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  • Trailer Park: BURN AFTER READING and THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR

    By Christopher Stipp

    The Archives, Right Here

    I’m awesome. I wrote a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.

    Who couldn’t love the moment when Brad Pitt pointed out to John Malkovich that his bike was not, indeed, a Schwinn?

    The things that I liked about BURN AFTER READING weren’t so much in the huge plot points, of which there were many, but in the nuance of the performances from the likes of J.K. Simmons and even David Rasche. True, the film is no FARGO, MILLER’S CROSSING, yadda yadda yadda. However, when you’re as talented as these boys are the Cohens are allowed a film or two that are simply pleasurable to watch and this definitely was.

    When it comes to THE MUMMY, there is a reason why some call films critic-proof. If you were to tell Brendan Fraser that this seems like an obvious cash-in I am sure he would tell you blankly, “Sure was.” And he’s right in doing so. This film knows what it is, doesn’t aspire to anything more and is a nice way to cleanse the palette from all the frou-frou Oscar quality films you’ve been cramming in as of late. This movie delivers on what it promised, even though the absence of Rachel Weisz is deeply felt, and is just a fun romp. Those looking for more need not even take a look.

    E-mail me at Christopher_Stipp@yahoo.com if you want a crack at this. And, as always, if you’ve already won a contest by all means would you kindly let someone who isn’t trolling sites looking for free stuff have a chance?

    About THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR…

    The blockbuster global Mummy franchise takes a spellbinding turn as the action shifts to Asia for the next chapter in the adventure series, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Brendan Fraser returns as explorer Rick O’Connell to combat the resurrected Han Emperor (Jet Li) in an epic that races from the catacombs of ancient China high into the frigid Himalayas. Rick is joined in this all-new adventure by son Alex (newcomer Luke Ford), wife Evelyn (Maria Bello) and her brother, Jonathan (John Hannah). And this time, the O’Connells must stop a mummy awoken from a 2,000-year-old curse who threatens to plunge the world into his merciless, unending service.

    Doomed by a double-crossing sorceress (Michelle Yeoh) to spend eternity in suspended animation, China’s ruthless Dragon Emperor and his 10,000 warriors have laid forgotten for eons, entombed in clay as a vast, silent terra cotta army. But when dashing adventurer Alex O’Connell is tricked into awakening the ruler from eternal slumber, the reckless young archaeologist must seek the help of the only people who know more than he does about taking down the undead: his parents.

    As the monarch roars back to life, our heroes find his quest for world domination has only intensified over the millennia. Striding the Far East with unimaginable supernatural powers, the Emperor Mummy will rouse his legion as an unstoppable, otherworldly force…unless the O’Connells can stop him first. Now, in The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, the trademark thrills and visually spectacular action of the Mummy series will be redefined for a new generation.

    About BURN AFTER READING…

    At the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency in Arlington, Va., analyst Osborne Cox (John Malkovich) arrives for a top-secret meeting. Unfortunately for Cox, the secret is soon out: he is being ousted. Cox does not take the news particularly well and returns to his Georgetown home to work on his memoirs and his drinking, not necessarily in that order. His wife Katie (Tilda Swinton) is dismayed, though not particularly surprised; she is already well into an illicit affair with Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney), a married federal marshal, and sets about making plans to leave Cox for Harry.

    Elsewhere in the Washington, D.C. suburbs, and seemingly worlds apart, Hardbodies Fitness Centers employee Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand) can barely concentrate on her work. She is consumed with her life plan for extensive cosmetic surgery, and confides her mission to can-do colleague Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt). Linda is all but oblivious to the fact that the gym’s manager Ted Treffon (Richard Jenkins) pines for her even as she arranges dates via the Internet with other men. When a computer disc containing material for the CIA analyst’s memoirs accidentally falls into the hands of Linda and Chad, the duo are intent on exploiting their find. As Ted frets, “No good can come of this,” events spiral out of everyone’s and anyone’s control, in a cascading series of darkly hilarious encounters.

  • Trailer Park: THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN and WANTED Giveaway

    By Christopher Stipp

    The Archives, Right Here

    I’m awesome. I wrote a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.

    The two biggest surprises this year had to be WANTED and THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN.

    One I wasn’t expecting much out of and the other I was just hoping would be interesting. Call me nutty but after being amazed by the fun ride WANTED was and the better execution of THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN versus its initial shot across the filmic bow I had to jump at the chance to let the world in on some solid storytelling.

    I have copies of WANTED and I have copies of NARNIA. E-mail me at Christopher_Stipp@yahoo.com and let me know which one you want and, if you’ve already won something in the last 30 days, let the little boy in the back who didn’t push to the front of the line have a crack at this.

    About WANTED…

    Based upon Mark Millar’s explosive graphic novel series and helmed by stunning visualist director Timur Bekmambetov – creator of the most successful Russian film franchise in history, the Night Watch series – Wanted tells the tale of one apathetic nobody’s transformation into an unparalleled enforcer of justice. In 2008, the world will be introduced to a hero for a new generation: Wesley Gibson.

    25-year-old Wes (James McAvoy) was the most disaffected, cube-dwelling drone the planet had ever known. His boss chewed him out hourly, his girlfriend ignored him routinely and his life plodded on interminably. Everyone was certain this disengaged slacker would amount to nothing. There was little else for Wes to do but wile away the days and die in his slow, clock-punching rut.

    Until he met a woman named Fox (Angelina Jolie).

    After his estranged father is murdered, the deadly sexy Fox recruits Wes into the Fraternity, a secret society that trains Wes to avenge his dad’s death by unlocking his dormant powers. As she teaches him how to develop lightning-quick reflexes and phenomenal agility, Wes discovers this team lives by an ancient, unbreakable code: carry out the death orders given by fate itself.

    With wickedly brilliant tutors – including the Fraternity’s enigmatic leader, Sloan (Morgan Freeman) – Wes grows to enjoy all the strength he ever wanted. But, slowly, he begins to realize there is more to his dangerous associates than meets the eye. And as he wavers between newfound heroism and vengeance, Wes will come to learn what no one could ever teach him: he alone controls his destiny.

    About THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN…

    The characters of C.S. Lewis’s timeless fantasy come to life once again in this newest installment of the “Chronicles of Narnia” series, in which the Pevensie siblings are magically transported back from England to the world of Narnia, where a thrilling, perilous new adventure and an even greater test of their faith and courage awaits them.

    One year after the incredible events of “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” the Kings and Queens of Narnia find themselves back in that faraway wondrous realm, only to discover that more than 1300 years have passed in Narnian time. During their absence, the Golden Age of Narnia has become extinct, Narnia has been conquered by the Telmarines and is now under the control of the evil King Miraz, who rules the land without mercy.

    The four children will soon meet an intriguing new character: Narnia’s rightful heir to the throne, the young Prince Caspian, who has been forced into hiding as his uncle Miraz plots to kill him in order to place his own newborn son on the throne. With the help of the kindly dwarf, a courageous talking mouse named Reepicheep, a badger named Trufflehunter and a Black Dwarf, Nikabrik, the Narnians, led by the mighty knights Peter and Caspian, embark on a remarkable journey to find Aslan, rescue Narnia from Miraz’s tyrannical hold, and restore magic and glory to the land.

  • TV Or Not TV: 12/22 – 12/28

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    Welcome back to TV or Not TV where I admit that I am a reality television addict.

    I am sure that I, like anyone else, has certain reality television show favorites that they take in. Some reality shows I love and refuse to miss, some fall by the way side for me (an example of the latter is the CBS staple Survivor). In my case, however, my tastes usually go against the grain and I prefer the not so popular shows.

    Two of my regulars are The Biggest Loser and Big Brother. Like most shows of the genre both have contestants voting each other out and in the end the winner gets some type of grand prize. Both feature challenges. Both can be heavily influenced by player interaction. Both can be edited to portray people in whatever light the producers choose.

    As noted in last week’s column, The Biggest Loser had the finale for their sixth season this past week. If you aren’t familiar with the show let me sum it up for you. People unsatisfied with their weight are chosen as contestants in a competition where the goal is to be one of three finalists who loses the greatest percentage of body weight. The contestants spend four months living on “The Ranch” where they are subjected to physical and mental challenges as well as grueling 4 to 8 hour workout days. Every week they are weighed in and those scoring the least percentage of body weight lost are subject to a vote by their peers for elimination. In the end, however, only three compete for a $250,000 cash prize. Those voted off, however, are still motivated to try to lose more weight at home to compete for a $100,000 cash prize.

    The week prior to the finale of The Biggest Loser we were able to see the final four contestants receive the same news that the season five competitors received: a phone in voting campaign would decide the third contestant to be in the final three, with the player receiving the least votes being stuck back in the at home competition category. I bring this item up because it served up some interesting complications for the remaining competitors in the game (that the rest of us, who could one day become reality tv stars, should pay attention to). With the season finale we saw a married couple competing for the third slot, Ed and Heba Brantley. In their final pleas that they recorded at The Ranch we saw Heba stating why she should be chosen and Ed stating why Heba should be chosen. This was immediately after a weigh in where Ed some how had gained two pounds instead of losing, something that team trainer Bob stated had to be game play so Ed could see his wife get into the finals. Where was the real complication I mentioned? America voted for Ed to be in the final three, leaving Heba to compete for (and win) the at home consolation prize. Why is this a complication? If America had voted the other way Heba had enough weight loss to win the grand prize and walk away with the title of this season’s Biggest Loser.

