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WHAT AN UNEXPECTEDLY NICE GESTURE. In surely what’s got to be a first in the 35-year annals of Hollywood-in-Chicago entertainment production, departing director Ron Howard, stars Vince Vaughn and Kevin James, and the cast and crew of “The Dilemma,” placed a full page ad in the Sun-Times Friday.

The ad thanked Chicago “for a great shoot and a great time in your town!”

The ad offered “Our special thanks to ?

One of Chicago’s most durable industry icons will “transition” from a lifetime of operating a film business to doing what he loves most ? teaching up-and-coming filmmakers and producing his own films.

Last Friday, Man Sung Sun finished selling off equipment and shutter his 25-year old SMS Productions and camera rental business at 1229 N. North Branch.

Man Sung will continue to service cameras and lenses out of his Hoffman Estates home.

IFO DIRECTOR BETSY STEINBERG is optimistic that Chicago will enjoy “a very busy summer” of Hollywood entertainment projects, based on the calls the offices has been fielding about locations and tax incentives.

That’s good to hear, since May marks the tenth month that Chicago has not not hosted any Hollywood movies or TV shows, excepting a nine-day reality pilot shoot. The sole local film was the indie “Polish Bar.”

Two TV series whose first seasons shot in Chicago have vaporized away.

The cast and crew of “The Chaos Experiment,” an eco-terrorist thriller that filmed in Grand Rapids’ last September for a $7 million budget, will be the first to see it May 5 at its only theatrical screening.

After May 8-14 public showings at Celebration Cinema theatres, it will head for massive DVD distribution, said Rick Hert, West Michigan Film Commissioner.

Originally titled “The Chaos Experiment,” it was directed by Philippe Martinez, head of Georgia-based Cinepro Pictures.

Stars are Val Kilmer, Armand Assante, Eric Roberts, Megan Brown and Patrick Muldoon.

“MovieMaker Magazine” has more than made up for having overlooked Chicago in past “best” lists by declaring it the country’s number one city for indie filmmaking in its ninth annual ranking of U.S. movie cities.

Making this unexpected pleasure even more sublime was the fact that our that town beat out the Big Apple, ranked three, and such incentive-happy cities as Shreveport, number four and Detroit, number 11.

Barring extreme wealth or hermetics, everyone uses the grocery store. It is the great equalizer ? the marketplace where all socioeconomic groups can co-exist side by side ? in pursuit of daily bread.

Inspired by this reality, writer and director Steve Conrad turned it into his feature directorial debut, “The Promotion,” a comedy shot in Chicago.

SIX NEW HD SPOTS returns the LaSalle St. law of Cochran & Montgomery to TV advertising for the first time since the death in 2004 of Johnny Cochran of O.J. Simpson trial fame.

SPI-TV shot six spots in the firm’s office, three with attorneys in their office and three in a conference room with other attorneys.

“Instead of a hard message like many law firm spots, each of these spots has a certain message,” says SPI-TV partner Jim Demas, the writer/producer/director. SPI-TV’s Roger Gazga was DP; Product Productions handled lighting.

Proponents of the Film Wisconsin incentives bill eager for the incentives to begin July 1, 2007 instead of January, 2008, got a chance to express their views at the Wisconsin legislature’s Joint Finance hearings in Madison Tuesday.

Unfortunately, their turn to speak didn’t come until the end of the hearings on the Governor’s 2007-2009 Biennial Budget.

The proposed SB24, the incentives package, has been blocked from starting July 1, 2007 by powerful Joint Finance Committee co-chairman Sen. Russell Decker.

TWO KODAK VETERANS have taken advantage of Kodak’s tempting early retirement package and will leave the company Jan. 31.

Regional marketing and sales manager J.J. Johnston had spent 33 years at Kodak, while regional account manager Ben Stone was close behind with 27 years.

In early January, Kodak will announce its reorganization of personnel placement and how territories will be divided as it moves deeper ito digital imaging.

Speculation is that the reorganization will not call for replacing the two Chicago veterans.

One of the most delightful things about the Pilsen neighborhood is the BomBon Bakery, 1508 W. 18th St., whose confections are what sweet tooth daydreams are made of. Cookies, cakes and candies galore!

Husband and wife owners, Luis Perea and Laura Cid-Perea, took a cue from classier and usually much smaller European bakeries and kept things simple by not adding tables.

This is strictly a pick up shop, although, trust me, you’ll slam half of what’s in your bag before you make it the door.

There are dime-a-dozen dumps that you wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole. And there are the never-knew-it-existed hole-in-the-walls that you come upon unexpectedly. These are usually secret places that whip up oversized portions of true ethnic cuisine for very little dough.

Tiny, authentic Polish hideaway Andrzej Grill at 1022 N. Western is just such a place.

No sooner were my friend Lisa and I seated when almost immediately the owner popped out of the kitchen and tore over (slo-mo, actually) with a menu written in Polish and English in her hand.

Filmontage’s Vladimir Van Maule wants you to fly the friendly skies of? Naperville?

Van Maule lives in Naper Aero, an exclusive airplane community of 100 homes in the western suburb where every home has a small plane, two runways and a hangar instead of the conventional SUV and two-car garage.

