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interview with Mr Brooks director Bruce Evans

2007-06-23T22:02:00.000-07:00

Whereas a typical psycho killer film concentrates on the actual deeds, Mr. Brooks is about “what goes on with a serial killer between the killings,” director and co-writer Bruce A. Evans says in a phone interview.
Evans penned Mr. Brooks, with his writing partner Raynold Gideon, as a spec script. Over the years the pair have written films as diverse as Stand By Me, Starman, Cutthroat Island, and Evans directed Kuffs in 1992. Mr. Brooks “was written with Kevin Costner in mind,” Evans mentions about the script. On the strength of its propulsive twists and intense characters the script also attracted a strong cast.
The movie begins with titles telling us something is going on in the mind of Mr. Brooks. Brooks first appears along with his reflection in a mirror. He’s getting the Businessman of the Year award in Portland and while the action shows him confident in manner we soon meet Marshall (William Hurt), the evil id part of Brooks. The actors frequently appear in two-shots and display perfect timing in their laughter and palpable tension as Marshall pushes the correct buttons that turn Brooks into a serial killer. Unlike Fight Club where the twist at the end shows that the two actors are the same guy (Tyler Durden) here the duality device comes in the first ten minutes. “Before filming I had a week of rehearsal with Hurt and Costner where we were able to explore things like the timing,” says Evans.
Brooks drive an inconspicuous early 1990s Volvo 240 DL. Evans had another car written in the script. “I’m a smaller guy, I had them in a small car.” Both actors are over six foot, and the Volvo provided the space needed for the actors and camera placement, yet doesn’t draw suspicion on the road when he’s stalking his victims.
Demi Moore plays a tough nails homicide detective and Dane Cook surreptitiously sees Mr. Brooks committing his crime. Cook, calling himself Mr. Smith, blackmails Brooks, not for money, but to go along on the next kill. The real substance of the story follows different plot threads that eventually knit together. Brooks’ daughter arrives home to announce she’s dropped out of college; only she’s got two bigger secrets. And Moore’s stalked by another serial psycho, the Hangman Killer, who’s just escaped from prison with the vow to kill her. That’s just the first half of the film.
Mr. Brooks was shot in Shreveport. With a fairly low budget production compared to mainstream studio fare, Evans found ways to stretch creativity when he couldn’t get what he’d envisioned. A hallway shootout between Moore and the Hangman was scripted for a very long hallway. Instead they had a normal hallway, so Evan has Moore shooting out the overhead fluorescent lights, and the sound of gunfire vanishes and is replaced by the stylistic soundtrack from Hans Zimmer protégé Ramin Djawadi. It’s truly a cinematic moment.

is HOT FUZZ best film in 2007 so far?

2007-06-23T22:00:00.000-07:00

Looking over the last month at trends in movies some truths are obvious while others are revealing. It’s no surprise that huge films unwinding worldwide simultaneously make lots of cheese. But think about it, those films have a short lifespan compared to films that achieve true cult status. Movies like The Big Lebowski and Kill Bill will still be making the rounds well after we’re gone, while instant hits like Spiderman 3 will be forgotten long before the sheen on their DVD surface has eroded.
Most surprising were the success of Disturbia and the mordant humor of Georgia Rule. Shia LaBeouf rules the roost as the new It Boy. Disturbia was okay as a thriller but not exceptional and its studio certainly didn’t think it was capable of dominating for nearly a month. The only way to ascribe it’s being numero uno for three weeks is Shia, soon to be seen in Transformers and Indy Jones 4; directors like him and he has a fan base, many of which are teens. At one point in the movie a character has broken into the garage of the next-door neighbor who may be a killer. “It smells like the corpse of a rotting hottie,” says he. Kind of says it all.
Being for or against a particular actor accounts for why some watch a certain movie. You may avoid movies with certain stars because you don’t like the glow of their wattage. Lindsay Lohan, currently in Georgia Rule, is one of those types, but to disdain her (or Jane Fonda) merely means you’ll miss out on some good laughs. Lohan has solid acting chops, and they’re on display in Georgia Rule, an odd duck of a film that wavers between melancholy and sweetness even as it struggles with issues of child molestation. The funny stuff unfolds with the serious stuff, only the serious stuff has a lining of seditious humor.
But comedy can be so much more as seen in Hot Fuzz, my personal favorite film of the year. Hot Fuzz is funnier than Knocked Up, which is a laugh riot.
Hot Fuzz isn’t strictly a comedy. Directed by Edgar Wright and written by Wright along with lead actor Simon Pegg, Hot Fuzz banks on the stylized humor from their previous effort Shaun of the Dead. There are visual laughs, physical slapstick laughs, clever dialogue laughs, and some insane gore (car accidents, church steeples falling on people) thrown in for good measure.
Firm in its social satire, Hot Fuzz actually falls into the genre deconstruction camp as it progresses from breezy English countryside comedy to suspense thriller to a balls out buddy film with a snide tip of the bobby’s cap to such American actioners as Bad Boys 2 and Point Break. Occasionally Hot Fuzz lifts a few bits from the previously mentioned films with Pegg muttering “This shit just got real,” or his country bumpkin cohort Nick Frost recreating a male bonding scene from Point Break.
The ads proclaim: From the guys who’ve watched every action film ever made. You’ll believe it after seeing the intensity Wright uses in the editing of chase scenes. The feeling Wright gets with his transitional montages evokes Aronofsky in Requiem For A Dream (one of over a dozen film references sprinkled liberally throughout). But Wright uses sounds and rhythm in a way of his own, so much that you can identify it like a signature. The way Sam Raimi’s films used to look (think Evil Dead or The Quick and the Dead).
Pegg plays police Sergeant Nicholas Angel, such an A-type personality that the London division transfers him to an idyllic crime free village in the country. Angel fits in like a square peg with the usual line-up of eccentric Brit characters that populate the police service and town. Jim Broadbent and Timothy Dalton co-star but keep your eye peeled for cameos from Cate Blanchett, Peter Jackson and Steve Coogan. Increasingly violent and gory but in a manner that balances its primary comic tone Hot Fuzz would be a worthy alternative to the summer spate of tentpole uberfilms.
A British film by birth that’s been a huge hit in Europe, by the time Hot Fuzz opened domestically last month it had made over 40-million internationally. Projections have the fuzz reaching 30-mill domestic. Consider the film Perfume, which had grossed over 100-million internationally only to land in America without a campaign of any kind. Perfume limped away with less than a couple of million domestic a few weeks later.
Knocked Up provides plenty of situational laughs. KU should be a breakout part for Seth Rogen whose work with writer/director Judd Apatow extends backwards to 40 Year-Old Virgin, beginning with Freaks and Geeks. Rogen has a Borgnine grasp on playing the regular guy type. There’s a shroom scene and close-up shots of the birthing process.
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End closes with fighting pirates swinging back and forth between two ships, while the boats are swirling in a maelstrom. There’s an additional epilogue set ten years afterwards, but that’s after the lengthy credit roll. The theater had emptied by that point save for yours truly and the guy from comingsoon.net and his posse. The print I caught was digitally projected (house # 12 at the Edwards Grand Palace) in one of the theaters Disney has upgraded with such equipment. The image was consistently sharper that film projection, which says more about the condition of the projectors than the films.
The first one was okay, the second not so much, but the third Pirates has a steady dark tone (hanging women and children, purgatory scenes) that doesn’t vacillate between wacky and serious like its forebears. The Keith Richard cameo appears during a pirates round table that also features many international actors that will attract some attention in their respective countries. Ironically the main reason At World’s End opens all-at-once worldwide (industry reports peg the number of screens at over 25,000) is to combat video piracy.
An act of brotherly bonding, The Wendell Baker Story opens on June 8 exclusively at the Angelika Film Center. Directed by Andrew and Luke Wilson, and starring Luke as a happy go-lucky guy who can’t help but get into trouble the film delivers a laid back comic charm. Luke scores a triple double, carrying the film with a manic energy not apparent in his typical leading man roles. Owen Wilson pops up as a twisted bully running a health scam (reporting fake deaths) at a nursing residence. Will Ferrell, Eva Mendes, Eddie Griffin, Harry Dean Stanton, Seymour Cassel, and Kris Kristofferson supply back up. At the film’s world premiere at SXSW in 2005, Owen mentioned that the movie was as close to a sequel to Bottle Rocket (in tone) as we’re likely to get.

BEE here now

2007-06-23T21:55:00.000-07:00

So what is up with the honeybees? Nobody really knows the answer to reports of honeybees disappearing and chronic colony collapse from all points in the world, but there are plenty of theories. Of course you could keep your own posse of honeybees in your living room in the manner that a bee colony is displayed in the Cockrell Butterfly Center at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.
The beehive is mounted on a stand and enclosed behind clear panels through which you can view the bees on both sides. At the bottom a wooden duct leads out of the tropical environment of the butterfly center, through the wall and spills outside. A quick glance through the window shows bees coming and going around the tunnel entrance. The honeybees fly off and gather pollen that they bring back to the colony and apply to the octagonal cells of the hive. The entrance to the bee tunnel is guarded against errant wasps or other invaders by a couple of beefy bees.
“The tunnel entrance was much bigger but our bee keeper told us to make it smaller to make it easier for the them to defend” HMNS staffer Nancy Greig tells Free Press Houston.
“Bees were brought to America in the 1600s by Europeans,” Greig continues. The Indians called the buzzing insect white man’s flies. There are several kinds of bees, not just honeybees, but bumblebees and carpenter bees among many others. Greig notes that there is no such thing as a killer bee, just strains of bees that are more aggressive than normal. Because of the recent missing bee occurrences whenever swarms are reported, say in abandoned buildings, the hives are relocated instead of being destroyed.
Continuing to look at the hive the sameness of all the bees begins to fade and individual bees begin to appear unique. Some of the honeybees are doing the waggle dance, where they wiggle their rears back and forth. The speed and direction of their movement communicates to their brethren how far and where the pollen is located. Some of the honeybees carry visible crumbs of pollen that they are putting in the cells.
The queen seems mired among the thousand or so insects on view in the observation hive. Eventually she stands out due to her large abdomen. She’s laying eggs in one of the cells. The males can be spotted with their large thorax region; the females a thousand to one outnumber them.
Nobel prize winner in medicine Karl von Frisch studied bees and a link to one of his Nobel lectures on the language of bees can be found on the web resource after this article.
“People don’t realize how important bees are to the food system,” notes Greig. Bees pollinate most of the foods we eat. We discuss the news stories that attribute the honeybee disappearance to everything from pollution and insecticide to cell phones. Nobody really knows, and maybe it’s combination of all of the above.
An alternative food source, perhaps not for the squeamish, are edible insects. Near a separate basement display of bees is a vending machine with larvae, crickets and other munchable insects. Will America’s love affair with burgers and fries be supplanted with crispy scorpions and bread with butter and ants? The local restaurant Hugo’s (1602 Westheimer) serves crickets. One of their managers explains by phone that such appetizers are a treat at high-end restaurants in Mexico. Surely you know about the worm at the bottom of the bottle. Hugo’s crickets are imported.

Internet Bee Resource:

nobel lecture on bees

Craig Brewer on Black Snake

2007-02-25T18:52:00.000-08:00

Craig Brewer plans on staying in Memphis. An Army brat, Brewer was born on a base in Virginia, and lived everywhere: Chicago, northern California, southern California. But Brewer calls Memphis home and after making three films there he’s set up a base of operations similar to the kind of community that filmmakers like Richard Linklater have established in Austin.
With films to his credit like Hustle & Flo and now Black Snake Moan Brewer plays Hollywood’s game but on his own terms.
“If I were leading the tour of Memphis,” Brewer mused in a phoner with Free Press Houston, “I would take people to Wild Bill’s.” A classic juke joint that features homegrown blues in the style heard throughout Black Snake Moan, Wild Bill’s is located at 1580 Vollintine Ave. “Then over to Cozy Corner for some bar-b-q,” replies Brewer who proceeds to rattle off a few great eateries, adding “There’s one place that has mustard slaw, you ever had mustard slaw?”
Like all filmmakers Brewer’s influences are many. On one hand he was a kid “watching Benji movies and tearing up. Then my father took me to see Midnight Cowboy.” It’s not hard to see a link between the street characteristics of Ratso Rizzo and the denizens of Brewer’s films: A pimp trying to better his life through music in Hustle & Flo and in Black Snake Moan a blues musician with marital issues Lazarus (Samuel L. Jackson) trying to cure a white trash nympho drug addict, Rae (Christina Ricci), by chaining her to his radiator.
Whether it’s a Watkins sign in a small town pharmacy, a Denon record player on Lazarus’ front porch, or a can of Murray’s hair pomade Lazarus uses to slick his hair down before a very important gig, or the Peavy amp he jams on, Brewer captures the essence of small town Middle America. But the sexual undertone that scores the film reminds one more of Almodovar than Faulkner or Tennessee Williams.
Black Snake Moan empowers male and female viewers by showing what goes on in both Lazarus and Rae’s head. “It’s so great to watch an audience react to basically sex,” says Brewer. One difficult to choreograph scene involves a swooping camera on a crane, and a young boy opening a door. As soon as he opens the door the chained Rae grabs him with her free leg and proceeds to have her way with him.
“I wanted it to be like a pit bull running out the door and grabbing some kid,” remarks Brewer. “There’s one moment where Sam is trying to wake her up, and Christina lunges up and lays a big wet kiss on Sam. I like to turn at that moment and watch the reaction of the audience. They flinch like they’re watching a horror movie,” notes Brewer with satisfaction.
Using a team of collaborators that includes cinematographer Amy Vincent and composer Scott Bomar, Brewer has created an instant cult classic with Black Snake Moan. But get Brewer back on the subject of Memphis and modesty takes over. “Memphis is the biggest small town in the country,” wryly adds Brewer. Discussing some of the other films made in Memphis leads Brewer to mention Tupelo Teen (Bomar also wrote the music) and Starlet A.D., two films from John Michael McCarthy. A quick check on the Internet shows that neither film exists through the usual DVD or video outlets.
“Tupelo is a crazy film, but it’s a Southern staple.” Maybe the only way to see these films is just to move to Memphis.

Bob Dylan & Johnny Carson (DVD)

2007-02-25T18:51:00.000-08:00

It’s not like Bob Dylan has ever left the scene, and certainly since dominating his field in the 60s he’s continued to record music and tour. But this month sees Dylan reinvented in a multitude of guises, including a couple that aren’t even him.
Firstly, although his character name isn’t Dylan, Hayden Christensen plays the lanky Village poet Billy Quinn in Factory Girl. Covering the rise and fall of Warhol created Superstar Edie Sedgwick, Factory Girl evokes hip early 60s coolness with both its content and form. I felt let down in the one scene that should’ve had a bigger payoff. A scene where Dylan, er, Quinn comes to the Factory in order for Warhol to film him. The iconic duo stand-off, share a reefer, make snide remarks about each other in a pivotal scene to the film that should have produced more in the way of cinematic fireworks. Likewise the character played by Adam Sandler in Mike Binder’s Reign Over Me (March 23) is a virtual clone of the way Dylan looked on the cover of Blonde on Blonde.
Filmmaker D.A. Pennebacker recorded Dylan’s 1965 tour of the UK. It was solo acoustic Dylan and the last time he performed non-electric. The subsequent film, Don’t Look Back is considered a landmark music documentary not just for its concert footage but also for its fly on the wall observation of a rock star at the dawn of the age of rock idolatry.
Don’t Look Back, the 65 Tour Deluxe Edition DVD packages Pennebacker’s film along with an additional feature length companion, 65 Revisited. Basically there were so many outtakes and unused concert scenes that assembling the footage into a separate film works smoothly. Pennebacker and tour manager Bob Neuwirth provide commentary on both Don’t Look Back and 65 Revisited.
The added wealth here comes from Dylan concert footage; it’s pure, it’s simple and undiluted. In DLB we see fleeting glimpses of whole songs but in 65 Revisited the power of the poet is never so apparent as when Dylan is busting a move with his complete rendition of “It’s Allright Ma, I’m Only Bleeding,” live in Leicester. In addition to the Albert Hall concert footage there are also long takes of Dylan performing in Liverpool, Birmingham, and Newcastle among others. The 2-DVD set includes three different versions of the Subterranean Homesick Blues flip-card sequence, a stand-alone piece opening DLB that’s rightly cited as the grandfather of music videos.
Black and white television never really left, it just got colored in as the years progressed. Thankfully a stash of 1950 kinescopes (films made of shows shot directly from a television screen) were found by Johnny Carson’s second wife Joanne. The Johnny Carson Show was broadcast in prime time in 1955 and the absurd humor present in this variety show format is a link between comics like Ernie Kovacs (whose first show ran in 1952-53) and the more effervescent Carson of the 1960s Tonight Show. Incidentally Joanne’s liner notes mention that NBC trashed most of the first ten years of footage from the Tonight Show, which shows how typically corporations treat their own institutional memory.
The Johnny Carson Show, a 2-DVD set from Shout! Factory, combines 10 episodes from Carson’s network debut show, and includes extras like an ep from the ABC quiz show he hosted, Who Do You Trust? Would you believe one contestant gets locked in the sound proof booth?
Carson excels in imitation and on his first show does a take off of Edward Murrow, whom some viewers may only be familiar with from the recent film Good Night, and Good Luck. Carson also mimics a mental wizard with a character that what will evolve into Karnac. Another ep sports robotic living in the 1980s (then 30 years in the future) and a skit where Carson’s matador wife makes him put on horns and spar reeks of sexual innuendo. It was a cocktail hour, bamboo bar decade and this set captures that delicate state of mind.

