<A HREF="/sh/entertainment/atthemovies/tims-bio.html"><IMG SRC="/sh/images/editorial/tim_lammers.jpg" ALIGN="LEFT" WIDTH="120" HEIGHT="90" BORDER="0"></A>Anyone familiar with the work of filmmaker Edward Burns shouldn't be too surprised to learn that his latest project is set in New York. After all, his first three films, "The Brothers McMullen," "She's the One" and "No Looking Back," probed life on his native Long Island.<p /><P>But just making the films in the city and its outskirts didn't qualify them as "New York" films. It took Burns' growing up there, living there and working there to capture the essence of the setting. It's about the people, the attitudes, their morals and beliefs: Essentially, the films are about a way of life. <P> That's why the release of the films, assembled together in a DVD boxed set, is called "Stories from Long Island."<p /><P><IMG SRC="http://images.ibsys.com/2000/0928/92365.jpg" WIDTH="200" HEIGHT="150" ALT="She's the One" ALIGN="RIGHT" HSPACE="10" VSPACE="5" BORDER="0">Perhaps the most notable of the writer-director-actor's three films is "The Brothers McMullen." The "can-do" attitude that Burns demonstrated when making the film helped his $25,000 film go from a local labor of love (the film was shot in his house and around the neighborhood) to the Grand Jury Prize at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival, then into mainstream theatrical distribution.<p /><P>"That's the house I grew up in, my neighborhood. And I also shot in front of the apartment I was living in at the time," Burns told me in a recent interview. "So watching that film for the first time since it was released while I was doing the director's commentary on DVD -- it was a walk down memory lane."<p /><P>A romantic comedy-drama, "McMullen" follows the plights of three brothers from New York (Burns, Mike McGlone and Jack Mulcahy), who each struggle with their romantic confusion in the midst of their Irish Catholic legacy. <P> Burns followed up the film in 1996 with another romantic dramedy, "She's the One," which found a set of brothers (Burns and McGlone) at odds with their strident past, their current loves (Maxine Bahns and Jennifer Aniston), and a mutual object of affection (Cameron Diaz).<p /><P>The most current film of the trilogy is the 1998 romantic drama "No Looking Back," which finds Lauren Holly playing a small-town waitress who looks to take her dreams beyond her adoring boyfriend (Jon Bon Jovi) and the city limits. Burns also stars as Holly's ex-boyfriend, a callous, self-absorbed drifter who returns to town after a three-year absence to force his former love to re-examine her life.<p /><P><IMG SRC="http://images.ibsys.com/2000/0928/92361.jpg" WIDTH="200" HEIGHT="150" ALT="The Brothers McMullen" ALIGN="LEFT" HSPACE="10" VSPACE="5" BORDER="0"> "I'd like to think of myself as someone who makes personal films," Burns said. "It's something of a trilogy in that all of the scripts were at least partially written before I broke into the business at Sundance. And because of that, they're all sort of written about the people I knew or knew about."<p /><P>Because the films are being marketed as a trilogy, it shouldn't come as a surprise that there are several themes that run through all three films. Among them is the tough-love attitude of parents in the films, yielding emotions from their kids that range from respect to hatred.<p /><P>Fortunately, the parental relationships in the movies are not autobiographical for Burns. If it were so, it's doubtful that his father would have helped him raise money for "The Brothers McMullen" while his mother catered the grassroots production.<p /><P>"I think the reason that I can write about those sorts of relationships is because I have a great relationship with my folks," Burns said. "If we had any sort of dysfunctional or strained relationship, I wouldn't have had the courage to put it down on the page, let alone put it up on the big screen.<p /><P>"So essentially, as much as you write about the things you know, you write about your experiences. I've always been a pretty good listener. So if I'm hanging out at a bar, I hear my friends talking about whatever is going on. A lot of times a story I hear will either trigger an idea for a script, or if I'm working on something, I'll say, 'Ah, maybe I can incorporate a little bit of that guy's sister's mother-in-law's crazy story into the script.'"<p /><P><IMG SRC="http://images.ibsys.com/2000/0928/92386.jpg" WIDTH="200" HEIGHT="150" ALT="No Looking Back" ALIGN="RIGHT" HSPACE="10" VSPACE="5" BORDER="0">No matter how much he has learned through his own experiences and through the observation of others, Burns often delves into the theme of questioning destiny in his films. As a result, his characters are self-aware and often try to elevate their expectations of life.<p /><P>That's why it shouldn't come as a big surprise that yet another theme that ties together his "Stories from Long Island" is the question: "What are you going to do with the rest of your life?" <P> His speculation incites interesting discussion.