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So, I met Simon Pegg last Friday.
Let me preface this by saying not a lot of people of varying celebrity comes here to the desert in Arizona. When you’re here long enough and you literally head out of town, no more than a hour’s drive from any one point in the Valley, you realize Phoenix and its Podunk suburban satellites are the modern day Las Vegas just without pretty lights or pretty ladies. The West is indeed the new South and if the meth labs are any indication, I am hip deep in a hillbilly haven.
So imagine my surprise last week when I was asked to see his new film, HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS AND ALIENATE PEOPLE, with the opportunity to get up close with the man most celebrated for SPACED, SHAWN OF THE DEAD and HOT FUZZ. I was ecstatic with pleasure and, thankfully the film, which starts Kirsten Dunst, isn’t that bad. It’s pretty damn good and if you had to choose a film where there was something for the ladies and for you dudes this will be the one you will want to see come October 3rd.
However, it was the process of meeting the man that was at both odd and wonderful. Even though I’ll explain further when I run the interview as we get closer to October 3rd I was intrigued by Devin Faraci’s, of CHUD fame, column on the whole SPACED phenomenon as it relates to where they are now should they go back to the well. I was, and am, of the mind that just like the British version of THE OFFICE which was brilliantly done and, much like SPACED, obscenely too short as a series. They both had a lot of say and it’s only our sense of nostalgia and wanting more (it’s the American way!) we want to just to perpetuate what was incredibly wonderful. But, what’s a person to do when the fans want another season or another movie? Pester the shit out of those involved and tell them that they HAVE to do it because YOU want it?
I asked Simon about this very phenomena, tossing the idea that I wasn’t looking for him to tell me if he planned on taking another crack at these characters but just wanting to know if he had plans to go back and collaborate with these same folks. He was rather excited to say that, even regarding SPACED, he did say that there were things he wish he could have tied up better. Further, the story, if he was to go back to it, would be entirely different because it simply would not start up from the last episode (the whole show was about a reality of their shared experiences) but it would be a reflection of the reality of their shared experiences at their current age. What would that SPACED look like? If I had my druthers, and I sure as hell don’t because it’s not my call, they wouldn’t even touch it. Simon did mention that he absolutely wants to go back and collaborate with everyone but to keep this from heading into Oh Don Piano territory I just left it at that. Even if he was absolutely, positively doing something I can 100% guarantee he wouldn’t share the details with some Podunk Arizonan journalist dickhead who was just pleased as punch to meet the man behind one of the greatest shows made for my generation.
2. My Own Picture Of The Weak:
3. Phil Yeh needs some attention and I’m here to pass along some awareness.
As a father of a girl who has now entered kindergarten, as a schmoe who graduated with an English degree and a master’s in Education and as a complete hater of those who are in much higher positions than me, wanting to use our language as an opportunity to disseminate their misspelled ramblings, making me work like a Navajo code talker to figure out what in the world they’re even saying, I want to erase illiteracy in our society.
It’s a given fact that we have over 20-25 million Americans who are functionally illiterate in this country and even though I am a bad ambassador for perfect grammar usage I am a fan of anything that helps kids, exposes them to art and of anyone who wants to make our youth a little smarter. Now, many of you don’t live in Arizona but Phil Yeh, the brilliant creator of DINOSAURS ACROSS AMERICA, a book that exposes children to not only geography but to the graphic novel format, will be in Glendale on September 21st and 22nd to come paint a mural with one of the Simpson’s own principal artists, Phil Ortiz. The man has had a 23 year history of traveling across this land to promote the arts and literacy and here he is to explain what’s behind this. I normally never run these things but, like I said, this is near and dear to my own values as a human being so I thought I would share:
Phil
And an excerpt from the press release:
The artists [will] head for Kidsfaire in the University of Phoenix stadium in Glendale, Arizona, on Saturday and Sunday, September 20 and 21. Special guest artist Spill will join the two Phil’s and hundreds of kids who will help create another work of art. The mural in Arizona is sponsored by Kidsfaire and by the Renaissance Glendale Hotel and Spa and will be donated to the Ronald McDonald House or the Phoenix Children’s Hospital after the event. Yeh, who founded Cartoonists Across America & The World in 1985, is now in the 23rd year of his 25 year long world tour promoting literacy and the arts with humor and cartoons. Since the band was founded, they have painted more than 1800 murals in 49 states and over a dozen countries with hundreds of artists and thousands of kids of all ages. Yeh’s partner on the new “Two Phils Tour” is five time Emmy award-winning cartoonist Phil Ortiz.
So, any desert dwellers who might be around, and who might have some ankle biters at home might do well to patronize this event. I will.
4. Don LaFontaine – R.I.P.
As many of you who frequent this column know that I have always been an advocate or a detractor of Voiceover Guy. This invariably means that I am either pro or con to the creation of a trailer that has a narrative audio track over the action of the piece.
