Pittsburgh Tagged Articles at Cinematical

In August, I posted that Jeff Goldblum's mockumentary called Pittsburgh was finally getting released. The flick focuses on Goldblum as he takes a role in The Music Man for the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera "out of love, both for the venerable musical and for his fiancee, Catherine Wreford, a Canadian actress who must get a job or risk losing her visa." Now Jam! reports that one of the women in the movie is trying to stop it from airing on cable or being distributed unless her scene is cut from the movie.

Debbie Sue Croyle is a stagehand who rubbed some alcohol on Goldlum, and then blew on it to dry it so that she could tape a microphone to him. She says she was humiliated because of a double entendre/sexual innuendo he used in this scene -- certainly not the most incendiary reason to start a lawsuit. She reportedly asked the producers to either donate money to an organization that helps the mentally handicapped, or cut the scene. Since they never got back to her, she's suing for $4 million in damages.

That's one heck of an expensive innuendo! If anyone of you have seen it, please tell me what this so-called humiliating comment is, because I can't think of anything worth $4 million, especially after she signed a release for the movie. I wonder how much she would have sued for if he made the joke and accidentally spilled hot coffee on her.

Honestly, all I need to hear is Jeff Goldblum and "mockumentary," and I am there, but just in case you're not as into the Goldblum as I am, read on. Over the past few years, the actor has been putting together the part-true, part-fictional mockumentary called Pittsburgh, celebrating the works of Christopher Guest, of course, as well as John Cassavetes and Robert Altman. Goldblum says: "It's not like we've discovered a new planet, but I thought the way we tried to skin it is a little bit different than anybody else. The tone we hit and somehow the way it came together and what we tried to do, I thought, was pretty nifty." Gotta love a man who uses the word "nifty."

Pittsburgh boasts a pretty interesting cast that includes: Ed Begley Jr., Illeana Douglas, Moby, Alanis Morissette, Conan O'Brien and Craig Kilborn. It follows Jeff as he takes on a role in The Music Man for Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera -- "out of love, both for the venerable musical and for his fiancee, Catherine Wreford, a Canadian actress who must get a job or risk losing her visa." How do the others fit in? Well, for one, Douglas and Moby play a couple, and the latter says that while he hasn't seen Goldblum's work, he is a film buff. Moby explains: "I like amateur porn." That should give you an idea of what the flick is like. (You can also check out video clips over at IMDb.)

Although Martha Fischer gave it a solid review from Tribeca last year, and The Hollywood Reporter speaks highly of it, the film isn't getting a wide release. Instead, you can catch it on Starz this Sunday, and on DVD next month. If you do check it out, let us non-Starz people know what you think!

For most of us, embarrassing personal moments and ill-advised decisions are relegated to the trash heap of memory, mercifully forgotten by all but ourselves, and a select unfortunate few who happened to be along for the ride. Or, if you're Jeff Goldblum, you make a movie, preserving the debacle for posterity.

That movie is Pittsburgh, a very funny, sometimes painful documentary(ish) record of Goldblum's 2004 decision to quit Hollywood for a few months and join his fiance Catherine Wreford on stage in a production of The Music Man in his hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Recording the process from start to finish, beginning with Goldblum's presentation of the idea to his friends and thoroughly disapproving agent, and ending with the show's triumphant opening night, the film serves a dual purpose. First, it is a way of (publicly) preserving for Goldblum a strange few months of his life. Second, it gives him a chance to experiment with the documentary form, and to play with the always-mediated version of reality that such films present.