By MCN Editor editor@moviecitynews.com

Billy Baxter Presents LOVE STALKER

Posted Tuesday, May 10th, 2011 - Comments Off on Billy Baxter Presents LOVE STALKER
Be Sociable, Share!
Quote startLove Stalker is like my movie Dawn of the Dead – only it’s aliveQuote end

New York, NY – May 10, 2011

“Love Stalker is like my movie Dawn of the Dead – only it’s alive,” said Billy “Silver Dollar” Baxter to producer David Ohliger up at the Midtown Holiday Inn rooftop pool. “That’s the way you pitch Love Stalker in Cannes. Capice?”

“Gotcha,” said Ohliger.

“Dave, if I didn’t think Love Stalker was going to be a hit,” Baxter said, puffing on his cigar, “I wouldn’t be involved in the first place. Now give me a hand and get me up. Time for another dip in the pool.”

Billy Baxter is the executive producer of the American independent film “Love Stalker” which is screening at the Cannes Film Festival’s Marché du Film. Although it is thirty years since Baxter bought and sold films on the French Riviera, he still knows how to promote and publicize movies. That’s why he summoned Ohliger to a final sit-down before the young producer left for France.

“Be prepared in Cannes for anything,” Billy said, treading water. “That’s how me and my partner Herbert Steinmann got involved with Dawn of the Dead. True story. I met this young producer, Richard Rubenstein, playing Black Jack at the casino. Rubenstein had aces and wanted to double down but he didn’t have the cash. He showed me his cards and I lent him some dough and he beat the house. Long story short, Richard asked Herbert and me if we wanted to invest in his movie, and we did. Dawn of the Dead is one of the top grossing independent movies of all time. Be prepared to maneuver, Dave. Capice?”

“Billy, I really wish you were coming with us.”

“Forget about it, kid,” Baxter said. “This is my West Side Riviera. And these days, I don’t leave my zip code. You guys will figure it out over there. Now let’s get out of here. I’m turning into a prune.”

Billy re-lit his cigar on the sun deck and reached into his bag and pulled out a jewelry pouch filled with American silver dollars and handed it to David. “These are your calling cards in Cannes. Let people know Billy “Silver Dollar” Baxter is backing you and Love Stalker. Capice?”

“Gotcha.”

“Even though the world’s losing respect for the U.S. dollar, nobody but nobody over there will refuse a little precious metal. And that’s exactly what you got there, kid.”

Written by Jack Baxter

Billy Baxter Presents Love Stalker a Matt Glasson and B. Bowls MacLean film Produced by David P. Ohliger Starring Matt Glasson and Rachel Chapman

Love Stalker is the story of a 30-something bar hopping player named Pete (writer/director Glasson) who lives to “play the game” and bed as many women as possible to reach his “golden number.” Things change for him once he meets Stephanie (Rachel Chapman), a web-savvy relationship blogger, and the two begin a romance. But when Stephanie discovers the extent of his player ways she ends their relationship, driving Pete to stalker-like lengths in his efforts to win her back.

Love Stalker was shot in St. Louis, Missouri and Alton, Illinois, U.S.A.

Exclusive screening during Le Marché Sunday, May 15, 15:30, Hotel Gray D’Albion, CANNES

Billy “Silver Dollar” Baxter

Be Sociable, Share!

Posted in Movie City News, Press Releases | Comments Off on Billy Baxter Presents LOVE STALKER

Comments are closed.

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon