A festively stockinged Woody Harrelson enjoys a convivial chat with a trio of Minneapolis's finest at Rock the Garden last weekend. Photo provided by Walt Dizzo.
 
A scruffy, affable Woody Harrelson allowed several selfies to be taken by fellow Rock the Garden attendees last weekend. Then it was back to work on “Wilson,” the biggest movie to be shot in Minnesota since the Coen Brothers’ “A Serious Man” in 2009.
 
“The MPLS PD were actually really nice to Woody Harrelson despite his choice in socks,” tweeted concertgoer Walt Dizzo, music director for KUWS in Superior Wis., at Rock the Garden, along with a snap of Harrelson yukking it up with cops while sporting anklets adorned with marijuana leaves.
 
Craig Johnson, whose last film was the darkly comic indie hit “The Skeleton Twins,” is directing “Wilson.” Locations for the six-week shoot that began last Friday include Lake Minnetona, Como Zoo, the Lowertown St. Paul Farmers’ Market and East Lake St. in Minneapolis. Based on a book –length series of comic strips by Daniel Clowes (who also wrote “Ghost World” and hates the term “graphic novel”) the movie tracks a middle-aged misanthrope grumbling and sneering his way through life who reconnects with his ex- wife (played by Laura Dern in the film) and discovers he has a daughter. Other Hollywood names in the cast are Margo Martindale, Cheryl Hines and Judy Greer, as well as several local actors including Richard Ooms and Bill McCallum.
 
The movie, is projected to add about $6 million to the local economy, said Lucinda Winter, who heads the MN Film & TV board, which administers the Snowbate incentive program that helped land the movie in Minnesota.
 
The book “Wilson,” wrote an NPR reviewer in 2010, “is like reading a series of Bazooka Joe comics written by Jean-Paul Sartre.” If the movie is even half as good as the film version of “Ghost World”  directed by Terry Zwigoff, it’ll be a winner.