{"id":2607,"date":"2025-10-15T22:03:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T22:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/2607\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T22:03:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T22:03:12","slug":"filmmaker-wants-to-make-cali-pay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/2607\/","title":{"rendered":"Filmmaker wants to make ‘Cali’ pay"},"content":{"rendered":"

In February 2012, I boarded a plane bound for Phoenix, Arizona, where I rented a car and drove two hours through impossibly picturesque desert to the Sedona Film Festival. The main attraction was the world premiere of a motion picture<\/a> I and thousands of other Lackawanna County taxpayers invested in and waited six contentious years to see.<\/p>\n

It was the first-ever public screening of \u201cThe Trouble with Cali,\u201d directed by legendary actor Paul Sorvino<\/a> and funded in part by $500,000 in public money. The county\u2019s unusual \u201cpartnership\u201d with Sorvino began with grandiose promises of huge profits and future film industry prosperity for Northeast Pennsylvania. In the end, Sorvino had to be shamed into finishing the film.<\/p>\n

Before the Sedona premiere, I sat down with Sorvino and his son, Michael<\/a>. Paul was extremely sensitive about widely published characterizations of him as a \u201cscamster\u201d who took the county\u2019s money with no intention of delivering the film. He said the Sedona premiere was a \u201cpersonal vindication\u201d of his commitment to the project. Paul and Michael said they invested \u201chundreds of thousands\u201d of their own money into finishing the cut that was screening that night.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat will they say now?\u201d Paul Sorvino said of critics who bet he would never finish the film. \u201cWhat now?\u201d<\/p>\n

I was among the harshest of those critics. I congratulated the Sorvinos on finishing the flick and wished them luck with the 750 average citizen critics in the audience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want this movie to be successful,\u201d I said. \u201cRemember, I\u2019m an investor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shortly after the theater lights dimmed, it was painfully clear that \u201cCali\u2019s\u201d troubles were far from over. The bizarre, disjointed 90-minute film was a schizophrenic mess. The Sedona audience vehemently panned it<\/a>, as did later ones in Scranton<\/a> and at a New Jersey film festival.<\/p>\n

The Scranton screening was a personal vindication of my savage review of the movie<\/a>. The cut presented in Scranton<\/a> was somehow worse than the one shown in Sedona. County officials decided to accept the investment as a loss and shelved the three Blu-ray discs<\/a> Sorvino finally delivered in 2015.<\/p>\n

I thought that was a shame. So did documentary filmmaker John Mikulak. Like me, he sees \u201cThe Trouble with Cali\u201d as a \u201cdisasterpiece\u201d that could become a cult classic like \u201cRocky Horror Picture Show\u201d or the lesser-known \u201cThe Room.\u201d<\/p>\n

Almost 20 years after county taxpayers invested half a million dollars in it, \u201cCali\u201d could start paying us back at the box office or on streaming platforms. To further this unusual opportunity, John is making a movie about our movie.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully, if the documentary gets released, the idea would be that the movie would get people to want to see the movie,\u201d he said. \u201cA lot of films that don\u2019t work just don\u2019t work. They don\u2019t have any entertainment value, but this one has real cult film potential.\u201d<\/p>\n

John would know. He\u2019s won multiple Emmys and ADDYs (the advertising equivalent). His 2009 documentary, \u201cThe Man Who Would Be Polka King,\u201d about bandleader and Ponzi schemer Jan Lewan, was the seed for the 2017 film, \u201cThe Polka King<\/a>,\u201d starring Jack Black. Both are still streaming on Netflix. John sees the strange story behind \u201cCali\u201d as a golden opportunity for the county to capitalize on Sorvino\u2019s disasterpiece.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think this is really the last best hope, and that\u2019s why I met with (county officials),\u201d he said. \u201cI said to them, \u2018I think you should look into the fact that maybe you guys have a right to use this footage. You\u2019re a key investor. Nothing has been done with it for 20 years. (Sorvino) started shooting in 2006. Think about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

County Solicitor Don Frederickson and others \u201clooked into it\u201d and decided that as a primary investor, the county has rights to the film and to license John to use footage in his film, county spokesman Patrick McKenna said. An agreement will be finalized soon, he said.<\/p>\n

John hopes to finish his documentary sometime next year. He said he\u2019s had discussions with Netflix and a contact at HBO who expressed interest. He\u2019s also exploring the film festival route, but first he has to wrap up his film, which is labor-intensive practically and creatively.<\/p>\n

The story of our movie is profoundly weird and populated by strange characters. I\u2019m in John\u2019s movie. So are former Commissioner Mike Washo and former Commissioner Bob Cordaro, whom \u201cCali\u201d credits as an executive producer. Bob couldn\u2019t be at the Sedona premiere. He was in federal prison.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s all the local political intrigue, but you have to watch how deep in the weeds you get into that,\u201d John\u00a0 said. \u201cThis is really for a national audience, but I think it is kind of funny when you have people take shots at each other. \u2026 I\u2019m going to have to figure out a way to leave in some of the personal digs, because that\u2019s kind of fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

So is \u201cThe Trouble with Cali.\u201d It\u2019s so bad, it\u2019s really good. Sorvino, who died in 2022, claimed he was \u201cproud\u201d of the film, but it was clearly a smudge on an otherwise sterling career. He was an accomplished artist, a great stage and screen actor and an acclaimed opera singer. Sometimes, great artists create garbage. Sometimes, that garbage is inadvertently entertaining and surprisingly profitable.<\/p>\n

All these years later, I still want Sorvino\u2019s movie to be successful. I\u2019m an investor.<\/p>\n

CHRIS KELLY, the Times-Tribune columnist, often creates garbage. Just ask his critics. Contact the writer: ckelly@scrantontimes.com; @cjkink on X; Chris Kelly, The Times-Tribune on Facebook; and @chriskellyink on Blue Sky Social.<\/p>\n

Originally Published: October 15, 2025 at 12:00 AM EDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In February 2012, I boarded a plane bound for Phoenix, Arizona, where I rented a car and drove…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1612,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[1590,201,182,139,1559,1560,28,178,180,179],"class_list":{"0":"post-2607","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-chris-kelly","9":"tag-lackawanna-county","10":"tag-local-news","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-opinion","13":"tag-opinion-columnists","14":"tag-pennsylvania","15":"tag-scranton","16":"tag-scranton-headlines","17":"tag-scranton-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}