    The reason why I bring all of this up is because I see one thing that seems to happen time and time again in reality television, and it is a cycle that could easily be broken if people were to keep a level head in these crazy experiences that they get themselves in to. It is one thing to play a game and do it in front of the American public, but you have to remember that your every action can be edited to make you appear to be the villain or victim in any given situation. Whether Heba was either isn’t relevant since she, as a player, provided the producers with enough content to give them exactly what any show runner would want: a villian that stirs up the pot and causes drama. Nothing gets ratings (or viewers that come back) like drama. If you go on a reality television show try to keep your behaviour balanced folks.

    Another interesting side note to The Biggest Loser story this season’s other qualifying finalist Vicky. This woman wasn’t cast in a very nice light during the run of the show and it turns out that people have been harassing the woman via phone and mail. I’m sure that Ed and Heba have also received similar treatment given their alliance with Vicky. What baffles me about this type of behaviour is that people can be this motivated by a television show to take action against the peopel playing it. I enjoy television, I’ve seen some really nasty reality television, but I’ve never been so stoked with anger or hatred for someone I’ve seen on TV that I’ve taken the time to research who they are, where they live, how to contact them and then actually write a letter or make a phone call. Hearing this type of thing makes me feel a little ashamed to write a column about television. It’s just TV folks.

    That all being said, let’s see what I think there is to offer on TV this week.

    MONDAY

    ABC – 8:00 PM: If you missed the showing earlier this month of Shrek The Halls than you are in luck. It’s on again tonight.

    NBC – 8:00 PM: Today goes prime time with 2008: Today Looks Back, A Holiday Special. Apparently there are only five items newsworthy enough to look back on. I guess the year really did suck for everyone.

    CBS – 8:30 PM: Any regular reader knows I’m a fan of How I Met Your Mother and this repeat of Slapsgiving was a great payoff to a joke set up earlier in that season.

    COMEDY – 9:00 PM: If you didn’t shell out the money for the DVD of Futurama: Beast With a Billion Backs than you can watch it free (with commercials) tonight.

    TUESDAY

    CBS – 8:00 PM: The 10th Annual A Home for the Holidays Special features musical performances and inspirational stories of adoption.

    ABC – 8:00 PM: There was no greater choice than Boris Karloff for voicing the title green meanie in Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

    TLC – 8:00 PM: See if Manual Uribe reached his weight loss goal as World’s Heaviest Man takes a return visit to see his progress.

    WEDNESDAY

    For a lot of people it’s Christmas Eve so here’s what you can watch after that last minute shopping is finally done and you are up to your eyeballs in eggnog.

    NBC – 8:00 PM: The Peacock wasn’t happy enough having me cry just once so It’s a Wonderful Life is on again tonight.

    FOX – 8:00 PM: If you aren’t a fan of the holidays than tonight’s episode of Bones might make you smile with Santa in the Slush.

    TBS – 8:00 PM: Only one thing in the world could’ve dragged you away from the soft glow of electric sex gleaming in the window, and that’s 24 hours of A Christmas Story.

    THURSDAY

    FX – 7:00 AM: Ice Age: The Meltdown is on for the next 14 hours, providing you the perfect thing to distract the little ones with when you need that break.

    FOOD – 7:00 PM: Pastry chef’s are put to the Food Network Challenge of making ginger bread houses and I’m put to the challenge of not finding sugary treats to eat while watching.

    TLC – 8:00 AM: An all day marathon of Little People, Big World can help you to not sweat the small stuff.

    COMEDY – 8:00 PM: Still not a fan of the holidays? Enjoy a slightly sanitized version of Bad Santa.

    FRIDAY

    TNT – 8:00 PM: Take in Con-Air… and be sure to put the bunny back in the box.

    BRAVO – 8:00 PM: If Con-Air didn’t have enough testosterone for you than I would recommend Heat.

    ABC Family – 8:00 PM: Didn’t buy Nicolas Cage as a former Army Ranger and Ex-Con? How about Nicolas Cage as an investment banker who gets a glimpse at how his life could have been in The Family Man?

    SATURDAY

    NBC – 8:00 PM: OK, this is a new one on me. NBC has Bob Costas and Matt Lauer host a special where they look back at The Bejing Olympic Opening Ceremony. I guess I can’t blame them. The original airing garnered 2 billion people world wide. This has to bring them some viewers, right?

    AMC – 8:00 PM: Last night we had two Nicolas Cage choices, so you can see Sandra Bullock get abused by her boss (and find love of course) in Two Weeks Notice.

    OXYGEN – 8:00 PM: Sorry folks, if you target Sandra Bullock flicks in most cases you are going to get sappy romantic films. The Lake House is no exception.

    SUNDAY

    ABC – 7:00 PM: Here is a completely useless fact that will mean nothing to you: In my 37 years on this planet I have never seen The Sound of Music. Will I end that streak tonight? Not sure.

    AMC – 8:00 PM: Sometimes AMC has some really interesting choices. Tonight they have Fargo at 8 followed by Hannibal at 10. I could probably sit and watch this channel the entire night.

    HIST – 8:00 PM: The History Channel premiered Valkyrie: The Plot to Kill Hitler back on November 24, but with the release of the movie Valkyrie this may be an interesting documentary to take in both before or after taking in the film.

    – Will Wilkins is not The Biggest Loser.

  • Trailer Park: Scoot McNairy


    By Christopher Stipp

    The Archives, Right Here

    I’m awesome. I wrote a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.

    This film is something you need to see before the year is out.

    IN SEARCH OF A MIDNIGHT KISS is everything you wish you could have in a date movie but without all the annoying treacle that usually accompanies films of this variety. The picture has a warm gooey heart that sucks you in right away with its premise that a man who wants nothing more than to be alone on New Year’s Eve has a good buddy of a roommate who convinces him to post a personal ad on Craig’s List and has it answered by a woman who will provide the spark he needs to get out of his funk. The journey is sweet, funny and is simply one of the best films of this variety that I was able to see all year. When I had the chance to chat with the film’s star, Scoot McNairy, I absolutely jumped at the opportunity as this was a film that rekindled that sense that you can make a movie about two people coming together without it being overly contrived or false.

    You can catch the movie on DVD December 23rd and could not be coming out at a better time.

    SCOOT MCNAIRY: Hi Christopher. Where are you?

    CHRISTOPHER STIPP: I’m in Scottsdale, Arizona.

    MCNAIRY: Oh nice.

    STIPP: The dust bowl of the West.

    MCNAIRY: I’ve been to Phoenix and Tucson but never been to Scottsdale. Isn’t Scottsdale the prettiest of the three?

    CS: Yeah, it’s got the most, I think “life” would be the word for it.

    MCNAIRY: OK. Like most golf courses and what have you.

    CS: Right…Now, I have to say that I loved the film. Roger Ebert made some hints, not even so much of a hit but flat out says, that it feels like a Linklater homage in a way ““ instead of Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke, we have you two.

    MCNAIRY: I heard he wrote a great review. I haven’t read it yet but someone read it about a week ago and was like, two thumbs up from Ebert. And I was like, “No way.” I think you are the first person to tell me that so I need to go online and look at that.

    CS: It’s very nice and I couldn’t agree more with everything he said about the film.

    MCNAIRY: Thank you so much.

    CS: Explain to me ““ this film has been playing in the UK before it ever came here. How did that work?

    MCNAIRY: Yeah. We got it over here in February and they decided to push it and when they did as the UK as well, we were going to go ahead and go with it and they cleared it with America and they really got behind it and put a whole bunch of money into marketing and advertising. We were nervous about it but it went over to the UK and was just floored at the response. So we were really excited so coming back to America, the US, we were excited about the success it had in the UK and thought, “Well the Europeans liked it so”¦hope the Americans do to.”

    CS: I think they see what I see which is a well made romantic sort of comedy, not so much comedy in the wackiness but it’s got heart behind it.

    MCNAIRY: Yeah, my hat goes off to Alex Holdridge. I just cannot give him enough kudos. The guy is the director of the film and he’s so smart. The film was thought out for two years before a word was written. We’ve know each other for ten years and I don’t have that kind of trust with any other director. I know this guy so well and think that everyone else involved in the film was so close which gave a really rare organic chemistry to the whole film. Also we let Alex do whatever he wanted with us.

    CS: And you were obviously helped…I read a little bit about Alex that he kind of got scooped in a way by SUPERBAD when it came out based on the content of this film.

    MCNAIRY: Yeah. My first movie made, called Wrong Number, ten years ago, was made when I was 19. I don’t speak too freely about it but the similarities from the two films are ironically very similar. So he came out four years after that to make that movie. I’ve been working with him for so long rewriting the script and he said, “Hey guys, there’s another movie out there like this.” He was so frustrated and I watched him go though it and decided to make another movie and this is the movie he’s been talking about for 2 years. Really, I just called up a friend, Robert Murphy, we used to hang out 10 years ago, he was a DP and just got a new camera and knew Alex was really upset. So Alex said, “Do you want to shoot something?” So Alex wrote the script in two weeks and Robert got on a plane, flew out here, and we thought we were shooting a short film. At one point Robert looked over and said, “What’s that?” He said, “That’s the script.” To which he said, “Oh, I thought we were shooting a short.” Alex said, “No, Robert, we’re shooting a feature.”

    (Laughs)

    So it was just a whole bunch of guys getting together who used to make films together on the streets of Boston for no money and we all got back together to make another film in our life and we had no idea it was going to get the legs that it got. Everyday has been a surprise for us the last two years.

    CS: Now, obviously, based on the UK reaction it has some legs. When you go into a project, what do you hope comes out at the other end ? You obviously hope and you wish that it’s huge, but going into it are you realizing the odds going in?

