Tonight Raven and I attended the premier of Livelihood at the Charles Theater. The newest brainchild and first full length feature by 37.5 Productions and Better Hollywood Productions, it follows the lives of three individuals (cock rocker, corporate lackey and demented mother-in-law) as they kick the bucket, then return from the dead to pick up their lives where they left off. Minus all the post-apocolyptic horror, must eat “braaaaaaaains” jazz.
While not a flawless B movie (I won’t lie - it did drag on a bit), Livelihood was nonetheless a spectacular achievement for all creators, cast and crew involved. The City Paper (more specifically Brett McCabe) posted a short review of the film which was in my opinion over-critical, and I’ve been told first hand that Better Hollywood Productions has its retort in the works.
[Excellent "Shitty Paper" reference in the movie BTW]
From here Livelihood will take a tour on the film festival circuit in hopes of scoring a distribution deal, and I’d like to wish it the best of luck. It’s inspiring to see Baltimore filmmakers not only complete a project on this scale (the film is roughly 2 hours long and took 2 years to make) - but to do it well, with wit and with vision. I see big things on the horizon for both 37.5 Productions and Better Hollywood (who stole a lot of the spotlight with their hilarious character roles and zombie commercials) and I can’t wait to see more from both of these troops in the future.
