Mitote

| The New Mexican

2/23/2008 - 2/24/08

The shooting of Toby Keith's Beer for My Horses is exciting fans all over Santa Fe. The sightings pour in. The movie is in Los Cerrillos. It was in Las Vegas. The trailers are parked at the old St. Vincent Hospital. And so on.

In Las Vegas, syndicated country-radio disc jockey Lia Knight visited the set — just in time to find Mac Davis on hand to film a cameo as a preacher. Davis, for those of you born after 1970, wrote the classics "I Believe in Music," "Baby, Don't Get Hooked on Me," and "Texas in my Rear View Mirror." Like Buddy Holly, he attended Lubbock High School and went on to fame as a singer and songwriter. Davis has high, preacher hair in the photos on Lia's Web site, www.radiolia.com, and it appears that the Beer folks were using the First United Methodist Church in Vegas for filming. That's the brick church down the street from the Catholic church, around the block from the Baptist church and across the street from the Episcopal church — one very holy corner of New Town in Las Vegas. Looks like the Serf is the film's movie theater, and that Douglas Street might end up on screen as well.

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Paul Bettany's the latest star to head New Mexico's way for filming. He's the lead in Legion, billed as a "supernatural, action thriller" in which God loses faith in mankind and sends his legion of angels to wipe out the human race. Bettany starred in The DaVinci Code as the creepy monk, but also appeared in the Oscar-winning A Beautiful Mind with Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly — who, incidentally, became his wife. The film starts in and around Santa Fe around March 31, and expects to hire 134 New Mexico crew members and 433 actors, including background talent.

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Another view of Chimayó: A New York Times story on Chimayó's miracles was one of the Top 10 e-mailed stories on Feb. 20. In it, writer Erik Eckholm interviews the Rev. Casimiro Roca, who reminds everyone the miracles that come from the "Lourdes of America" aren't because of "holy" dirt, but because of faith in God. Roca has been caring for the shrine for some 50 years. "I always tell people I have no faith in the dirt, I have faith in the Lord."

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All wrapped: The big-name flick Brothers ended its filming with a party at the College of Santa Fe, where much of the movie was shot at the college's Garson Studios. Jake Gyllenhaal, one of the movie's three stars, stopped by the event. Tobey Maguire and Natalie Portman, however, were no-shows.

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New York menswear designer Martin Gordon was seen with Fabrizio of Corsini and Fabrizio fame signing former New York model and Café Pasqual's manager Brad Brown's shirt after having breakfast earlier this month. Talk was about partnering a Martin Gordon shop at the new Railyard due to open this summer.

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Paying the bills: Val Kilmer takes a turn as the voice of KITT the car in the new Knight Rider series. The update of the 1980s series earned 12.7 million viewers last Sunday night on NBC and by virtue of those numbers, could win itself a spot in next fall's lineup. Justin Bruening starred in the two-hour special, with original star David Hasselhoff in a guest appearance as Michael Knight. Kilmer is the voice of a black Ford Mustang, the Knight Industrial Three Thousand. Early reviews are calling on Kilmer to make the car seem a tad less robotic. The fans want more emotion from the car — and that means Kilmer better reach down and find his passion before the show starts filming again.

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