Press

Stars of new show coming to Cleveland
THE PLAIN DEALER

1:03 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 3
Stars of the new prime-time drama “Desire” will visit Cleveland on Friday, Aug. 4, to promote their show and its new network, My Network TV.
“Desire,” a steamy soap opera filled with family intrigue, premieres at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 5, on WUAB Channel 43. Cast members Michelle Belegrin, Derika Abraham, Fiona Hunter and Joe Tabb are visiting Cleveland.
Channel 43 has joined My Network TV, a new network that will provide 12 hours of programming Monday through Saturday.
“Desire” will run for 13 weeks, airing episodes Monday through Friday. Recap episodes will air on Saturdays highlighting the previous week’s developments.

Julie E. Washington
Plain Dealer reporter


FEEDBACK

by Tim Merrill(2004-02-02)
2002, Un-rated, 88 minutes

CREDITS
OFFICIAL SITE

"Feedback" is a nifty little sci-fi thriller, no-budget filmmaking at its most inventive. As writer, producer, director and even editor, Teo Konuralp shines above all here. He takes conventional elements of millennial technoid storytelling and spins them into a surprisingly trenchant morality tale. It's impressive work.
The moral of the tale is along the lines of "You can't outrun fate." To that end, "Feedback" opens with the pathetic sight of Mick (Jesse Harper), a cog in some sort of sinister tech conglomerate, lying gut-shot in a filthy back alley. His only possession is a nondescript black briefcase that contains a top-secret device - a clock connected to a phone, really - which can manipulate time by sending a signal into the past. Mick finds the strength to make one last call, six hours into his own past.
On the receiving end is a shady acquaintance, Lenny (Joe Tabbanella), and Lenny's girlfriend Sarah (Melissa Pursley). Their first reaction is that Mick is simply insane, and we the audience are right there with them. But one exceedingly clever demonstration of the device's power is all the proof Lenny and Sarah need that Mick is for real. It goes without saying that there are other, less understanding characters who know Mick is for real too.
What transpires is too neck-snappingly complicated to relate here, but it's a testament to Konuralp's skills as a scenarist that "Feedback" always seems to make perfectly logical sense, on its own terms. (In fact, the film won Best Screenplay as well as Best Editing at the 2002 Slamdunk festival.) The actors all do affecting work, imbuing the story with legitimate emotion, and Ted Andre contributes a pulsing techno score to top it off.
Konuralp is extremely resourceful as a director, particularly with his staging of a tense cat-and-mouse chase in the bowels of the L.A. subway system. If a "Terminator 4" ever comes to pass - in 2013, say, with Arnold kicking ass from the comfort of his liquid-metal wheelchair - Konuralp could be just the man to orchestrate it. "Feedback" looks like the beginning of a brilliant career.


Call backwarding
"Feedback" is a low-budget but exciting technothriller about three young people and a telephone that lets you make calls into the past.

By JOSHUA TANZER
Offoffoff.com

Lenny's in a loud underground nightclub when he gets a brief and cryptic phone call from his friend Mick. "Lenny, call this number," the voice on the line says. "Tell the person this is a message from Mick. Tell him, 'Don't go,' and then hang up. Got it?"

Lenny follows the instructions and relays the message to the person at the number. The twist? It's Mick.
Mick A is clutching his blood-soaked T-shirt, trying to send the message before he dies; Mick B gets the message

FEEDBACK

Written and directed by: Teo Konuralp.Cast: Joe Tabbanella, Melissa Pursley, Jesse Harper, Jerry Giordano.
— a warning, as it happens, from six hours in the future — and doesn't go, obliterating his own doomed future and saving Mick A a bullet in the gut.
This special way-back phone is the crux of "Feedback," a well-made, fast-paced thrill ride about going back in time — well, not going back but calling back — and messing with the future. Mick explains a lot of wonderful mumbo-jumbo about how this time-phone is possible and how it fell into his hands, and warns them about one thing: "You can't call yourself on this thing — you'd be changing your past as you're talking to yourself. It'd be like creating a loop. I can't do that — no way."
Naturally, the first thing you'd think about is some quick way to make a fortune with a phone like this, and that's what Mick, Lenny and his girlfriend Sara set about doing at the local roulette table. But there are complications. First, right behind them are ruthless killers who want the phone back. Second, it's hard to keep everything on schedule with a phone like this, or anticipate all the ways your get-rich-quick scheme might go wrong. When it goes wrong, you can make like it never happened — as long as you're still at least barely alive and you have The Phone. But you can turn back the clock only so many times, maybe even none, before you screw up. Our trio is constantly on the edge between disaster and escape.
Oh, and my favorite complication is that half the time our heroes are trying to call cell phones that, just as in real life, aren't working at this time.
Like any time-twist film, "Feedback" has some unresolved plot questions — why does calling yourself set up a feedback loop but calling somebody else doesn't? If somebody reports from the future on something nobody planned to do in the present, isn't that some kind of a self-generating loop? But anyway, this kind of film always demands that you play along, and if you do you'll be rewarded with a good technothriller and an outstanding indie effort, a low-budget film with a high-budget concept and feel.

