Though George Gallo might not always be known by name, he’s almost immediately recognized through his pictures.
Remember “Midnight Run,” the 1988 mob comedy … Robert De Niro is a late ’80s, cop-turned-bounty hunter who’s hired to find and return a bail-jumping, scared-for-his-life former mafia accountant, played by the dad from the “Beethoven” movies, Charles Grodin.
That was Gallo’s Hollywood breakout movie as a late 20-something script writer from upper state New York.
He’d go on to write even more top-grossing films including both “Bad Boys,” with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence in the late ’90s, “Double Take,” with Eddie Griffin and Orlando Jones, in 2001 and “The Whole Ten Yards,” starring Bruce Willis and Matthew Perry in 2004.
He’d made his way to Los Angeles as a naive kid at the beginning of the 1980s without much more than ambition. Now, he’s a 50-something big shot pushing a new, very artfully done, very indie film about that naive kid, called “Local Color” — an autobiographical picture he’s backing with the mortgage of his house.
It hasn’t even officially been released yet, but thanks to Bainbridge Cinema connections, it’s coming to both the Lynwood and the Orchard for special two-week showings starting April 11.
Gallo will make “in-theatre” appearances at the Friday and Saturday night showings at the Lynwood and tentatively on Sunday at the Orchard to talk about the movie.
“This gives the audience a chance to actually interact with someone who’s made film,” Lynwood manager/program director TJ Faddis said. “They get to ask the questions they want.”
So why did this big shot Hollywood writer/director choose to go the independent route for his 14th film?
“I wasn’t trying to be arrogant, but this was so important to me,” Gallo said. “I wanted to tell it the way I remember it happening … It wasn’t that I thought my personal story was all that interesting or more so than the next guy, but it was the story that I knew best.”
“Local Color” is a cinematically brush-stroked portrait of Gallo’s formative years when he left his home as a teenager to apprentice with an old Russian master and become a painter.
That’s right, a painter, like a Van Gogh or a Monet, or more inline with Gallo’s influences John Folinsbee or a George Sotter, Pennsylvania impressionists.
“We really broke our backs to make sure the every shot looked like a painting,” Gallo said of production for “Local Color.”
Faddis noted that “Local Color” is a film especially fit for painters.
The writer/director, Gallo, had originally went to college to become a graphics arts major, he now has work in major galleries around the country today. But around 1973 he was inspired to change his major to film studies.
The school told Gallo that he couldn’t switch majors, so he dropped out and moved to Hollywood.
“I was a very naive kid,” Gallo said. “I thought, maybe I’ll take a chance at writing screen plays — it’s telling stories through imagery.”
He sold the first script he’d ever written to Universal, but it ended up not being produced. After a five-year funk, still with a foot in the door from the one sell that he made, in 1986, his script “Wise Guys” was picked up and directed by Brian De Palma (the guy who did “Scarface”) starring Danny Devito and Joe Piscopo at the comedic helm.
“Then bang!” Gallo said. “I had a film under my belt … my life completely changed after that.”WU
Check out the autobiographical independent film “Local Color” (winner for best director at the Sedona Film Festival), starring Armin Mueller-Stahl as Nicoli Seroff and Trevor Morgan as John Talia, April 11-17 at the historic Lynwood and Orchard theaters. He’ll be onhand for Q & A after the evening shows Friday and Saturday on Bainbridge and tentatively Sunday in Port Orchard. Info: www.lynwoodtheatre.org or www.orchardtheater.com, www.localcolorthemovie.com.
George Gallo, writer/director, is also an established painter and will be publicly starting a painting at a cocktail party from 6-8 p.m. April 10 at the Roby King Galleries, 176 Winslow Way on Bainbridge; he’ll finish from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. April 12 and it’ll be auctioned off with proceeds benefiting the Bainbridge Island Arts and Humanities Council.
