Nicole Opper on OFF AND RUNNING

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More Than the Sum of Her Accomplishments: Avery Klein-Cloud in OFF AND RUNNING.

Before we get to the topic at hand, lemme tell you about another screening I went to a last week. Not going to tell you which film that was, because I walked out in the middle — yes, it was that good — but the focus of that film was on this family that was straight out of the Twilight Zone, totally unreal. Honestly, these guys would’ve given Donna Reed the hives — the only time you usually see people this loving, nourishing, and supportive on the screen is when they’re trying lure gullible strangers down to the torture chamber in their basement. But there were no thumbscrews or branding irons for these guys; you were supposed to take them at face value. Nobody in his/her right mind could do that.

That, of course, is a worse-case scenario, but film, documentaries included, have a tendency of viewing the family as if there was some sort of ideal that could be attained through hard work and lots ‘n’ lots of love. It’s only natural — we all want to see people pulling together to solve their problems. But anyone who makes the regular pilgrimage home for holidays knows better — the interchanges within any family are seldom tidy, and the problems that arise there are rarely prone to stock solutions.

Travis and Tovah, the two Jewish lesbians who are the heads of the house in the new documentary OFF AND RUNNING, eventually find that out when they decide to adopt an African-American baby. The baby girl, Avery, grows up to be a loving daughter, a good student and a top-notch athlete. She even manages to open up a line of communication with her birth mother. Initially, this is a good thing, then not so good when the woman stops responding to Travis’s letters. As filmmaker Nicole Opper shows, that sudden silence becomes the catalyst for a drama that explores a young woman’s quest for identity and a family’s struggle to deal with issues not covered in 101 Handy Tips for Raising Your Adopted Teenager.

Opper talked with me about what happens when one’s planned exploration of joyous, adoptive parenthood takes a sudden detour into unexplored territory, and what it’s like when your teen subjects are more and more accustomed to living the public life. Click on the player above to hear the interview. Read the rest of this entry »

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Well, Not Everything Belongs to the People: Leo Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer) and the Countess Sofya (Helen Mirren) in a reassuringly indulgent moment of intimacy from THE LAST STATION

The core of THE LAST STATION’S story is the conflict between Leo Tolstoy and his wife, the Countess Sofya, over the rights to his works. But frack that, what really matters is that you’ve got Christopher Plummer as Tolstoy and Helen Mirren as the Countess, and the opportunity to watch them seduce, cajole, clash, and otherwise play off each other. Throw in Paul Giamatti as Tolstoy’s staunchest disciple and Sofya’s most daunting antagonist, and even if the battle was about the divvying up of Dave & Buster’s prize tickets, you know you’d want to watch.

Fortunately, director Michael Hoffman — who scripted from the Jay Parini novel and whose previous credits include RESTORATION and A MIDSUMMER’S NIGHT DREAM — gives his actors a suitably meaty drama to tear into. Beyond fame for writing War and Peace and Anna Karenina, Tolstoy also happened to be a potent political force in his time, dedicated to an early incarnation of Socialism. All well and good, except that the Countess — a passionate supporter of her husband all the way to hand-copying War and Peace six times — came to realize that the man’s growing public profile meant watching him drawn further from her love and deeper into the machinations of his acolytes, including their push to get him to sign over the rights to his stories to the Russian people. As the Countess fights for what she feels is only the due owed to her and Tolstoy’s children, the conflict is witnessed by two young disciples, Valentin (James McAvoy) and Masha (Kerry Condon), whose growing love affair plays in contrast to the dissolution of Tolstoy’s marriage.

I got Hoffman to talk a bit about managing the on-screen, emotional pyrotechnics, and recreating a bit of early twentieth century Russia in Germany. Click on the player above to hear the interview. Read the rest of this entry »

Company Cafeteria: In-house blood-bank from DAYBREAKERS.

Any science-fiction movie is predicated at least a little on the suspension of disbelief. But then there are points where what we’re presented with so defies logic, physics, or natural human behavior that the mind rebels. At that point, the credibility of an entire movie can be at risk.

For example, early in the new, sci-fi/vampires-rule-the-world flick Daybreakers, Ethan Hawke enters the world headquarters of the international corporation that is the sole, global supplier of human blood. He steps out of an elevator and beholds before him a vast, seemingly limitless atrium, stacked row upon row with stainless steel racks containing human bodies being “milked” for their blood.