    MCNAIRY: Yes Obviously, you hope for the best with every script that you read. But not every script that you read turns out to be what you thought it was going to be and some of the ones you think aren’t going to be so great turn out to be great. Alex’s last two films got critics awards and gone to festivals and stuff so it was kinda like when he said he was making another movie, everyone just dropped what they were doing and hopped on-board this film.
    That and making movies is just so much fun.
    There’s just a freedom you don’t really get with other projects because the time constraints. We just sit around and work things out. It’s not like we gotta move, we gotta make our days, but we’re like, “If we don’t make our day, we’ll just come back here tomorrow.” So there’s so much freedom and everyone is so relaxed and there is no pressure to get this done because I’m wasting everyone’s time and what have you. Everyone is just there to sit down and hash it out and make it the best they can. So I think when Alex said he wanted to make this film, everyone said let’s do it. We know it’s going to turn out amazing with Alex. He will spend so much time with it and he does ““ he nurses it and nurses it in the editing room. Like I said, my hat is totally off for the quality and the intelligence of the project.

    CS: Regarding the physicality of making it, I was reading that you would have to reshoot many times because you were on such a low budget, and you were filming out in the open in the city, people would be coming into the scene, you were bumping people, you didn’t even have a Steadicam”¦

    MCNAIRY: Yes! That was the strangest part about it. It’s weird for any negative critic that said anything about it I want to turn to him and say, “Dude, we made a movie for $12,000. Lay off. Do you know how hard that is?” We were not perfect but it was such a huge feat. We had nothing so the fact that it got distribution ““ people were trying to size it up against Batman. Golly. Easy.

    CS: That’s an excellent question about what you learned about the filmmaking process. You are credited as a producer on this film. Going into it and when you have the finished product did you eyes open to this whole new world of distributorship?

    MCNAIRY: ABSOLUTELY. I learned so much. I produced other things like some trailers to music videos and some shorts but nothing that ever had to deal with the business aspect of it. This was a huge learning curve for me and through the entire journey anything that happened, like, “Let’s go to Tribeca…should we get a publicist?” I was like I want to get a publicist, I know we don’t have the money for it, let’s just find it and we’ll put the money up for it because at the end of it I want to know that this film failed, if it does fail, I want to know that we did everything right and the film failed because it wasn’t good.
    So going down the road I made a whole bunch of mistakes and put money in some places that I shouldn’t have and it was a huge learning curve but at the same time it was a learning curve that was only $12,000 vs. a learning curve on a film that was half a million to a million. So I’m really glad I learned all this stuff on this particular project but it was hard. Distribution stuff ““ a lot of letdown stuff ““ that was really hard to go through but after talking to a lot of people they said your film got distributed, it got a theatrical release, you should be very excited about that because a lot of films right now aren’t even getting that. So, the other things I wished I would have changed on this last one was more advertising and more marketing because we did a lot of it, grassroots, ourselves but I felt like we should have put in another $35,000 for commercial spots, newspaper ads, but other than that it was fun. When you aren’t expecting anything any good news you get turns out to be great but sometimes there were letdowns but people say that’s normal in distribution but for me I worked so closely on this film for two years. I spent my entire life and all my money and all my time on this film.

    CS: One of those things about the film, you just mentioned, black and white, any decision about why black and white vs. color?

    MCNAIRY: It was supposed to be in black and white because it was a film that was a throwback to old actors and old movies. The reason we shot down in the old theatre district was it was a kickback to the Vaggo era and how LA was booming in the 20’s and 30’s and how it’s been completely abandoned and has this modern feel to it ““ we’re texting and IMing and internet dating but we never mention the year the film was made so we wanted to give it this beautiful old feel and old vibe of the film that is timeless. We never mention the date of the film. So you would know this movie had to happen between 1995 and 2010. It wasn’t New Year’s Eve, 2007. So the black and white just painted it so you get the feel of it’s romantic, you are feeling the buildings around you but hearing the characters talk and the connection to each other let down their walls and in color, it kind of takes away from some of those distractions.

    CS: It does. It’s more intimate in a way because it doesn’t allow you to focus on anything else.

    MCNAIRY: When we did some of the screenings it was so odd. Only 50% of the audience were like “Why black and white?” And then the other half didn’t even realize it was in black and white until after it was over. They just weren’t even paying attention to that. So we really fought for it. We shot it in color but when we watched the dailies, no one every saw one frame of footage in color. We always just turned the color and the tint off so we could see what it was going to look like.

    CS: The film itself, is like you mentioned, the era’s in which you filmed, it’s kind of like a love letter to Los Angeles and for all its negativity that people throw upon it, was it hard? I know Alex was from Austin. Is there something really romantic about Los Angeles in general?

    MCNAIRY: It’s a love/hate relationship, I think that really comes from Alex. He never wanted to move to Los Angeles. When he finally did, most of the script is sort of autobiographical to his life. He really did roll his car on the way out here and so much stuff that happened in the film, happened to him. But it was love letter. He did have a negative attitude towards Los Angeles and over the two years that he was living here, all these negative things happening, he was able to find all these beautiful things about it. The movie was going to be called, “If LA Fell Into the Ocean, I Wouldn’t Care”.

    (Laughs)

    But I think it changed based on his views from being out here and it turned into, and I don’t know that he even realized, it turned into a love letter to Los Angeles. There is hope in this town and people are so cruel out here but that’s OK because there is hope out here and things aren’t that bad. You just have to adjust your thoughts. Look for the best and try to find good people you can actually connect with.

    CS: And you certainly do with Sara Simmonds. I know you two knew each other before filming. Obviously, that must have helped with the filming ““ making this a believable love story.

    MCNAIRY: Absolutely, everybody, actually, had worked together. The DP, the director, Me, Sara, Brian. Me and Brian are really close friends and that really did help. Sara, when I hadn’t even seen her or hung out with her in at least a year, when she came to work, I went and picked her up at her house that day she had just come in from Texas and then all these people thought we were really good together but it was just two friends not seeing each other for a long time and connecting again, on set, and talking together on set “Hey, what are you up to, how’s your boyfriend?”, “Oh, I broke up with him”, “What, no way.” While were shooting we’re catching up with each other. So I think you get to see the two of them get to know each other but also what’s going on behind the camera we are actually re-acquainting ourselves. It came off very, very organic and the chemistry was great.

    CS: It did. It recalibrated my own expectations for what a film like this should be. It seems that this film, and why the movie is getting wonderful reviews, is that this film feels more genuine than anything Matthew McConaughey or any of his ilk put out.

    MCNAIRY: Well, it’s definitely a more real take on it. I think everyone that was involved in the project has all gone through that. We all moved out to Los Angeles. My first year, I was the first one of the group to move here, that first year you have no friends, know nobody, I hung out with this homeless guy at the gas station just to get out of my apartment and we just didn’t know anybody. I always told people, if you are going to move to Los Angeles, your first year is hell. If you can just get past your first year, your second year is alright, the third year you are really starting to enjoy the city. So I think everyone had that common ground of what it’s like to be in LA the first year and I think cautiously we all wanted to tell that story. Some people asked me, “So, you moved out to LA, how is it? Yada yada yada.” And you don’t want to tell them it’s horrible as hell.

    (Laughs)

    You want to be like, “Oh, it’s great. It’s really amazing. You guys should move out here. Really, please, move out here.” So I think that’s where that came from. Everyone really, really identified with that idea.

    CS: I’ve also read that instead of finding your own work, you have become a producer so you can actually produce and work for your own. How did that evolve? I looked at your resume and you’ve done these things over numerous years, where did you come to the point where you said, “You know what, I have to make my own magic if I want this to happen?”

    MCNAIRY: I’ve always been like that since I was a kid. I remember asking people, “Hey will you do this…or…help me build this fort?” I just learned at a very young age if you want something done, do it yourself. And I’ve been like that since I was a little kid and I think it came down to after four or five years went by out here it kind of hit me why did I change from doing it myself when I moved here? Let me go back to the way I was. I had a landscaping business when I was a kid. I’ll just do it myself. So I guess this is the product of that and since then my manager and my old agent we all decided to start a production company and make movies. So my manger shut down his office and my agent left his agencies and rented offices and started this company with a group of friends and just started plowing through movies. Making two more next year.

    CS: I saw that. You are obviously keeping really busy.

    MCNAIRY: Yes, busy producing and acting. Now that KISSING has opened up some new doors and”¦

    CS: Speaking of which, you said the critical reception has been phenomenal and this is everyone dream to make a movie and have it as well received as this, have you noticed a flood of new material coming your way?

    MCNAIRY: Yeah, but people who have projects that I’ve known for a while are just now thinking of me for their projects vs. thinking of me as an actor. It was before the movie was released but DVD’s were floating all around this town and so I get random calls. One day, Josh Radnor from How I Met Your Mother called me on my cell phone and said “Hey, I just want you to know I was just at a screen of MIDNIGHT KISS and you are amazing, I think it’s great, I just wrote a film and I’m interested in you to play the part” and I get another call from some other person at some other production company saying, “Hey, just saw the film, it’s hilarious, we love you, would you take a look at this project?” So, if anything, I gained a little bit of respect. Not really respect but some hats off from the peers out here in the town that weren’t’ thinking of me for projects that are now thinking of me. I’m on people’s radar I would say. But at the same time, I still go back to the way I was before Midnight Kiss.’ I’m still going to be making movies and not think about that kind of stuff.’ Keep doing my own thing and doing it myself.

    CS: If I could I just want to ask you one more question.’ I read about your project that you are thinking about, how serious you are I’m not sure, but I think it was rather interesting, that you want to do a movie about the apocalypse?

    MCNAIRY: Yes! Roland Emmerich ““ I just found out two nights ago he’s making a movie called 2012 and I was like “Oh, it’s not Revelations” but it’s pretty much like I think the film I want to make and he’s making it for $200 million which is around the budget that I would want to do too.’ We’ll see when the thing comes out. Maybe it’s the same. Maybe it’s different. I really want to focus on the second coming of Christ and what happens ““ planes crashing, two people that didn’t get taken in the resurrection and are here on this earth, what happens afterwards. We’ll see. I want to make a movie that begins with the new world after that happens.