TEN FOR 07

2007-02-25T18:50:00.001-08:00

Another year, another couple hundred color, black and white and paisley movies. We’re steering away from the trendy non sequiturs like Alien vs. Predator 2, Fantastic Four 2, Ocean’s Thirteen, Rush Hour 3, Shrek the Third, Pirates of the Caribbean At World’s End, and Spider-Man 3, the last three alone opening in May. Dates tend to change so we didn’t use them, and there is no pecking or alphabetical order by which the following ten films are listed.

3:10 To Yuma – James Mangold’s follow-up to Walk the Line is a remake of a 50s western with Van Heflin and Glenn Ford. Huh? If you’ve never seen it, check it out for a definitive psychological thriller dressed in cowboy duds. Tom Cruise was originally cast, dropped out, but you can’t beat the pairing of Russell Crowe and Christian Bale. Based on an Elmore Leonard novel.

I Am Legend – This novel from Richard Matheson has already been made before as The Last Man on Earth (Vincent Price, 1964) and The Omega Man (Chuck Heston, 1971). There was an attempt to do I Am Legend over a decade ago with Ridley Scott at the helm and Arnold Schwarzenegger that fell apart do to budget concerns (the script is on the Internet). The 2007 version stars Will Smith. A disease has turned people into zombies and the last human searchers for a cure.

Grindhouse – A pastiche of B-Movie presented in the style of a retro drive-in double bill, complete with mock trailers. Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez at the helm, with Kurt Russell, Rosario Dawson, Rose McGowan.

300 – Frank Miller (Sin City) inspired tale of the battle of Thermopylae, with the titular Spartans holding off the Persian army. The premise hints at far out graphics with a gripping historical plot.

The Simpsons Movie – Yes, Matt Groening got the name for the paterfamilias of the popular television cartoon series, now turned feature film, from a Nathanael West novel about decadent 1920s Hollywood, The Day of the Locust.

No Country For Old Men – A new Coen Brothers film always deserves a look see, and the story here is mired in smuggled heroin, abandoned money, and border politics. Just like Tom Joad, I’ll be there.

Underdog – Speed of lightning anyone? It’s a live-action/CGI re-deux of the cartoon with a beagle Underdog (voice of Jason Lee). Would you pass up a flick with a femme fatale named Polly Purebread (Amy Adams)?

Sicko – Michael Moore takes on the American health care system. We all know there are millions of citizens without health benefits, still it’s intriguing to see what bumbling bureaucrat’s mug Moore sticks his camera into.

American Gangster – This script has been floating around Hollywood for a long, long time. Finally made it stars Denzel Washington as a crime lord in 1970s Harlem. Russell Crowe co-stars, with Ridley Scott directing. At one point years back, the film was set to go into production with Denzel attached in a pay or play deal. The plug got pulled, but when it was revived Denzel was back on top getting paid twice for the same single acting gig.

There Will Be Blood – Paul Thomas Anderson has finally directed another film. (Thompson was the insurance contracted director on stand-by for Robert Altman on Prairie Home Companion.) Anderson helms a turn of the century Texas oil family tale, based on an Upton Sinclair novel.

Jackie Earle Haley on Little Children

2007-02-10T19:35:00.000-08:00

The Free Press Houston spoke with Jackie Earle Haley by phone last month in anticipation of the larger rollout of Little Children. Although Haley was in Dallas at the time, he lives in San Antonio where he runs JEH Productions, a corporate communications firm. To hear Haley tell it he couldn¹t get arrested much less a film role and his resume has a gap from 1993 until 2006 when he re-entered the scene with striking performances in All the King¹s Men (Haley was Sugar Boy, the governor¹s enforcer) and Little Children. Haley may not be a household name but as a child actor you would immediately recognize him. He was an original slugger for the Bad News Bears and was one of the kids in Breaking Away. There was a bunch of TV guest roles, one that sticks out was his 3-lines on The Partridge Family. Haley¹s chilling portrait of a child molester on parole in Little Children brings his career to a mobius strip of a full circle. In his first feature The Day of the Locust (1975) he was the precocious child. (In Day of the Locust Donald Sutherland plays molester Homer Simpson. Yes Matt Groening got the name for the paterfamilias of the popular cartoon from a Nathanael West novel about decadent 1920s Hollywood.) Haley recalls getting the Little Children script from his agent. ³I made a tape and sent it to Todd Fields even before he began auditioning,² Haley said. Haley was flown to New York to read and his All the King¹s Men co-star Kate Winslet was there to read with him for Fields. ³Todd can be an actor¹s director because of all the roles he¹s had in front of the camera,² states Haley, ³But he¹s also a visionary. There¹s not an aspect of the production that he doesn¹t know about or oversee.² As for the creepy interpretation that Haley gives his sex offender character of Ronnie that was a process that ³evolved from day to day as I would focus on different aspects of his character.² Little Children may be the best of the least seen films of 2006 and if you haven¹t seen Little Children it returns to theaters this weekend along with nominated films like Last King of Scotland or The Departed.

Borat conquers U. S. and A.

2006-11-05T19:51:00.000-08:00

There have been some sad comedies this year. Employee of the Month was not funny, and worse to sit through than School for Scoundrels, which also was not funny. How pathetic is it that Will Ferrell gets more laughs out of running around in his underwear in Talladega Nights than all the giggles in You, Me and Dupree?
Ferrell, whose appeal I more than occasionally question, can at least rest assured that Talladega Nights introduced the U. S. theatrical debut of Sacha Baron Cohen. Cohen has been in films to be sure, a voice in Madagascar is just one in a long list of credits, but his last big screen Ali G. Indahouse was not released domestically. Cohen breaks through the obscurity of HBO and his Ali G. guise when Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan opens November 3.
Borat hands down takes cult status if only for the penis Polaroids but in today’s broadband digital virus world the powers that be (News Corp.) decided that Borat’s previously announced wide release of approximately 2000 should be shaved down to 800 venues. 800 is the official industry number that designates a wide release. By contrast the film Little Children is currently playing in under 50 theaters. When the movie Babel opens November 11 it will be in more than 1000 theaters.
So was the Borat pre-release Internet hype all of a sudden not producing significant numbers to the bean counters sponsoring all the MySpace screenings? Or is the humor of Borat just too much for Middle America? The answer lies somewhere between yes to both queries.
There’s evidently enough Borat footage that cutting room outtakes normally regulated to DVD extras are being sculpted into a television spin-off. Cohen has pre-sold his next movie project, a hairdresser character that he never breaks from, for $40-million to a major studio. Before you get all gooey feeling sorry for Cohen also consider that he’s romantically involved with Isla Fisher (Wedding Crashers, Huckabees). Borat has no place to go but up.
Unlike Blair Witch Project, a film where people were insisting it was true weeks after it opened, the joke of Borat is knowing that Cohen’s pulling the wool over the proverbial eyeballs. Still one has to see the obviously staged sequences like one where Borat attempts to kidnap Pamela Anderson at a Virgin Superstore book signing. Releases were signed and people were duped and those are the scenes that work the best. Still, the biggest guffaws come from butt ugly moments although nothing equals the gross out levels of, say, the fluid gobbling antics of Jackass 2. Personally, the bear on the ice cream truck sequence was my favorite.
The film follows Borat walking around his primitive village announcing he’s going to America to put his newsworthy perspective on things. After all, he’s the sixth best journalist in all of Kazakhstan. After coming to New York Borat talks his obese manager into a trip to Los Angeles in order for him to meet Anderson. They lose all their money and end up strangers in a conservative land. For a guy who’s never heard of Baywatch, Borat carries a lot of clout.

Kibbles and Bits

2006-10-08T22:40:00.000-07:00

If a dog barks in the wood and nobody hears it does the dog make a sound? What did a cur of the court of Marie Antoinette look like? The answer to these and other canine conundrums are answered if only metaphorically in the Best In Show exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (October 1 through January 1, 2007).
Covering over 400 years of dogs in art, one keenly observes dogs evolving from Renaissance-era stoic profiles to Romantic paintings that imbue the creature with pure emotions. A modern glance allows for William Wegman photography as well as pop art interpretations of man’s best friend. Thus Andy Warhol, who owned a pair of dachshunds, paints Ginger a cocker spaniel. Enclosed in glass is a skeletal dog grasping a newspaper in its jaws. Entitled Dog Skeleton with La Monde (or more succinctly bone and paper, 1997) its vacant yet obedient stare emanating from an ivory yellow skull adds a dash of surrealism to the already capricious surroundings.
Noted masters whose reputations were established by their animal reproductions, painters like Alexandre-Francois Desportes, Jean-Baptist Oudry, George Stubbs, James Ward and Sir Edwin Henry Landseer are duly represented and their images leave an impression that begs further study. Over 275 dogs appear in the various galleries on the second floor of the Beck Building, a touring collection that encompasses eight countries and over 30 museums. The most comprehensive assemblage of dog art ever to tour North America, the exhibit was inspired in part by Robert Rosenblum’s book The Dog in Art from Rococo to Postmodernism.
Cat aficionados can find solace in The Cat’s Meow, a sister exhibit, albeit smaller with only 23 works, on display downstairs from Best In Show.

Up Against the Screen

2006-10-08T22:34:00.000-07:00

It’s interesting how the publicity side of films wants to rule what people think. As well they should, that’s their job.
After leaving screenings of The Departed and Infamous, the p.r. person (a contract job proffered by a public relations firm hired by a film studio) specifically asked me A) in the case of Departed what I thought about its Oscar chances, and B) regarding Infamous, how I thought it compared to Capote.
It was easy to answer the former query. Ask somebody in the Academy, I snapped back to the loaded question. When the Academy picks its five nominees I will tell you the one I think will win. If this is any indication of the ramp-up of prognostication to come, prepare yourself for the biggest Oscar media shitstorm ever.
As for Infamous, which covers much of the same ground as last year’s Capote, the real question should be how does it stack up against the films that are coming out at the same time: films as diverse as Flags of Our Fathers, Marie Antoinette, The Prestige, not to mention the plethora of October horror flicks with numbers in the title. Saw III or Grudge 2 anyone? As for comedies you can write those off to the DVD rental in two months category. Employee of the Month was not funny, and worse to sit through than School for Scoundrels, which also was not funny. How sad is it that you have to reach back to the also not funny You, Me and Dupree just to recall a film that at least allowed one to crack a smile.
The truth is a little Truman Capote goes a long way. There was a Capote comedy skit back in the 1970s where the National Lampoon Comedy Hour had a Truman soundalike explaining how “My father stuck me in a closet with a bowling ball bag over my head.” In Infamous the soundalike, Toby Jones, is also a dead ringer for the real Capote. Jones most notably plays the voice of Dobby the Elf in the Harry Potter series. Perhaps the portrayal of Capote will become the new trial by fire of contemporary actors. Philip Seymour Hoffman won an Oscar for his Capote turn, but physically Hoffman is anything but diminutive and squeaky voiced.
As similar as Infamous is to Capote in terms of plot (famous writer travels to the scene of a brutal murder in Middle America to re-invent the novel) the directorial hands are wide apart. Infamous helmer Douglas McGrath delivers a first act frothy with wit. But by the end the film has spiraled into a grim drama, with an intense near-rape scene between Jones and Daniel Craig (next month’s blue-eyed James Bond). Craig plays Perry Smith with a rage as black as his contact lenses.

If Infamous is a double with the runner sliding in safe, then Martin Scorsese’s The Departed is a home run in the upper seats.
Dense in cinematic layers – occasional brilliant acting riffs, complicated plot with plenty of double crosses, expert use of rock songs to accent violence and character – the main thing I felt coming out of The Departed was how I longed to see it a second time.
Scorsese’s direction feels like a tuned racing engine firing on all cylinders. Sure, Scorsese’s in his element with a crime film. But Scorsese goes beyond recycling Goodfellas cheer and adds taunt suspense to Departed’s truly stunning ending. Not that the film lacks violence. Early on, we see Leonardo DiCaprio mopping up a convenience store with some thugs, and as he’s turning this guy’s face into pulp the soundtrack launches into “Land of a 1000 Dances.” It’s Scorsese reminding us that, yes, he’s seen Kill Bill Vol.1 where the same musical cue left a mark.
With Scorsese’s master touch the film is sculpted to feel like an hour even though the action takes two-and-a-half hours.

It didn’t start out as a Gwyneth Paltrow double feature but there you have it – I saw Infamous and Running With Scissors on the same day - both films where Paltrow plays a supporting role. She only appears briefly in Infamous, as a lounge singer in the opening scene. The song waivers as the blonde siren experiences a moment where you think she might collapse in the middle of her warble.
Running With Scissors, set in the groovy late 1970s, places Paltrow with an ensemble that includes Jill Clayburgh, Evan Rachel Wood, Joseph Fiennes as members of an unorthodox psychiatrist’s family. Paltrow, while only in a couple of scenes, has a psycho thousand-yard stare that will chill the uninitiated. Annette Benning, Brian Cox and Joseph Cross trade off leading roles as the story switches between Cox’s insurance fraud, Benning’s medicated stupor, with Cross (playing author Augusten Burroughs) experiencing the entire farce while going through puberty.

Cavett / Snyder DVDs

2006-10-01T21:09:00.000-07:00

For a trip down memory lane the DVD set The Dick Cavett Show: Hollywood Greats plays more like a walk through the halls of institutional memory of American pop culture during the years when said contribution could be called golden. Astaire, Brando, Capra, Hepburn, Hitchcock, Huston, Mitchum are a few but not all of the great names and moments to be found in this 4 DVD collection.
Of the names assembled only Kirk Douglas, Mel Brooks, Robert Altman, Peter Bogdanovich and Debbie Reynolds are still living. If the others were alive maybe Orson Welles would be directing films with money he made selling wine and making iPod commercials and Marlon Brando would certainly be swashbuckling alongside Johnny Depp. The cult of celebrity embraced these personalities thirty years ago (the interview shows were recorded in the early 1970s), but their appeal was based on their cumulative talent. So unlike the nipple slips that pass for entertainment news today.
Consider that Cavett was the third rated talk host after Johnny Carson and Merv Griffin, although his cool factor boosted his karma quotient. Cavett was on ABC from 1969, and periodically throughout the 1970s, although the round robin style interview show would constantly shift time slots. Sometimes in prime time for an hour, mostly ninety-minute shots after prime. When Katherine Hepburn did her first ever television interview Cavett scored. That would be tantamount to Jack Nicholson going on Jimmy Kimmel to stump for The Departed (ain’t gonna happen).
Sure stars promoted their projects back then, but the emphasis was on conversation and where tangential ideas can lead. Brando’s appearance stands out due to his adamant refusal to talk about The Godfather while also co-hosting a handful of Native American speakers. Mitchum answers direct Cavett questions like “Do you think you have a drinking problem?” with “It’s other people who have a problem with the amount I can drink.” Of course while sipping Scotch and smoking cigs. Bette Davis honestly parries to Cavett’s thrust: “Bette, how did you lose your virginity?” Some of these segments are also running in September on cable channel TCM.

Perhaps not so odd, in 1968 when Salvador Dali produced a TV Guide cover, and titled it Today, Tonight and Tomorrow, NBC did not yet have a Tomorrow show. That show premiered in 1973 with Tom Snyder. Snyder was a bit over the top and the imitation Dan Aykroyd did on Saturday Night Live actually was what Snyder could be like when he launched into guffaws of self-congratulatory commentary. Snyder never came off as essential as Cavett but he had his moments, although those don’t include the interview with Charlie Manson. That ep will probably never be issued on DVD. But Tom Snyder’s Electric Kool-Aid Talk Show has been. A compendium of different Tomorrow episodes, the single disc DVD includes The Grateful Dead with Ken Kesey for one entire show (the Dead play four songs – On the Road Again, Cassidy, Dire Wolf, Deep Elem Blues), and segments with Tom Wolfe and Timothy Leary. These shows were originally broadcast in 1979 through 1981, and capture the ambiance of that transitional time. A quarter of a century later the dialogue still rings relevant. Snyder, at one point talking to Leary, makes a joke and looks like he’s imitating Aykroyd imitating him. That’s a strange brew.

