According to the Utica OD, “A Utica resident is a key figure in an Oscar-nominated documentary about civilian protest in one of the world’s most repressive nations. In September 2007, U Gawsita led fellow monks and tens of thousands of Burmese residents through Rangoon in Myanmar (formerly Burma), in opposition to the country’s longstanding military regime.”

The protest was captured on film and that footage was eventually used in the documentary Burma VJ, which has been nominated for an Academy Award.

You can read the full story here. The Oscars air on ABC March 7.

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A new CBS series will show the dirty side of upstate NY, literally. The new CBS reality show Undercover Boss, which premieres Sunday after the Super Bowl follows real-life corporate executives as they work anonymously among the rank and file.

The debut episode follows Waste Management President Larry O’Donnell, who pretends he’s Randy Lawrence, a construction worker wanting to break into the trash disposal business and is being filmed in a documentary. He shadows employees in Rochester, Syracuse, southern Florida and Houston, while learning firsthand how physically demanding and mentally exhausting such work really is.

“I’m going to be a different manager because of that,” O’Donnell said Monday on The Oprah Winfrey Show. He praised all the staffers he encountered for their warm welcomes and genuine desire to help him succeed.

The episode was shot January 19 and features Philip as a prospective love interest for Tina Fey’s character, Liz Lemon.

“I catch her attention in the doctor’s office and she hopes to make (her current love interest) feel uncomfortable,” Philip said.

A Toronto, Canada native, Philip travels back and forth between New Hartford and New York City weekly to juggle his marriage, family and career. Normally he chooses guest appearances over featured roles on shows, but he said he couldn’t turn down 30 Rock, and he was glad he didn’t.

“It was kind of funny,” he said. “Tina Fey — she’s adorable. The directors and everyone there seem to have a good time. It’s a loose atmosphere. Also, there’s not as much pressure because it’s not shot in front of a live audience. So you’re not in front of 300 people. It’s a lot less stressful.”

30 Rock is shot in Silver Cup Studios in Long Island City, where other television shows like HBO’s hit series the Sopranos was shot, Philip said. The episode took five days to shoot.

Philip, 46, has guest-starred in several television programs, including sitcoms Married With Children, Will & Grace and Frasier. He also appeared in television dramas Charmed, Angel, and VIP; and guest starred in the soap opera, the Bold and the Beautiful.

Philip even hosted the 1998 science fiction television program Welcome to Paradox.

He was also in the 2009 action sci-fi thriller movie Surrogates, with Bruce Willis, where he played a uniformed police officer.

Of his job he said he wouldn’t trade it for any other.

“It’s a good time,” he said. “I cant complain. I mean, you get to hang around some cool people. And really, it’s all about meeting new people. You never know whats going to happen.”

It’s pilot season, Philip said, and he hopes to try to get another show on his resume.

“There’s a lot going on and I just picked up a new agent,” he said. “There’s a ton of new things happening.”
Philip lived in Los Angeles for about 25 years, where he met his wife, New Hartford native, Claudia. She was an aspiring actress. Now she is going back to school to try a new career in nursing, and with their two children, Isabella and Juliana, the couple moved back to the area.

“She was from here and we just kept ending up here,” he said. “I audition here (New York City) for work, and go home on the weekends.”

The 30 Rock episode is scheduled to appear some time in February. The show airs every Thursday at 9:30 p.m.

It looks like RPattz might be headed our way!

Rumors are rampant that Robert Pattinson may be filming parts of Water for Elephants in Ithaca, NY this summer. The film’s plot, which centers on a Cornell University veterinary student who drops out and joins the circus after his parents are killed, makes Ithaca an obvious choice among potential filming locations.

It is being reported that the production may be descending on Cornell’s campus in Ithaca this June though the reports have not been verified. Cornell University press officer Blaine Friedlander told the Ithaca Journal that he was unable to confirm whether the school would be used as a film location.

As an upstate New Yorker myself, I’ll be paying close attention to this story but I’m not to get too excited by the prospect of RPattz filming here until the rumors are confirmed. Stay tuned!

The Food Network is filming an episode of “Unwrapped” in Canajoharie on Wednesday, Jan. 27. The show will feature Space Food Sticks which are made at Richardson Foods, Inc. Space Food Sticks were first developed by the Pillsbury Company in the 1960s to be similar to those used by NASA.

A Rome native made it through the first round of auditions on the Season 9 premiere of American Idol.

On the show, Benjamin Bright, 25, sang the Beatles song “All My Loving” for the judges at the Boston try out, and made it through to Hollywood.

Bright is a former Rome Free Academy student who went on to graduate from the Crane School of Music at SUNY Potsdam. He currently teaches music and chorus at Cumberland Head Elementary School in the Beekmantown Central School District near Plattsburgh.

Guy Fieri did a segment on Utica Greens today on Guy’s Big Bite. He showed how to make the local favorite and nicknamed escarole, which is used in the dish, as “turning greens” for the Turning Stone Casino.

This morning The Today Show featured several live reports from Fulton, NY because of the excessive amounts of snow they’ve received. According to the report, it has snowed for 9 days straight in Fulton with no relief in sight. Hopefully they will upload some video of the reports  on their website sometime today.

More information about the Paul Dano movie, For Ellen, became available last week thanks to the Watertown Daily Times. Filmmakers were in Massena, NY last month scouting locations and talking to locals about potential roles in the film.

The movie is about rock star returning to a small town to meet the 6-year-old child he fathered before attaining fame. Dano will play rocker Joby Taylor, Olivia Thirlby will play his girlfriend.

Cornwall, Ontario, native Jen E. Gatien is one of the producers and thought of the north country as a filming location after reading the script. “Having grown up here, I know what the winters are like,” Ms. Gatien said. “Very few films have captured that. There’s a lot of beauty here. I’m really excited about coming back to where I am from to make a film.”

The movie should begin filming at the end of January, beginning of February.