  • Trailer Park: David Furnish Interview

    By Christopher Stipp
    The Archives, Right Here

    I’m awesome. I wrote a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.

    It’s just got to be tough when your husband is Elton John.

    His closet has just GOT to be bigger than yours, he’s just GOT to have an ego much larger than yours and he just HAS to be impossible to deal with. When David Furnish turned the camera on his then partner, Elton, for the documentary TANTRUMS AND TIARAS you just had to think that all this would be captured much to the chagrin on Elton when he saw the mirror looking back on him. The funny thing is, though, there is all of that but Elton seemed much more sanguine about the process which chronicled a piece of his life that debuted to the world almost a decade and a half.

    The movie, which starts out with a genuine tantrum about the process of getting Elton to make a music video (he hates them) and follows his opinions on flower arrangements (he doesn’t much care for them either) transforms into a love letter from one human being to another. Furnish is even-handed in his depiction of Elton as a tireless marketer of himself and his music but also as a man who is partially trapped by the small things in his past that has made him who he is. The film is slightly shocking when you see how much actual clothing he travels with while on holiday, how much space he needs to house his CD collection but we get an intimate look, and by intimate I mean an honest and truthful dissertation on how Elton sees himself, on the spectacle that is Elton John.

    The movie was recently released on DVD and is available everywhere. While, like I mentioned, the film is nearly a decade and a half old the small steps that Elton was then taking to make himself a better individual is heartwarming when you see how fast he could have been lost to the booze and drug fueled lifestyle he was on so many years ago.

    Want an indication of how much has changed? Long before it became fashionable to wear your red AIDS pins Elton founded the Elton John AIDS Foundation which, up until that point, had raised a few million dollars. To date, the work Elton has put into it has raised over $150 million to the cause of obliterating the disease. David Furnish had a few moments to spend with me a few weeks ago and we chatted about life now after the documentary.

    CS: David, nice to talk with you.

    FURNISH: And to talk to you as well.

    CS: I have seen the film.I’ve never seen the film until this weekend.

    FURNISH: Oh really?

    CS: And I didn’t know about it when it came out 13 years ago and found it a fascinating portrait of Elton and from the title I think I was expecting more tantrums than I got.I think it was a rather well rounded documentary and the only thing that was rattling around in my head the whole time is how do you look at it now, 13 years removed from it?

    FURNISH: It had a much more significant effect on our life and our relationship I think that either of us appreciated at the time.I look at it today and we’ve been together 15 years now and when I made the documentary it was very early on into our relationship and I was almost ““ kind of want to call it video therapy ““ I was using the camera ““ I was very much an outsider in Elton’s world and the world of celebrity and music touring and the lifestyle that goes with it and used the camera almost as a weapon in a way and gave me the chance to interrogate and really get to the bottom of things that seemed odd to me and the way Elton looked at his life.

    I’ll give you an example.I found it frustrating that we go away on a holiday and my idea of going away on a holiday in the south of France would be going for a ride in a boat, going to visit places, lying in the sun kind of stuff and Elton at that stage would tend to spend most of his time in his hotel suite not going anywhere and there’s that funny scene on the terrace where I sort of interrogate him and ask him would you do this, would you do that, and he says, no, no, no.He was different then.I was different then.I think the documentary helped us, to answer your question correctly, to see a lot of ourselves and each other from a relationship standpoint, but when I look at 13 years later I don’t think I could make a film like that about someone like Elton again because I think I’m too accustomed to that world now.I don’t think I’d bring that same level of objectivity that I brought 13 years ago.Does that make sense?

    CS: Yes it does.That was one of the more amusing parts, apart from his take on flower arrangements,

    FURNISH: (Laughs)

    CS: I thought it very curious that he wouldn’t like to sit out by the pool or go out on a walk with you or wouldn’t want to do any of those things on holiday.Where does that come from?

    FURNISH: It really comes from him being a prisoner of his celebrity more than anything else.It’s a dynamic that still exists in our relationship.There are all sorts of things we do do and we get better at.You find those places you can go and places he can slip in really easily and places like the south of France and having security with you is a must and holidays are a time of rest, relaxation, and recharging and we do lots and lots of different things we didn’t do back then but now I understand that world better and understand the vulnerabilities in public situations from time to time and how to manage it and we do manage it and I take a much more active role in all that sort of planning now.We do lots of stuff and it’s great.

    CS: I know there was some to do a few years ago about his spending ““ his excess spending and again it was that south of France moment when we saw the amount of wardrobe he brings with him. Has that curtailed at all in the wake of recent years?

    FURNISH: It all depends.We need to define excess spending.A lot of that stuff came out of a trial where people were trying to paint Elton as being a financially irresponsible person.Elton is not a financially irresponsible person at all.Actually when the figures came out and they said you spent a whole lot of money in a short period of time, what Elton did was spend it on property and on collecting art work. All art work which creates a beautiful environment in your home which inspires him and myself artistically and also pieces of art that have hugely increased in value and actually proved to be an investment, so in the end he’s actually quite prudent with his money.I wouldn’t call it irresponsible or excessive.At the end of the day he earns what he earns and works very, very hard for what he does and gives more back to charity.

    The Sunday Times publishes their annual rich list and Elton is always the top ten most charitable people in Britain.He gives the highest percentage of his net worth to charitable time and charitable activities.Much more than any of his contemporaries and he wouldn’t view it as excessive, and I wouldn’t either, it’s just Elton’s zest for life and the way he loves life and appreciates life and one thing when you are a celebrity of the magnitude of Elton and you are so well known and so well recognized, going out in the world can be a challenging thing and so your homes become a very important environment.They become your sanctuaries.They become the places where you spend time and bring your life in and bring life inside and a lot of that spending that was brought up at that trial had to do with the acquisition of our house in the south of France which is probably gone up about 30 times in value since we bought it.I couldn’t even begin to estimate how much that has gone up.That house is such an important sanctuary to him and myself ““ it has brought us so much joy and so much pleasure I don’t consider that irresponsible spending.I consider it smart spending because a) it’s created a beautiful sanctuary, a place of peace and love, and secondly it’s turned out to be a bloody good investment.I would certainly shy away from the phrase irresponsible because I think it was actually quite responsible but because of that court case it was positioned in a different light.

    CS: Exactly.And you touched upon something there that I definitely want to talk about and that’s Elton’s charitable givings. At one point in the documentary we see, I think it was a figure of about $9 million that he already gained to the Elton John’s Aids Foundation and this was well before our little red lapel pins that everyone seemed to wear in the late 90’s early 2000’s ““ How has that foundation evolved since you actually did the documentary?

    FURNISH: The foundation has been a huge success.We are well over about $160 million now based worldwide.We work in 35 different countries, getting very successful projects and the foundation’s very much seen as being kind of a leader in terms of approaches that are taken in the fight against aids.There are programs that we pilot and pioneer in countries like the Ukraine, India, South Africa, where we come up with a particular approach or find something that seems unique and innovative and when we find success with it, a lot of bigger funds like the Gates Fund or the Clinton Foundation, they come in and not only match what we put in but actually multiply it and we are able to take those programs and roll them out to more and more people.It has become an increasingly big focus in our life and certainly when I was learning all about it, I’ve had friends that have contracted the disease and I lost a few friends to aids that have touched me personally, but now I sit on both boards and we are both very heavily and actively involved.The foundation is very well run ““ we just got the Charity Navigator award in America, the Four Star award for three consecutive years, which I think only about 8% of charities get that award three consecutive years in a row, our overheads run at about 5% which is incredibly low and we are very proud of the foundation and what it achieves but we continue to invest a lot of time and energy to it because the problem is so big and the need is so vital.

    CS: Right.There is another touching moment in the documentary of Elton’s reflection on the way he felt sort of remorse for his ex-wife ““ that whole situation ““ and looking back at 1995 that was still pretty fresh of a wound at least, and tying into all that as well, when you played bat for him the therapist talking about Elton’s buying people’s friendships and his response to it, how has he evolved in the last 13 years as a result of seeing this?

    FURNISH: One of the many things I love about him is he has this incredible capacity for change and for growth.I think at the time the documentary was made there as some unhealthy relationships in his life and I think he wasn’t in control of his life and feeling good about himself as he is today.He has never been in better form than he is now.His confidence has improved.His self esteem has improved.His sense of independence has improved.He’s more control of his career and his destiny.He’s diversified himself in so many ways.

    We just had Billy Elliott open in New York a couple weeks ago, at that time the Lion King was just a successful film and now 13 years later, he’s written 4 musicals and that’s opened a whole area for him that he loves and is very passionate about.The Aides Foundation, as I mentioned to you, he’s much more active and personal as the hands on approach that we take to it and events that we host and where we host them.We are incredibly happy ourselves.15 years is a wonderful time to be in a happy relationship and we are still very much in love and very happy and to have the laws change in Britain to allow same sex partnerships which afford all the benefits that marriage does in Britain is a real advance and is something that we were very happy to embrace and be a part of.The past 13 years since that’s been done has been a period of incredible change and growth for both of us and I think we will always have these moments when we just pinch ourselves and just say aren’t we so lucky to live the life that we live and to be blessed in the way that we are.We are very grateful for that but at the same time we don’t want to take it for granted.Just want to keep going forward and be good people and do everything we can to help the world be a slightly better place.

    CS: The other thing that I noticed in Elton’s creative process was that he was able to just knock these things out.These hit songs, he’d spend an hour with it.

