Search - Project Greenlight 2 (The Complete Second Series Plus Film The Battle of Shaker Heights) on DVD

Better than the series but not true to the winners

Jason Brown | Grapevine, TX | 07/15/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The time and budgets are shortened and the stress levels are high on all of the winners of the PGL contest. But let's face it. that makes for some good reality TV. The Battle of Shaker Heights has as much class as any movie in it's genre. It has heart and humor, well balanced and does the three project winners proud. The DVD, yes I actually bought and watched it BEFORE writing my review, has a little more of a glimpse into what really went on behind the scenes and not just the good for Reality TV stuff. These are some great talents that were put in a situation to make them look bad. It is good TV but not good business for the PGL Executives.I recommend you get the DVD, watch the movie with commentary, and see a glimpse of some of the stuff that was cut from the series. These items shed a little more light on the fun the cast and crew had making the film and the dedication that was much more dramatic than blowing a few conflicts out of proportion.To all the players in PGL, I commend the effort, and hope that those who put the show together can try not to use shock value in the future and show us why these people really do have a reason to love their work."

I LOVE THIS SERIES!!!!

Rock Quarry | Atlanta, GA United States | 09/08/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Here's why:



1)From the beginning, they set up the filmmakers to fail by allotting a comparitively meager budget and ridiculously short timeframe to produce a "Hollywood" feature. They go way over-budget by spending most of the dough on bloated production costs for a supposedly low-budget picture. It's a big enough crew to work on Braveheart. If they are going to have that kind of staff, they should increase the production costs so that the movie can compete with multi-million dollar blockbusters. Otherwise, get rid of half the staff, and spend more time and money working on the script.



Watch the "making of" featurette on the Citizen Toxie bonus dvd. THAT'S low-budget filmaking. And Toxie is a movie that's watchable, too.



2)The producers constantly bad-mouth their last Project Greenlight film, Stolen Summer. "It's a REAL MOVIE this year," says Affleck.



3)The directors show their dismay for allowing Chris Balis, the awful producer of the last project, to produce their movie. Cut to Balis wolfing down a bagel. Its obvious Chris Moore brought him on so he could have someone under his thumb. When Balis wisely suggests that there should be another editor on the movie other than the directors, to allow for a diffent point of view, Moore responds,"I see producing as supporting the directors' process, not subverting it!". Balis is left impotent for the rest of the production. (Balis was right. The directors end up cutting the film and the movie is awful.).



4)Moore blames everyone else for the faults of the movie, yet its his hands-off approach (read: he's never there), allowing the directors to do whatever they want, that in large part is what's responsible for the movie's failure. When he asks the writer on the set how she could allow the directors to run roughshod over her script, after giving her no power at all to prevent it, she rightly responds,"F-You, Dude!"



5)The only time EXECUTIVE PRODUCER Ben Affleck arrives on the set, its with superstar girlfriend J-Lo. Not too disruptive to a production, is it? Reminds me of when Elizabeth Taylor would show up to Richard Burton's set with her whole entourage.



6)We see Good ol' Matt Damon at the beginning of the series, when they choose the winners, and then at the end, when filming is finished. He doesn't even show up at the premeire, but cuts a ten second closing comment for the series from another location. However, he's wearing a Project Greenlight hat, so he must have been deeply involved. HAW!! I want to be an EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, too!



Can't wait for Season Three!!"

Project Greenlight 2

Derek Williams | New York, NY USA | 07/23/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I must say that the second season of Project Greenlight was some of the most engrossing viewing I've enjoyed in years.I'm not a person who watches much television at all so for me to actually purchase the dvd set is saying much.



As an aspiring filmmaker I felt this dvd set was the next best thing to an actual internship.A really educational and insp

iring television series.



I wasn't crazy about the film and thought it was actually mediocre.I don't blame the directors for this and if you watch the episodes detailing the day to day process you'll understand why.



I can't recommend this product highly enough.A must for aspiring filmmakers."

NICE SERIES FOR A [...] MOVIE.

Jeffery L. Voyles | tennessee | 06/28/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"As with the first PROJECT GREENLIGHT the series is great but the movie produced by the series is a peice of [...]. I loved both seasons of PGL but the second was more insteresting. I liked the bonus section with the submitted films much better than the SHAKER HEIGHTS film. There's a film maker named OTTING who made a creepy film about a man with a cross in a mental hospital. I thought that film rocked. If I had been the judge they would have had him as the film maker instead the two guys they picked and the screenplay would have been PRISONER which was written by the weird guy who sat on a couch for five days and did nothing but stare. I don't know anything about the PRISONER script but I figure if the guy's that strange then the screenplay was probably much better than shaker heights. I fill bad saying that the movie sucked because the girl who wrote it seemed nice but she was a bit over emotional. What's funny is they finally made a descent movie with a great director in PGL3 (FEAST with JOHN G.) and PGL3 was the best of the three seasons and it hasn't been released. It almost makes me think that PGL was a Hollywood conspiracy meant to make it look to the rest of the world like people outside of the Hollywood system could only make crappy movies. When some guy showed up and made a good film they didn't release it."