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Goodtime Charlie / 2007 / Color / USA

 

TAGLINE:

The Classic Hollywood story of a boy with a dream who doesn’t succeed. And doesn’t even try. And never stops talking about it.

SHORT SYNOPSIS:

An aging pretty boy from Portland encounters numerous indignities in the Hollywood jungle while half-assedly pursuing a litany of ill-defined ambitions.

LONG SYNOPSIS:

Charlie moves to Los Angeles to shed his Portland persona and pursue a half-baked dream of stardom, encountering numerous indignities and embarrassments in his attempts to gain a foothold in the entertainment industry. All the while, he spins self-righteous, highly implausible tales to friends back home, wildly embellishing his every encounter. Finally, broken and beaten down, he has a meltdown — then immediately jumps back into the game.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT:

Goodtime Charlie is an attempt to tackle my two favorite genres — the gay disillusionment melodrama and the crusty, LA-shot educational film of the 1970’s. Inspired by memories of melodramatic cautionary tales and hygiene flicks, this low-budget cinéma-vérité is set in the generic, sun-baked metropolis featured in the shopworn classroom films of my youth.

Because of their lackluster direction and cheap photography, I always imagined Los Angeles to be nothing more than hot road mirages, camouflage-colored hills, and bleached-out, smog-obscured views. And since that’s exactly what it is, I never went through a period of disenchantment when I relocated in 2004; I knew exactly what to expect. I wanted to pay homage to that image and contrast it to the ill-defined ambitions of people who grow up dreaming of the implausibly glitzy, effortlessly fabulous California lifestyle — the immediately recognizable City of Angels depicted in major studio productions and today’s glossy indies.

Although clearly set in contemporary LA, the comedic histrionics and self-aggrandizing one-upsmanship of the cellphone-addicted title character are overlain with the faded feel of a heavy handed After School Special. Yet, despite the over-the-top pathos and the stylized look, Goodtime Charlie is ultimately a morality tale about an archetypal LA transplant, the incompetent dreamer who runs away to Hollywood but can never run away from himself.

View the trailer online.

Click the thumbnails below for full-size photos.

 

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS:

Language: English

Duration: 7 minutes 09 seconds

Aspect Ratio: Anamorphic DV (1.85)

 

PROGRAMMING DESCRIPTORS:

Forms: Narrative Fiction, Short

Genres: Comedy, Underground, Avant-garde

Niche: Gay/Lesbian

 

AWARDS:

2007 Audience Award — “Best Short Film”

11th Annual Portland Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Portland, OR.

 

CAST:

Chris Pudlo … Charlie

Clayton Doyle … Bitchy shopkeep

 

CREW:

Editor: Mike Justice

Producers: Sean Singletary, Mike Justice

Writer: Mike Justice

Director: Mike Justice

 

Assistant Editor: Robert Fortney

Production Manager: Will Gardner

Music Supervisor: Aaron Ward

Production Assistant: Mike Marsh

Post-Production Assistant: Mack Faamausili

Assistant to the Director: Blaine Moore

 

BIOS:

Chris Pudlo has been acting for well over 20 years, having gotten his first big break at the age of three when his father cast him as the lead in several camcorder-shot horror films. After cutting his teeth on the Detroit stage in The Late Great Me, Arsenic and Old Lace, and Cheaper by the Dozen, he relocated to Los Angeles in 2001 and was cast in The Rocky Horror Picture Show and a recurring role on Malcolm in the Middle. He has since studied with Brian Reise and the Groundlings School of Improv and established himself as fixture of local theater in such plays as Queer Mates, Sordid Lives: It’s a Drag, and Southern Baptist Sissies. His other credits include Tinseltown — the adult-oriented muppet sitcom from Jim Henson’s production company — as well as the upcoming TV series Sordid Lives, created, written, and produced by Del Shores for the cable network Logo.

Surprisingly, Philadelphia native Clayton Doyle is not an actor — but rather a fixture on the Los Angeles design scene. Known primarily for his easy-going personality and highly regarded sense of space, Clayton is also fast-developing a reputation as a consummate character actor with excellent comic timing. This is good, since furniture design is a dull industry. 

 

Mike Justice is a writer and filmmaker who draws from his dual home bases of glossy Los Angeles and gritty Portland. His work — exploring the inner lives of the ignored, the attention-starved, and the hopelessly sociopathic in society — has screened in festivals and regional film societies up and down the West Coast. His latest film, Goodtime Charlie (2007), recently won the Audience Award for the Best Short Film at the 11th Annual Portland Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.

 

CONTACT INFO:

Mike Justice
Natalia Filmproduktion
2312 SE 35th Place
Portland, OR 97214
503.997.4284
justicemike(at)gmail(dot)com
Printable version of this page: PDF Press Kit.