    FURNISH: And that was a line in the documentary.I used to talk about him about his creative process because that used to fascinate me ““ the way that he writes in such an organic and it’s just unbelievable ““ he just channels something from somewhere and when I filmed him writing that song for Lulu in the studio, no one had ever filmed him writing a song before.So that’s one of the things in the documentary I admire very much.

    CS: And certainly if I have one more question for you, looking back on what you created 13 years ago finally now on DVD, how do the two of you look at what you made?Was it a snapshot of where you were or are there parts of it now that you look at as representative of who you still are now today?

    FURNISH: We both watched it together.We did an audio commentary for it and we both watched it and said, wow, it still continues to hold up so well.I think it stands up incredibly well 13 years later.It is very much a snapshot in time and it’s really nice to have it captured because you appreciate it even more how much life can move on and how things can continue to grow in your life and be positive so given it’s a marker in time it’s nice to see what progress has been made and where growth has taken place.I think in many respects it was a precursor to a lot of reality television we are seeing today because I don’t think a celebrity of Elton’s magnitude, not many famous people or infamous people have allowed that unlimited access to their lives, and now we live in this world where there seems to be so much television based on following people around with camera crews and getting inside their lives with a lot of detail, and really getting inside their lives.

    I think what Madonna did with Truth or Dare is a terrific documentary and is very entertaining and I remember loving it when it came out but I don’t think it nearly cuts below the surface in the same way that Tantrums does on the same level of intimacy and reality.I think that was done to paint a particular portrait and Tantrums was really was a year and a half of Elton’s and my life together.Sharon Osborne will openly admit that when she saw Tantrums she said that was one of the inspirations that she had when they did the Osborn’s on MTV.I thought well our life is crazier and more entertaining and look where that world has grown since then.

    It’s an astounding change in our cultural landscape.

  • Trailer Park: Danny Boyle Interview

    By Christopher Stipp

    The Archives, Right Here

    I’m awesome. I wrote a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.

    This had to be the most deceptively easy and rewarding interview I have done all year.

    When I had a chance to speak with Danny Boyle I was brimming with questions even prior to meeting him. I had seen his movie weeks prior to talking the man, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, when it was just a whisper on cinephile’s lips as the one to watch out for. There was no trailer, no marketing, no clear direction of how to bring this movie to the masses. The story’s tough and it’s hard to explain to someone looking for a jolly flick to catch on the weekend but this film rewards you tenfold if you just give in to where it leads you. Every moment where you have a talking head talking about this film’s chances for Oscar gold isn’t just baseless chit-chat but the movie is a bonafide contender against any of the mindless noise that are going to be propped up against it.

    Talking with Danny was a delight in that he was expressive, excited and simply open to discussing the nuts and bolts about why this film was a different process to make when you compare it SUNSHINE, 28 DAYS LATER or even TRAINSPOTTING. The latter of which holds a special place in my heart, almost literally, as it was the movie I took my bride to on our first date. True, this really bucked against every innate voice in my head that said it probably wasn’t the perfect choice but I was not expecting to meet the man who made it to give me the response he did when I divulged the eventual Cupid’s arrow that came out of that viewing.

    SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE is currently in theaters.

    DANNY BOYLE: Where are you from?

    CHRISTOPHER STIPP: I’m from here. I live in Scottsdale but I came from Chicago.

    Boyle: Are you? A bit warmer here isn’t it in the summer? But it’s hot in Chicago too I suspect but the winters are pretty brutal.

    CS: Yeah.

    Boyle: The winter is pretty brutal. I’ve been there in the winter.

    CS: Oh, but I miss that. I don’t like living here at all. I pine for colder days.

    Boyle: Why do you live here then?

    CS: Family. Wife. Kids. So, I’m here but planning for colder days someday soon.

    Boyle: I’ve just come from New York and it was one of those days in New York where the sun is blistering but the temperature is cold. I love those days.

    CS: I love those days as well.

    Boyle: You can just walk and walk and walk and feel good about yourself. Anyway”¦

    CS: But we digress. Off the bat, I’ve been reading a lot about this film even though there has been no promotion at all for this film as of yet. This is no hyperbole, it is one of the best movies I’ve seen this year.

    Boyle: Fantastic. Cool.

    CS: It seems like it’s in the vein of everything that you’ve done. I took my wife on our very first date I took her to see TRAINSPOTTING. I still have my movie stub from our first date.

    Boyle: It’s a weird one to take her on a date but”¦

    (Laughs)

    CS: It absolutely was looking back on it.

    Boyle: At least you won’t forget it.

    CS: No. This movie fits within that but I wouldn’t say it’s weird. In fact, I took the wife to see this one she agreed that it was a breath of fresh air of what’s out there. I read how when you initially got the germ for this film you read the initial treatment but you essentially said, “I’ll do it as a favor…I’ll read it and say it’s not my thing.” At what point did you read this and say, “I simply have to do this.”

    Boyle: 10 or 15 pages. I remember that feeling. I can’t remember exactly what scene it was but I remember it being about 10 or 15 pages and thinking, you can just feel it. You read some scripts which are better probably. I read a script the other day by David Benioff who is a brilliant writer and it’s a brilliant script and you just have it in your head but if it doesn’t vibrate or if you don’t think it’s anything special you can bring to it personally ““ I remember reading the first 10 pages of TRAINSPOTTING and having the same feeling. All three of us were reading the book because we hadn’t adapted it yet and just thought, “We are going to make this film. I don’t care what anybody says.” And you have to trust those instincts.

    It’s such a calculated business this business, because there is so much money involved, even at a very low level. A very calculated business on everybody’s behalf. So when you get a chance to be instinctive you’ve got to follow it. You mustn’t abandon that because you are not going to have that all the time. You are going to be making calculated decisions. But, you must keep enough organic decisions going as well. If you follow them and you’ll be OK. What that means is, I think the higher up the ladder you go into the money the more difficult it is to retain those instincts because there is just so much at stake financially. At the kind of level I work at now you can stick to certain decisions.

    For instance it’s clear when we got there you could not do the film in English and have 7 year olds. You just couldn’t do it. You had to translate it into Hindi. Now that is an instinctive reaction. You can just see that straight away. So you ring them up and have these terrible conversations about what they are going to think about that but you can follow your gut instincts. But if you make a film for one hundred million dollars, you gut instinct wouldn’t be important because what would be important is the hundred million dollars. Obviously. And do it in English. Find kids who could do it in English or you’d make them older so they could cope with English, the kids you are casting. And that’s the result you would see. You would never see the result that we did. So that is why It’s really important not to take too much money. You’ve just got to not take too much money. Sometimes you are tempted because people say, “Listen, we could do this, we could do that.”

    You gotta keep your focus on as many of those gut instincts as you can, you know?

    CS: Right. And on that point that it was almost a run and gun approach ““ you did it in three months, was it January, February, March?

    Boyle: No, November, December, January.

    CS: Sorry, right. But you had it ready by this September.

    Boyle: Well, August in fact. Yeah.

    CS: That’s a very tight, tight schedule.

    Boyle: We didn’t really get back from Mumbai until March with all the equipment for editing, so we did March ““ basically ““ finished by August. And that was deliberate because of the energy of the city.

    Instinctively you just thought “We’ve got to do this quickly” and I remember being in the editing room and the editor saying, “Oh, I think we should tell them we are not going to be ready for that day.” And I said, “No, we are going to be ready.”

    I was just hell bent ““ I did a sci-fi movie before that which took an eternal time to edit, too long, [it’s not] creative when it’s that long, you distort it when it becomes that long because you keep editing and you’re distorting and you arrive at where you should be but actually you keep going because there’s another 6 months left before the CG is finished so I knew there were advantages to just push it through, push it through.

    The city felt like that.

    What was wonderful about Fox Searchlight about picking it up and saying “Let’s release it before Christmas” is that you thought “Yeah, but it’s over that day” already because that city is just in fast forward. So get it out there as quick as you can. Just absolutely do it. And I can’t believe like Pathe and Europe are waiting until January. What’s the point of that? Do it now. Let’s just do it. Let’s get it out there and let people make up their own minds. They are all so nervous about things. They want to have a proper run up, they want to get their materials right and the web campaign, and blah blah blah. And Searchlight hadn’t had enough time really to get it out there because you can talk to a lot of people who still have not heard of it yet you feel like you’re doing massive publicity. But I much prefer it that way because it reflects the momentum in the way the film was made.

    CS: And speaking of momentum, the way your approached filmmaking within the city of Dharavi, one thing that genuinely struck me when I read about what it was like to shoot there was that when you asked to film in that location you were told that National Geographic had once been there and they said to them “Just please don’t say we’re poor” and they promptly did. A couple of times. And you were subsequently not allowed to film there. How did that affect you when you went in there, and you were in the middle of it, as you essentually had to say, “I’ve got to make my film.” Obviously gurella style isn’t what you wanted to do but how did you handle that?

    Boyle: I come from a very small place and not a poor background, I come from a very nice background, a working class background. So I understand that feeling of it’s kind of fierce dignity and shame and it’s all mixed up together. It’s a mixed up, weird feeling, about your background. So I thought, I’m not going to lie, you are poor, to the people looking at this it’s going to look poor but I knew the spirit of the film it would not be pitiful. That’s the way you balance it. Because you can’t lie. You aren’t going to say they are all millionaires in spirit. That’s a whitewash. But you show it like it is. There is terrible poverty and there is incredible cruelty that goes on but there is also a spirit that transcends it, so the journey of the film moves toward that and that is accurate.

