Seeing him sitting in a cramped trailer on a film set, dressed in all black except for a pair of purple flower-patterned socks, his cell phone constantly chirping, it's hard to imagine that Michael Shamberg has ever been anything but a movie producer. But when he was fresh out of college, Shamberg worked as a police reporter for Chicago's fabled City News Bureau, where he spent his days and nights covering fires, murders and car crashes. It's perfect training for being a producer, where you have to do anything to get a movie made. In Hollywood, there are plenty of producers who get movies made.
Jersey is both.
They have classic taste, but they're interested in tomorrow's culture, so they tell the story and cast the material in a cutting-edge way. And that makes them a magnet for smart creative people. The script is raunchy but also sassy and smart. Still, Shamberg worries that my watching all this lowbrow humor might take a little of the edge off a story devoted to Jersey's high-class reputation. Actually the movie's funky hip-hop sensibility neatly illustrates Jersey's grasp of today's culture.