“We’re a boutique video studio,” says Van Maule, a director/camera/editor who’s lived/flown in/from Naper Aero for 10 years. His studio, however, is uniquely different.

When Van Maule’s Cessna 182 is parked outside, the hangar is transformed into a 2,000-sq.

Usama Alshaibi’s return to his native Iraq after a 25-year absence forms the heart of his new feature documentary “Nice Bombs.”

“Nice Bombs” will have its world premiere as the opening night film of the 13th Annual Chicago Underground Film Festival, which runs Aug. 17-24.

An Iraqi native who grew up in the U.S., Alshaibi hadn’t been to Iraq since his childhood, when he returned after the U.S. invasion, with his father and his wife, fellow filmmaker Kristie Alshaibi.

MEGAN VIDAS JOINS THE IFO in charge of the TV commercials sector in mid-November. Vidas, wife of uber-rep Rich Newman, is a former producer of political videos and commercials, who once was with political consultant David Axelrod and has a background in public affairs. Vidas completes the IFO roster of eight employees.

THE BANKRUPCTY AUCTION Tuesday of Superior Street’s assets yielded $125,000 to pay creditors instead of the hoped-for $750,000.

No sooner back from south of the border shooting Rick Bayless’ “Mexico One Plate at a Time” bowing Sept. 12 on Ch. 11, Luminair’s George Elder headed for California for his second feature.

“Boxboarders!” is a mockumentary written and directed by Hollywood’s Rob Hedden and shot in his home town of Laguna Beach.

Produced for $500,000, it was shot in Hedden’s home town of Laguna Beach. Hedden, whose credits widely range from “Clockstoppers” to many “reunion” TV shows and sitcoms, and Jay Smith (Oscar winner “Two Soldiers”) were Elder’s co-producers.

THE COMEDY “ALLEYBALL,” co-written by director Dan Consiglio and actor and “Alleyball” star Johnny Ray Meeks, starts filming June 18 on Chicago locations.

The story revolves around Stuart (Meeks) at a bittersweet crossroads when his girlfriend leaves for a two-month job in Portland. Instead of a carefree summer of hanging out with his buddies, he is threatened with the dark cloud of “maturity.”

Producer John Yaworsky has gathered an impressive L.A.

PAULA FROEHLE is in production on her 2004 IFP/Chicago Production Fund-winning short “Up on the Rope.” Froehle is shooting on an elaborate set at Resolution Digital Studios, part of the Production Fund’s $100,000 in in-kind goods and services.

She’s the production program director at Columbia College and co-owner of the avant-jazz label Atavistic.

Froehle adapted the script, a love-story about a 12-year-old tight rope walker who has spent his entire life 10 feet off the ground, from a short story by Cristina Peri Rossi.

THIRTY OPTIMUS “SPOTS”?not about the post house, but 30-second creative confections by all Optimus employees and not just editors?have been airing as commercials on Comcast.

Staffers were told they could work as individuals or in teams. The only rules were the length, conform to TV standards and end with the distinctive Optimus logo.

There was no overall name or theme for the exercise, said client services director Doug Manley, who with assistant editor Dustin LaForce, whipped out their “spot” in a couple of hours.

USAMA ALSHAIBI’S in-progress documentary “Nice Bombs,” about returning to his native Baghdad during the U.S. occupation, has been selected as one of 29 projects to participate in the Tribeca All Access Connects program, a showcase for emerging filmmakers. It runs concurrently with the Tribeca Film Festival, April 19-May 1.

“Nice Bombs” will compete with seven other docs for a $10,000 Tribeca All Access Creative Promise Award. Alshaibi’s wife Kristie Alshaibi is producing “Nice Bombs” through their Artvamp LLC, along with Ben Berkowitz and Ben Redgrave of Benzfilm Group.

INTERNATIONALLY FAMOUS men’s fashion designer John Malkovich will be in Chicago to show his Uncle Kimono line of ready-to-wear creations.

What? You thought Malkovich was an actor? Sure, he dabbles as a thespian between high fashion assignments. In fact, he’s appearing at Steppenwolf Theatre Company April 9-June 5 in the world premiere of “Lost Land” by Stephen Jeffreys.

But he’s really coming to town for the rag trade. And why not?

What made waiting for the phone call from Project Greenlight so nerve wracking for director Scott Smith, who was waiting to hear whether he was still in the game, “was that I didn’t know whether it would be a good call or a disappointing call,” he said.

It was a very good call, as it turned out. Smith was told by Project Greenlight’s executive producers Ben Affleck and Chris Moore that he was one of the three finalists for PGL’s ultimate filmmaking prize: directing a $1 million movie and having that experience documented in a series over the Bravo cable network.

By Jonathan Abarbanel

If you’ve got tickets for your favorite Off-Loop theater, better call first to make sure it’s open.

Days before Thanksgiving, Chicago’s Department of Revenue shut down six Off-Loop theatres in a surprise enforcement sweep of Public Place of Amusement (PPA) licensing laws. All theaters, clubs, concert halls and sports venues are required to have a PPA, issued only after an inspection task force signs off on the venue.