Any a-list movie director asked to film at the Oasis Hotel would look around, climb into his SUV and high-tail it to a soundstage to rebuild the motel in all its seedy glory. The downtown Los Angeles hotel's swimming pool is encircled by razor wire. The motor inn's roof is littered with syringes. Abandoned crack pipes lie underneath stained mattresses. The ceiling of one guest room is splattered with human blood. But director Jon Avnet ("Red Corner," "Up Close & Personal") doesn't have the time or money for such feature-film relocation. That's because Avnet, stepping past a used condom, is directing his first television series, NBC's police drama "Boomtown." "We really have 12 pages to shoot today? Oh, my God," Avnet says to an assistant, laughing at what would take at least two weeks to film on most movie sets. "Well, let's work fast before we get to the fancy stuff."
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