Reviews

“Play provides career boosts to Londoner”
Sat, October 29, 2005, London Free Press
By Kathy Rumleski, Free Press Reporter

The first play Jeff Glickman directed was Barstool Words, performed at the drama workshop in University College at the University of Western Ontario in He worked with a budget of $300 and a couple of guys who had never acted before.

Fast forward seven years and the London native is directing Barstool Words again — in his first feature film with actors including Colm Feore, who played Pierre Trudeau in the TV miniseries Trudeau, and Sarah Carter (Smallville, Final Destination 2).

He also directed a stage version of Barstool Words in New York in 2000.

“It’s a total full circle. For whatever reasons, it’s a project that has come back to being my first thing three times,” Glickman said yesterday from Sudbury, where filming began on the movie last week.

Although he wouldn’t say what kind of budget he’s working with, Glickman, 28, did say he has a 50-person crew and a sizeable budget for an independent film.

Barstool Words is a black comedy about two high school friends who reunite after 10 years when they encounter a femme fatale from their past. The friends plot revenge and a prank turns deadly.

“What works about it is it’s a story about three or four people that in all of their monstrous ugliness are still resoundingly human and resoundingly familiar to us,” Glickman said.
“It’s a masculine movie in the sense it’s about the male ego and 21st-century male confusion. I love black comedy and things that are dark.”
The writer, Josh Ben Friedman, a friend of Glickman’s since his high school days at a private arts school in Michigan, wrote the play when he was 15.

Friedman and Glickman have re- written the play twice.

“It changes as you get older,” Glickman said.
When Friedman suggested that if the film is successful, producers might want to restage it in New York, Glickman said he glibly replied: “Josh, we’ll find someone else to direct that production because I’m done with these characters.”
Filming will continue until Nov. 24, with the movie expected to be completed in late March or early April.

“The goal for us is to make a damn good movie with a great story and really interesting characters, that’s dark and at the same time extremely funny and extremely dynamic and to make our investors’ money back,” Glickman said.
Investors include the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund and three Canadian broadcasters who bought the movie — CHUM, The Movie Network and Movie Central.

Shoreline Entertainment of Los Angeles is selling the movie internationally.

Glickman isn’t sure how successful his film debut will be, but he is realistic about stardom.
“I’m not expecting Hollywood to come knocking on my door. I’m just expecting that I’ll be able to make this movie . . . plus a little bit of profit and be able to have an even better track record for the next time I pound the pavement with something.”

Glickman, who is also a partner in a production company, said it’s about time he ventured into film.

“I’m very glad that I’m making my first feature film at this time because it was due. You can only play the wunderkind card so long and now I’m like an adult. I’m getting to a point where you need to keep delivering.”

Delivering the same play is not something he expected, but even his first crack at it at UWO brought satisfaction.

“I still watch the tape of that sometimes. It still has something to it.”