More movie perspective from Shreveport City Hall

Here's this weekend's article about the Shreveport area's movie scene. Note the byline: I worked with LSU-S senior and Times intern Christine Bradley. She is talented, and I hope we can figure out a way to keep her around.

But here's a little extra from an interview with Shreveport film commissioner Arlena Acree. If you'll remember back in July 2008, "No Country for Old Men" star Josh Brolin was arrested while in town to film "W," about former President George W. Bush. Just as his part in that movie wrapped, he was arrested at downtown night spot Stray Cat. Besides that he was maced, and co-star Jeffrey Wright was Tased.

Some industry insiders and at least one city official feared it would hurt business.

Asked recently, Acree said like she did in the months after the negative press that it obviously hasn't hurt.

"Not at all. You can tell by the numbers," Acree said. "This happens all the time in L.A. Even on video Josh said he’d been arrested four times or whatever.”

Acree went to the City Jail that night to hang with the stars.

Back in January 2009, when Mayor Cedric Glover and Police Chief Henry Whitehorn agreed to let City Council members watch video from the night of the arrests, Councilman Joe Shyne worried aloud that Shreveport's public relations would suffer. He compared the controversy to the 2003 fatal shooting of Marquise Hudspeth at the hands of police, plus the 2009 killing of Tremendous Davis, who also died from police gunfire.

"This just looks bad," Shyne said. "We've got to work on our image."

The charges against Brolin and Wright were dropped.

Here are some encouraging words from Brolin (who played Bush) to Wright (who portrayed former Secretary of State Colin Powell) while they sat handcuffed in a Shreveport police cruiser:

• "Dude, it doesn't matter." 
• "We're not going to get in trouble." 
• "You want a kissy?" 
• "I've been here. This is my seventh time."