Is yellow the new color of comedy?

2006-08-11T23:32:00.000-07:00

In an article about early horror film posters Stephen King mentions that yellow is never used for comedy. It’s hard to visualize many yellow posters although the one-sheet for The Shining (a horror film) comes to mind.
So along comes a comedy that’s not about to be painted into a corner. In the poignant and funny ensemble film Little Miss Sunshine not only does the poster glare with yellow, but one scene-stealing character is a yellow VW van.
For LMS’s directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris the decision to modify their character’s beliefs and feelings started with a color scheme. “People, whether they know it or not, tend to flock to certain colors,” Dayton told Free Press Houston while in town promoting the film.
With so many characters dominating the frame they didn’t want people to get lost or confused. Regarding the part of the suicidal uncle played by Steve Carell, Faris noted: “He was like this clean plate. He comes to stay with this family and he’s drained of all life and color.”
Adds Dayton: “We all go through calamity, but then later we can laugh at it, and learn.”
In LMS Carell wears complete white in every scene. His pajamas are white with a monogram, and even when he dons a pink shirt, it looks white. His sister (Toni Collette) and her family, including husband Greg Kinnear whose goal is preaching a nine-step self-awareness program that nobody cares about, a cynical teen Paul Dano who reads Nietzsche and refuses to speak, and the drug snorting grumpy grandpa (Alan Arkin), are multi-hued. When their daughter Olivia (Abigail Breslin) gets accepted in a children’s beauty pageant (sardonic shades of JonBenet Ramsey) the only way this dysfunctional Albuquerque family can come together is to hop into their family van and drive to California.
“We came up with a color scheme for the movie,” Faris related. “We picked three predominant colors. There’s turquoise that Richard wears (Kinnear), Olive always has some element of red, and then there’s the yellow of the car, and the house has a warmish gold color to it.”
Dayton and Faris made their mark with award winning rock videos and cutting edge commercials. Even though those particular film projects pay the big salary it’s a labor of love like Little Miss Sunshine to which they proudly point.
Dayton and Faris took as much care in choosing the car as they did in casting the superlative list of actors.
The VW van hails from the 1970s, a bit more conservative in its angles and lines as compared to the 1960s-era VW vans. “We didn’t want it to be so groovy,” says Dayton. “Or too cute” chimes Faris. “This wasn’t Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and as the movie progressed it became clear how important the car was as a character,” explained Dayton.
One audience pleasing sequence has the VW’s horn malfunctioning, over and over and over. The film only gets funnier with each languid beep. “The sound guy literally took a horn apart and dragged a bare wire across the connection to get that sickly sound,” laughs Dayton.

The Real Clerks

2006-08-03T21:28:00.000-07:00

Film directors like Kevin Smith take the heat for not turning out a masterpiece every time. But all films are not destined to be instant classics, although Smith’s debut Clerks captured the zeitgeist of the mid-90s unlike any other phenomenon of its time. For your humble scribe, Smith’s films, good and bad, fill a void in my life, much like Eric Rohmer’s films with their unmistakable similarity are welcomed like friends at a reunion.
It was no slight thrill to interview the stars of Clerks and Clerks II, Brian O’Halloran (Dante) and Jeff Anderson (Randal) during their recent press stop in Houston. In a way, it’s the ultimate sign of coolness to have been the star of a single film that every member of a generation (gen-Xers in this case) can recite by memory. Kind of like the French director Jean Vigo who only made one full-length feature before he died, but a film that is still discussed relevantly by cinephile today (L’Atalante).
With the wide release of Clerks II (July 21) O’Halloran and Anderson are hardly residing in the where-are-they-now-file. Kevin Smith made Clerks II for a sweet $5-million, which has already been recouped by foreign pre-sales. Every penny this film makes is pure profit.
Anderson attended Henry Hudson Regional High School with Kevin Smith. When Anderson auditioned for Clerks it was an easy fit for Smith. “He didn’t go to college,” laughs Anderson. “ He enrolled so he could get the student discount on film stock.” How Smith used a few credit cards to pay for the under $30,000 Clerks is a feat which many have copied, and the success of which so very few have attained. Although they knew each other from high school Anderson and Smith formed a friendship when Jeff would stop by the video store where Smith worked. It’s the same strip store site where the original Clerks was lensed.
O’Halloran mentions the eight-minute standing ovation Clerks II received at Cannes. An actor on the legit stage since the original Clerks, O’Halloran comes off every bit as the opposite of Anderson in real life as the characters they portray on screen. His look is clean, nails polished and cut, clothes quiet.
Anderson on the other hand looks more like the rebel, jeans, pull-over shirt, a no-bullshit way of talking. I ask the duo if they had a back-end on Clerks II. Brian mulls over the answer and in a vague way and gives an answer that’s ambiguous.
Jeff smiles and arches his head, and replies just like Randal: “I would say that that’s a big no.”

Teeth of the Hydra

2006-08-03T21:27:00.000-07:00

You know how years are divided between A.D. and B.C. Nobody started selling calendars in 1 A.D. with new logos, that was a move decided years, centuries later. Well, civilization has reached a similar point for cinema, only it will be years from now before anyone will officially recognize such a line of demarcation.
This isn’t the before and after of sound and silent, nor of CGI versus analog effects, digital versus high-def, or Oprah versus Uma. Rather there is now a division in the way people perceive films compared to the way they used to perceive films.
In 2006 a cognizance exists concerning the tiniest details of movies for both people in the industry and civilians who make up the bulk of everyday audiences. Specifically websites track daily (not just weekend) grosses, films are reviewed the moment they are screened (even if the screening is private), visibility and advertising reflect the synergy of opening a single film on thousands of screens simultaneously worldwide. 2006 marks the year that a single film, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, blasted all previous opening weekend records based solely on its marketing.
POTC: DMC is a film so sloppy and haphazard that there’s no way it could become a box-office behemoth save for the marketing. Over 1000 POTC: DMC items have been trademarked, everything from cereal to bottled water to artificial eyelashes. Take a look at the top 100 grossing films in history and none of them sucks the abysmal wind of POTC: DMC. That being said, 2006 marks the year that the content of a film became truly irrelevant.
It doesn’t matter that The Devil Wears Prada displays no verisimilitude. It hardly counts that the horrific The Descent rates far below similar Lionsgate releases like Hostel, or even the B-level Saw. Who cares that You, Me and Dupree is so un-funny that it elicits weak smiles rather than laughs and guffaws. It’s not about what movies you like, it’s about the marketing of same. From now on critics should critique the cleanliness of theater bathrooms, efficiency of concession lines and availability of ergonomic parking spaces.
I’ve seen every film Johnny Depp has starred in save for Private Resort (1985) and The Astronaut’s Wife (1999), and I think the guy deserves the kudos as the Brando of the new millennium. In the sequels to Pirates of the Caribbean though, Depp is just jerking our collective wang.
In 1997 Depp directed and starred in the film The Brave (also with Brando). The Brave concerns an American Indian who agrees to star in a snuff film to help finance the dreams of his poverty-ridden family. The Brave was booed when it premiered at Cannes. It has never been released theatrically anywhere (but is available on DVD). Disney could release The Brave with the caption “a film directed by Captain Jack Sparrow” and that puppy would gross millions. Disney won’t of course because they just pink-slipped half their staff, and cut their annual slate of films by half. That’s the cinematic landscape that modern movie mavens must traverse.

I am quite sure they will say so

2006-08-03T21:24:00.000-07:00

V FOR VENDETTA

SCENE between V and EVEY

V: I can assure you I mean you no harm.

EVIE: Who are you?

V: Who! Who is but the form following the function of what. And what I am is a man in a mask.

EVIE: I can see that.

V: Of course you can. I’m not questioning your powers of observation. I’m merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is.

EVIE: Oh, right.

V: But on this most auspicious of nights permit me then, in lieu of the more commonplace soubriquet, to suggest the character of this dramatis personae.
Viola! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi now vacant and vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. [Strikes poster with knife.]
The only verdict is vengeance. A vendetta held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and voracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. (Laughs.) Verily this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose so let me simply add that it’s my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V.

EVIE: Are you like a crazy person?

V: I am quite sure they will say so.

Summer of Love

2006-06-19T23:50:00.000-07:00

It was the summer of love. Or to paraphrase Peter Fonda in The Limey: “The 1960s was really 1966 and the first couple of months of 1967.” My memory recalls that time as the golden era of television. Star Trek, The Time Tunnel, That Girl, The Andy Griffith Show - all religiously observed by your humble scribe on their original broadcast dates.
Only watching several new releases of complete season series on DVD I now realize that the recollections of a child are far more forgiving than the serious movie viewing habits of an adult.
On November 17, 1966 the first part of the two-part Star Trek episode The Menagerie ran. That was a Thursday night. The second ep would run the following Thursday night, which was also Thanksgiving Day.
As is usual on such a holiday Aunts and relatives visit, break bread and get to decide what to watch on television. My cousins Butch, Andrea, and Buzzy were older and Buzzy in particular had it in mind to watch The CBS Movie of the Week. Regardless of the coolness of that film being the Ray Harryhausen effects-laden Jason and the Argonauts, Buzzy got his wish and that movie was seen in the Bergeron household at 8 o'clock. You know what's coming next.
Star Trek aired at 7:30 and that means I had to miss the last half-hour, the conclusion of the two-parter, and forever wonder how it ended.
As you are no doubt aware, The Menagerie was composed of scenes from the original Star Trek pilot, which starred Jeffrey Hunter and also featured Leonard Nimoy as Spock (the episode won a Hugo award). We see scenes of the pilot as flashbacks interspersed with the current cast. The Menagerie also co-stared Susan Oliver (The Monitors) a forgotten actress who graced several 60s era projects.
In November of 1966, reruns didn't start until, bare minimum, May of the following year. There was no way I could suspend my sense of discombobulation at having to find new ways to remember television shows. Perhaps it was at that moment I realized that in some far-flung future there would be a way of accessing any television show ever made at your own discretion. And thus this month’s review of a cornucopia of DVD releases of classic television shows.

The Time Tunnel – Although this Irwin Allen produced sci-fier that launched in 1966 only lasted one season it spawned 30 episodes, available in two DVD sets (eps. 1-15 & 16-30). This series was for years my favorite show. Imagine the shock at watching TT for the first time in 40 years. Open-mouthed stupefaction best describes fond memories giving way to hammy acting and ridiculous situations. The two scientists (James Darren, Robert Colbert) float in time from the Titanic to the Alamo to the French Revolution to Krakatoa, yet each show has them begin anew in fresh clothing (one of the effects of time travel?). Darren in particular is always trying to tell people that they are in danger: “Captain, I can’t explain how, but this ship is going to sink.” This show is literally so bad it is good; it’s practically golden. Some amazing performances grace the goofy hi-jinx at Operation Tic Toc: including a dual role played by Carroll O’Conner, as well as early appearances by thesps like Robert Duvall and Ellen Burstyn (billed as Ellen McRae). The Sci-Fi Channel has tried to revive this show, but stick with the original for its unparalleled take on history.
That Girl (Season One) – On five discs, the complete 30 episodes from the 1966 season are all about Marlo Thomas dressed fabulously as a New York model. How does she afford that Manhattan apartment and where does she get all those clothes? Don’t ask questions like that when discussing a television show. Despite the show’s corny plots and characters it lasted five seasons and Thomas’ bang haircut and penchant for mod dresses are still being imitated today. It’s no secret that Marlo’s father Danny Thomas was a heavyweight in 50s and 60s television production. Thomas also established the St. Jude Hospital for Children’s Research after praying to the patron saint of the hopeless for career guidance.
The Andy Griffith Show (The Complete Sixth Season) – This was the year that Andy went to color and Barney Fife was replaced by Deputy Warren Ferguson (Jack Burns from the comic duo of Burns and Schreiber). Andy goes to Hollywood in a story that arcs over several episodes; Don Knotts makes two guest cameos; and Ron Howard practices good citizenship like getting a job to pay for repairs on his bike. Of course he is a kid so it’s no surprise that Opie also hides a walkie-talkie in a dog’s collar to convince Goober that the animal can talk. Andy Griffith lost something as the series wore on, and despite the fact that Jack Nicholson guest stars in two episodes from season’s seven and eight, many consider the sixth season a sort of swan song for Mayberry. Truly endearing or perhaps downright damning is the show’s small town skewed vision of the era. For instance, Aunt Bee and her friend Clara write a song (“A Singer in Town”) and it gets picked up by a famous rockabilly singer who wants to perform it on television complete with electric guitars and go-go dancers. Aunt Bee throws a shitfit and refuses to allow them to perform the song unless it is sung as a sensitive ballad. Television held a plastic mirror up to reality then as it does now.
The Best of The Electric Company – This four disc box set showcases 20 episodes from what could be best described as a teen version of Sesame Street. Covering the show from 1971 through 1977, the eps are loaded with psychedelic video effects and double entendre. All in the name of education. More to the point are the regulars, including Morgan Freeman (as young as you’re ever going to see him) and a free spirit actress currently residing in the where-are-they-now-file Judy Graubert.
Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist (Season One) – Just to show we’re not lost in nostalgia we recommend this set with all six episodes from the 1995 debut season on Comedy Central. Animated with Squigglevision (things appear wavy), Dr. Katz reminds one of a more cynical version of the psychiatrist played by Bob Newhart. Divorced, Katz lives with his loser mid-20s son who refuses to get a job, while treating a variety of outwardly neurotic clients (voiced by stand-ups like Dave Attell, Wendy Liebman, and Ray Romano).
All-American Girl (The Complete Series) – Margaret Cho plays an updated version of the kind of single girl spawned by Marlo Thomas in the 60s. It’s definitely the only time you will see a PG Cho. Margaret Kim (Cho) lives half in the world of 90s coolness with the other half acceding to her parent’s ethnic ideals (dating Korean doctors and staying in college wile living at home). The show lasted one season on ABC (1994-95) and all 18 episodes are included as well as four with Cho commentary. Of special interest: A Night at the Oprah, which has not only Oprah Winfrey but also Jack (Nacho) Black as a rocker who wants Margaret to manage his band. The season’s penultimate ep was Pulp Sitcom, a half-hour take-off of Pulp Fiction that features Quentin Tarantino positively beaming in the kitsch he has created.

Celluloid Conspiracy: It's not about what you like

2006-05-25T00:14:00.000-07:00

Want a really good conspiracy, a much better cause for collusion than holes in the Pentagon or forensic speculation over dead presidents? The Da Vinci Code purports that the last living descendent of Jesus Christ is Amelie, and the path to understanding this plot involves Templar Knights, the Council of Nicea, the Holy Grail (where’s Monty Python when you really need them?) and various not-so-secret (they have websites for goodness sakes) religious orgs.
Perhaps the biggest conspiracy would be to examine how when Opie Taylor makes a kick-ass film like The Missing the best reaction you can find is widespread indifference. When Richie Cunningham goes wide, the mainstream results are less interesting. There are some cool shots in Da Vinci Code to be sure – the freeze frames when Hanks and Tautou are being shot at by Jurgen Prochnow, the History Channel style historical flashbacks, the character arcs of Jean Reno and Alfred Molina – but by and large it comes and goes with a resolute entertainment value that never exceeds the ticket price.
Through some weird divine intervention I’d seen Da Vinci Code twice before it opened. The first time was the press screening the night before it opened in North America, and the next morning when I attended the opening of restaurant theater Studio Grill (in the Jersey Village part of town) and the film showing, natch, Da Vinci Code. FYI: the luminosity of the screen projection at the Studio Grill was so absolutely brilliant it made me realize how sub-standard most cinema’s luminosity factor rates. The last time I witnessed that kind of brightness was at the IMAX version of V For Vendetta. So watching Da Vinci Code for the second time in less than a day was more about quality comparison of movie theater sight and sound, and not really the Fodor’s tour apparent the first go-round.
With all the scrutiny of entertainment media focused on films with summer agendas it’s easy to see some smaller, and really good, films miss out on their rightful share of attention. Two current films beg for intelligent and sophisticated viewers to savor their cinematic smarts.
The Proposition and Brick are the kind of movies that instantly draw you into a character’s world of pain and don’t let up for a couple of hours.
The Proposition starts in the middle of a SWAT-style shoot-out but there’s no gas bombs and television coverage, only rifle and pistol shells. The milieu is the Australian bushranger era. A lawman (Ray Winstone) captures two of three brothers wanted for brutal crimes. Winstone lets one (Guy Pearce) go telling him to kill the older uncaught brother or the younger brother will be hanged on Christmas Day. Alternately brutally violent with its story details and visually beautiful with the setting of an Outback western, The Proposition captivates entirely. Danny Huston and Emily Watson also star, and there are so many flies in every scene you have to wonder how the cast and crew weren’t eaten on location.
Brick transposes the film noir feeling of a Raymond Chandler story onto an unruly group of high school students (the film was shot at San Clemente High School in California). The dialogue compels you to listen. Imagine tough private dick talk spoken by white-boy gangster rap poseurs. If you think The Big Sleep is an awesome movie then Brick needs to be on your list of things to see. In the lobby of the Angelika are Brick booklets with the jargon spelled out for those with ADD. The characters have names like The Pin, Tugger, The Brain, and of course, Brendon the lead has a mystery to solve in a short amount of time. When you hear about true indie films (Brick was picked up on the festival route by Focus Films), the kind that come out of nowhere and overwhelm everything else with their acumen they are probably talking about Brick.