    I don’t care if people say that’s sentimental. It’s accurate how I find Mumbai, which is resourceful how the people are. I think it’s absolutely exhilarating that this kid is typical of the place that this kid can get on that terrible glitzy, glamorous TV show which thinks it’s going to eat him up and spit him out and he can run it, he can hijack it. That’s the spirit of the thing. That’s what they want you to show. Not, oh so poor. Oh what a shame. And oh, what can we do about it? Let’s give him some money. They don’t really want that. They want to harbor a figurehead like that who goes and uses it for his own and then he hijacks the show for his own ends. He’s not interested in the money. He’s beyond them. Way beyond them. He’s actually on for a different reason. I love that spirit.

    CS: Which leads to the poster itself. It’s Who Wants to be a Millionaire with the answer being Destiny. What does that say about the movie? Was this really made as a love story between these two individuals who are trying to find”¦

    Boyle: It’s not really a full love story because she’s absent too much to be a classic. To be a classic love story she’s absent too much I’m afraid. Which is one of the reasons we cast it. She’s so extraordinary, memorable. And you need someone like that because she ain’t going to be there. So she has to be worth all this trouble and she’s got to be remember her in a way. So, it isn’t really a love story like that. It’s a life story. It’s ironic that life stories usually are fed from an 8 year old death bed, they are usually reminiscing from the death bed. Extraordinary tale of the life is told.

    And it’s told from an 18 year old who’s going to walk off at the end with 20 million rupees and he has set his life free by his memories and he’s still only 18. So it’s incredibly a radical idea in a way. The problem with memory films is they are old. And he’s got a lifetime of memories already and he’s only 18. It helps he wins the gold, it helps he wins the girl and it helps he walks off in the distance.

    CS: And that’s part of it too. It felt fluid. The whole process. The first time you see it you wonder if it’s going to go back and forth, back and forth, but it’s seamless.

    Boyle: It starts with the writing. Doesn’t feel like flashbacks. Very few people describe them as such because they don’t work like flashbacks. Everything feels like it’s now. Even though you know it’s not because he’s 7 and he’s the same guy and we’ve see him and he’s 18. He’s obviously different but it feels like now. It feels like it’s all happening now and you can visit – and you can go backwards and forward just for a line. You can go back 10 years just for a line and then come straight back again. There’s no whiplash. His mental strength going on that show and being able to access this terrible past and some of the things that has happened to him ““ to access that and use it is amazing. I love that kind of determination. You need to have that in the actor. And he does have that despite the rather charming exterior. The only thing he’s done before was kind of a goofy comic part in a TV show in Britain. He’s got that kind of determination. He was 17 when we flew him to Bombay and dropped him in it and sent him to work in all these terrible places to give him a taste of the city and he was shocked but also determined to get through it, you know?

    CS: It’s shocking to us as Westerners but to them it’s their life. It’s what they do and how they survive. When you went there…

    Boyle: And you would go there too if you were there. We are like that. We forget that because we surround ourselves with such comfort now and we’ve separated everything from us but basically if there’s no where to shit you are going to shit there because it’s just a human function and that’s it and you have to confront that in Mumbai because, boy the first time you see the people on the street”¦it’s just nature. And they make best use of it always. The city is built on recycling and has been since time immemorial. Not like the last 10 year fashion that we suddenly realize we are ruining the planet. Their whole lives are based on recycling. They throw stuff away in a way that is shocking. They eat something and just chuck it away. The reason they do it is because there are people who’s life is built on picking that up and recycling it. Everything is inter-connected. The most extraordinary thing. You don’t find any loose ends.

    Everything is built in to everything else and it’s inseparable. And you can’t discern it as a pattern ““ you can’t go “Oh, I see…” you get little glimpse of it but most of the time it’s way too complex to understand. You just have to go with it to understand and learn from it really. And you would fit in there if you were dumped in there with no return ticket, you would make your way and you would benefit from it as well. You would find yourself a better person in a way. I did. I certainly learned from it and you do learn from it. The hippies were right. I’m not a big hippie fan but you do learn about yourself. It takes you back to something very pure about humanity as to how we are all connected. Basically what we do in the West is separate ourselves from other areas. We pretend it’s a free movement society but actually we secure our place. Clear away people from the bottom of our buildings.

    CS: Talking about actually making the film, you had a smaller crew than you’ve had, you were physically in a tighter spot than you’re used to. What kind of opportunities did that create for you? I would say challenges but you are obviously thinking, “How can I do this? We will do this.” What kind of opportunities sprung up for you?

    Boyle: It’s just exhilarating to kind of abandon ““ I mean we had a very good narrative which gives you the confidence to abandon objectivity ““ so you abandon objectivity and you make it subjectively as possible. And by that I mean, sometimes you’d shoot and have no idea if you got the scene in the way conventionally as a director you are controlling the scene until you think, I’ve got it enough sufficiently. There you cannot have that coldness when you look at something with a steely eye and go I’ve got that or no I haven’t got it, let’s go again. Often you can’t go again. It’s just impossible to go again so you go with what you’ve got and find out ““ I’ve sensed it enough that I thought ““ it’s when you get to the editing you realize that you have much more than you ever thought you’d get. Much more, you know?

    CS: What came through in the editing?

    Boyle: The sense of the city. That’s what we abandoned everything to try and get. The sense of the city, the energy, the exhilaration of the city living there, the cruelty, the randomness of it, and that came through really, really strongly immediately and I kept that. Didn’t try to clean up the sound too much because again ““ we would try experiments to clean it up and it seemed fake. I’d come in the morning and look at it and think it doesn’t feel like the city. You know when you clean up the sound so that somebody’s voice sings clearly and then you add a bit of background noise, the miasma of sound there is just unbelievable and you can hear it when it’s convincing, so you go with that. And you go with people who know the city and know how to deliver the city to you. Whether that’s the first assistant director, the casting director became the co-director, or whether it’s the composer

    CS: Rahman.

    Boyle: What’s happening in India is this huge fusion of different influences at the moment. And a lot of that comes from America ““ rap, hip-hop is just pouring in, R&B. The Euro disco house from London and European cities ““ they love that ““ connects with the dancing ““ pushes the dancing much further in their music videos. He just uses that. You say use that and that’s the city. That’s the heart of the sound of the city blazing away at you. Very tinny. Very loud. Hysterical strings spill in. A sitar buried in there somewhere. I never thought I’d make a film with a sitar in it ““ used to make me grate ““ but you get there and you know it’s just got to be heard.

    CS: I know we have to wrap up but one of the final questions I have for you ““ I keep coming back at how you made this film so swiftly, you edited it swiftly, so what has it told you about the movie making process? You learned ““ you obviously went to Mumbai and had this experience there ““ went to editing and did it fast ““ how have you reflected on SLUMDOG as to how you want to make movies? Has it changed it?

    Boyle: Definitely. It makes you much more able to deal with extremes really, which is obvious, but it’s true. The only way you can survive there is you accept the extremes. You can’t do anything about them. You have to learn to accept them and see them side-by-side and that’s what it’s like making a film sometimes. What happened on this film, 10 weeks ago, is that we lost the North American distribution because Warner Brothers closed down Warner Independent but that normally would make you fly into a rage, an impotent, vengeful rage because it’s a big a blow as you can get. It’s like losing your actor to illness halfway through the film. There’s just about nothing worse than you can think of. And I remember not thinking like I would have. You just learn being in India you go, “OK, maybe that’s for the best actually.” And extraordinarily it was. And you get a different distributor, Fox Searchlight is actually a better distributor for the film than Warner Brothers because they are skilled at this sort of difficult sell and they not only wanted that, they wanted to put out the film immediately which was extraordinary because we weren’t ready with all the materials like a poster, the campaign, the trailer and all those marketing things, the soundtrack. None of them were ready to sell. You need four months to get all those things in place. But they said they wanted to release it now because it was the right time and you think, “Yeah. It’s already out of date because that city changes so much.”

    So it’s wonderful to get it out that quickly so I think you make benefit from stuff really without really knowing it. It’s like abandoning yourself to it really rather than trying to get a rigid kind of control of it, you know? Anything, that the thing I love about filmmaking. You probably can’t do it on a lot of different films and a lot of places, but certainly for that place I learned a lot about that. I learned to not have that kind of control we have here.

  • Trailer Park: Nacho Vigalondo

    By Christopher Stipp

    The Archives, Right Here

    I’m awesome. I wrote a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.

    There is no question that Nacho Vigalondo is doing the kind of filmmaking that many of his peers wish they could do.

    His film TIME CRIMES, which took home the gold at last year’s Fantastic Fest as “Best Feature,” is a mix of horror, comedy and drama. The blend sounds like a haphazard cohesion of elements but it works so well that you can’t believe the film is able to clock in at a swift 88 minutes. And why not? Nacho was nominated for an Oscar for the directorial work he did on the short 7:35 IN THE MORNING and he seems effortlessly able to know where to cut, trim and tighten; a Godsend in this age of bloated run times and critics who constantly crow that some directors could have cut 15 minutes here, 20 minutes there. Nacho has his eye comfortably on the whole picture and knows what seems like overkill. Never mind the fact that the subject matter in TIME CRIMES, a man travels back in time, accidentally, and sets into motion a series of events that seem to be pulled from the episodes of the Twilight Zone, is all but engrossing. The film is wide sweeping, as I mentioned, as it goes from genuine thrill to comedic moment without ever seeming false.

    This was an interview I did not want to pass up and I am glad to have been able to talk to Nacho after seeing the film.

    CHRISTOPHER STIPP: Nacho. How are you doing?

    NACHO VIGALONDO: Great.

    CS: I’ve just seen the film last night and loved it.

    VIGALONDO: Oh, thank you. Great.

    CS: I’m blown away that it is one of those films you don’t see a lot nowadays.

    VIGALONDO: Yeah. When I found this opportunity of making my first feature film, I felt the need to make the very first feature film in terms of making this wild crazy films that maybe you can only make once in your life so I decided to make this kind of crazy film ““ first time.

