audiences at Hollywood 20 found themselves bursting into laughter in the creepiest of moments. D’Onofrio comes up behind the success of movies such as High School Musical and the TV show Glee, then smacks them in the back of the head with a sledgehammer. Don’t Go is a musical, but it’s the kind where people have to wash that blood out of their fingernails rather than wash that man right out of their hair. He calls it a rock ’n’ roll slasher, a genre that at this point may well contain just one film. The movie was cast with musically gifted newcomers, most of whom meet bloody ends before the credits roll. A couple served as extras on Law and Order: CI, but most had never acted before. D’Onofrio doesn’t have a speaking role, though his voice can be heard in an opening musical number.

So why make a directorial debut with a completely inexperienced crew, then build the entire momentum of the film with only a combination of emo riffs and violent zeal?“If you’ve been in the world of the arts as long as I have, it’s a very common thing,” he says, “the notion of killing your darlings.” The movie follows a rock band during a trip to the woods intended as a songwriting sabbatical but which turns into the retreat from Halloween. The film was shot with two cameras on a wooded property in upstate New York. “Those are my woods,” D’Onofrio told an audience after a screening. “Don’t go in them.” But he hopes the film entices audiences in love of laughter, song and death to take their loved ones to the theater—and hope the car battery isn’t eerily dead when it’s time to go home. D’Onofrio spoke with SRQ about the film. We’ve never seen something like this before. Why make a horror musical? It was just an idea I had. I don’t want to make it more than that. An idea just came to my head. There were certain ways I wanted to do it. I find the result to be an odd, cerebral experience. I needed to do that in a kind of real way, instead of a ‘pretend odd.’ I knew I had to have unknown actors, who were totally inexperienced. There couldn’t be a lot of fancy camera work. The way the film was laid out, it would have to be built like a slacker movie, with a horror movie kind of feel to it.

This is a modern musical in which there is a legitimate reason people are singing in that you have a rock band writing songs. Was that important to you to make it feel real? After every song, I wanted to see what you see. And I don’t think we do all the time in the film, but sometimes we do. I wanted to see if, like in life, there is a beautiful song, and then after the song, the rhythm falls flat. Can you survive that? I think you can. If we can survive in films with all this flashy schlock that is out there, where something so over-the-top can happen in a movie and the acting is so bad and silly, and then the next moment is great in the same movie, if we can survive that, then we certainly can survive it being really flat, and really raw, and then getting a little flashy.

How long did it take you to create the film? We did the script first. I came up with the story, and then the three of us wrote just a straight-up B-movie horror film. And then we started to polish that. And then I started to use that script as the blueprint for making the film.

Sam Bisbee wrote all the music. Did you give him much direction about the mood that needed to be conveyed or the action that was happening? No. I would just tell him if the song worked or not. He would say ‘How does this work?’ and I would say ‘Awesome.’

Was any of the music written before the plot of the film was established? There were a couple of songs he had written that I knew I wanted in the movie. And then we just sat down and wrote the rest of the music. I did come up with a couple of ideas for songs. But he wrote them all.

We know you directed a short about Orson Welles, but this is your first feature film in the director's seat. How much more work goes into a full-length production like this? The way I have worked so far, it’s the same amount of work, but for a longer period of time. Every day it’s the same amount of work, but it goes on much longer.

As an actor directing, is it different on set? What does it do for the actors? They have total confidence I'm not going to screw them when it comes to their acting. I think that is important from their point of view.

You were talking about needing a lack of experience with actors. When was it good to have fresh, inexperienced actors? If you set it up and make them feel comfortable where they understand the concept effectively, then as soon as they understood the concept. The fact that they could speak the author's words and not feel inhibited by them, speak the author's words and get away with that as a performance and not have to put on any affect or inflection, that if they know what the scene is about and they just talk, then more than likely, it is going to work. As soon as they understood that concept, it worked.

Did you cast the roles for singing ability first? That was the only [requirement]. I said to them, ‘I don’t even care if you can’t act.’ I didn’t want them thinking about that. I didn’t care if they weren’t considering acting. I don’t want you to talk about whether you are nervous or not nervous. I don’t even want to talk about it. But you do need to know how to sing. You have to have that talent.

Have you gotten feedback from other people about whether this will go to broad release? I have actor friends I have gotten close to over the years, and they have loved it when I have shown it to them. It's in the hands of somebody really good and I made a deal with that person: Jason Blum. We’ll have to see what he does with it, but I have all the confidence in the world.