78th Academy Awards blather

2006-04-17T16:58:00.000-07:00

The 78th Academy Awards will unroll Sunday March 5. Jon Stewart will be the host. I am not making fun when I say that this year’s Oscar telecast will be the lowest rated Oscar telecast in years. After all is said and done, no matter how many awareness commercials ABC runs on ESPN, no matter how many sponsors buy a half-minute commercial at $1.6–million, the Oscars will be seen by less people than any other Oscar ceremony in modern time.
The telecast will still draw between 40 and 45 million viewers, and that is considered sinking. If Fox wanted to outdraw the Oscars they could show an episode of American Idol, but instead they are showing the Michael Bay directed Bad Boys 2. See, there is honor among thieves.
Crash, Good Night and Good Luck, Munich, Brokeback Mountain, and Capote - are all worthy films. But don’t you also wonder why The History of Violence, The Upside of Anger, The Constant Gardener, Grizzly Man, The New World, The World’s Faster Indian or Match Point were virtually shut out? The point being the Academy Awards can never be all things to all people. And the films chosen are the tip of the iceberg of total films made.
In one year’s time we could be sitting here discussing BABEL, FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS, V FOR VENDETTA, THE DEPARTED, ZODIAC, or maybe THE GOOD SHEPHERD, or even a film that was pushed back from last Christmas, ALL THE KING’S MEN.
2006 will see two films from studios that depict 9/11. Universal has Flight 93 in May, a retelling of the doomed flight hat crashed in Pennsylvania shot in real time, and from Paramount Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center starring Nicolas Cage.
The summer of 2006 will be a weekly battle of mega-movies with budgets north of $100-million and titles like MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 3; X-MEN 3; THE POSIDEON ADVENTURE, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN’S CHEST, SUPERMAN RETURNS, or THE DA VINCI CODE.
In sharp contrast to the hundreds of millions Hollywood throws at tent pole pictures, the movie Crash had a budget just over $6-million. Industry reports put the amount Lionsgate has spent promoting Crash’s Oscar possibilities at $4-million. Usually a studio will send out at the very most 15,000 maybe 20,000 screeners of a film for an Oscar campaign. Part of Lionsgate’s cost included the 130,000 DVD screeners of Crash that were sent to, well, everyone but the people here in this room.
Hollywood likes to shine a light on its artistic contributions and if you ban a film they will surely come to its defense. You have to imagine that most of the Academy members vote with their artistic passion – for what the really feel is the best contender. Then you have your first standard deviation of people who will cast their ballot according to what their friends vote for. Do you really think that what a critic’s group or Golden Globe member rallies behind has that much credibility with the various Actors, Directors, Producers, Executives, Art Directors, Cinematographers, Editors, Writers, Sound and Visual Effects artisans and Members-At-Large of the Academy?
One must also consider what I call the Cold Mountain effect of certain films. While Cold Mountain was nominated for 7 Academy Awards it only won one (Best Supporting Actress) and was not favored by the Hollywood community from the point of view of runaway production. Cold Mountain was shot in Eastern Europe and many of the voters are people who live and work in California. Another film that is nominated this year in the foreign film category, Paradise Now, is the subject of slanderous email and verbal campaigns by people objecting to its nation of origin – the film is listed as both from Palestine and the Palestine Authority on two different Academy web sites.
Memoirs of a Geisha, despite mainlining at the box office, has more than a good chance at picking up a couple of technical and craft awards this year. It was mostly shot on a recreation Japanese village constructed just outside L.A.
There are always the annual Oscar parties and brouhahas, but is anybody really watching? The last time I checked films like Brown Bunny and now, Manderlay, will not play theatrically in Houston because it’s the last stop on the train schedule. The Landmark Theatres affiliate Magnolia Pictures’ touring show of Oscar short films will not be playing in Houston because we’re not hip enough, although the program has bookings in over a dozen (smaller) U.S. cities.
If you’ve seen the Best Picture choices you see more films than the average bear. Most people have not seen Brokeback Mountain (USA Today put the number at 12-million in North America) but perceive it as a gay cowboy movie. That is incorrect. If you want to see a film about gay men as portrayed by straight actors see The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert with Terence Stamp, Guy Pearce, and Hugo Weaving.
Truman Capote will be the subject of a film coming out later this year from director Doug McGrath and the cast includes Sandra Bullock as Lee Harper and Daniel Craig as Perry Smith. The actor playing Capote previously supplied the voice of Dobby the Elf in the Harry Potter films.
My choice is Good Night, and Good Luck but my choice never wins. Kind of like the Presidential elections.
On a side note, movie theaters are only hurting themselves by refusing to innovate. Sooner, rather than later, major studios will release DVDs on the same day and date as the theatrical release. And they will do that because it will bring in more money than the current economic model. Movie theaters by contrast will continue to lose audiences until they re-define the movie going experience as something more than stadium seating and bottled water. Consider soundproof plexi-glass booths with the sound piped in for people who want to watch movies and talk on their cell phones at the same time. Again, my choices never win.
Let’s take it category by category. With the exception of short subjects, documentaries and foreign films, for which members must sign-in and view in-person, the various branches on the Academy determine their respective nominees from a list of eligible films, and those final nominations are voted on by the entire Academy body. While my methods for choosing the Oscar winners are far from foolproof, I always accurately pick better than 50-percent. I’m soooo much smoother than Matthew McConaughey in that crap movie Two For the Money.
NOTE: I won't bore you with my choices but I did get 17 out of 24 ... I missed Best Picture and Best Actress ...

sxsw 2006

2006-04-10T18:47:00.000-07:00

Cruising into Austin I knew there was no way I could see more than a dozen films and assorted shorts before notching another South By Southwest Film Festival on my celluloid belt. Thirteen features and five short subjects later my eyes are blurry but I’m well hydrated as one sponsor, Aqufina, offered free bottled water inside and out. (Lose the artificially fruit-flavored swill, it tastes like cough medicine.)
To put the amount of films I saw in perspective consider that SXSW 2006 programmed 118 feature films in categories including retrospectives, special events, premieres, narrative and documentary competition, midnight screenings, and emerging visions. Everywhere I walk, since most of the events are all within shouting distance of one another, I meet filmmakers most of whom are Austin residents, the rest attendees. The filmmakers literally outnumber regular audience members at some events. While publicists from Gotham might generalize Austin as a music festival town, the locals know that Austin has the biggest filmmaking scene of any Texas town, and in fact that week’s cover of the Austin Chronicle celebrates a total of five films that were locally produced and playing in the festival.
SXSW always plays great documentaries and the music themed documentaries in particular benefit from the Capital City’s special relation with sound. The BBC docu The Passing Show – The Life and Times of Ronnie Lane encapsulated his entire career from the Small Faces, The Faces, solo and otherwise. Fans of Lane know he spent time in Houston and Austin before his death in 1997. Funny how Rod Stewart, original lead singer for The Faces, is absent but rock legends Pete Townsend and Eric Clapton can’t praise Lane’s influence on rock enough.
Quite another story with loudQUIETloud: A Film About the Pixies. Sometimes you don’t want to know too much about rockers you adore because loudQUIETloud was somnolent. This is not a concert film but rather a behind the scenes look at the Pixies on a reunion tour. Imagine a reality show about people who don’t do drugs anymore. The filmmakers show us Frank Black a.k.a. Black Francis in three different scenes chest naked. But Kim Deal - clothes on in every scene. I feel ripped.
My personal favorite film was the music docu Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey. This film may not see theatrical but you can get it on DVD in late May. Not personally being a fan of metal other than a song here or there I was fascinated by how director/producer Sam Dunn approached the subject in an anthropological manner befitting his own training in behavioral science and his love for heavy metal.
The film covers Richard Wagner, Metallica, Black Sabbath, worldwide banned LP covers, Dee Snyder testifying before Congress and Tipper Gore in the mid-80s, who was the first to use the fore-finger and little-finger devil-horn sign (other than UT alumni), and Norwegian Death Metal just for starters. Dunn never stays too long on one subject and the result provides a rocking ride through two generations of rock culture. Plus Dunn makes for a gracious host; his asides are illuminating, he talks to all the right people and he never deigns to his audience. A pedigree of heavy metal graphic chart comprehensively allows us to follow what for many will be an unknown road.
Also look for these above average documentaries to appear somewhere before the end of the year: This Film Is Not Yet Rated takes on the ratings board for motion pictures, going so far as to hire private detectives to identify who the actual members are; Maxed Out!, an eye-opening report on many misunderstood facets of credit card debt; and Shadow Company takes viewers into the outsourced military industry. Mercenaries are people too this film says.
Less interesting was Fired! (the title says it all), although the shock of recognition factor is high on this one. And Nobelity, where the filmmaker interviews Nobel Prize winners, is well meaning but meandering. The docu The Last Western, about a town time has forgotten on the edge of the desert, will itself be forgotten very soon.
Don’t fret, your humble scribe merely uses the docus as a diving board for the more cerebral fictional features. Oddly the one that stuck when the others had faded was Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon. Behind the Mask is a horror spoof that’s smart enough to cast Robert Englund in the kind of role that would be played by Donald Pleasence twenty years ago. But Englund’s just a guest star. Leslie Vernon (Invasion’s Nathan Baesel) wants to be the next famous mass murderer and a television reality crew films him stalking potential victims. Everyone thinks it’s a big joke, natch, until Leslie turns the tables on everyone.
Other highlights included The Cassidy Kids, a mobius strip of a plot that involves the cast of a hit 80s TV Saturday morning show who reveal grim secrets when they meet in the present day to record the show’s DVD commentary. Not to be outdone in the next voice you hear department, Forgiving the Franklins shows what happens when a family loses its guilt and religious inhibitions after they meet the real Jesus while in a group coma following a car accident. Watching this film it seems logical that the phrase “What the fuck,” is the perfect way to start a prayer.

Tsotsi's Gavin Hood

2006-04-10T18:46:00.000-07:00

Tsotsi director Gavin Hood spoke to the audience at the Angelika Film Center in downtown Houston the Monday preceding the Academy Awards. His Q&A was filled with both technical details and the more human story behind the making of the movie. When Tsotsi won the AA for Best Foreign Film the following weekend viewers saw Hood’s charismatic speaking style give grace and humor to his speech.
As Hood ordered the ceremony cameras to switch from him to the row with the actors from Tsotsi, he interspersed his acknowledgements with the cues from the teleprompter indicated the ticking clock. His commanding oratory skills aside it’s no surprise to learn that Hood has a law degree from his native country of South Africa and subsequently came to UCLA to study film. A producer approached Hood to helm Tsotsi based on Athol Fugard’s novel. Moving the story from the 50s to post-apartheid South Africa was one of Hood’s concerns.
Tsotsi, the title character, brutally shots a woman as he carjacks her luxury car. In the back seat is an infant. Discovering the baby in the car that he has since wrecked, Tsotsi decides to care for the child. A wide range of characters reflecting many of South Africa’s 11 official languages balances the film’s gritty realism as seen through street gangs and poverty.
“At the crucial point of the movie, the man who has been speaking high-Tswana starts talking to Tsotsi in street-Tswana,” Hood noted to the audience. Some of the other languages heard in Tsotsi include Afrikaans, English, Zulu and Dutch
Hood then demonstrated, walking back and forth in front of the screen, how he used stationary set-ups that kept “the eyeline tight to the lens.” Using his hands to draw imaginary borders on the screen Hood demonstrated how he cropped the image for any subsequent television projection while in the digital intermediate stage of post-production.
Admittedly the best way to see a film is with the director explaining his movie commentary-style. A film like Tsotsi is loaded with so many fascinating peripheral aspects and they only become apparent when you’re familiar with the culture in which it takes place.

Transformer

2006-02-21T21:23:00.000-08:00

When Duncan Taylor was trying to get his American road movie financed he had doors slammed in his face for three years. Although Transamerica revolves around a character on the verge of a sex change operation the film is not camp. Yet while the hero, Bree, has a task she must perform it’s not Lord of the Rings.
Becoming aware of a child he fathered long ago, Bree’s must confront his offspring and the resulting responsibility before his psychiatric counselor will sign off on the transgender operation.
“We got the most we could and we just went for it,” Taylor tells Free Press Houston in a phone interview. Among other sacrifices Taylor’s mother and brother mortgaged their house while a good deal of the rest was put on credit cards. Subsequent film festival screenings in Berlin (“We had an uncorrected color print.”) and the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival garnered the film a distributor.
“Harvey was very persuasive,” noted Taylor and indeed his film Transamerica is one of the first volley of releases of the Weinstein Film Company.
Taylor elicited a remarkable performance from Felicity Huffman as Bree. In a season where so many actors are getting acclaim for what are basically very good imitations of famous dead people Huffman has raised the bar on what acting is all about.
“There is nothing exploitive about the part or her performance,” remarked Taylor. Commenting on Huffman’s amazing ability to play the physicality of both a male and a woman Taylor simply said “Huffman disappears into the life of Bree. I look at other actors in other films and I just see technique.”
The film’s low budget forced Taylor to innovate. For a scene where we see Bree pull the car off the highway and micturate the filmmakers needed a working albeit fake penis. One company actually gave Taylor a quote of over $12,000 to manufacture the movie prop prosthesis.
Since necessity is the mother of invention, and the budget would not allow for such an expenditure the film’s prop department came up with a $12 solution. They drilled a hole in “Andy,” which was the name of the fake penis Huffman wore to get into character. A few hoses were attached, the liquid was pumped through, and the effect is priceless.

Neil Jordan champions loners

2006-02-21T21:22:00.000-08:00

To watch films by Neil Jordan is to be immersed in a world of outcasts. Notably The Crying Game seems linked to Breakfast on Pluto as a study in characters on the fringe, but it’s a theme that runs through several of Jordan’s films including Interview With the Vampire, Mona Lisa, Butcher Boy, and The Good Thief.
“I’m interested in characters who drift in and out of life,” Jordan tells Free Press Houston in an exclusive phone interview. “I’m fascinated by losers, people on the edge.”
For Breakfast on Pluto (opening in Houston December 23) Jordan follows the episodic journey of transvestite Patrick Kitten Brady (Cillian Murphy) across the landscape of 1960s and 70s Ireland and London. It’s a world where terrorism and bombs are common but so are the seeds of change.
Along the way Kitten gets kicked out of school (look for source author Patrick McCabe as a teacher), hangs out with an Irish rockabilly band whose leader fronts guns for the IRA, flees to London, becomes the assistant to a stage magician, and even hangs out in the park with a Womble (Brendan Gleeson).
Wombles were an English 60s oddity, “a group of people who went about dressed like strange misshapen elves,” explains Jordan. Much of McCabe’s book has found its way into Jordan’s film. Things like Kitten’s fondness for Mitzi Gaynor, or the use of the Bobby Goldsboro song “Honey.”
Jordan cast Murphy, an actor he feels “approaches his character from the inside.” In addition to support performances from Liam Neeson, Stephen Rea, and Ian Hart, Breakfast on Pluto also features musicians like Gavin Friday, and a really perverse sneering Bryan Ferry effective as Mr. Silky String. “This was a part I originally was going to cast with a Ralph Fiennes or Jeremy Irons. Then Ferry came along. Rock and roll performers can be really good actors,” maintained Jordan.
Also known as a writer, Jordan most recently penned Shade (2004), a novel where the ghost of a woman investigates her murder. “I grew up in an Ireland without a film industry, so I’ve always considered myself a writer first,” notes Neil.
As to why it is that directors like Jordan or Stephen Frears or Alan Parker always seem to be the go-to directors Hollywood approaches when they want a film about lower middle class and poor families (Angela’s Ashes, Dirty Pretty Things) Jordan mused: “Hollywood always has been a fantasy factory, kind of an airbrushed reality.”

