The Lackawanna County Commissioners voted to allow a documentary filmmaker to use clips of the failed movie.<\/p>\n
LACKAWANNA COUNTY, Pa. \u2014 It never drew applause or acclaim, but\u00a0“The Trouble with Cali” did draw up laughs and some harsh critiques at the Lackawanna County Commissioners meeting on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m not a film buff, but this is the worst film, the worst movie. It has to be the worst in the history of movies in the world,\u201d said Commissioner Bill Gaughan.<\/p>\n
All three commissioners voted yes to allow parts of the county-owned film to be used in an upcoming documentary that highlights the failed creation and the trouble behind Cali.<\/p>\n
“I don’t want to say it’s a nightmare. I mean, I’ve seen the movie twice. I’ve had the distinct privilege of doing, and every time you see it, it gets funnier. It’s so bad, in my opinion, that it’s like a comedy,\u201d said Attorney Don Fredrickson. He serves as General Counsel for Lackawanna County.<\/p>\n
Filmed in the late 2000s, the movie, directed by the late actor Paul Sorvino, looked to bring some of Hollywood to Lackawanna County. Instead, years went by, and lawsuits were filed.<\/p>\n
The two former county commissioners whose administration green-lit the film were sent to jail for corruption.<\/p>\n
County taxpayers were out $500,000, and lastly, the film was never distributed.<\/p>\n
Now, some 15 years later, county officials look to make the bombed production a cult classic. \u201cHopefully this documentary will produce some positive results for us in that it might generate some interest in the movie, in which maybe a larger\u2014like a Netflix or Paramount\u2014would want to pick it up to stream it,\u201d said Fredrickson.<\/p>\n
Newswatch 16 spoke with the documentary’s producer and director, John Mikulak.<\/p>\n
He says the piece is untitled right now, but it is in the editing phase. This collaboration with the county, Mikulak says, is part of the \u201cgoal to tell the story and generate publicity around ‘The Trouble with Cali,’ even creating some ‘cult film potential.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat’s kind of the hope going forward\u2014that the county will be able to recover some of its $500,000 investment,\u201d said Fredrickson.<\/p>\n
There is no release date set for “The Trouble with Cali.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Lackawanna County Commissioners voted to allow a documentary filmmaker to use clips of the failed movie. LACKAWANNA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[88,206],"class_list":{"0":"post-303023","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}