P. J. Pesce is an American film director and writer. He is also the co-creator of the MTV cartoon '' The Adventures of Chico and Guapo'', as well as the voice actor of Guapo and Mr. Angelo.

Early life and education

Pesce was born and raised in

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...

, Florida, in 1961. After completing an undergraduate degree in both English literature and

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. He entered the graduate film school and studied directing under

Martin Scorsese Martin Charles Scorsese ( , ; born November 17, 1942) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter and actor. Scorsese emerged as one of the major figures of the New Hollywood era. He is the recipient of many major accolades, inclu ...

and Brian DePalma.

Career

Pesce has worked as a musician, a film editor, a studio recording engineer, a film instructor at Columbia,

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...

, and USC, and as a groom at Calder Racetrack. He studied editing with

Ralph Rosenblum Ralph Rosenblum (October 13, 1925 – September 6, 1995) was an American film editor who worked extensively with the directors Sidney Lumet and Woody Allen. He won the 1977 BAFTA Award for Best Editing for his work on ''Annie Hall'', and publish ...

and acting with

Brad Dourif Bradford Claude Dourif (; born March 18, 1950) is an American actor. He was nominated for an Oscar, and won a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Award for his film debut role as Billy Bibbit in ''One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'' (1975). He is also kno ...

. In 1994, Pesce and six other filmmakers including documentary filmmaker

Marco Williams Marco Williams is a documentary filmmaker and professor of film production at Northwestern University. His films have received several awards, including the Gotham Documentary Achievement Award for Two Towns of Jasper'' and he has been nominated ...

and

Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

nominee Bernard Joffa (from the 1990 Best Live Action Short film '' Senzeni Na?'') were featured in movie journalist

Billy Frolick William Frolick (born 1959) is an American writer and film director. Biography Born and raised in Long Island, New York, Frolick graduated from NYU film school, where he studied under professor (and Martin Scorsese mentor) Haig Manoogian. In ...

's book called ''What I Really Want to Do Is Direct: Seven Film School Graduates Go to Hollywood''. The book followed the lives of seven young, would-be directors over three years as they struggled with the ups-and-downs of Hollywood. Pesce was named Best Independent Director of the Year at the

Hamptons International Film Festival The Hamptons International Film Festival (HIFF) is an international film festival founded in 1992, by Joyce Robinson. The festival has since taken place every year in East Hampton, New York. It is usually an annual five-day event in mid-October ...

for his critically acclaimed film ''

The Desperate Trail ''The Desperate Trail'' is a 1994 American Western film written and directed by P. J. Pesce and starring Sam Elliott, Craig Sheffer and Linda Fiorentino. It was originally shown on the TNT cable TV network. Plot On a stagecoach in the old W ...

'', which he wrote and directed. ''

Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cu ...

'' called it "The best

Western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

on any size screen since ''

Unforgiven ''Unforgiven'' is a 1992 American Revisionist Western film starring, directed, and produced by Clint Eastwood, and written by David Webb Peoples. The film tells the story of William Munny, an aging outlaw and killer who takes on one more job, ...

''", and

Tom Shales Thomas William Shales (born November 3, 1944) is an American writer and retired critic of television programming and operations. He was a television critic for ''The Washington Post'' from 1977 to 2010, for which Shales received the Pulitzer Pr ...

of ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' described it as "a new high point in the cable movie". It was the second highest rated cable movie of 1995, and in addition it sold over 60,000 home video units. In his later career, Pesce directed ''From Dusk Till Dawn 3''. Pesce received a Special Grand Jury Award for his short film, ''The Afterlife of Grandpa'' at the

Houston International Film Festival The WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival, founded in 1968, is an annual film festival held annually in April in Houston, Texas. Notable festival alumni include John Lee Hancock, who wrote and directed the Oscar-winning film '' The Blind ...

, and Young Filmmaker of the Year from the Edinburgh Film Festival. He is the recipient of Grey Advertising's Student Filmmaker Award and a Presidential Fellowship from Columbia's School of the Arts. Pesce often collaborates with fellow screenwriter Tom Abrams; they wrote '' Lost Boys: The Tribe'' (for which Pesce was also the director), a 2008 sequel to the 1987 film ''

The Lost Boys ''The Lost Boys'' is a 1987 American supernatural black comedy horror film directed by Joel Schumacher, produced by Harvey Bernhard with a screenplay written by Jeffrey Boam, Janice Fischer and James Jeremias, from a story by Fischer and Jerem ...

'', as well as the 2010 film '' Smokin' Aces 2: Assassins' Ball''.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Pesce, P.J. 1961 births Living people American film directors American male screenwriters Writers from Miami Columbia College (New York) alumni Screenwriters from Florida