Think about that for a second. Think about where that harvest is taking place. Imagine going into McDonald’s world headquarters and finding that, just as you step past reception, you’re confronted with a fully operational slaughterhouse and hamburger processing plant. Does that make sense?

Even the best of movies can have its “Oh, come on!” moment (although, admittedly, those movies are far outnumbered by the really, really sucky ones), and in my debut article for ReelzChannel, I take stock of my favorite jaw-droppers. Check out the list of Top 10 “Oh, Come On!” Moments in Sci-Fi Movies.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 20:39 — 19.2MB)

A baptism at the River Jordan from WAITING FOR ARMAGEDDON

I’ll admit I have little patience for people who confuse religious mythology for real-world politics. You want to believe that, when the earthly going gets tough, you’re going to be zapped up to heaven and have a front row seat for the conflagration and the return of your deity? Cool, swell, no skin off my nuts. You want the U.S. to model its domestic and foreign policies on such fantasies, that’s when I politely have to object.

Which is to say that I probably couldn’t have sat where the directors of WAITING FOR ARMAGEDDON did while interviewing people who dearly believe in the looming spectre of the End Times — including a couple who have come to their beliefs after, ahem, “scientific” analysis and a guy who leads tours through Israel and gets all giggly at the thought of the razing of the Dome of the Rock — and not wound up stabbing a pencil in my brain. I’m just not that strong.

Fortunately, directors Kate Davis, David Heilbroner, and Franco Saachi are, and their forbearance pays off in a documentary that gives you a good look into what a vocal and influential segment of our population believes is the world’s ultimate destiny, and what the risks may be in trying mold our politics to that worldview. It’s an important film for anyone concerned about the continuing incursion of religion into our public policy, and a balanced warning in particular for those who have noted the religious right’s involvement in Middle East politics without considering its possible costs.

Click on the player above to hear my interview with Kate Davis and David Heilbroner. Read the rest of this entry »

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That Sweet, Sad Song: Jeff Bridges and Maggie Gyllenhaal in CRAZY HEART

And so here we are at the last MMP episode of 2009, unless, of course, a there’s an emergency, late-breaking filmmaker interview (Mr. Scorsese, my calendar’s open). Barring that, we’re going out with a good ‘un: Scott Cooper’s finely crafted, astutely observed CRAZY HEART.

This is Cooper’s directorial debut — not even a short film to his name — and he’s managed to wrangle some big guns in his support, including Robert Duvall as one of his producers (he also has a small role in the film), Jeff Bridges as Bad Blake, the former country-western star who’s been beaten down by a life on the road; Maggie Gyllenhaal as Jean, the woman who opens Blake’s eyes to the magnitude of his fall (and yet another richly-nuanced performance from the actress); and, in an uncredited role, Colin Farrell as Tommy Sweet, former protégé and present bête noir of Blake’s. With great chemistry between Bridges and Gyllenhaal and a quiet, smart script that Cooper adapted from Thomas Cobb’s novel, this is a fine alternative to 3D pyrotechnics and holiday treacle.

Cooper and I talked a bit about bringing the spirit of 70’s filmmaking to the twenty-first century, and the challenges he faced in following in the footsteps of Duvall’s TENDER MERCIES. Click on the player above to hear the interview. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Fish vs. the Fist: Michael Clarke Duncan (second from right) rides herd on the wait staff of THE SLAMMIN' SALMON

To put it bluntly, the holidays bum me out. I don’t think it really has anything to do with the occasion — y’know, all that stuff about how we instinctively reject the incessant pressure towards merriment and good will (aka Holly Jolly Complex) — I think it’s more physical. The extended darkness and the plummeting temperatures and the tons of hours spent in arid, indoor environments — my body just can’t cope. About this time of year, I seriously begin to wonder if hibernation isn’t a viable option.