<p /><P>"I try to make films about the things that all of us are dealing with, no matter what sort of socio-economic background you come from," Burns told me. "I think family relationships, relationships with your significant other or spouse, and dreams of what we are going to become of tomorrow are things that anyone can relate to.<p /><P>For example, Burns highlighted the dilemma that Lauren Holly's character faced in the third of the "Stories from Long Island," "No Looking Back."<p /><P> "The thing with Lauren's character that I really wanted to look at was the fact that this wasn't a gifted woman that wanted to make a regular change," Burns said. "This is someone who had no special skills -- it wasn't like she was a 'Will Hunting' who discovered she was a math genius. She was just a girl that was stuck in a small town who knew that she wanted more in her life, but didn't have that special gift to fall back on to immediately improve it.<p /><P><IMG SRC="http://images.ibsys.com/2000/0928/92430.jpg" WIDTH="200" HEIGHT="150" ALT="Jon Bon Jovi and Lauren Holly in No Looking Back" ALIGN="LEFT" HSPACE="10" VSPACE="5" BORDER="0">"What can you do when you're stuck in that rut? Sometimes it's as simple as getting in your car and driving out of town and making some kind of change. At least then, there's a chance it might improve. If she stays in that town, one thing's for certain: It's not going to change."<p /><P>And while Burns knows that his films will not likely make filmgoers take split-second drastic measures, he it hopeful for at least a split second of their time.<p /><P>"While I'm not tackling the most profound subject matter here, maybe when someone walks out of one of these films they take a moment and say, 'Hey, am I making the right choices? Have I been treating people that I care about the way I should?'" he said. "If you can leave a theater and actually think for a second afterwards, that's worth the price of admission."<p /><H3>Making The Visions A Reality</H3> <P>While Burns obviously has the gift of tapping into our consciousness, the sad reality is that he and other "personal" filmmakers are in the vast minority in the movie business. That's amazing when you consider that films like "The Brothers McMullen" have turned huge profits. Made for $25,000 literally in his own back yard (and many of the people on the film worked for free), it went on to gross $10 million.<p /><P><IMG SRC="http://images.ibsys.com/2000/0928/92379.jpg" WIDTH="200" HEIGHT="150" ALT="Burns directs Diaz in She's the One" ALIGN="RIGHT" HSPACE="10" VSPACE="5" BORDER="0">Of course, the success of "McMullen" gave Burns more money to play with for his next two efforts. But in the end, the combined production budget for "McMullen," "She's the One" and "No Looking Back" was still a mere $10 million. That amount of money is a drop in the bucket for any one Hollywood film these days, let alone three.<p /><P>"That's pretty telling sign," Burns says. "I'm not trying to knock Hollywood and the studio system, but these kinds of films are never going to be the huge blockbusters. But (moviemaking) is a business, and it's about making money. I think a lot of people would like to take on these kinds of films, but it takes a lot of sacrifice because you're not going to be given any kind of budget to make these types of films. You've got to work quickly, you've got to cut your fee, you can't get the big movie stars and there's no fancy trailers or lunches. It's really got to be a labor of love.<p /><P>"Or it could be that other filmmakers just like making action movies. Hey, I love a good action movie too."<p /><H3>Filmmaker Camp</H3> Of course, in addition to wearing the hats of writer, director and actor (and many others, no doubt) in his own films, Burns has had the opportunity simply to act for other filmmakers.<p /><P><IMG SRC="http://images.ibsys.com/2000/0928/92400.jpg" WIDTH="200" HEIGHT="150" ALT="Spielberg on the set of Saving Private Ryan" ALIGN="LEFT" HSPACE="10" VSPACE="5" BORDER="0">In one of the rare instances where the words "big budget" and "personal film" were synonymous, Burns co-starred with Tom Hanks and Matt Damon in the Steven Spielberg epic "Saving Private Ryan." And while Burns is a talented filmmaker, he took the opportunity to study Spielberg at work in order to bring his skills to a whole new level.<p /><P>"I used to kid with people after I made that film, saying, 'The one thing I learned about filmmaking is how little I knew about filmmaking after watching Steven work,'" Burns said, laughing. "I took advantage of that situation, and spent four months looking over his shoulder, trying to absorb as much as I could.<p /><P>"Sometimes it would be looking at the little things, like how he communicated with the actors and how he talked to his crew. Also, filmmaking-wise, I'd never seen half the toys that he had to play with on a big-budget film. But more importantly, there was the fact that the film was shot mostly hand-held. There was such a freedom he had with the camera that I had never seen before. In my films, the camera tends to be more static, and I think that was partially due to a lack of experience, but also due to fear on my part. Could I trust myself to do these things?"