This is the first festival you’ve taken the film. Why did you want the first commercial audience to be here? I do trust Florida, for some reason. I lived here when I was a kid. That’s why I brought it to Florida State University to do a sneak screening there. I knew that I would never have a sneak screening in LA, even at a university. I am not completely sure, but if I have my way, this will be the only festival it goes to. I don’t think it needs to go to festivals. I just wanted it to come and be treated nicely and have an audience.

At panels after screenings, D’Onofrio hinted to the audience that more blood may yet be shed on his land. If a sequel can be justified, he already has a name picked out: I Said, Don’t Go In the Woods. He is also working on other projects that he wants to tackle in the near future. He is in talks with AMC about doing a new television show. And he has a story penned for a new film tentatively titled Johnny and Me, another musical but this one featuring the songs of Johnny Cash as sung by a mental patient with severe Asperger Syndrome. When asked about potentially guest-starring on Law and Order: CI in the future, he quickly dismissed the possibility. And of course, D’Onofrio has big plans for Don’t Go, but can’t get there alone. He is trusting Jason Blum, the distributor who got Paranormal Activity in theaters nationwide, to push forward with a solid commercial release for the film. While in town, D’Onofrio made no secret that the film was his priority. He skipped most of the Night of 1,000 Stars event in favor of sitting through the debut screening. And after the final showing, he seemed willing to take questions from audience members all night until SRQ pointed out that a Patti Smith concert was starting a few blocks away. Typical Hollywood politics could always rear their head, but D’Onofrio is confident his movie won’t be contained to limited release and festival screenings. But anyone watching Don’t Go may leave wondering what happens when a member of D’Onofrio’s creative team crosses him. For now, though, the actor-turned director must wait to see what happens. And if the film does go to broad release, he seems anxious to tell as many potential viewers as possible where to go.

http://www.srqmagazine.com/issues/issueDetail.cfm?iteID=1356

Thanks CD!

Dr Park Dietz: Dangerous minds

Posted on Alpha Investigations, 6.20.10 - Thanks Linda!

As America’s leading forensic psychiatrist, Dr Park Dietz puts killers behind bars. Now he has another role, making TV crime dramas. He tells Andrew Gumbel why mixing fact and fiction can be deadly serious

Dr Park Dietz has an uneasy relationship with publicity, and it’s not just because of his deep, abiding familiarity with the psychological make-up of serial killers, sexual deviants, stalkers and mass murderers.

For years, America’s foremost criminal profiler – who has testified at the trials of such criminals as John Hinckley, Jeffrey Dahmer and Andrea Yates – would not let reporters give details of his home or office. He did not want his photograph in newspapers or magazines.

The reason, which he is now happy to reveal from his harbour-front office in Newport Beach, is a stalker was after him – a man who switched obsessions from a prominent British performer (whom Dietz declines to name) after seeing Dietz’s name twice in the media and deciding they shared some bond. The stalker was arrested a few years ago and imprisoned on other charges, which has given Dietz at least a few years’ breathing room.

Dietz believes such an obsession could only have been the result of a slew of television shows glorifying criminal profilers such as himself -such as Millennium, Profiler, The X-Files and NYPD Blue. He receives slightly unhinged fan mail, from people who, he says, either feel they are victims in need of his help or simply want to be him. He sees ways in which both saturation news coverage of shocking crimes and their fictional depiction in drama series can spur further acts of real-life violence.

And yet Dietz is also very much a creature of the media – understandable, given his association with just about every high-profile murder case of the past several decades. He appears regularly on television news shows. He has been profiled in all sorts of magazines and for the past several years has been a consultant on the cop show Law & Order and its offshoot Law & Order: Criminal Intent, which has just started airing a new season in Britain. (The character of Detective Robert Goren, played by Vincent D’Onofrio, is based on Dietz, and they share what Dietz describes as an “idiot savant knowledge of obscure things that pop up in the relation to crimes”.)

Originally posted here in 2006 from source -The Independent.

Happy Father's Day!!

to all those great Dads out there.

"The New Tenants" comes to The Palm Springs ShortFest

Palm Springs Int'l ShortFest
June 22 - 28, 2010

OPENING NIGHT: FOR LAUGHING OUT LOUD
82 Minute Running Time


A selection of great new comedy shorts shares the bill on ShortFest's Opening Night kickoff, followed by a fabulous party at Wangs. No shortage of big time entertainment here!