    CS: Of all the ideas that you’ve had, and I’ve read in other interviews that you’ve had oodles of ideas as you prepared to jump into feature films, why was this story the one to jump out at you?

    VIGALONDO: I like science fiction and I love the complexity of these stories and at the same time I love how funny they are and I wanted to take that kind of stuff into the movies. Sometimes when science fiction goes into movies you feel that there’s a fear to challenge the audience to some level and I really wanted to make a story that really challenges the audience in the same way this kind of story, this kind of novelist challenges the reader.

    CS: And you make a very good point. Karra Elejalde, you mentioned he’s a well known comedian in Spain.

    VIGALONDO: Yes, he’s a well known comedian and at the same time he’s an actor who has made a whole lot of characters. I like that quality that one minute he can be a clown and two frames later he’s a psycho killer. I like the quality of his work. He can be an average man and at the same time he’s an extraterrestrial. I love when an actor can transform himself but without you noticing. Close to magic.

    CS: The film speaks to the idea of what would happen if this happened to normal people. It’s that normalcy.

    VIGALONDO: Yes. I like to work with those roles instead of trying to work with specific heroes or specific villains. Love to work with this outrageous stuff.

    CS: I was actually reading up on some of my own favorite short stories ““ the thriller, Richard Mattheson’s Button came to mind, the idea of that short story. These little snapshots. TWILIGHT ZONE as a film did very, very well. When you were making this, this is obviously your first feature length film, did you have any reservations that you wanted to hit 88 minutes? Or did you say to yourself as you were writing it, “Do I have 88 minutes of material here?”

    VIGALONDO: Something very personal, I love short feature films. I love when a feature film instead of going two hours fits into the 80 minutes. I love that kind of energy. That’s what I love about that mini franchise. Those films are pretty short. I wanted to make a short story but at the same time I wanted to make a story that felt not like a short story but like a feature film. We had characters, we had locations, we had a few situations, it was pretty hard to make a movie contain in time but at the same time felt like a real feature. Did I answer the question?

    CS: Yes, you did. Absolutely. You’ve also mentioned that horror can be high art while it can also make money. What do you think about the idea of marrying both high art and money when it comes to making a film like this? A feature film like this is very commercial but it can bridge the gap. People can either turn their nose up if something makes them think too hard. Our horror here in America is largely been brain dead, blondes going out and slipping”¦..

    VIGALONDO: I understand. My first concern as a filmmaker is ““ I don’t believe in the frontier between the arts and the commercial stuff. My favorite directors of all time destroyed that frontier which is the art and the funny thing. Those are the directors I really like. For example now, if you check the films of Alfred Hitchcock ““ today we don’t separate both dimensions of the same picture. For us Hitchcock is art and at the same time is general. The same with Don Siegel or early works of William Friedkin or in the modern days, Valentino was the one that destroyed that too, he makes art films but pretends to reach a large audience. From my point of view all the time I wanted to make an interesting and clever film but I never forget that the most important thing is to make a funny thing. I hope to manage to do this my whole career.

    CS: You made the film completely without having a distributor in Spain. How did this whole process come from making it without a distributor in Spain whereas now you have a guy here in Arizona who has seen your film…

    (Laughs)

    VIGALONDO: Laughs. Yes, it’s like jumping off a plane. Once you jump off the plane you have to discover if you have a parachute. That is what happened with the film. We put the money in the film and from that point it was worry. Are we going to find a distributor? And at last, we found it. It took a years. 2007 was the worst year of my life because nobody wanted to get involved with the film but finally we went to Austin and went to the Fantastic Fest at the Alamo Drafthouse and we won, we sold the rights so things went much better from this point. I spent a horrible time trying to find a distributor.

    CS: How did you get through that? How did you get through the period where you made the film, you did something you really wanted to do and then once you had it you said, “Now I have a finished film. How am I going to share this with everyone else?” What is that process like?

    VIGALONDO: Oh, it is something left up to the production company. I just made the film and crossed my fingers and I joined my producer at film festivals. The worst part was trying to sell the film. It wasn’t complete. As you can imagine Time Crimes is a movie that if you put the music out and no special effects it is a really naked film. I had to sell the film with that naked copy. Without the music, without the sound and it was really horrible. It is not easy for me to remember those times.

    CS: And if I can speak a little bit about, you mentioned different directors who are primarily American, Hitchcock, Tarantino, and I’ve seen interviews where you dropped the names of very famous Italian directors. What is it that you think about film in general that has such international crossover appeal? I mean you look at books, books can be hit or miss because they don’t often translate well but movies seem to transcend that.

    VIGALONDO: For me, when I was a teenager, the situation I live in now was impossible. If we wanted to make a film like this in Spain, you are lucky if one American festival shows your film in one country. But now all of the reels are falling down and in that case with our film we first have this little hype in United States, Italy and then we went to Spain. It’s a Spanish film in Spanish language so that’s our situation. Now that barriers are broken and thanks to internet it’s easier to know films from foreign countries. We, the filmmakers we are more free than in the past. We have more opportunities to work with different languages, different cultures and not so fixed in one place. Stephen Soderberg shows us that you don’t need to be so fixed in one place or one film. You can jump from one kind of feature to another ““ even different countries.

    CS: I guess if I had one more question for you, Nacho, it would be what is it about Spain, Spanish language pockets around the world and even Mexican directors who gravitate so well to the horror genre, to ghost stories and the like?

    VIGALONDO: We are pretty much the same age and we are a bunch of filmmakers who can make this genre of films. It’s like a response to the lack of this stuff in our country. It is so complicated to make. What I like about this is we make such different films. If you check films like The Orphanage, TimeCrimes, films like this, you can say we are pretty different from each other so we are trying to make different films but each one in a different way.

  • Trailer Park: SPECIAL Giveaway

    By Christopher Stipp

    The Archives, Right Here

    I’m awesome. I wrote a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.

    I’ve talked about the film, I’ve interviewed the guys who made it and I’ve been stumping for you clowns to go out and see it.

    SPECIAL is the second film in Magnet’s “Six Shooter Film Series,” a series of six films highlighting the vanguard of genre cinema from around the globe. Opening the series is Swedish film LET THE RIGHT ONE IN with four other films to follow over the coming months: Nacho Vigalondo’s TIMECRIMES (Spain), Ollie Blackburn’s DONKEY PUNCH (UK), EDEN LOG (France) and BIG MAN JAPAN (Japan).

    Now you can own a piece of this little indie that will not go away. I am giving away one (1) poster of the film which will be signed by the film’s directorial/writing team of Hal Haberman, Jeremy Passmore and star Michael Rappaport. Shoot me an e-mail and I’ll pick the one person who I think should get this thing. It’s awesome. So is the movie.

    Shoot me your entry to Christopher_Stipp@Yahoo.com. Thanks for playing…

  • TV Or Not TV: 12/15 – 12/21

    tvornottv-header.png

    Welcome back to TV or Not TV where we realize that all good things must come to an end.

    If you were thinking I’m meaning this column, that’s not what I’m talking about (or if you were hoping I was talking about this column I’m sorry to disappoint). What I’m meaning is the regular TV programming that is coming to a close during the December/January lull. This week there are plenty examples of that. In the realm of cable Dexter has come to a close, and fans are eagerly awaiting the return of . Chuck, Heroes and the getting re-tooled again Knight Rider also won’t be back until next year. Fringe and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles have left the FOX airwaves until January as well.  Even CBS leaves a hole with the conclusion of the fall season’s Survivor.

    I don’t know about you but this lull is a welcome one for me because it means that there just isn’t that much TV to obsess about missing (sadly, yes, this is something I do). There is so much going on with the holidays and the new year that this break fits perfects. We’re shopping (sort of), travelling (maybe) and celebrating (mostly) so we aren’t sitting down to watch TV. This also gives the television industry time to let their shows catch up on their production schedules to give us a new year filled with new shows. So what is there to look forward to?

    I can’t speak for everyone but I’m most excited about the final half of the final season of Battlestar Galactica. With the post-apocalyptic planet that the rag tag fugitive fleet seemed to find I’m overly-anxious to see where the show is going for the remaining 12 episodes. I’m also pleased to find out that the final episode of the series will be airing on my birthday, so thanks for a nice birthday gift Ron Moore.

    I don’t know how FOX is going to be able to contain themselves in January with the returns of both 24 (which didn’t even have a 2007 season) and American Idol. This mix will be further expanded by the February’s premiere of the much anticipated and rumor filled Joss Whedon show Dollhouse, which is getting paired up on Friday nights with Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. They’re even brining in their new crime drama Lie to Me. Clearly FOX has a lot going for them.

    I’m sure that our good friends at ABC are coming out with another edition of their own ratings powerhouse Dancing with the Stars, but since I’ve never seen it I’m not even motivated to do research (since I’m sure by now they’ve already announced who will be on it). As far as I’m concerned there is only one show that I’m waiting for to come on ABC and that is our old friend LOST. This season will be the next to last season so I’m sure we are going to get even more answers than questions and last season proved that with a known ending in sight the LOST team has really come in to their own.

    NBC already has pretty much all that I think that they are going to have to offer to me. When Knight Rider returns the show will once again be completely reworked to try to get a ratings boost. I already wasn’t watching so now great loss there. What I hope they will be having is the seventh season of The Biggest Loser. There is something amazing about watching people lose weight (at least the way that this show does it) and the Tuesday night finale this week promises a preview of next season. I only hope that they got more likeable contestants on the show next season as this season was dominated by a lot of individuals that I just didn’t care for. I also have to warn you, if you haven’t watched The Biggest Loser and you start with season seven in the new year try not to watch when you have snacks in the house. Something about the show makes me want to start munching.