So cheers to Broken Lizard that they decide to release THE SLAMMIN’ SALMON just when we winter-ravaged souls need it the most. The film’s about the wait staff of an upscale seafood restaurant who are forced by their debt-riddled owner into a competition to run up their customers’ bills, but that’s just the mechanism by which the Lizards — Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, and Erik Stolhanske — deliver the funny. And it turns out there’s lots of funny to be had in examining one hectic night in the life of a dining establishment, not the least being Michael Clarke Duncan’s portrayal of the owner — a former boxing champion whose time in the ring has not done any favors to either his logic processes or his temper. Really, you don’t want to cross a man who thinks nothing of punching out a rampant swordfish.

Kevin Heffernan is making his directorial debut with this film. We got to talk about how the troupe called upon personal experience to bring THE SLAMMIN’ SALMON’s restaurant world to life, and what it’s like importing such actors as Michael Clarke Duncan and Brian Cox into the Broken Lizard universe. Click on the player above to hear the interview. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Birth of Brutal: Gylve “Fenriz” Nagell in UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not all that obsessive over metal, heavy or otherwise. Don’t hate it — in fact, I like the beat and the aggression and the flights into epic, audio assault — it just doesn’t take priority when I’m programming my Pandora stations. Nevertheless, I’m happy when one year brings us two very good docs about the genre. However, one of the big differences between the earlier ANVIL: THE STORY OF ANVIL and this month’s UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US is that Anvil’s brand of party-hardy, American (Canadian, if you will) metal doesn’t quite grab me as much as the darker, more adventurous black metal bands of UNTIL THE LIGHT TAKES US.

Another difference is that debuting directors Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell (he’s better known as a musician; she’s an art director and previously produced a narrative comedy) have decided to bring an artist’s intuition to the telling of black metal’s twisted history, a tale that includes accusations of Satanism, arson, suicide, and murder. With a prime focus on two of black metal’s most prominent and controversial practitioners — one, Varg “Count Grishnackh” Vikernes, was filmed while finishing out his sentence for arson and murder; the other, Gylve “Fenriz” Nagell, survived the turbulence of the 90’s and has, with great reluctance, made cautious accommodations towards the mainstream — the result is an impressionistic presentation that better conveys the genre’s complexity and rebellious, and occasionally genuinely dangerous, attitude.

I was able to talk with Aites and Ewell about how one reaches out to artists who have been previously buffeted by the mainstream press, and why this form of music is best served by an iconoclastic filmmaking style. Click the player above to hear the interview. Read the rest of this entry »

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So you go into this room at New York’s Museum of Modern Art’s Tim Burton exhibit, and it’s like striking gold: the Jack Skellington figure is there, along with a choice selection of the replacement heads that were used to animate dialogue; there’s the creepy, completely covered baby Penguin wicker stroller from BATMAN RETURNS; you can see a MARS ATTACKS stop-motion figure and some test footage shot before Burton decided to go CG; plus the headless horseman figure and the EDWARD SCISSORHANDS outfit and ED WOOD’s angora sweater. Film geek heaven — and a must-have for MMP’s second video podcast.

I pull out my camcorder and power up, and am instantly intercepted by a MoMA PR person, who politely but firmly informs me that practically nothing in the room, save for Edward and Headless and a vitrine with some figures from THE CORPSE BRIDE, can be filmed.

“Including,” she points out, “the angora sweater.”

Okay, I can dig that, for whatever reasons legal or contextual, stuff may be off-limits (fortunately, no such prohibitions existed for the rest of the exhibit, and, as you’ll see in the video, it’s a big durn exhibit). But specifically throwing the barbed wire up around the angora sweater? Really? Is there some sort of legal constraint, or is this humble strip of fluff so iconic of… something… that dissemination of its presence here could completely blow the intent of the exhibit?

So sorry, all you PLAN 9 maniacs. You want to worship at the alter of the angora, you’re just going to have to make a pilgrimage to New York. Happily, once you’ve performed your obeisances, you’ll then have an opportunity to drink deeply of Tim Burton’s mad genius. There are tons of concept work here, drawn by Burton’s own hand, plus a stunning variety of original and heretofore unseen artwork, sculptures and installations created specifically for the exhibit, and a copy of the hard-to-see HANSEL AND GRETEL adaptation that Burton directed for Disney in 1982.

