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Johnathon Schaech, a writer of an upcoming poker film, The Poker Club, responded to Gambling911.com special contributor Thomas Somach's review of the film, saying it was "quite shocking".
Somach, who posted the unflattering review of The Poker Club on his website at www.pokerhelper.com, admits to having never screened the film.
"Having not yet seen the film, PokerHelper.com based its analysis on media accounts about the movie, plus the pre-release publicity offered by the movie production company," Somach says.
Maybe not the way Roger Ebert would go about doing things, but then again Somach is not exactly a movie critic to begin with..
Mr. Schaech sent the following email to Somach:
"Tom-Please let me introduce myself. My name is Johnathon Schaech. I'm one of the writers of The Poker Club. I'm also he lead male actor in it and the producer. So as you can imagine, I put a lot of my life into this piece. Seeing the review (on PokerHelper.com) today was quite shocking, didn't expect anything like this. It's called The Poker Club, but except for the first scene, there is very little card playing in the film.
"Poker is the metaphor. The concept of the film is that the game of poker relates to our behavior in life. We have hidden feelings and strategies, and then we have a surface agenda. This gap deepens, the larger a conflict becomes. You have bluffs and lies. Chance impacts us greatly. Each move can have a chain reaction through our social circle, and so forth.
"The director of the piece is Tim McCann, who has made award-winning films Nowhere Man, Runaway and Desolate Angel. And I've been in such award-winning films as Little Chenier, Sea of Dreams and Finding Graceland, all of which I'm certain you've never seen. So by getting a release by a major studio, we feel is a great thing. People will get to see the movie. The film will be seen in selected theaters and then released on DVD, so straight to DVD is the title Sony gives it. So what I'm trying to say here is, ‘Don't judge a book by it's cover.' That doesn't necessarily mean the film is lousy.
"The cast are all creditable actors, not movie stars. We are simply trying to have our film have a chance to be seen. The consequences of killing the burglar? We know about the King of the Castle laws. We want everyone to question WHY our main character makes such a stupid mistake. It's the second major plot twist that puts their reasoning in perspective. Tom, If you ever actually see the movie, you'd understand. PokerHelper.com is a cool site and I've used it before. All the best, Johnathon Schaech."
Somach believes the film will go straight to DVD.
"If they send it (the DVD), we'll review it," he said.
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