Brokeback Mountain: Big sky, long queue

2006-02-21T21:19:00.000-08:00

While a producer and writer may wear several hats for a movie, for Diana Ossana it included reminding the art department to change license plates to indicate the picture truck that Jack Twist drives hails from 1960s Texas. The film she produced, and screenplay she wrote with Larry McMurtry, Brokeback Mountain, takes place in Wyoming and Texas and was lensed in Alberta in Canada.
Speaking to Ossana and McMurtry by phone on the day the Golden Globe nominations are announced one thing becomes evident, the news Brokeback Mountain creates has legs, and the last word will be months from now. Ossana and McMurtry optioned a short story by Annie Proulx that appeared in New Yorker magazine in late 1997 with the express purpose of writing a screenplay. They’ve been trying to get the script made into a film since then.
“We knew what we had in 1997,” McMurtry says. Adds Ossana: “Our aim was to keep the emotional power of the story intact.”
Brokeback Mountain traces the friendship of two cowboys, Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar (Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger) over a period of approximately two decades (60s, 70s). Adding credence to the movie is Ossana and McMurtry’s sense of character and environment and the film’s odd temporal need, more than one time, to all of a sudden have the next scene several years hence. It’s dialogue sparkles with realism, sometimes the intimate and uncomfortable kinds of things that can only be spoken between lovers, or husbands and wives, all of whom are represented in the movie. “It’s an intimate story in a wide open space,” explains McMurtry. And there are plenty of big sky moments and American psyche perspectives, some of them landing on holidays like the Fourth of July or Thanksgiving.

Total gross receipts dictate a film’s perceived success. So Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith or War of the Worlds are the top grossing films of 2005 after opening on thousands of screens. Consider the amount of money Brokeback Mountain made playing at five theaters in its first weekend of release from December 9 through December 11, 2005: Over $547,000 with a per theater average of $109,485. Contrast that to that weekend’s topper Narnia on over 3600 screens with a per screen average in excess of $18,000. (At press time weekend, BM had expanded to 269 screens and was averaging $18,000-plus per screen.) Also realize that Narnia spent millions in media ads while all the advertising for Brokeback Mountain at that point was free courtesy of television and radio talk shows. The queues for Brokeback are not on Netflix but at the cinema.

If there is any formula for Brokeback’s theatrical release pattern it would not be the Million Dollar Baby keep mum until release style that Munich has used to good effect. Nor the Depression era Seabiscuit dog and pony show that Cinderella Man emulated. Brokeback Mountain mirrors the rise of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which opened the weekend of December 8 through December 10, 2000 on 16 screens with a per screen average of $41,450. Both CTHD and BM are films directed by Ang Lee. CTHD was still in theaters 140 days later and had then grossed nearly $125-million. Look for similar numbers for BM in early March after any and all award and Oscar hoopla has subsided.

Presumably conservative critic Michael Medved was seen on Fox News using Brokeback Mountain as an example of how Hollywood has a hidden agenda to push themes like homosexuality. If only that were the case then pundits like Medved could safely shiver in his imagined terror. Yet the Hollywood perceived by some as pushing agendas is only about making money. If there was such a political agenda why was the film in turnaround limbo for many years?

“We always had lots of great response,” Ossana says. Within a week of their spec script hitting Hollywood they had calls from a can-do producer like Scott Rudin or a material-friendly director like Gus Van Sant, who was eventually attached to direct. That fell through and then Joel Schumacher was attached to the helm only for that option to run out. James Schamus, the film’s producer along with Ossana and also one of the presidents of Focus Features, the company releasing Brokeback Mountain, has been the force that saw the film to completion.

Brokeback Mountain seems to have a shelf life all its own, The storyline functions like a template that defines the person describing the plot. Is the film about a person who cannot understand or communicate his feelings? Is BM a gay cowboy film? Or is the real story more difficult to define. Jack Twist would be a textbook bisexual in any other context. And Ennis Del Mar could hardly be called gay. In his own redneck voice he demands: “I ain’t no queer.”

Make no mistake, Brokeback Mountain pulls no punches. Structure wise, the lovemaking or cornhole scene between Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar occurs early in the film’s first act. Similar scenes transpire, also in the opening scenes, in Mala Noche (Gus Van Sant) and Happy Together (Wong Kar-Wai). McMurtry didn’t recall those particular films although he claims to see a lot of movies. “That scene is in the original short story,” reminds Ossana.

Regardless, McMurtry makes it clear that seeing another movie isn’t the way he writes. “I write about five pages a day, on a manual typewriter,” described McMurtry, adding he’s done by around 9:30 in the a.m., and it never takes him more than an hour-and-a-half for that many pages. Ossana than takes the pages, flushes them out, adds some text, takes some away and puts it all in a computer. “He turns it on like a facet,” laughed Ossana.

Langella on GNGL

2005-11-11T23:11:00.000-08:00

There is little doubt of the parallels between the jaundiced state of politics as they exist now and how similar events unfolded during the Red Scare of the 1950s as portrayed in Good Night, and Good Luck.
“Did you watch CNN this morning?,” Frank Langella asks on the other end of the phone referring to Harriet Miers withdrawing her nomination for the Supreme Court. Langella plays CBS owner William Paley in the George Clooney directed film. “Nobody called him Bill except Murrow,” notes Langella.
Good Night, and Good Luck examines the public battle between Senator Joe McCarthy and CBS news correspondent Edward R. Murrow that took to the television airwaves in 1953. As Paley, Langella lends a commanding presence.
One shot in particular captures Paley walking through a part of his empty studio late at night. He puts his coat on a railing as he walks past monitors, the movement exuding the kind of authority that might be seen by a captain strolling the deck of his ship.
“I like playing CEOs, heads of state,” remarks Langella. As an actor Langella finds a central core to the character he portrays. “I trust my instincts and then an internal engine takes over.”
A quick glance at Langella’s accomplished career leaves no doubt he can handle any role. He went from his first film role in Mel Brooks’ The Twelve Chair straight into The Diary of a Mad Housewife, the latter being released first and a critical hit in 1970. Langella was the Dracula of the Me Decade appearing as the bloodsucker in the Broadway revival in 1977 and the subsequent movie in 1979. Langella recalled Dracula’s opening night and speaking afterwards with Netta Harrigan (also Mrs. Josh Logan) who had played the part of the maid in the original 1927 production that launched Bela Lugosi.
Langella has won two Tony Awards, one for his role in the 1975 Edward Albee play Seascape. “Everybody told me it was the wrong career move – to play a lizard on Broadway.” They were wrong and Langella also got to act opposite Deborah Kerr. “Kerr was a lesson on how stars behave,” Langella advised.
Clooney shot GNGL on gray scale sets that depict the CBS studios, their offices and a bar across the street; it’s all interiors, yet the nuance of the black and white film provide a feeling of spaciousness in confined quarters. Although the film has no true establishing shots Langella mentions he did shoot a scene where he walks to his car that was cut. “George works one-on-one with his actors. He brings dignity to the acting.”
There’s also a bridging sequence in the middle of the film that features actual congressional film footage of McCarthy, along with Roy Cohn and, look closely, Robert Kennedy. “George’s artistry lets the Kennedy footage just happen,” says Langella, adding “This is a film that will be curriculum.”

James Toback on Fingers

2005-08-17T23:11:00.000-07:00

The French import from director Jacques Audiard, The Beat That My Heart Skipped (De battre mon coeur s'est arete) is a good film. But Fingers, the 1977 James Toback film that Audiard based his movie on, is an excellent film. Fingers ranks alongside Taxi Driver as one of the key films of that era. An argument could be made that Finger’s star Harvey Keitel is an essential part of a trilogy of New York’s seamy side made up of Mean Streets, Fingers, and The Bad Lieutenant.
Free Press Houston spoke with Toback by phone last week regarding his significant debut film. “Make a right turn at Madison and 92nd,” Toback says to a cab driver, as he answers questions on his cell phone while running errands around upper Manhattan.
Both Fingers and The Beat That My Heart Skipped deal with the dichotomy of a character’s psyche. In each film the lead character is divided between violent criminal behavior and the artistic ambition of being a concert pianist. Toback explores Jimmy Fingers’ (Keitel) through the “fundamental patterns of different worlds.”
There is an emphasis in Fingers on diegetic sound or the sound of Jimmy Fingers’ environment. When we see Jimmy play classic rock songs on his portable cassette (like The Jamies’ “Summertime, Summertime” or the Inez and Charlie Foxx standard “Mockingbird”) that is the soundtrack music. Normally in a film, say, Mean Streets, classic songs propel the narrative but as sounds separate from the character’s milieu.
Exploring man’s dual nature is a trait that runs throughout Toback’s films. (Two Girls & A Guy, the psychedelic The Harvard Man, and philosophical docu The Big Bang are standouts among Toback’s films.) So it comes as no surprise when Toback explains how he went from the prestige marriage as the husband of the granddaughter of the Duke of Marlborough to living the wild life at the house of football great Jim Brown. Brown who also appears in Fingers was the subject of Toback’s 1971 book Jim. Toback mentions that “Fingers was the only script that didn’t change,” from completion to production whereas his script for The Pick-Up Artist went through 15 drafts. Toback did delete a scene from Fingers that shows Keitel having a homosexual encounter before filming began.
Audiard’s film follows the template of Fingers but varies slightly in two aspects. Instead of immersing the protag Thomas Seyr (Romain Duris, of L’Auberge Espagnole) in mob politics he is a corrupt real estate mogul. Additionally a pivotal scene where Jimmy Fingers shoots a mobster to avenge the death of his father is changed in Beat That My Heart Skipped to Seyr deciding not to kill.
“That would never happen like that,” notes Toback. “You wouldn’t stick a gun in a Russian mobster’s mouth and then not kill him, because then you would be dead in two days.”
The Beat That My Heart Skipped currently unspools exclusively at the Angelika Film Center. Fingers is available as a DVD release, complete with a commentary track featuring Toback plus a conversation on indie film between Toback and Keitel. Also a documentary about Toback making the film Black and White, The Outsider by Nicholas Jarecki, can currently be seen making the rounds at film festivals.

John Dahl on The Great Raid

2005-08-15T01:27:00.000-07:00

A list of films set in the Pacific Theater of World War II includes Too Late the Hero, The Bridge Over the River Kwai, Never So Few, the more recent Paradise Road and now the John Dahl directed The Great Raid. Dahl’s film touches on a point that never comes up about that war; 70,000 American and Allied troops surrendered in Bataan in 1942. The Japanese had invaded the Philippines days after they bombed Peal Harbor. Great Raid recounts an actual rescue mission in 1945 that freed over 500 prisoners at Cabanatuan on the island of Luzon in the Philippines.
Dahl brings a realistic and sometimes brutal sense of the mission to The Great Raid. His previous helming of modern film noirs Red Rock West and The Last Seduction nourished his feel for action.
Dahl’s classy noir credentials are all the more amazing because the companies involved didn’t want to distribute the films.
“Red Rock West was made by Polygram and had theatrical distribution in place,” Dahl told Free Press Houston during a press stop in town. Another company broke their contract to distribute and the film ended up on HBO. “If you have a movie that goes exclusively to cable they pay you more money.”
A Canadian distributor saw Red Rock West in France during its European release and acquired it for the Toronto Film Festival. Then Roxie Releasing picked it up for their art house theater in San Francisco. “It started as one print … at one point they had 40 prints in distribution,” attests Dahl. “Ironically the same thing happened with The Last Seduction.” The distributors didn’t feel they could release it domestically but then it did well in Europe. “October Films saw it in England, it had already run in the U.S. on cable. It caught on at a couple of theaters in New York and eventually played on about 120 screens.”
When both films were released in the early 90s they became poster children for independent film success. In 1993 (through 1995) Miramax started its Academy award studded dominance of the indie scene. Now a decade and an ownership change later Miramax is releasing several films in the next two months, among them Terry Gilliam’s The Brother’s Grimm and The Great Raid (August 12).
Dahl found footage of the actual participants and James Franco uncannily looks similar to his character Captain Prince. In the actual rescue mission (documented in the books Ghost Soldiers by Hampton Sides and The Great Raid on Cabanatuan by William Brueur) the 120 men and eight officers included three photographers. Fascination with battle footage isn’t a phenomenon of cable news channels. Dahl begins the film with a lengthy montage of WWII footage that documents the war in the Pacific.
Miramax owned the rights to Brueur’s book and Dahl (who also helmed Miramax’s The Rounders) explained how an early version played loose with the official version. After Ghost Soldiers came out Dahl supervised a revision of the script that emphasized the events as they actually happened although the love story between the characters played by Connie Nielsen and Joseph Fiennes was fictionalized.
Nielsen’s character Margaret Utinsky deserves a movie of her own. A google search indicates that Utinsky wrote a book after the war about her life before dropping out of sight. “Her true story is stunning,” exclaimed Dahl. “She was married to an American officer who died during the Bataan Death March. She forged a Lithuanian passport and got work at a hospital as a nurse. She organized an underground with leading citizens of Manila. Eventually the Japanese did arrest her. They tortured her for 37 days before they released her.”

Apocalyptic Sign #35: Jandek live in Austin

2005-08-11T11:11:00.000-07:00

If you thought you would see the Kennedy assassination papers revealed before you saw Jandek make a public appearance you were mistaken. The Houston resident who’s been recording arcane music since 1978 has a worldwide cult for which any musician would slay. On Sunday, August 28 Jandek will perform his first ever U.S. live gig at the Austin Scottish Rite Theatre in the Texas capital city.
After years of hermit like anonymity Jandek has recently played three live shows in the U.K. Up to that point in time, part of the Jandek mystique lay in the fact nobody really knew who the guy was or what he looked like.
Free Press Houston contacted a prominent local Jandek fan with this tidbit of info and they immediately shouted back: “I don't believe in this Jandek. I think he's the Manchurian Jandek. He's the fake Jandek. He's the Bin Laden Jandek. They set him up just like they set up the fake Saddam that we are supposedly holding. They've done something with the real Jandek. He would never appear live in Austin.”
Speaking on the condition they not be identified, Jandek’s biggest, and now most secret fan, revealed that they had often thought about what made Jandek tick.
“He's this weird, socially inept, has subtle mental problems kind of guy. He’s extremely paranoid and is wanted by the FBI in 48 states. He has an obscure disease that makes his eyes dilate and has to stay in the dark or wear very dark glasses.”
But surely, I countered, this is a good thing, and Jandek fans will recall his concert as a positive memory.
Silence was the reply. After a while I coaxed a few more comments from the reticent fan with a couple of cigarettes and a small piece of semi-sweet chocolate.
“We all have our personal Jandek that we have kept quiet about all these years. Our separate and subjective images of Jandek fleshed out by imagination in the space left blank by his failure to materialize,” they explained. “He can't turn out to be just some ordinary guy that shows up at a club in Austin with a guitar. I can’t accept that. I have too much psychologically invested in his constructed persona at this point.”

Layer Cake sweet

2005-06-22T23:11:00.000-07:00

Matthew Vaughn the director of Layer Cake previously produced Guy Ritchie’s films. Now Vaughn is being courted by the major studios (He has already become attached and detached from X-MEN 3.) and rightly so, his directorial finesse shines in the stratum of Layer Cake. Whether an odd angle to establish a scene or a plot with so many turns that Layer Cake attempts to out-confuse the myriad storytelling of Big Sleep, Vaughn keeps the attention on the characters and their race to unload a stolen shipment that is caught between more than one party. The gangs range from Amsterdam based émigrés from the latest war torn country to English drug dealers posing as gentlemen to undercover informants to legit detectives on the take. Throw in a missing daughter and the best use of rock songs on a soundtrack since a Tarantino film and each bite of this cake is delicious.
There’s a trend in English gangster films where a couple of films released in a short span become cult hits years later. Take Get Carter and The Italian Job (Michael Caine) from the late 60s/early 70s or Mona Lisa and The Long Good Friday (Bob Hoskins) from the 80s. Currently we have a modern gangster, half-genteel, half-snarling, exemplified by Clive Owen (Wake Me When I’m Dead) or Daniel Craig in Layer Cake. Craig is rumored to be the next James Bond and Bond’s new owner Sony is prepping Casino Royale. If this was a perfect world Sony would actually make a literal version of that first Bond novel.

