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Project Greenlight (Complete Series Plus Film Stolen Summer) Customer Reviews (1 - 3 of 11 Reviews)

Great for Movie Business Enthusiasts/Aspiring Directors
This is a worthy series for aspiring movie directors/screenwriters, it shows the in and outs of the business and how much sway some have (Affleck, Damon) and others do not (all involved w/o recognizable faces). It is a crude business and I suppose you have to be crude to play the game, but I found myself often peeved at the winner, Pete, because he was so instantly cocky and self-assured, and maybe he did have to fight to make his "vision" (which ultimately bombed), and I'm thrilled that they would even give the opportunity to someone, but in the end, I wished it wasn't this gentleman who had won such an amazing opportunity.

Project Greenlight 1
I saw season two before I saw this one.The movie "Stolen Summer" is actually a superior film to that of "The Battle of Shaker Heights",but the reality series detailing the filmmaking process is strangely lacking.I still would recommend this dvd package for any aspiring filmmakers who want to understand the process of filmmaking, I just thought the second season made better viewing.

Interested in the movie biz? Check this out...
First, the movie. "Stolen Summer" isn't bad, definitely not great, but for a first-time director with no real filmmaking experience at all, it's a pretty good effort. Sure I'm grading on a curve here, but when you see some of the dreck put out by people with plenty of experience, "Summer" begins to seem more than worthy to be called a film. Throughout the series, many involved express concerns that the script ventured too far down into Afterschool Special territory, and to some extent, they were right. The nice thing about the script is that it manages to avoid getting too preachy (given the clash of religions at the story's core, that is a feat in itself) and the attitudes of all the characters to young Pete's quest ring surprisingly true, at least, in a nice, better world scenario. As a directed film, The pacing is a bit slow, scenes can be a bit static, and the child actors in the leads could be a bit stronger, but these are not unusual problems in movies with bigger budgets and more accomplished directors, "Phantom Menace", anyone?

Enough defense of Pete Jones, and on to the series. As a general rule, I steer clear of the "reality" genre as it has developed into public humiliation of private citizens while avoiding the need to pay writers (it probably keeps film and video editors in banner business, however). "Project Greenlight" is an exception. Why? Well for one thing, the end result is at least a creative endeavor and not just some idiot getting a lot of money or a usless marriage proposal. For another, you also learn a little something about the business of making a movie, usless of course if you could care less, but it's better than watching "Survivor" for wilderness survival tips.

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