A lot of the film stuff — including concept designs for ALICE IN WONDERLAND and the aborted Burton version of SUPERMAN RETURNS — was not verboten, so you get a taste of it in this podcast, along with a good sampling of original art, some thoughts from the exhibit’s curators on the director’s life and work, and some footage of Burton’s very Tim Burtonesque appearance at the press presentation. Click on the player above to get a look. Read the rest of this entry »

Podcast: Download (Duration: 18:54 — 17.6MB)

Anybody Remember to Lock Up Before We Left?: Soldiers Charge in RED CLIFF

The short form would be that John Woo rediscovered himself in returning to China, but that really doesn’t capture what’s going on. Woo made his name with such beautiful, dynamic, and surprisingly thoughtful urban crime films as HARD BOILED and THE KILLER — pop culture with soul — then made his way to America for films like BROKEN ARROW, FACE/OFF, and MISSION IMPOSSIBLE II. Pop culture, still — with bigger budgets and bigger stars, granted — but with something missing: Even when Woo touched on the themes that first earned him the love of film fans, it was clear that there was a subtle but critical dissipation of that all-important soul.

So Woo is now back in China. But instead of a full return to familiar, city-grit turf (asphalt?), he’s leveraging his Hollywood-nurtured clout and turned his attention to epic adventure. The result is RED CLIFF, a mammoth (the original Chinese version ran five hours, we’re getting a version that clocks in at somewhere in the neighborhood of two and a half) historical drama based on a fourteenth century novel about two kingdoms who join military forces to repel the onslaught of a usurper general (Zhang Fengyi). And aside from the return of Tony Leung to the Woo fold as a military strategist, and the appearance of Zhao Wei in a very Tsui Harkian role as a female warrior who goes undercover in drag to scout out the opposing forces (other stars in the large cast include Takeshi Kaneshiro as another key strategist, You Yong and Chang Chen as the rival kings turned allies, and Chiling Lin as what amounts to a Chinese Helen of Troy), you can tell Woo is regaining his form in how the lead protagonists form bonds that are less military expediency than they are full-on brotherhood, and the sheer energy and beauty of the production (maybe I’m overdramatizing, but a CG sequence of a dove — John Woo, remember? — overflying the opposing camps looks as much like Woo’s creative heart taking flight as it does a neat way to transition from one locale to another).

I was kind of expecting that having faced/down Tom Cruise, Woo would present a rather battle-hardened front for the press. Instead, he was quiet, polite, and rather self-effacing — which only reinforced my original respect for him. We got to talk about how one brings down to earth a tale originally told at a time when heroes, as a matter of course, were ascribed supernatural powers, and how his sojourn in Tinsel Town positioned him to push the Chinese film industry into more ambitious realms. Click on the player above to hear the interview. Read the rest of this entry »

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Rock on Board: Philip Seymour Hoffman (left), Rhys Ifans (center) and Richard Curtis on location for PIRATE RADIO

Richard Curtis had a death in the family. I’d flown in to London to do the interviews for my PIRATE RADIO coverage, and the director was at the top of my list. Some things, though, take precedence over spending fifteen minutes with a dumpy New York journalist, and for Curtis, this had to be one of ‘em.  I had no argument there. I did my sessions with actors Tom Sturridge, Talulah Riley, and Nick Frost instead (you can hear them in Part 1 of this series) and silently wished Curtis well.

Three weeks later, he and I finally had our sit-down. Frankly, I’m not sure I could’ve scraped it all together in so short a time under such conditions, but I was grateful he did. That conversation wraps up this installment, along with my exclusive one-on-one with Bill Nighy — who plays the paternal, impeccably dressed, and seemingly gay (he’s one of the few characters who doesn’t get it on in the course of the film) proprietor of the pirate broadcaster Radio Rock — and the roundtable interview with “The Count” himself, Philip Seymour Hoffman. You’ll learn a little about Nighy’s inner wild man, Hoffman’s experiences as the sole American in a cast of Brits, and Curtis’ decision to trim PIRATE RADIO (nee THE BOAT THAT ROCKED) by some fifteen minutes (or more — reports vary) for its U.S. debut.

Click on the player above to hear the show.

MMP on PIRATE RADIO:

(Almost) Live from London: PIRATE RADIO vs. THE BOAT THAT ROCKED

Part 1: Nick Frost, Talulah Riley, Tom Sturridge Read the rest of this entry »