Don, if any of you keep up with this kind of thing, was THE man when it came to the “In a world…” goofiness that has been inexorably linked to some of the most obnoxious trailers ever put into theaters. He made trailers something more than just music videos to sell records, he made them entirely his own. In fact, I attended The Hollywood Reporter’s Key Art Awards ceremony, something to celebrate the best in movie marketing and an absolute blast to attend, where Don was awarded for all the work he’s done in the medium. He made large amounts of money, was THE go-to guy for a lot of these trailers and was revered for being a consummate professional. He absolutely will be missed by me, I know if I didn’t do this job I would never have been so attuned to his influence, and I’ve included a link here to FIVE MEN IN A LIMO which explains everything in a way I can’t begin to describe.
5. Jennifer Goldberg of the Jewish News of Greater Phoenix
This woman deserves a round of applause for a few reasons and one of them being that not only did I forget to bring a camera to the press round table, more like a press round the couch with cookies on the table, for Simon Pegg’s HOW TO LOSE FRIENDS AND ALIENATE PEOPLE but after the poor girl was trounced in the ensuing scrum to ask Simon and director Robert Weide as many questions as possible in our alloted 20 minute time (it was truly vicious and I am partly to blame for said trouncing) she took a picture of Simon and I with her camera AND sent me the copy of the picture the same afternoon. I don’t, and have never, taken a picture with any of the people I’ve interviewed with the exception of Josh Holloway from LOST and Missy Peregrym of HEROES/REAPER. Simon was someone I at least wanted to get a moment of posterity captured with as long as he was crazy enough to visit Phoenix. The girl had every right to slice me out of the frame and after the fracas was done I wanted to let everyone know she was an excellent person to have in the round table (there are some out there I wish I never have to spend time with again) and if you have a moment visit her work over at Jewish News. What can I say, it’s the Catholic guilt…
Now, on with the show…
Director: Barry Levinson
Cast: Robert De Niro, Bruce Willis, John Turturro, Robin Wright Penn, Stanley Tucci, Catherine Keener
Release: October 3, 2008
Synopsis: What Just Happened? is a winningly sharp comedy about two nail-biting, back-stabbing, roller-coaster weeks in the world of a middle-aged Hollywood producer — as he tries to juggle an actual life with an outrageous series of crises in his day job. Academy Award® winning director Barry Levinson reunites with Academy Award® winning actor Robert De Niro and leading producer Art Linson, who wrote the screenplay based on his bestselling memoir. They all join with an all-star cast in this rollicking, shrewd tale of a man besieged by people who want him all to be sorts of things — a money maker, an ego buster, a bad news breaker, an artistic champion, a loyal husband, an all-knowing father, not to mention sexy, youthful and tuned-in – everything except for the one thing he and all the preposterously behaved people he’s surrounded by really are: bumbling human beings just trying to survive by any means necessary.
View Trailer:
* Large (QuickTime)
Prognosis: Positive. I love films like this.
Any kind of satirical look at the entertainment industry’s preoccupation with childish behind-the-scenes antics could keep me entertained for hours on end. What the problem with this is, though, is that 95% of the rest of Middle America could give a shit. As long as everyone involved in the making of this picture knows that a film like this is going be middling at the box office, and that’s best-case scenario, then we’ve got a winner. However, I think this film will take on a meta quality when the same elements that befall Robert De Niro will also befall some real idiot as this film tracks closer to release.
It’s not that people don’t want to know the snarkyness, pettiness and every other –ness you want to toss in there, they do, but unless you’re the talent and you’re being featured on Access Hollywood you aren’t really of much concern to people, And that’s what concerns me about this movie and, subsequently, its trailer.
Many people levied the attack against TROPIC THUNDER that it stopped short. That it had so many other opportunities to really skewer the system it was trying to dress down. I would assert that it didn’t need to insofar that the kind of box office returns it is experiencing is due to its storytelling. Any further, you see, and you risk alienating those who “wouldn’t get it.†You cannot make a movie too insider and TROPIC THUNDER should be applauded for knowing how thin that satirical line really is. This flick, though, knows it but obviously doesn’t care.
I love Robert in the opening. Even though having someone in their bed, having your character start off in their bed is about the laziest device you can employ, Bobby makes it work as he begins his day lying. I completely get it right from the start and it’s nice to see how sharp things get from here.
From the detached father who can’t seem to do anything right but fuck his own life up at the expense of moving pictures. His blow out in a therapist’s office is enough to know that we’re not getting FOCKERS De Niro but a De Niro that seems genuine.
I equally adore Catherine Keener’s quip to the tortured director who has his own vision for what his film should be only to have her threaten to take the movie back and cut it herself if he doesn’t capitulate to the studio’s demands. It’s downright thrilling to see it dramatized like it is.
There’s something to be said, as well, for bringing real actors into the mix. When we hear a phone call to Robert about Bruce Willis, a star of a production that he’s bird-dogging, being fat and donning facial hair, all of which could constitute a lawsuit against Bobby for misrepresentation you can’t believe this would be the thing that people get litigious about.