Millennials

2005-06-21T23:11:00.000-07:00

The website for Ray Hafner’s movie project says Two Kids, A Camera, A Million Voices. Hafner and Derek Franzese are producing a documentary they will digitally shoot this summer. The documentary focuses on what Hafner called “my generation.”
Millennials, the film’s working title and the academic name of the current generation, will drive across America with a Canon XL2 seeking the answer of what makes today’s kid tick, tock or click.
Speaking with Hafter at a local coffee house he indicated in one of his college textbooks a list of birth years that group people together regardless of their political views or value systems. To start with the Millennials (1982 to the present), and go backwards a hundred years we would encounter Gen X’ers (1961-1981), Baby Boomers (1943-1960), The Silent Generation (1925-1942), the G.I. Generation (1901-1924), and the Lost Generation (1883-1900).
“One generation does drugs for pleasure, another generation does drugs to study,” noted Hafner adding “A kid today doesn’t consider oral sex as sex.”
Hafner has spread the word via their website as well as sites that cater to millennial style thinking like Facebook . Franzese attends UT and was in John Pierson’s film class. One class project was to follow the progress of the film Cavite, a film also shot digitally. “They sold the camera after they shot it to buy the computer to edit it on. Making a movie like this is such a millennial thing to do,” said Hafner.

Cinderella Man not quite fairy tale

2005-06-20T11:11:00.000-07:00

The summertime is a moment where some of the year’s most expensive films duke it out. But in this critic proof era can a bad film be a box office champion? Does a bear do its thing in the woods? Is the new Pope Catholic? Does a duck waddle barefoot?
While my gray locks might suggest age if not quite wisdom they are not quite old enough to recall the era of the Cinderella Man, James Braddock. The only time I had previously heard that phrase was from a 1936 film by Frank Capra, Mr. Deeps Goes To Town starring Gary Cooper. It’s the cute yellow journalism name given Coop by Jean Arthur. The Depression era tale relates what happens when a regular guy inherits a fortune and was recently remade (with the Capra-esque social relevance removed) as an Adam Sandler vehicle.
The stories of Deeds, Seabiscuit and Cinderella Man all show strength through character during the adverse economic times of the 1930s and each came to my personal attention mainly because of the movies.
A Google search on the phrase Cinderella Man turned up over 3 million websites. It was all the way at the bottom of the 7th page before a link leads one to a site about James Braddock, with each and every previous entry referring to the new film about Braddock by Ron Howard (starring Russell Crowe and Renee Zellweger). Perhaps this illustrates the proliferation of Internet movie sites that know how to list key phrases in their source code rather than any great interest in the history of boxing.
Cinderella Man was the nickname given Braddock who upset reigning boxing champ Max Baer (father of Jethro from the Beverly Hillbillies) for the heavyweight championship of the world on June 13, 1935. Cinderella Man should be the lump in throat, comes from behind, feel good film of the year especially considering how Howard himself has matured as a director with films like A Beautiful Mind (one reel felt like it could have been in a Scorsese film) and the gutsy The Missing.
Cinderella Man is a big step backwards for Ron Howard, dramatically and creatively, and the film will not have the legs to go more than a couple of rounds before the ref starts the count. Technically the film has a gritty Depression-era look with browns and dark hues dominating, and a very old fashioned pace almost as if Howard was trying to make the best film of 1955. Once or twice Howard slips in a modern film reference like a subliminal edit or modulates the color scheme, but overall Cinderella Man moves with the glaciers.
I should like this film more, I mean the protag Braddock (Crowe) and his wife Mae (Zellweger) and their three kids live with pride in a hovel that makes my Montrose apartment look like a manse. And this particular story hasn’t been told, plus like Raging Bull it involves pugilism in a big way but is not necessarily a boxing movie.
The film goes sideways, and Howard loses his way by wavering on whether to make the story center on underdog inspiration or social critique. Braddock hears his friend Mike (Paddy Considine) constantly talking about better days for labor and several scenes take place as Braddock and Mike slave for pennies on the docks. Yet as Mike is found dead after a riot when police bust a shantytown in Central Park any hope of a running thread of social realism throughout the film evaporates.
Cinderella Man exists as a powerful acting vehicle for Crowe, a thesp who pulls no punches. It would’ve been a better move to release this film in November based on award noms for Crowe’s acting chops rather than trying to recapture the magic that Seabiscuit displayed in his summer stint two years ago.
Please, Ron Howard, direct more comedies like Night Shift. Heck, do a remake of Night Shift with Adam Sandler. You have your Oscar, we know you can be serious. It’s just that the more serious you get the more the audience nods off.

ENRON: Not too smart

2005-06-19T23:11:00.000-07:00

Last month I attended the regional premiere of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room in Austin. Filmmaker Alex Gibney, along with reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind on whose book the movie was based, spoke to the audience after the screening. Enron: TSGITR weaves through a paper and electronic trail of a scandal that still unravels. How much more timely could a film be?
Taking questions from the packed house, Gibney noted that a number of people feel whistleblower Sherron Watkins acted out of a profit motive although this was not mentioned in the film. “In my view she didn’t know about the fraud for a long time. But it’s inaccurate that she is a whistleblower because the first person she reported this to was Ken Lay,” he said.
Responding to a question about why he neglected referring to Clinton era deregulators in the film Gibney declared “There were advantages that the Clinton administration gave to Enron but they were not as great as the way in which the Bush family helped Enron, early on then later on.” McLean added: “It was in the waning years of the Clinton administration that the commodities futures trading commission passed a rule that exempted Enron’s trading operations from any kind of oversight. It was a widespread deregulatory ethos that prevailed during all the 1990s.”

Inside Deep Throat Interview

2005-03-11T23:11:00.000-08:00

I recently spoke to the directors of the documentary Inside Deep Throat, Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato. Previously the duo had helmed the feature docs The Eyes of Tammy Faye and Party Monster, also making a fictional companion feature film to the latter. Their sensibilities are a perfect match for the social commentary and portrait of a different America brought to life by Inside Deep Throat.
The film examines the release and subsequent cultural impact of the 1972 porno film Deep Throat. Unbelievable as it may seem to those not around in the 70s, Deep Throat popularized the idea of oral sex, then an almost unmentionable act, and created porno chic. Inside Deep Throat skips along with a briskly edited pace, contains excellent songs from the era – Melanie “Brand New Key,” Tommy James “Draggin’ the Line,” Marmalade “Reflections of My Life” – all while showing that censorship can be as damaging to society as the issues it seeks to limit.
You’re likely to be jarred by some factoid you never knew. In my case, I had no idea that the performer of the disco hit “More, More, More,” Andrea True, was also a porn star. Bailey explained that the money that was used to record that hit song was money she had made shooting a film in the Caribbean, only she couldn’t take the cash out of the country. “So she called a producer friend and he flew down, they recorded the song in a studio and took the master tape out of the country,” said Bailey. “Andrea True was also the star of Deep Throat Part II,” added Bailey, a fact not covered in Inside Deep Throat.
Barbato feels the elements of controversy that surrounded the original film, “are relevant today,” and in fact “set the agenda for the film.”
While federal prosecutors had cut a deal of immunity with the director and star Linda Lovelace, the feds tried (unsuccessfully) to jail Deep Throat’s male star, a hapless crew member turned lead actor, Harry Reams. Reams was even cast and then unceremoniously uncast as the coach in the hit movie Grease.

When Cats Act

2005-03-11T11:11:00.000-08:00

Did you hear about the cat that shot its owner? (Some guy left a loaded gun on the shelf that the kitty knocked over.) Or maybe the guy in Wisconsin who wants their state Senate to make it legal to gun down stray cats – it must be something in the cheese. The former story sounds like the cat did it on purpose. Quite frankly the cat probably had good reason. Like the owner wanted to make the tabby wear Soft Paws (www.softpaws.com), which are vinyl nail caps invented by a vet so he could have more crap to sell pet owners.
Regardless, cats are news just for being themselves, and when they appear in films they are infectiously cute if not cunningly feline. Anyone who saw the Oscars has to be scratching their heads over the fact that Morgan Freeman won Best Supporting Actor while Puss In Boots from Shrek 2 was not even nominated. The current film Inside Deep Throat includes a shot of Linda Lovelace’s cat, named Adolph Hitler. The filmmakers cut to a shot of her hirsute companion and sure enough the soft white fur of its head is distinguished by a black dash atop its lip.
Three short subjects featuring cats only reinforce the notion that these tiny tigers are capable of the same emotions, perhaps even greater, than expressed by humans. The highest profile would belong to Lorenzo, an animated short from Disney studios that was up for an Academy Award this year. Like the Disney produced effort from a few years ago Destino (a concept originally started by Walt Disney and Salvador Dali and completed many years later by Disney animators), Lorenzo was an idea nearly a generation old that has only now seen the light of day. Made using computer software that imitates the look of tempura paint, Lorenzo spotlights a cat dancing to a tango with its own tail. Lorenzo was also run as the opening short to the Disney feature Raising Helen.
More cutting-edge are two more shorts found while perusing the schedule of the Slamdance Film Festival: Milton is a Shitbag and Ceasar Eats a Mouse. Milton was an entry in 2004 and Ceasar played this year. Both offered lovable yet quick to anger felines.
Milton is a Shitbag, another animated effort, sports a great website (www.miltonisashitbag.com) offering t-shirts, credits and reminders that Milton will be making upcoming appearances at film festivals in Beaumont and Galveston next month. Milton is the brainchild of Austin filmmaker Courtney Davis and chronicles the ins and outs of living with a cat full of attitude. Milton runs about 4 minutes and shows the merciless mouser making its owner’s life complete hell.
Ceasar Eats a Mouse originated as part of the Slamdance $99 Special, wherein filmmakers are given $99 to make a short film. As the title would imply Ceasar, a black cat with an icy hypnotic stare, snacks on an unfortunate rodent and then calmly trots over to its food bowl obviously to complete its a two-course meal. Hardly an animal snuff film, Ceasar represents cinema verité according to New York based filmmaker Joe Maggio. Responding to an email question about his film Maggio replied that nothing about the short was staged. “I was playing around with my new video camera,” Maggio replied. “And suddenly I heard this awful commotion and saw that Caesar was chasing a mouse. I figured, it's the laws of nature at work. I'm not going to stop him because frankly I don't like having mice in my apartment.” Ceasar Eats a Mouse depicts progressive cat and mouse antics as if Ceasar were choreographing his action to the music on the radio, and in the middle of the mayhem the phone rings and a New Year’s message is heard being left on the answering machine in the background. One would think a cat that had just chowed down on a mouse wouldn’t still be hungry for more food. After all, cats are known for their peculiarity not for being overeaters. “When he goes to his food bowl - that I can't explain,” wrote Maggio. “I guess the mouse was a bit of an appetizer, or perhaps it left a bad taste in his mouth. Who knows, right?”
Some things are certain when it comes to cats. If you have one in the house don’t leave loaded weapon lying around. It’s a safe bet that if your viewing habits include media with kitties you won’t be disappointed with their innate ability to entertain.

Imaginary Heroes

2005-03-03T11:11:00.000-08:00

Dan Harris, the writer-director of Imaginary Heroes currently has a lot on his plate. Speaking to Free Press Houston by phone from the set of Superman Returns in Australia, Harris recounted some of the ups and downs of filmmaking.
Harris in collaboration with Michael Dougherty has written three films for Bryan Singer [X2, Superman Returns, Logan’s Run]. Harris also wrote versions of the upcoming summer blockbuster Fantastic Four.
“Mike and I wrote three drafts of Fantastic Four. We have to arbitrate for final screen credit. I’ll find that out in a week or two. There were about 13 writers on Fantastic Four. Our drafts were the ones that got the movie green lit,” said Harris.
Regarding Logans’ Run and the new Superman, Harris was guarded. “ Bryan is taking Logan’s Run into a unique direction that combines elements of the book that you never saw in the movie, and parts of the original movie itself. It’s more of a re-imagining than a remake. We retain the iconic properties – but man it’s a whole new adventure.
“As you can understand I have a complete gag order relating to Superman and Logan’s Run. Let’s say that us comic book geeks are ravenous for information.”
Harris sees himself as part of the comic book universe, as a fan, and as a writer now shaping the longings of his youth into the nostalgia of tomorrow. Such a universe does not include, say, a 21st century revisionist take on heroic conventions. What metaphors exist in hidden identity? When I ask Harris if Superman will be gay he laughs.
“Absolutely not. That’s silly. There will be no major surprises about Superman’s character. There are reliable websites on the Internet, Blue Tights and Superman V are very good sites,” commented Harris.

What distinguishes Imaginary Heroes from other dystopic family tragedies is the humor inherent in the script. Like another film, Ordinary People, Imaginary Heroes starts with the death of one of two teen brothers. Unlike the latter Imaginary Heroes is a dark comedy.
“People should go in expecting to laugh,” says, Harris. “Taking a cue from Greek tragedy, there are a lot of parts to a Greek tragedy that I am not using. But there is one important thing, the idea of original sin. Something happened in the past, somebody stepped on the butterfly and it has ricocheted through time through people’s actions and it has changed everything in the present. And that is the greater moral of the story. If you don’t deal with things head on you don’t know where the chaos of your actions will spread. In this case it covers a lot of ground.”
Harris insists the script did not come from events in his own life. In other words, his mom didn’t get busted for pot, like Sigourney Weaver (Sandy Travis) does in Imaginary Heroes. Harris’ brother didn’t commit suicide as does the older champion swimmer brother of Emile Hirsch (Tim Travis). After these events Tim earns the enmity of his father Jeff Daniels (Ben Travis).
“I had grown up in high school surrounded by a series of tragedies in my family,” admits Harris. “But none of them appear in the movie. It was more a sense of what the aftermath of a tragedy is like, what it does to a family.”
Harris directed several short subjects before writing Imaginary Heroes. He attributes those films to teaching him story construction and shot choice. “How to direct from a conceptual level,” maintained Harris. “Getting the maximum benefit out of the scene you’re shooting.” But it was the experience of being a writer on X2 that gave Harris the confidence “To talk to actors, how to deal with people, how to manage a large crew.”
Imaginary Heroes displays some deft directorial touches in addition to its sharp dialogue. During the film’s opening sequence where we see a moment where nothing is moving, as seen from underwater in the moments before a high school swim meet.
“We never have a chance to spend time with this family before the tragedy hits, so it was something I could do to create a sense of stillness. Of everything in order before the disorder,” explained Harris. “For me it matches the shot of him holding onto the starting block, everybody’s at rest, immovable, a snap shot of life before things change.”
As the unspoken hatred escalates between father and son in the Travis clan the camera set-ups become more complex. After a particularly loathsome evening, culminating in an ugly scene at a Christmas Party, Daniels, in the front seat, and Hirsch in the back seat, verbally spar. Harris used a series of difficult rack focus shots to capture their venomous exchange.
“I was really happy with that scene one because it worked really well. You’re dealing with a car rig, then you’re dealing with very critical focus because you’ve got a long lens mounted on the hood. You’re dealing with all these elements. For me thematically, why I wanted it in one shot. I didn’t want that to be a false scene, I didn’t want it to feel like it was constructed by pulling pieces of Emile’s reaction. I wanted to hear those poisonous words coming out of Jeff’s mouth and to see Emile’s reaction instantaneously behind him.”
Harris purposely cast nice guy Daniels against type. “The character’s got this dark side that he just cannot control. The more we see Jeff glare at him and then the second time we see him turn - we don’t know if he’s going to hit his son or what. Then we have the moment at the end where he stands up and turns toward Emile and you think ‘My God, this guy’s going to beat up his son.’ It was important to have those shots early on to establish that this man is very threatening.”

