Lounge music. It’s not just the faint echoes of some dated, nocturnal crooner (labored white smile) who tinkles/wheezes out the theme song to Bewitched from behind the piano. According to filmmaker Alison Reid, it’s the next musical tsunami, and she plans on riding the wave with her documentary, Lounge! A Hipster’s Guide to Cocktail Music.

Although Reid describes lounge as ‘jazz that has been incarcerated,’ when she listened to a tape of lounge giant Juan Garcia Esquivel (the wiz behind the Bewitched theme) about a year ago, she simply fell in love.

Since then, she and assistant Theresa Montanino have been diligently researching the subject from its speakeasy roots in the ’20s to its latest interpretation, and in between, ‘when lounge truly blossomed in the ’50s and the ’60s. Console stereos gave a new sound and people brought lounge into their living rooms, which really became their own clubs,’ says Montanino.

So far, Esquivel, Mel ‘The Velvet Fog’ Torme and the hot, new-age lounge band Combustible Edison (which did some original scoring for Four Rooms) are confirmed to appear in the documentary. Reid is hoping to snag a few big, mainstream names such as Tony Bennett and some unknowns.

‘I want a nice balance of marquee names and real cheese, like the Delrubio Triplets from Las Vegas who have been performing for well over 30 years and are so square, they’re hip.’ says Reid. She’s also after some ‘poignant stories – like the ones about musicians who aspire to a certain kind of greatness and end up playing in a piano bar.’

Other names that interest Reid reflect the recent surge in lounge: Mike Flower’s Pops got to number two on the charts with a lounge cover of the Oasis tune Wonderwall, Mr. Lucky’s Cocktail is a popular lounge radio show in Milan and San Francisco, and the Japanese band Pizziccato Five hit gold last year.

In Toronto, which ranks second with the North American lounge in-crowd, Jayms Bee and one-man-band John Henry Neinhuis are the leaders of the pack.

Why the renewed interest in lounge? It could be summed up in Reid’s outfit at her Hot Docs party (March 22 at the Silver Rail): a Jackie-O suit, a Veronica Lake wig, a foot-long cigarette holder and pink, flip-flop fuzzy slippers. ‘It’s fun, it’s like playing grownup after all this time,’ says Reid. ‘And I think people are tired of grunge. They want to get dressed up and do their hair.’

In the early days of her research, the wired Reid was encouraged when she came upon the Esquivel Web site, Space Age Bachelor Pad Music (also the title of one of his vinyl hits), and, to her amazement, 28 Web sites devoted to lounge.

Plans are to take the feature-length project from its current development phase and into production on an international scale with a u.s. deal. For now, Reid wants to keep the budget at just under $1 million, but with the unpredictable element of music licence fees, she says it could grow.

When Reid gets into production (no sign of dates yet), she plans to set up an e-zine Web site that allows readers to participate in the development of the show.

Reid, a self-proclaimed ‘kitsch connoisseur,’ says she has worked as a tv producer for ‘some time’ in the u.s. and in Canada. Currently, she is associate producer on The Anti-Gravity Room, a show about comic book culture and its many facets, made for ytv and the Sci-Fi Channel.

Following a strong pitch at a Pat Ferns session at Hot Docs, Reid says what she needs now is an executive producer. It’s all talk at present, but parties that have shown interest include Fine Line, Turner, Paragon and HandMade Films, Norstar, Amy International and Bravo!

Bubbling over

Word is Bubble Factory has a second project headed for town late this summer. In addition to the Bette Midler/Carl Reiner feature That Old Feeling (which shoots April 22 through June 28), is A Simple Wish, a family feature about a fairy godmother who comes to the big city for a convention (of – what else – fairy godmothers), falls in with a ne’er-do-well family, and lends a helping hand to the patriarch who is a struggling actor.

Directing is veteran Michael Ritchie (Divine Madness, Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas-Cheerleader-Murdering Mom) and producing is Michael Glick. Casting is still up in the air, but possibles are Martin Short and Mandy Patinkin. Universal is the distributor.

Nelvana options Franklin

Although Nelvana has a policy to offer no comment on development projects, ceo Michael Hirsh confirms the company has optioned the rights to Paulette Bourgeois’ children’s books featuring Franklin the Turtle to develop a series.

Hirsh says of Franklin, ‘It is one of the finest series of children’s books developed in Canada,’ and he is anticipating ‘a full-scale entertainment launch of the character for ’97’ that will include a merchandising campaign.

No quiet on the Westren front

Comedy writer extraordinaire Steve Westren has a thing about rehabilitation. Witness Puppets Who Kill and Bullet Catchers. ‘I’m very interested in resurrecting lost souls,’ he says. ‘My characters are always losing something and trying to find something.’ He says it has something to do with his mother, but won’t elaborate. Whatever the hang-up, it seems to be getting him somewhere.

Westren and Puppets partner John Pattison are about to sign a production deal with Broadway Video. Pattison is a puppeteer and comedian who’s worked on Fraggle Rock and is one of the creators of Eric’s World.

The pilot is about a halfway house for reprobate puppets who need to be rehabilitated into society. ‘It’s a psychological comedy, with a human being who runs the house and a human parole officer who hates puppets,’ explains Westren.

The Bullet Catchers, a feature Westren wrote in 1989 (five years before Guarding Tess, he notes), is about two secret service agents on a rehab assignment who are responsible for an obnoxious British politician who is in the u.s. on some illegal business and wants to be rid of his guards. The script is being shopped in l.a. by Norstar, which has optioned the script.

Westren has written ‘scads’ of episodics, made the short The Man in the Microwave, and was nominated for a Gemini this year for an episode he wrote of Groundling Marsh.

He’s got at least one more project in the works that is close but not close enough to talk about. What gives? ‘It’s the flowering of my peculiar muse,’ he says. And does the muse have a name? ‘Larry.’

Correction

Last issue, an item on f/x should have read season one, not season two, of the series heads into production May 9. Also, apologies to Christina Cox whose named was misspelled in the same item, and to Paul Jones and David Cavanagh, who do not work for Digital Pictures, but have their own eponymous companies.