Add into the mix the kind of personal backstabbing and infidelity that you would expect out of your high school buddies, not those running and developing multi million dollar projects, and you have something volatile but so attractive. As you have Bruce Willis talking about the base and depraved maniacs who are responsible for running the asylum that is Hollywood there are certain feelings of unease that you should start feeling. This is a rough place that is only understood by taking the approach that this is indeed high school and there is nothing that seems sacred to any of these desperate people.
How this will play to those who live in Kansas, however, is something I can already foresee as an issue that Magnolia Pictures will have to overcome if they expect anyone besides me to pay for a ticket.
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON (2008)
Director: David Fincher
Cast: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton, Elias Koteas, Jason Flemyng, Julia Ormond
Release: December 19, 2008
Synopsis: “I was born under unusual circumstances.†And so begins “Benjamin Button,†adapted from the classic 1920s story by F. Scott Fitzgerald about a man who is born in his eighties and ages backwards. A man, like any of us, unable to stop time. We follow his story set in New Orleans from the end of World War I in 1918, into the twenty-first century, following his journey that is as unusual as any man’s life can be. Directed by David Fincher and starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett with Tilda Swinton, Taraji P. Henson, Jason Flemyng, Elias Koteas and Julia Ormond, “Benjamin Button,†is a time traveler’s tale of the people and places he bumps into along the way, the loves he loses and finds, the joys of life and the sadness of death, and what lasts beyond time.
View Trailer:
* Take Your Pick (QuickTime)
Prognosis: Positive. I won’t even bother to find out anything more about this movie until an English trailer comes out.
One of the benefits of being a dude like me is that I’m woefully inept at keeping up with whatever project this guy or that guy is doing. Sure, I have my regulars who I keep tabs on, Aronofsky, the Coens, Nolan but Fincher is someone who I try not to read too much about for the simple reason that he’s best left to do what he does. ZODIAC was a surprise to a lot of people, and if you think it wasn’t you’re a liar and a thief, myself included, but I’ve always loved to see what else he comes up with next.
One of the problems with filmmakers like Bay or Shyamalan is that they’re completely niche guys who will never really move out of their wheelhouse; they’re comfortable in it, and no one really should be that disappointed with where they’ve decided their strengths are, but there’s nothing to them that would ever get me excited because it’s going to be a take on a very similar theme with these dudes.
With Fincher, though, he’s willing to experiment with different things, although I would kill to see a comedy directed by that guy, and this film just has me hooked from the very first moment I saw it. I’m not one to enjoy period pieces, Lord knows how much energy it takes for me to give up my sense of disbelief when I know everything on the screen was manufactured to look the way it does but this film just has a different taste to it.
It’s that music in the beginning that is at once haunting and alluring.
It’s the twinkle twinkle of the keys, reminiscent of something you would hear out of the Nutcracker suite, and the close up of the clock, its hands moving back one notch, which is quite effective.
Now, the backward motion of the video, where once there was forward movement I almost took exception toward but it’s the baby being left on some steps that had me wondering what was going on. The baby itself seemed to provoke something visceral in the people who it was left with but I got it. I understood that this trailer wants me to start thinking in terms that aren’t necessarily straightforward but it absolutely rewards you for looking at this thing with a little but of openness.
I’m not certain about a lot it but there is a moment where there is a boat at sea, a bucket of feathers fills the air and it seems like it’s a fairly innocuous moment but it’s drenched in some heavy cinematographic spookiness that you hardly believe this wasn’t helmed by Tim Burton. Further, Fincher surprises with a “battle at sea” moment that honestly. for the few seconds we’re treated to it, seems like something genuinely thrilling.
Again, I’m usually all over a trailer if it wants to be too arty in its presentation but I don’t think that’s what afoot here. Fincher, perhaps, knows that to get people to buy into, one, a period piece would be difficult, two, try to explain a story that was at once a novel in a trailer would be damn near impossible without befuddling Ma and Pa Kettle and, three, having Pitt shown in the most un-sexual sort of way, his obvious transition into younger manhood would take a while to get to. Hence, what we get here is a lovely mix of opaque confusion about the story but getting a dollop of excitement to swallow it all down with.
In so many ways I am willing to spend whatever it takes to see this film. Fincher has thankfully not followed the ways of so many of his equals in churning out movies that have that sheen of their watermark; he is constantly trying to stretch his abilities and experiments with the process of film making. Hopefully he’s got the right combination of both aptitude and execution.
Comments: 2 Comments
2 Responses to “Trailer Park: Is Simon Pegg Heading Back To SPACED?”Leave a Reply |
September 7th, 2008 at 9:18 am
Good. This little bastard sure as fuck didn’t work out in america. Fell flat on his face. I guess the native might weren’t playing games with him anymore.
September 7th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
damn.that.benjamin.button.movie.looks.amazing.,same.with.the.
deniro.movie…maybe.not.amazing.for.the.deniro.one
nice.article,.way.to.stay.independant,.ie.not.mainstream.like.
it.seems.most.articles.try.to.be,.like.it.sems.most.
journalists.forget.to.use.their.own.voice,.and.strive.to.be.
well.known,.instead.of.letting.it.come.to.them.
please.keep.on.a.writin
spacebar.is.broken