<p /><P>Oddly enough, Burns inadvertently applied the lessons that he learned from Spielberg on the war epic to his latest film, the romantic-dramedy "Sidewalks of New York." He was shooting the film in February when reality struck.<p /><P>We shot a lot of hand-held camera on that film," Burns said. "I don't even know that I was aware that it was in reaction to watching Spielberg on 'Private Ryan,' but while we were shooting, I realized, 'Oh yeah, that's where that came from."<p /><P><IMG SRC="http://images.ibsys.com/2000/0928/92391.jpg" WIDTH="150" HEIGHT="200" ALT="Burns in Saving Private Ryan" ALIGN="RIGHT" HSPACE="10" VSPACE="5" BORDER="0">"While having the experience of working with Spielberg would be enough for any filmmaker, Burns has also been lucky to have the guidance of another film giant, Robert Redford. The two forged their relationship when "McMullen" won at Sundance, and Redford went on to executive-produce "She's the One" and "No Looking Back." <P> Burns said that after Sundance, Redford's advice came more in the form of a film "business" mentor, rather than a film "making" mentor. What Burns learned was that the studio system and the independent filmmaking world are two different realms.<p /><P> "He said, 'Hey, this is a crazy business and you're going to have a lot of questions. I've been in it a long time, and if I can help you with anything, let me know,'" Burns said. "He guided me through which battles to fight (with the studio) and which ones to give them."<p /><H3>Back To New York</H3> Another foray into the world of independent filmmaking, Burns' "Sidewalks of New York" will debut next spring. Like the first two films in his "Stories from Long Island" trilogy, "Sidewalks" falls within the romantic-comedy-drama genre. Burns once again wrote, directed and co-stars in the film, along with Heather Graham.<p /><P> <IMG SRC="http://images.ibsys.com/2000/0929/93277.jpg" WIDTH="120" HEIGHT="90" ALT="Waking the Dead" BORDER="0"> <div align="center" class="Header"><b>@ The Movies</b></div> <div class="Links"> <LI><A HREF="/sh/entertainment/atthemovies/stories/atthemovies-20000929-115935.html">Jodie Foster Helped 'Dead' Come Alive</A> <LI><A HREF="/sh/entertainment/atthemovies/stories/ent-atthemovies-19991212-235534.html">Jodie Foster Crowns New Perspective</A> </div> <div align="center" class="Header"><b>More Movies</b></div> <div class="Links"> <LI><A HREF="/entertainment/nowshowing/">This Week's Movies</A> <LI><A HREF="/sh/entertainment/videovault/articles/natlphae-vidvault--990607-094650.html">Video Vault Reviews</A> </div> "It takes a look at the intersecting lives of six New Yorkers, all from different socio-economic backgrounds -- and they're all linked through their sexual liaisons," Burns told me. "It examines that in a city like New York, no matter what our differences, no matter all the different kinds of people you walk by in pedestrian traffic every day, we're all connected -- sometimes in ways you're unaware of."<p /><P>Even though taking the paces with "Sidewalks," Burns is maintaining his connections as an actor, too. He'll next star in the crime thriller "15 Minutes," in which he plays an arson investigator who teams with a homicide detective (Robert DeNiro) to solve a murder case where the body was torched.<p /><P>Like studying the work of Spielberg in "Saving Private Ryan," Burns took another opportunity to learn from his co-workers. This time the subject was the acting trade, compliments of method-master DeNiro.<p /><P>"I tried to pick up as much as I could," Burns said. "He was very giving and open to any kinds of questions I had. For a young filmmaker and actor, I've been very lucky to work with them, not only as my heroes, but as these super-talented people that seem more than willing to show you the ropes a little bit."<p /><H3> Coming Soon To Theaters -- And @ The Movies</H3> <P><IMG SRC="http://images.ibsys.com/2000/0928/92370.jpg" WIDTH="120" HEIGHT="90" ALT="Creature From the Black Lagoon" ALIGN="right" HSPACE="10" VSPACE="5" BORDER="0"><B>Later this month:</B> October means Halloween, and Halloween means monsters! For this scary season, I've scared up an interview with one of Universal's classic horror movie monsters, the "Creature From the Black Lagoon." Now retired and living in Hawaii, the "Creature," Ben Chapman, talks with me about the fateful moment when he was tapped to play the Gillman, and how he spends time on the road to bring "Creature" comforts to admirers of the classic. Also, watch for details of a new Hollywood giveaway -- which this time has a monstrous twist!<p /><P> <UL><LI><B>Next Week:</B> Join me for an interview with Sylvester Stallone, who's teaming with Michael Caine for the remake of the 1971 British cult classic, "<A HREF="http://www.getcartermovie.com">Get Carter</A>." <P> <P>To read past @ The Movies columns, click <A HREF="/sh/entertainment/atthemovies/archive.html">here</A>. </UL> <H5><CENTER>To have it delivered right to your e-mail box for free, <A HREF=" http://treets.channel4000.com/services/treetlist.cfm?sitekey=C4K">click here</A>.</H5></CENTER>