'Last Confederate' seen in Charleston

With a new title — "The Last Confederate" — and solid indie distribution (ThinkFilm), the feature formerly known as "Strike the Tent" is playing locally.

Originally slated for a Charleston opening last fall but postponed, the Civil War-era film is decidedly a family foray. Shot on ancestral lands in Lower Richland County and produced by Weston Adams and screenwriter/star/co-director Julian Adams, it's the true story of the conflict between Capt. Robert Adams' dedication to the South and his love for one Eveline McCord (Gwendolyn Edwards), his beloved from the North.

Julian Adams stars in the title role as his real-life great-great-grandfather, a planter and strong-willed Confederate officer who, on the eve of the Civil War, falls for a teacher from the Union North. The captain would be pleased to know that their story was being told by his descendants.

"My father, Weston, and I sat down and put the story together in 2002 and began working on a script," says Julian. "We started shooting in 2004, but didn't go into full swing until the following year. We began hitting the festival circuit with it late in 2005, and then ThinkFilm came on board."

Co-directed by A. Blaine Miller, the film is billed as "a richly detailed saga of fierce combat, honor and the will to risk all that's precious for love or country."

Weston Adams, Joshua Lindsey, Eric Holloway, Edwin McCain and Amy Redford augment a cast that is completed by two veteran Hollywood stars, the ageless Mickey Rooney and Tippi Hedren.

Julian, who grew up in Columbia, says his father was raised on the same lands depicted in the film. Weston is an attorney, brigadier general in the S.C. Military Department and former U.S. ambassador. Julian, an architect by training, now devotes his energies strictly to filmmaking. He runs two production companies: Solar Filmworks in the Palmetto State and Strongbow Pictures in Los Angeles, where he resides.

"Architecture is on hold indefinitely," says Julian, currently working with director Todd Robinson on a documentary about Austin, Texas, singer-songwriter Amy Cook. "It's now full steam ahead in film business."

Next up, Adams has a role (and serves as a producer) in Robinson's "The Last Full Measure." A New Line film, it begins shooting in the fall with stars Morgan Freeman, Robert Duval, Bruce Willis and Andy Garcia.

"The Last Confederate" opened in Los Angeles last week. Apart from gigs in Charleston and Columbia, the picture has future play dates slated for New York, Houston and Nashville, with additional venues to come.

DVDs for overseas

Heeeeeeere's movies!

Former "Tonight Show" co-host Ed McMahon, 84, is fronting for Operation DVD, a program that encourages donations of DVDs for U.S. troops in Iraq, offering "escape from wartime realities."

"This program accomplishes two things," says McMahon, a Marine veteran. "The troops are entertained, and they know that citizens at home care and support them."

Operation DVD collects new and used DVDs to distribute overseas to American military personnel. The year-old program already has collected more than 250,000 DVDs but needs more.

The group's goal is to have 1 million DVDs distributed to U.S. troops with more than 200 titles in rotation at each base. Collection boxes are located nationwide at schools, retail stores, churches and government offices. For more information, go online at www.operationdvd.us.

How's that, Hal?

Indie auteur Hal Hartley's "Fay Grim" resumes the tale where 1997's "Henry Fool," stopped, reintroducing the characters and their quandaries. Henry (Thomas Jay Ryan) is still on the run in Europe; Simon Grim (James Urbaniak), is in the slammer for helping him elude the authorities and title character Fay Grim (Parker Posey) is living off her brother's nickel royalties while raising Henry's son, Ned (Liam Aiken).

So why after taking the trouble to remind us of these things does Harley summarily dispense with them, changing genres from morality tale to international thriller? As always, Hartley's thought processes (and lack of focus) remain a mystery.

The best thing about the film, based on early notices, is Posey's portrait of a woman's development.

New 'Rules'

Criterion strikes again, happily.

French director Jean Renoir's now fabled "The Rules of the Game" debuted in 1939 and quickly was met with derision, even outrage. His somewhat satirical comedy of manners about a cadre of socialites savoring a sojourn at a country estate (owned by a nouveau riche Jew) didn't go down well with a country on the verge of German invasion.

In fact, the original negative of the movie was destroyed when the Nazis took Paris. Global audiences didn't get to see the film until several prints were restored in the late 1950s. What a difference. Critics were beside themselves in praise. So much so that today "Rules" resides near the top of a great many all-time-best lists.

Criterion, the home video industry leader for resurrecting art films, has released a new DVD restoration (and re-evaluation) of one of the most visually arresting black-and-white films ever made. It stars Marcel Dalio, familiar to generations of moviegoers as the diminutive croupier at Rick's casino in "Casablanca"), but the real drawing card is the work of the director, son of the great painter Pierre Auguste Renoir. A gem.

Bits and Pieces

Some small films that may yet make it here:

Mads Mikkelsen ("Casino Royale," "After the Wedding") returns in "Adam's Apples," writer-director Anders Thomas Jensen's tale of a middle-age neo-Nazi who gets sentenced to community service at a small church, where the vicar assigns him the task of nurturing the church's lone apple tree. ... Juan Carlos Rulfo's "In the Pit," a documentary about a massive construction project that will erect a freeway over parts of Mexico City, focuses on a handful of workers to reveal the plight of all involved. ... Timothy Hutton and Joely Richardson star in "The Last Mimzy," centering on the mysterious power of a ragged stuffed rabbit two children find in a box of toylike objects. Based on the short story by Lewis Padgett, it is directed by Bob Shaye. ... Oily bad guy specialist Billy Zane plays a doctor exposed to a substance that unlocks genetic memories in his brain, memories belonging to a murderer, in "Memory." Co-starring are Tricia Helfer, Ann-Margret and Dennis Hopper. ... Winner of the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, the soccer story "Offside" by Iranian director Jafar Panahi ("The White Balloon") is said to be a real charmer.