MADE IN BROOKLYN
Pravda.RU:Science and Culture:More in detail
07:27 2005-10-27When it comes to "The Sopranos" cast, partners in crime also are colleagues in film. Sharon Angela, who plays Rosalie Aprile on the Home Box Office mob drama, is joined by several fellow cast members in "Made in Brooklyn," an independent film that marks her debut as a director. Among those in the movie are Vince Curatola, who plays Johnny "Sack" Sacramoni on "The Sopranos," Michael Rispoli (the late Jackie Aprile), and Richard Portnow (attorney Harold "Mel" Melvoin). Peter Dobson, Joe Tabbanella, John Enos, Costas Mandylor and Katherine Narducci also are in "Made in Brooklyn," described as a story told in four short films. Angela is directing one of the segments of the project, now in production in New York. "The Sopranos," starring James Gandolfini and Edie Falco, is set to return in March 2006 for its sixth season. The fifth season concluded in June 2004, although reruns have been airing, reported AP.


HIGHLAND PARK BLUES
(director/writer: Pil Pilegaard; cinematographer: Edgar Arellano; editor: Eric Yalkut Chase; music: Ed Kyrzyzaniak; cast: Joe Tabbanella (John), Michael K. Lee (Lee), Francine Sama (Alina), Mogens Ecker (Alex), David Michael Thomas (Richard), Crawford Schultz (Miguel), Leslie La Page (Liz), Emile Ohayon (Karo), Alan Klevit (Uncle Abe), Courtney Ballentine (Dianne); Runtime: 85; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: Hoa d. Hoang/Jen Pilegaard/Mogens Ecker; Sub Rosa Studios; 1998)

"It gets over because it's so plain-spoken and unpretentious."
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

A warm and fuzzy modern-day sitcom about love, friendship, growing up and sex among four twenty-something pals sharing a house in LA's Highland Park. This low-budget indie directed and written by Pil Pilegaard has no edge and is filled with enough clichés to supply Oprah and her guests with material for an entire television season, nevertheless it gets over because it's so plain-spoken and unpretentious. These characters are presented as regular guys--dullards but likable types. Highland Park Blues seems as if it's a version of television's Blind Date, if that show changed formats and became a sweet melodrama. In any case, it seems better suited to be an ongoing romantic/comedy cable television series than a theater release.
When John is evicted from his apartment because his ex-live-in girlfriend never paid the rent, he retreats to the Highland Park house of his three buddies: the portly Richard, the wannabe playboy Alex, and the gay Lee. John is a non-drug user and a slacker temporarily out of work, but is not concerned with that as much as he is concerned about getting into a lasting relationship. Alex is a cynic who has given up on finding true love and only wants to make it with every girl he meets. Richard is being supported by his rich Uncle Abe, who promised the kid's deceased parents he would help him become a lawyer. The lazy, pot smoking, laid-back Richard, who is in the habit of addressing whomever he's talking to as Dude, has failed the bar exam 13 times and Uncle Abe says this is his last chance or else he comes to work with him in the coat and hanger business. Lee is an epileptic requiring medication and is a recreational drug user and the house chef, who can't bear to tell his straight-laced Chinese parents that he's gay and is living with a bi-lingual teacher named Miguel.
The plot picks up steam when Alex brings John on a blind date, where he hooks up with a hot number named Liz. John is turned off because she's too easy to score. While Alex is turned off by his date Dianne's criticism of him for banging her too fast and hard, which makes Alex self-conscious and not willing to see her again.
John's hopes for romance improve when he accidently bumps into an attractive visitor from Spain, Alina, while on the street. The bi-lingual teacher rebuffs John's advances because he's a stranger but when they surprisingly meet at his house during a party Lee and Miguel throw, they get together and become an item. But John gets cold feet when she wants to introduce him to her visiting parents, and this causes a break in their relationship. To the rescue comes a kindly Armenian shoemaker named Karo, who doles out pearls of wisdom on how to court a young lady who pretends to ignore you and in whom you now realize is the love of your life.
It predictably wraps up all the problems in a conventional way, as each character learns a hard lesson about life and of always following the dictates of their heart. Though unbearably banal in spots and as light as a gossamer, I found myself enjoying how accurate it was in catching the very fiber of these love-sick pups. I never for a moment thought they weren't real people, which is something I can't say about most mainstream sitcoms.

REVIEWED ON 10/10/2003 GRADE: B-
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"