2005 Preview

2004-12-19T11:11:00.000-08:00

What a year for film biographies: Ray Charles, Bobby Darin, Howard Hughes, Alfred Kinsey, Peter Sellers, J. M. Barrie, Cole Porter, Alexander the Great, Jesus Christ, Napoleon Dynamite. Wait a sec, scratch that last one, he only seems more real than all the rest.
If you’re not into biopics you can wallow in the mediocrity of Blade: Trinity and wonder how long it will take for Ryan Reynolds to go from scene stealer to lead man to yesterday’s news.
Meanwhile Steven Soderbergh manages to make Ocean’s 12 his best film since Traffic, which is to say faint praise best describes the heist shenanigans on display in this superstar sequel with impossibly handsome actors. If Ocean’s 12 works well enough to please the undiscerning it’s because Soderbergh mixes the temporal displacement of Kill Bill and the cool soundtrack choices of Snatch. Soderbergh even seems to be nodding to the last Lord of the Ring since Ocean’s 12 appears to have at least three endings.
Don’t worry furry friends, it gets better. Here is a rundown of some of the crap headed our way in 2005. What is scarier, a horror flick called House of Wax or the fact that it stars Paris Hilton? Could it be a warning sign that the sequel to XXX stars Ice Cube instead of Vin Diesel? As usual summertime 2005 rolls out the tentpoles. We’re talking Star War: Revenge of the Sith, A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The War of the Worlds, and Batman Begins. At least the new Bruce Wayne, Christian Bale, gains back the weight he lost for The Machinist.
That’s just the first half of next year. We can also look forward to movies based on Bewitched, The Dukes of Hazzard (Burt Reynolds as Boss Hog?), a remake of The Longest Yard (Adam Sandler in the Burt Reynolds part), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and The Fantastic Four, although The Incredibles has stole some of their super power thunder.
As a lad I fantasized about what sexual positions the Fantastic Four could engage in. They were after all my favorite comic book heroes and the combination of stretching flesh, instant flame-on libido, invisibility and super strength sounds like, well, a TV commercial for male enhancement pills. In fact if I still had my collection of FF and Silver Surfer comics I could sell them on eBay and retire.
We’ve only gotten through the first half of 2005, with the best saved for the last half of the year. Rumor has it that Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo will be the first sequel of a PG-13 film to be rated R. One reason could be Rob Schnieder’s penis-to-nose skin transplant. Also, Tim Burton’s The Corpse Bride finds him in the stop-motion territory he so artfully produced for The Nightmare Before Christmas. Saw was a great Halloween treat but do the filmmakers think the audience will fall for the old killer-is-really-the-dead-guy-on-the-floor routine twice in Saw 2? Will Antonio Banderas finally sheath his sword in Legend of Zorro? An adaptation of the Persian Gulf conflict novel, Jarhead, is skedded for November but how long until Hollywood makes a movie about the current war? Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Terry Gilliam’s The Brother’s Grimm, Peter Jackson’s follow-up to LOTR, King Kong, and the Chronicles of Narnia all grapple for space at the end o’ 05. We don’t really care though, because all we can think about is Kate Beckinsale in black leather for Underworld 2.

The End of the Ramones

2004-12-18T23:11:00.000-08:00

The End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones seems more profound now than ever, seeing how one original member remains alive by the time the darn thing rocks theaters.
The film starts at the Music Hall of Fame where the then still alive Johnny and Dee Dee (along with Marky and other orig member Tommy) make wise before their admiring comrades. The filmmakers use plentiful clips to illustrate what music was like in the mid-70s. Clips from pop like Donnie and Marie contrast with inserts from the likes of Iggy & the Stooges, the New York Dolls, Television, Emerson Lake & Palmer. This examination of the times and the Ramones as youths and how they intertwined within their milieu occupies most of the first hour.
The Ramones were playing to other bands at CBGB’s. Here the film tastefully dredges up a snippet of the naïf Ramones covering “California Sun” and having equipment malfunctions at the same time. The Ramones are featured in a New York Times article and becomes darlings of Rolling Stone magazine. Later, Joe Strummer is testifying that to The Clash and The Sex Pistols, their main influence was The Ramones. Which brings up another point. In those pivotal mid-70s times a magazine like Rolling Stone was covering Nixon Resigning and Karen Silkwood’s death whereas today it’s a pale shadow of that. You’re more likely to see Lindsay Lohan on the cover.
Joey and Johnny and Dee Dee Ramone, all in separate interviews since they collaborated with the filmmakers, just not as a group, expound on the greater meaning behind their phenomenon. End of the Century covers a lot of ground, including a career turning collaboration with Phil Spector and the split between Joey and Johnny over a girlfriend (The KKK Took My Baby Away?). When the film concludes you’re tapping your foot with a Ramones adrenalin rush.

The End of Alexander and the Ramones

2004-12-18T11:11:00.000-08:00

What determines whether a film will bomb often has nothing at all to do with said film. Take for example Alexander. We’re not calling it film of the year, yet it’s far from a poorly written excuse for mythology like Troy.
Oliver Stone was somewhat of a counter culture hero after the blaze of such films as Platoon, Salvador and JFK, but that was over a decade ago and his last film, the hyperactive and under-appreciated Any Given Sunday came out five years ago. That’s like a century in Internet time.
Alexander is a brooding morass of ideas produced in exotic settings and featuring strong technical work in all departments in support of a stellar cast. The score by Vangelis was especially welcome. Many of the threads that weave through the film would seem relevant to today’s headlines: An obsession with one-world unity; multi-cultural marriage and political loyalty. Since Alexander makes repeated mention of Babylon the parallels to the current situation in Iraq require no second-guessing. Most rags pounded every ounce of sexual innuendo out of the impossibly handsome cast while the film was in pre-production and as such it’s doubtful they would devote the same amount of ink delineating, say, what is historically known about Alexander the Great’s sexual and political conquests.
Baz Lurhmann also has an Alexander project starring Leo DiCaprio and Nicole Kidman (as his mom), fully scripted and scouted, presumably financed (The producer is Dino De Laurentiis.) that was pushed back to 2006. Maybe the heat was on with two competing Alexander projects, maybe Baz wanted to spend more time directing stage operas, more likely it’s the typical Hollywood way of spending money and time on dream projects that fail to materialize.
Alexander was a dream project for Stone and while there’s a banquet of food for thought the film seems to wash over you rather than blow you away. Despite battles scenes appropriately huge and executed with the precision of a Kurosawa film, Oliver Stone makes his best films when grounded in the politics of the modern day.
At the start of Alexander, Ptolemy (Anthony Hopkins as an aged statesman who walks with a Yoda stride) recalls the life of Alexander the Great (Colin Farrell). Hopkins, basically acting as the narrator in scenes that bracket the movie, dictates his version of Alexander’s life to a scribe in the world’s first great library. Only at the end Ptolemy tells his listener to tear everything up for he has decided to rewrite history. He wants to leave out the part where he plots to kill Alexander and all that, ah, conspiracy stuff. Alexander died at age 32 and when he exited stage left he had conquered the known world.
Stone has also made documentaries on Fidel Castro and Yasser Arafat in the last couple of years. He actually re-shot the Castro docu at the insistence of HBO (the producers) after Castro executed some rebels. How appropriate that Alexander makes an issue of changing facts for the sake of the historical record.
In Alexander, Stone directs in a classical yesteryear film mode. The titles blend Roman with Cyrillic alphabet. Stone chooses to play it straight here, dumping the flashy style he toyed with in films like U-Turn and NBK. Frankly, even director of photography Rodrigo Prieto, the cutting edge shooter of Amores Perros and 21 Grams, has never shot such graceful scenes. Only at the end does the film start to saturate its colors in the style of today’s filmmaking.
In this Babylonian era, Alexander’s view of sex can best be described as Aristotelean (Christopher Plummer) in nature and the God one prays to can depend on the type of prayer one evokes. That is to say that sometimes it can be a good thing to exclaim “By Dionysus!” or even “Great Zeus!” to really make a direct point.
Angelina Jolie as Alexander’s mother Olympias gets the best lines. Jolie can dominate a movie, and early on in Alexander she blasts forth with a primal release of emotion that sets the bar for the rest of the film. She also handles snakes throughout the whole affair, and at one point you realize that these slithering creatures are purring like kitty cats wrapped around her arms.
Farrell pulls off his part without a hitch in his skirt, but his shining moments are the ones filled with indecision and uncertainty. We can feel his confusion battling inside as he finally takes a wife (Rosario Dawson) from a conquered tribe despite his obvious affection for fellow officer Hephaistion (Jared Leto).
This dichotomy works for the film. Hollywood’s dichotomy is that they spend as much money and time promoting and slamming the high falutin as the umpteenth sequel to American Pie. If you prefer a film that requires no thought but provides a very enjoyable two hours of popcorn infused fun see National Treasure. It also plays with cultural myths but in a non-threatening way.

Animal magnetism and Kinsey

2004-11-13T23:11:00.000-08:00

Upon exiting the film Kinsey there was a horse trotting alongside, appearing almost as if on cue, strolling with a majestic equine gait next to my soulful shuffle. The two of us, that is me on the left and the horse and his two handlers on the right, were parallel to all those new outside poster marquees the Greenway Three just installed in the concrete walkway to the underground Greenway parking lot. I had just departed through the Greenway side exit door and the horse, no doubt a stud on display, was being led out of the Stouffer’s Hotel
The point being that Kinsey is a movie rich in animal magnetism, a film which saves the educational animal sex films (lizards, skunks, kitty cats) for the end credit roll. Making a biopic of the life of Alfred Kinsey, a prominent zoologist who devoted a generation of his life to cataloguing gall wasps (non stinging insects), then turned his ardent scientific mind to itemizing humans and their attitudes toward sex, would seem to be quite a stretch as far as narrative goes. But that’s exactly what writer-director Bill Condon does. Condon, who previously helmed Gods and Monsters, fleshes out dramatic incident from pure emotions and the result is more hit than miss.
As for Kinsey, he claimed to be a 3 on his own sexuality scale of 0 to 6. Zero being an absolutely heterosexual and six being openly gay.
Kinsey (played with stern open mindedness by Liam Neeson) has a liberated marriage with wife Clara (Laura Linney in the kind of solid performance that really just requires looking concerned at the right moments) and a solid relationship with his staff. Kinsey always knows the right thing to say. For instance when Kinsey catches Clara talking privately with her lover, who also happens to be Kinsey’s chief assistant and sometimes-male lover Clyde (Peter Sarsgaard), he reminds them of being on time for an appointment. Kinsey had his priorities in line, business first, then plenty of sex. Kinsey it turns out feels resentment at his old man, John Lithgow dredging up the puritanical paternal stuff he patented in Footloose, who raised him in a repressed manner. Before Kinsey returns to nature he confronts Lithgow if for nothing else than to up the melodrama quotient of Kinsey.
By contrast, there’s less hanky panky and practically no drug use in Kinsey versus the biopic of Ray Charles, Ray.

On Neverland

2004-11-07T23:11:00.000-08:00

Finding Neverland: Interview with writer David Magee
by Michael Bergeron

Finding Neverland places the audience alongside James M. Barrie as he creates the immortal story of Peter Pan. Naturally in true movie style the film stars the handsome and ever resourceful Johnny Depp as Barrie who in real life was a meek, almost unsightly man.
Recently speaking with David Magee the writer of the film, the creative process of seeing the film to fruition, as well as some insights into Barrie himself, are revealed. Peter Pan is 100 years old this year.

MB: You mentioned at the screening last night that Universal had made a deal with Miramax regarding the final release date of Finding Neverland. They released Peter Pan last Christmas and Miramax has Finding Neverland this year.
DM: The movie was on track to be released last year. At the time I thought changing the release date was wrong. This was all happening so far above my head in terms of the business aspect of things, I was hearing about it third or fourth hand. In retrospect, with the Peter Pan centennial happening, without the comparisons between the two films, it is actually working out well for us. At the time I was desperate to have the movie come out. I just wanted to see it on the screen.

MB: You wrote the script in 1998.
DM: In Hollywood six years is not that long. Five months of that was me writing the first draft. The play The Man Who Was Peter Pan by Allan Knee was performed in a workshop off 42nd Street. I was also a member of that workshop. The producer (Nellie Bellflower) had also done one of my plays out in the Hamptons, so she knew me as a writer. I was in her office one day and she was talking about the project. I told her I wanted to write it. ‘I’ll dive right in and if you don’t like it throw it away.’ I knew there was a story there, and she gave me that chance.
Five months later I had a draft. Someone from Miramax had actually seen that first staged reading of Knee’s play, which is very different but does have a wonderful tone. So it was on their radar. But after I wrote my draft Nellie shipped it to her friend who’s an agent. The agent said they would be happy to shop it around. Richard Gladstein became another producer, he had a relation with Miramax. When he became involved Miramax became very interested.
Now a year has elapsed. Contracts had to be signed. Then there are some small re-writes to prepare it to show to a director. Once we got the script the way we want it, the question is who is the right director? Every time you approach a director you tell them that they are the only one you are considering. So it takes them four weeks just to get around to reading it. So that kind of back and forth takes a while. Harvey Weinstein settled on Marc Forster just before Monster’s Ball came out. I happened to be in Los Angeles that week and I got a call from Gladstein. He said to come by the office, ‘We’re going to screen the film Monster’s Ball for you.’ After seeing the film I was a little stunned. It was not what I expected. But as soon as I met Marc, he was polite, very sensitive to the material. Everything he said about the script made sense. He had a feeling of restraint for the script – not letting the performances get too big, not letting the sentimentality run away with the story.
Now the film is going into its third year. You have to get the actors in the right season. Those things took up the next part of the process. By the time that year has evolved you’re ready to open and they tell you it is going to be one more year because of some rights issues. A year and a half ago it was finished and they wanted to release it as a summer movie.

MB: You mention the rights issue. The play Peter Pan was first performed in 1904. Haven’t the rights elapsed?
DM: It’s a wonderful story. James Barrie would have made a fortune off Peter Pan. But shortly after the play premiered he donated all subsequent royalties to the Great Ormond Street Orphanage. Because he cared about children he did that. An act was written into British law that the rights to Peter Pan would be extended to donate money to this charity in perpetuity. When I was first writing this I had no idea how easy or difficult it would be to get the rights to Peter Pan. I had as few lines as possible from the play in my first draft. Once Miramax got involved it was not considered a problem. With the second draft a few more line found there way in. Then Marc came on board and some more scenes from Peter Pan were added. Ultimately Universal [distributor of Peter Pan domestically], and Columbia and Revolution Films – it was a huge budget film – had bought all subsequent rights to motion picture use of everything else.

MB: Of the many writers from the first half of the 20th century Depp actually resembles W. B. Yeats. [I show Magee a picture of Yeats.]
DM: He really does look like him.

MB: But James Barrie was this diminutive man, right?
DM: He was a small man with a huge bushy moustache that hid his mouth, and a receding hairline. And sad eyes. He was not a handsome man. He stayed a boy in a sense. He did not grow into his body.

MB: The film was in production under the title Neverland.
DM: My original title was Neverland. I love that title. There was a very small, dark independent film called Neverland that came out a couple of years ago. It’s not about Barrie at all, I never saw it. Our film became J. M Barrie’s Neverland, which no one was ever entirely satisfied with. Then in the last few months someone suggested Finding Neverland.

MB: Did Barrie and his wife actually get divorced during the original run of the play Peter Pan?
DM: No, that was one of the things we abridged for the movie. His wife did run off with another man. The divorce was extremely painful for Barrie to confront. Much more so than we had time to go into in the film. Also Kate Winslet’s character [Sylvia Llewelyn Davies] had five boys, not four as in our film. But the fifth one was a baby and we didn’t want her carrying around a baby through the whole film.

MB: Charles Frohman, the character that Dustin Hoffman plays, how integral was he to Barrie’s success?
DM: He was a close friend of his and he was his main producer at that time. And as a side note that has nothing to do with this film, Frohman actually ended up dying on the Lusitania. This deeply affected Barrie. He had many tragedies that circled around his life.

Dead and Breakfast

2004-11-01T23:11:00.000-08:00

THE CREAKY STEPS or Dead and Breakfast

EXT. Day
A car pulls up to a gated drive. The gate slowly opens and the car proceeds in, pulling up to a century-old two-story house.

INT. House. Day
An older woman opens the door to welcome a couple. The woman is Mrs. Smith. The couple, John and Mary, recently married; he’s early 30s, she’s 5 or 6 years younger.

Smith: Well hope you two had no trouble finding the Smith Antebellum Board and Breakfast.

Mary: Oh this is such a beautiful place, even nicer than the brochure.

John: I only got lost once. We drove up from Austin, but I have never been in this area before.

Smith: You are the only guest staying here tonight. Let me show you around.

They walk through the house past a staircase as Mrs. Smith explains some of the houses features.

Mrs. Smith: The house was constructed in 1852, but the whole place was refurbished and the kitchen we have now was added in the early 20th century. We built the pool in 1955. Of course the whole place was miles from the next house back when it was built. Now there’s a strip mall around the corner. I will be back to stock the kitchen later tonight, but of course you help yourself to anything you might need. The fridge and pantry are pretty full. The keys and gate opener are hanging on the shelf next to the kitchen door, and there is a couple of three emergency numbers next to the phone.

Mary: So you don’t live here?

Smith: Oh no, Mr. Smith and I are down the block a ways. You can see the roof of our place from the second story. Things fall off this time of year, not too busy this month. But you’re a young couple and I bet you’ll enjoy your privacy. (she winks)

QUICK FADE

INT. Upstairs Bedroom. Day
From the window of their room we can see the gate closing and Mrs. Smith’s car driving out of the frame.

Mary: Baby I am so tired. That drive took it all out of me. I am going to take a nap.

We notice that Mary is about 4 months pregnant.

Mary: Do you remember our first date?

John: You had just discovered that your biological father was alive, and you gotten a letter that day that he had sent you.

Mary: He had written me a poem, and you read it out loud and we both cried.