More info: http://www.psfilmfest.org/festival/film/detail.aspx?id=22280&FID=44

RUMOR: Vincent D'onofrio in Negotiations to Join Captain America

ComicBookMovie.com

It appears director Joe Johnston is following through with his promise to surround Captain America leading man Chris Evans with well-established actors. So far, Marvel Studios has signed Hugo Weaving to portray the villainous Red Skull, Stanley Tucci as Dr. Abraham Erskine, Tommy Lee Jones as Gen. Chester Philips, Toby Jones as Arnim Zola and Neal McDonough as 'Dum Dum' Dugan.

Today I received word from a reliable source (the same person who supplied me with the confirmed Captain America & Thor movie logos) that actor Vincent D'onofrio is in negotiations to join the Star Spangled Avenger movie cast as well. Supposedly he will portray either one of Nick Fury's Howling Commandos or a member of the super-team The Invaders. There is no word yet on which character he is being pursued for, but it appears that both teams, the Commandos and Invaders, are being combined into one for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/Poniverse/news/?a=19068

7/24/10- Update

Vincent at FLEOA awards

This posted on Gaming Oasis--

Post by pesetas » Mon Jun 07, 2010 9:41 am
"My wife and I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. D'Onofrio in Vegas last week. Some of you may know of him from Full Metal Jacket, Men In Black, Law and Order Criminal Intent and numerous other shows. He is a really nice guy. I will hopefully have photographs soon!"

This apparently refers to Vincent's appearance at a FLEO awards banquet on June 3 in Henderson Nevada. Found posted on Twitter: Vince D'Onofrio received the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association award (www.fleoa.org) last night! CONGRATULATIONS!

Thanks Mari!

/jenn

Video: George Gerkie, Sam Bisbee at Joe's Pub

Tricia (BriarRose920) has kindly shared her videos of George Gerkie, Sam Bisbee and the band, after the screening of "Don't Go in the Woods" at Joe's Pub on May 28th.
Thanks so much!!


GGG performing his song from the movie entitled I'm In Love With A Man. Well all I can say is, he's definitely a character!! Sorry it's not taken from the best angle, but honestly we were too close to get good footage. OK there's a sentence I NEVER thought I'd say, I was TOO CLOSE to Vincent D'Onofrio WTF??


As the credits rolled the band from the movie came out and played along with the credits. Vincent D'Onofrio was there as was Sam Bisbee. Sorry it's not the best angle but we were sitting practically ON the stage.
I contacted Mr. Bisbee to make sure it was ok for me to post these videos, but I didn't hear back so I'm going to assume it's ok. If not, let me know and I'll take them down.



The band members from the movie and their girlfriends singing "Groupies". This song is hilarious and (I must admit) it's a catchy-ass song!!! I've been singing it ever since. Nice job Mr. Bisbee :).I really wasn't trying to get a crotch shot of the guitar player, I was trying to get a glimpse of the bass player and the drummer without success.




I didn't get the entire song, sorry. I have no idea what happened to the rest of the video. Did I mention I suck with the camera??


In my humble opinion as a semi professional musician, this girl had the best voice of anyone in the movie. I think she has a real shot at a future in the music business. She was accompanied by Sam Bisbee on guitar.


The beginning of this is very blury, it was too dark for the camera to focus. it clears up in a few seconds though. But I didn't want to miss this one since the bass player sang it. It's a good song and he's a cutie ;)


Last one and very short. This was at the end with everyone on stage. I thought maybe Vincent would come back out and take a bow but he graciously allowed the kids and Sam to have their moment.

"The New Tenants" finalists in PRODUCED BY Challenge

"The New Tenants" take part in the the Producers Challenge at the 2010 PRODUCED BY Conference in Los Angeles, June 4-6

The Producers Challenge gives short film and webisode producers ultimate access to top professionals and the opportunity to win exceptional prizes.

Finalists will have their work judged by top producers and screened at the Produced By Conference.

The competition is divided into three categories – short films, studio webisodes and independent webisodes.

SHORT FILM
"The New Tenants” (USA/Denmark)
Producers: Erika Hampson, Sam Bisbee, Christian Potalivo, Tivi Magnusson

"The New Tenants" screens at the Sydney Film Festival

"The New Tenants" screens at the 2010 Sydney Film Festival



The New Tenants
Joachim Back | Denmark-USA | 21 mins

Winner of the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short. A darkly satirical short film starring Vincent D'Onofrio, Kevin Corrigan and Jamie Harrold.

Screens:
June 3 8:45
June 6 9:30

For Tickets and Info, click here

The CI Binder Project delivers Vincent's Binder in Person!

The Criminal Intent Binder Project was hand delivered to Vincent at Joe's Pub in NYC by Susan.

Visit Saving Goren and Eames Now for photos and details of this magnificent project!

Thanks Suzanne!

THE BINDER

Father's Day Gift Cards