John (kisses her): Love you baby. There was a library downstairs. I’m going to check that out.

INT. Library. Day
There is an open book on a shelf next to a case of books. A breeze blows the pages. The camera pans to show that there are no open windows, fans or vents. John walks in and notices the book. He picks it up, looks at the pages the book is open to as he sits down.

John: (aloud to himself) Wow, this is about this house. The Smith Antebellum Board and Breakfast joins the list of confirmed haunted hotels in America. (His jaw is agape.)

INT. Bathroom. Day
John comes in to do his business but leaves the door open as he is alone and Mary is upstairs asleep. John drops trousers and sits on the toilet. He hears the noticeable slam of a door. This causes him to hop up and go to the bathroom door. He pauses.

John: Hello?

No answer. He closes the door. We hear a flush, and a second later he emerges adjusting his belt. John walks from room to room. He looks out the front window but the gate is closed and there is no car but his in the driveway.
John walks upstairs, each step makes a light creaking sound, and he looks in on Mary. She is fast asleep with a smile on her face. John walks back downstairs, again some creaky sounds on the stairs. When John is in the middle of the foyer he freezes in the middle on the hall. He moves about, coming back to the middle of the hall.

John: Strange!

INT. Day. Bedroom
Mary is lying prone, dozing. There appear indentions around her body on the bed. For a moment the bed seems to moves up and down. There is a squeaky noise to the mattress softly rising.

INT. Night
John and Mary are in the kitchen. Mrs. Smith comes in the door carrying a bag of supplies. She starts putting them in the fridge and pantry.

John: Mrs. Smith. Do you mind if I ask a question. Well, I noticed a cold spot in the middle of the hall, but there is no air conditioner and … Well, is this … is your house haunted.

Mrs. Smith: (smiling) We like to call it a presence. Did anything happen?

John: No but, I thought a noise but there was nobody there, and the cold spot …

Mrs. Smith: My dears you are under no obligation to stay here and I will certainly refund your money if you want to find another place for the night.

Mary: Oh no.

John: I didn’t mean that. I was just, you know, wondering.

Mrs. Smith: Sit down my children and hear the tale of the Smith Bed and Breakfast. As you can see this house was built before the Civil War. And my family has owned it every since. We’re talking about my great great great grandfather.

Mary: That’s a lot of greats.

Mrs. Smith: During the War, the Union penetrated as far as this part of Texas with scouts. One day, a wounded Yankee found his way onto the property. Absolom Smith refused to help him, and let him die where he lay. Once the poor fellow was dead, the buried him in the cellar rather than risk reprisals from the Union army should they find the body. After the war, sometime latter as a matter of fact they moved his body, or what was left of his body to an unmarked grave in the county cemetery. The point is there is a force here that occasionally makes itself known. But … we like to call him Willy, we don’t know his name or who he really was, but we had a dog named Willie a long time ago … Anywho, our Willy has always been friendly, and the fact that he makes himself known means he like you. Many a guest has specifically come to the Smith Antebellum Bed and Breakfast just to experience this, ah, ghostly presence, only to leave disappointed.

INT. Bedroom. Night
John and Mary are in bed. She is about to doze off. John however is wide-awake.

John: That is so funny about your sister.

Mary: (yawns) Yeah, she found a pair of panties under the bed of her fiancée. Before she left, and she left for good, she peed on them and put them on top of his pillow.

They both giggle. They both snuggle. John turns out the light on the bedside table.

John: I ain’t scared of no ghost.

Mary: It’s fun staying here. I feel for Willie or whatever his name was.

John: This definitely makes for a cool story.

Mary: My sister will love it.

John: And we’re the only ones here tonight. (Mary has fallen off to sleep.)

The sound of one of the steps creaking grabs John’s attention. He looks over towards the door.

INT. Night. Stairway

INT. Night. Bedroom
John continues to listen and look at the door. We hear a creak every few seconds.

INT. Night. Hallway outside bedroom
Camera pushes towards the door.

Fade to black.

Sideways makes apt comment

2004-10-31T11:11:00.000-08:00

The first line of dialogue in Sideways is "fuck" muttered by an unseen voice in the dark. In the film's, and I guess this year's, downright funniest scene, Alexander Payne throws in a political comment that in 1 second says more than Michael Moore does in 2 hours: Bush and Rumsfeld are fucking the country like a heavy metal loving tow truck driver grudge fucking his cheating wife. At one point Paul Giamatti admits one of his clever line comes from Bukowski.
Taylor Hackford is seen talking about his Bukowski days in the current docu Bukowski: Born Into this. Not strangely enough, the end of Ray, helmed by Hackford, seems to say that heroin use is best when rehabilitated but adultery goes unpunished.

Huckabees: nihilism and nausea

2004-10-25T23:11:00.000-07:00

I Heart Huckabees is one of several films I have seen twice this year. Unlike some of the other films that occupy a place in the double category I knew instantly that this was a film to which I would be returning. For the record here are the films I have felt compelled to view a second time on the big screen in the time frame of this year. I Heart heads the list, along with Bon Voyage, Kill Bill Vol. 2, Baadasssss!, SuperSize Me, Napoleon Dynamite, Finding Neverland, Garden State, Tarnation, and, now my moment of truth to more suspicious readers, Van Helsing.
Huckabees shows astute marketing with a web campaign that includes several mock web site related to characters in the film. Kind of like what a real web site would be like that promoted, say, an existential detective agency similar to the one in the movie run by Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin.
The distributor of Huckabees, Fox Searchlight has a monster 2004 line-up that rivals the quality that Miramax displayed in years like 1992, 1993, or 1994. FS has taken the berth once dominated by Miramax now that Miramax focuses on big event pictures like The Aviator and whose future is in doubt anyway with their Disney deal about to expire. Major studio boutiques like Warner Independent, Focus or Paramount Classics, while capable of some awesome films, have yet to completely dominate a season like FS. Likewise smaller indie distributors like Newmarket and Lion’s Gate hit occasional home runs but fail to rule to roost all year. Garden State and Napoleon Dynamite have their fans and Huckabees is one of the year’s best as far as I’m concerned. The year’s not over and Fox Searchlight will also release Alexander Payne’s Sideways and Bill Condon’s biopic Kinsey. The latter concerns sexologist Alfred Kinsey and is set in the 50s. Imagine A Beautiful Mind with the emphasis on the other human organ of note. One style point that distinguishes a typical Fox Searchlight trailer from a typical Miramax trailer is the use (or not) of voice-over narration versus dialogue from the respective movie.
Meanwhile Huckabees burst on the scene with a screwball comedy template that proffers a wide range of interpretation. Some see Huckabees proposing a Buddhist tract that explores desire and reality, consumption and discipline. Other might find a level of profanity to rival Team America for nihilism.
For instance, the protagonist of Huckabees, the idealistic Albert Markovski (Jason Schwartzman) mixes eloquent poetry about the environment with a potty mouth spewing scatological rage at the world. “Fuck shit,” is one Albert modes of expression. In Huckabees profane other, Team America, the lead puppet explains his actions thus: “But I do know that if you don't let us fuck this asshole, we're gonna have our dicks and our pussies all covered in shit.”
One local theater manager told me that his company was experiencing Huckabees walk-outs across the nation. No one walked at either of the screenings I attended. If you don’t think we live in a flip-flop topsy turvy time you will in December when Adam Sandler stars in the high-brow comedy (Spanglish) and Streisand, Hoffman and De Niro meet cute in the low-brow comedy (Meet the Fockers).
A world where nothing is sacred is the world we currently inhabit, and Huckabees only mentions 9/11 once, in context to the plight of fireman Tommy (Mark Wahlberg), but the theme of accepting loss seems to be the spine of Huckabees. For Huckabees’ director David O. Russell nausea sits on a tree limb next to altruism.
“Everything is the same” intones Hoffman’s character Bernard Jaffe. Even Jude Law (who shines in Huckabees in a way that makes his Alfie perf look like Acting 101) confirms to the nausea doctrine, actually throwing up in his hand (it’s a movie) in one pivotal scene. Natch, Team America explores nausea in what could be called the greatest vomiting scene every filmed (mind you, propelled by a puppet).
Russell takes apart the screwball premise with a sort of surgical precision. I interviewed Russell back when he made Flirting With Disaster, another screwball comedy with different stripes. He concurred that he had read books on screwball comedy technique. He knows what he’s doing, and the dialogue and editing bounces along with the kind of tempo that would not be out of place in older classics like Howard Hawks’ Bringing Up Baby or His Girl Friday. Directors like The Coen Brothers and Francois Truffaut have been admired for the way they deconstructed genres with film comedies like Fargo and Shoot the Piano Player. Now David O. Russell has made a film that sits on that same shelf.

Tarnation

2004-10-24T23:11:00.000-07:00

It comes as little surprise that Jonathan Caouette has a promising film career based on a debut film that was made by any means necessary. He’s been doing this kind of thing since he was a kid, growing up in Houston.
Caouette’s film Tarnation was originally made with a budget of $218.32. “The total is derived from all the video tapes and various footage I pulled and imported into iMovie, and then exported to a Hi-8 master,” Caouette tells Free Press Houston in an exclusive interview. (All told, when Tarnation is released later this month the total negative amount spent on the film including sound re-mixes, blow-ups to 35mm and song clearances by distributor Wellspring will be approximately $400,000.)
Caouette just looks like a film star, a part he has played throughout his life, as illustrated in Tarnation. His features remind one of Ewan McGregor. He has that presence which can be found in the androgynous character of the rock star in Velvet Goldmine. (Okay that part was played by Jonathan Rhys-Meyer, but McGregor was in the film and cut from the same bolt of cloth.) It’s the same look Albert Finney had from the early 60s until he stopped being a romantic lead in the 70s.
One day Caouette, transplanted to New York and working as a doorman (“Very good benefits,” Caouette nods.) auditions for a role in a movie for Hedwig and the Angry Inch creator John Cameron Mitchell. The film (a project still in production called Shortbus) becomes a moot point as Caouette gets needed encouragement to enter his working version of Tarnation into a film festival. Mitchell comes on board as producer. Soon Gus Van Sant is an Executive Producer and Tarnation has secured respective berths at the Sundance and Cannes Film Festivals. The rest as they say is film history as an iMovie becomes a feature release. And Caouette looks like he belongs in the midst of this maelstrom.
The word tarnation is an epithet, a euphemistic form of damnation. For Jonathan Caouette the title of his debut movie reflects the steep road he has taken, from years of obscurity shooting home-style videotape to becoming a filmmaker with the hot film du jour.
Tarnation redefines the unique movie experience. Completely made using Macintosh’s built-in film editing software iMovie, and comprised of video footage, phone messages, and Super 8 clips that basically cover his entire life, Tarnation mixes this documentary style footage with the arsenal of Mac editing effects to spin Caouette’s tale with the dizziness of a kaleidoscope.
“The first time I ever picked up a camera I had asked my grandfather to buy me a direct sound video camera. It was about $60 at a pawn shop,” recalls Caouette. Earlier in the week, Caouette had come to Houston to preview Tarnation to a full house of friends at local Microcinema, the Aurora Picture Show.
“I have always had an esthetic for video. In the 80s video was so widely available,” notes Caouette, seated at a corner table of the Lancaster Hotel restaurant. “I could go to Target to the photo section and get $10 cartridges of Super 8 film.
“I was making experimental horror films. Then I discovered underground films and repertory art films by way of the few friends I had met in the gay underground scene in Houston,” says Caouette.
Tarnation treads on Caouette’s past, a view both brash and delicate. After portraying a history of family dysfunction Caouette asks Adolph, his grandfather, point blank whether he was responsible through negligance for the abused suffered by Jonathan’s mom, Renee. Moments like this are interspaced with shots of Caouette as a teen rehearsing in an ad hoc high school production of Blue Velvet. More poignantly, one scene shows Caouette crying in front of his Mac as he searches the Internet for information on lithium. His mother has just overdosed on that medicine, used for bipolar disorders.
Caouette admits that some of Tarnation was recreated while he was putting it together; for instance, the part with him breaking down while searching on the Internet. “I was too far emotionally gone the first time,” Caouette notes. Also one sequence with a baby Jonathan lying with his grandmother is actually Jonathan's own nine year old son as a baby.
The website for Tarnation claims Caouette’s birth date as 1972, but he states: “I was born November 26 at Jefferson Davis Hospital in Houston, in 1974.” Caouette was involved with Houston’s Big Brothers & Big Sisters Association of America. There his sponsor was Jeff Millar, then the film critic for the Houston Chronicle. “That was my film school, going to see a lot of movies. The calendar for [Houston art house] the River Oaks Theater was as important as anything at school.”
Caouette reveals, if only obliquely, that for his next project: “I am going to take three films from the 1970s, huge studio films that were successful in their day.”
“They were produced between 1974 and 1977 and they all utilized the same actress. Basically she looks and breathes and feels like the same person in each film, right down to her accent, her hair length. I want to take all three of those films and re-mix them, re-augment those films into a completely different two hour film,” Caouette hints without actually naming the films. Can’t let the cat quite out of the bag, don’t want to jinx the idea. Ideally, Caouette suggests, he wants to give this project the iMovie treatment. Tarnation itself was originally three hours before he cut it down to its present length, about a half-reel short of two hours. Perhaps there’s a Tarnation 2.0 in the future.
Somewhere in the middle of the interview Caouette’s cell phone rings. As he answers you can see his face brighten, his eyebrows arch. The voice on the other end informs him that he has won the Best Documentary award at the Los Angeles Film Festival. There will be no sleep tonight as the rest of the evening will consist of preparing for a dawn flight to L.A. to receive his honors. How cool is that?
Caouette orders an espresso. “Coffee and cigarettes are my vices. I quit smoking for four years, too.
“Anyway,” he says lighting up a smoke, “I’m going to quit again.”

DiG! this

2004-10-24T11:11:00.000-07:00

This is certainly the year of excellent documentaries and we’re not talking about political tracts. 2004 has seen several superb musical movies that place the viewer in the front row of rock and roll mayhem.
Perhaps chief among them is DiG!, a film that was shot over a period of seven years and observes the rise from obscurity to fame of The Dandy Warhols, and to a lesser extent the rise and fall of The Brian Jonestown Massacre.
DiG! director Ondi Timoner described the film as “a ride I could not get off of,” in an interview conducted last spring during DiG!’s regional premiere at the SXSW Film Festival. The Brian Jonestown Massacre led by Anton Newcombe could never achieve commercial success “because success would destroy him,” noted Timoner.
Timoner started the documentary with 10 bands and eventually narrowed her focus to the two profiled in DiG! She lived with the groups on the road. “I understood their esthetic,” she affirmed.
While both bands, retro-60s sound intact, seem destined for greater awareness, The Dandy Warhols veer towards the light and The Brian Jonestown Massacre steers in darkness. Both Newcombe and Courtney Taylor are charismatic leaders, with good looks and unique insight into their own creativity.
“I sneeze and hits come out,” sneers Taylor in the movie. He continues in a mock aristocratic voice: “And the label exec replied ‘Well if that is true then Capitol will have no problem financing your handkerchiefs.’”
The band members have their own set of rules for intra-band communication. “You’ll burn in hell for pretending to be God and not being able to back it up,” Matt Hollywood an ex-BJM guitarist yells at Newcombe in a moment of clarity early in the film.
Jonestown leader Anton Newcombe has put out over a dozen recordings in less than a decade but at the same time represents the destructive narcissism inherent in rock and roll. Newcombe sabotages his career with heroin and constant egotistical outbursts and on-stage fisticuffs, both with audience and band members. One sequence, shot at the West Coast Knitting Factory, shows Newcombe kicking a rowdy audience member in the head and being arrested after the show by LAPD.
Prime examples of the each band’s karma returns as a theme of the film. The Brian Jonestown Massacre getting arrested for pot in Georgia by a tubby State Trooper and the Dandy Warhols sparking up a bowl after a French cop lets them walk on a cannabis bust are just two scenes that hammer that point like a cool blues riff blasting out of a Marshall amp. The Dandy Warhols talk their way out of the bust situation, even giving the rockstruck gendarme some free t-shirts.
On his website Newcombe (who has disowned the film) notes that cops in Georgia busted the director for pot, and his charge was for not having a valid license. Timoner concurred that that is the way the scene went down.
DiG!, from Palm Pictures and Interloper Films, and the winner of the Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival for a documentary, rolls out in an exclusive engagement at the River Oaks Theater starting November 5.
Another music documentary that bears mention, Jandek on Corwood, premieres on DVD in late November. This film reveals as much as is known about the reclusive Houston-based artist. The extras include a featurette that examines several Jandek LP and CD covers for greater meaning. Check it out.