    CBS will be bringing back last summers Flashpoint as well as the new show Harper’s Island. Harper’s Island is a murder-mystery / drama which has a 13 episode run where each week a person from a group of family and friends gets murdered.

    That’s enough about what is to come in our not-so-distant future. Let’s focus now on what is to come in our immediate future with this week’s items.

    MONDAY

    ABC – 8:00 PM: I’d never heard of I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown! prior to writing this, but this 2003 special was actually scripted using the weekly Peanuts comics strip for source material. OK, I’m in.

    FOX – 8:00 PM: The winter finale of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles happens tonight with a revisit of the three dots that are plaguing Sarah‘s mind. Who might have the answer? A BLOGGER! I thought blogs were only good for movie reviews and random uselessness. Who knew?

    NBC – 9:00 PM: If you’ve been watching this season of Heroes and you’ve been wondering where that great show from season 1 was… well you’re still going to feel that way tonight. You are, however, going to get the finale to the Villians chapter of this season.

    CBS – 9:00 PM: I’m a sucker for guest stars and tonight Emilio Estevez guest stars on tonight’s Two and a Half Men with real-life brother Charlie Sheen.

    TUESDAY

    NBC – 8:00 PM: The weight is over (and off) as three remaining contestants vie for $250,00 and the title of The Biggest Loser. I’m rooting for Michelle since the other players are just deplorable human beings in my opinion. Yeah, I said it.

    ABC – 8:00 PM: Did you forget to set your DVR to record A Charlie Brown Christmas last week? Good news, here’s your second chance.

    HBO – 8:00 PM: I’m not sure which is easier to believe in I Am Legend, that Will Smith is a scientist or that he’s seemingly the last man on Earth and able to fight of hordes of human/monster things every night. Either way, the book was better.

    WEDNESDAY

    NBC – 8:00 PM: How can you beat the great combination of a Christmas special and Muppets? The answer is you can’t! Watch A Muppet Christmas: Letters to Santa for some felt covered and foam formed fun.

    TNT – 8:00 PM: Dr. Phil and wife Robin return to host the Christmas in Washington concert. The bigger treat is Patrick Stewart playing Scrooge in A Christmas Carol following at 9:00 PM.

    ABC – 8:00 PM: I know I keep forcing Pushing Daisies down your throats but this week Orlando Jones plays the leader of a trio of Norwegian investigators. He had me at “Make 7… up yours!”

    THURSDAY

    CBS – 8:00 PM: Million Dollar Password fills the slot this week that Survivor has vacated until next year. Two words on why to watch? William Shatner.

    AMC – 8:00 PM:If you want to see paradise, simply look around and view it (at 8 with the airing of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory).

    FOOD – 8:00 PM: Not sure what to do for your casual entertaining this holiday season? The Food Network stars share some tips in their Holiday Extravaganza. Whatever Paula Dean makes I assure you it will have way too much cream and butter.

    FRIDAY

    NBC – 8:00 PM: If you missed the Tuesday premiere of reality date show retread Momma’s Boys than you can catch a re-airing tonight. It sounds like such a train wreck of a concept it just might be entertaining.

    COMEDY – 8:00 PM: My love of Muppets doesn’t necessarily spread to puppets, however you may find ventriloquist Jeff Dunham’s Very Special Christmas Special entertaining.

    SATURDAY

    FX – 8:00 PM: Nothing says Holiday Spirit like defending your home from robbers when you’ve been left behind by your family, like in Home Alone. Go ahead and watch… and keep the change, you filthy animal.

    TLC – 8:00 PM: If you enjoyed (or missed) last week’s Crazy Christmas Lights you can watch it again tonight, followed by the appropriately titled More Crazy Christmas Lights.

    CBS – 8:00 PM: I’ve already mentioned Elf in two other columns, and I’m going to mention it here to. The film, to me, is just brilliant. Where else can you hear, “You stink. You smell like beef and cheese. You don’t smell like Santa.”

    SUNDAY

    FOX – 8:00 PM: Had too much holiday spirit? Tune in to The Simpsons for tonight’s repeate of the Treehouse of Terror XIX.

    FOOD – 8:00 PM: I don’t know why I’m such a sucker for these Food Network Challenges but I am. Tonight four cake makers face off to to create cakes depicting some of Pixar‘s most lovable characters.

    E! – 8:00 PM: In an obvious attempt to get the tween audience tonight the E! True Hollywood Story takes a look at the new Young Hollywood including Miley Cyrus, The Jonas Brothers, and Zac Efron. Naturally I’ll be no where near this one.

    – Will Wilkins wants to work in a shiney mail room.

  • Trailer Park: Chin Han from THE DARK KNIGHT

    By Christopher Stipp

    The Archives, Right Here

    I’m awesome. I wrote a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.

    What was so important that Batman had to be dragged away from Gotham?

    I love to do interviews like this. Forget about the talks with the leads, the men and women who have more invested in keeping you entertained with their zany stories from the set than they do the actual nuts and bolts of making the film. I don’t fault those who are able to talk to these individuals and are granted their five minutes but when you have to serve an audience that is interested in these celebrities the last thing that will come out of their mouths will be talking about the kinds of things that make people like Chin Han completely fascinating to me.

    Operating on the fringes of what was a cinematic, fiscal juggernaut this summer THE DARK KNIGHT didn’t just break box office records it redefined the notion of what it means to be successful. Just name the moment when this film jumped from jazzy summer actioneer to tent pole classic. What I can tell you, from my standpoint, looking back on it now, was when Batman was lured away from Gotham. Where and when else has any of our heroes left the safe confines of their own turf, to take the fight somewhere else. This moment defined Bruce Wayne’s own insanity. Forget about the parallel line between Heath Ledger’s Joker and Christan Bale’s Batman you have everything you need to know about how far Bruce Wayne is steeped into his own self-righteousness in those moments.

    Chin Han knows about Batman. When he and I spoke months ago it was just after the world premiere and still when everyone was in the dark about what was behind all the hype. People were still wondering whether it was worth it. It was. Every moment. It’s amusing now, looking back on the level of secrecy surrounding every plot point and the highlight of this interview has to be Han’s reaction to seeing Bale in all his rubberized goodness…

    THE DARK KNIGHT is now available on DVD and Blu-Ray.


    CHRISTOPHER STIPP: I looked over your resume and, after talking to a few people, am I to believe that this is only your third feature length film?

    CHIN HAN: Yes, this is my one, two three ““ yes, this is my third feature length film.

    CS: How did you land this part?

    HAN: I landed it. Let me qualify that first question. It was my third feature film but I’ve worked in television before that and I was doing a lot of classical theatre as well ““ theatre basically. How did I land it? I think I did it old school basically. I auditioned for John Papsidera and I didn’t hear from them for a few weeks and then I heard from them and they wanted to see more of my work and I didn’t hear from them for another couple weeks and then other people wanted to see more of my work and then they called me back in again. So, all together it took about 6 weeks. It was kind of grueling.

    CS: I’m curious, just from the standpoint that you walked into this knowing that it was going to be a big movie. How is it being at the center of this swirl that this whole movie has taken on a life of it’s own and the media and marketing campaigns and what have you ““ what’s it like to be that fly on the wall?

    HAN: I’m still taking it in actually. We were at the premier two nights ago ““ I had to pinch myself to just make sure I was there on the red carpet with Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Christian, Maggie and Morgan. But I’m still taking it in. Obviously, it’s very surreal and very humbling at the same time but I think I’ll get a better sense to what this means to me in a couple weeks.

    (Laughs)

    CS: And I’ve heard that Christopher Nolan’s IMAX material…I heard it’s amazing that the way he shot it is absolutely spectacular on IMAX.

    HAN: Yes. You’ll get vertigo watching it. It’s very stunning. And on top of that I think there are new vistas in this movie. I think some of the scenes were shot in Hong Kong as well so you get to see some very different sights and sounds basically in this film, which are stunning. He’s done a magnificent job on this film.

    CS: Did you shoot your scenes in Hong Kong or were you part of the Chicago shooting as well?

    HAN: I was part of the Chicago shooting as well. I shot in Chicago. I shot in London, for the most part of the movie.

    CS: The character you play, without giving anything away, how does Lau fit into the film?

    HAN: He’s an Asian business mogul who has now joined the ranks of these shadowy figures that have appeared in Gotham because of the demise of Carmine Falcone. I think that’s as much as I can tell you. I think you will have fun with this character because I did and he’s one of those characters that are quite hard to read.

    CS: Before any of this happened, did you go into this with an “I don’t care what my role is, I want into this”?

    HAN: Absolutely. I would do anything with Chris Nolan. I love his previous films. I love Memento, The Prestige, and I loved Insomnia as well and so I was very thrilled when they were interested in seeing me or reading me but when I got the type and they don’t give you the full script obviously on a movie this top secret, I was looking it over the sides and said there is something special here because there is just so much to his writing. It’s interesting to play those types of characters so that was the icing on the cake. But I would have done it, sight unseen.

    CS: How was that just getting part of the script? This whole idea of secrecy – I know there are a few directors out there, J.J. Abrams is notorious for secrecy, were you just given a few pages, were you like, “Come on, is this really necessary?”

    HAN: Even when I was looking at the sides for Lau you really had no idea how big the part is, because you have these few pages and obviously these few pages would let them know if you could carry the role but how do I feel about it? I think it makes the job of preparing for the audition challenging as well because you don’t know what to expect next. And when I got the full script I read it through and just delighted to have this kind of a role in a movie.

    CS: Now moving forward to where you’ve been as an actor, how was it working over in Singapore and thinking, “I want to make the jump to American films and American media”? What lead up to that moment where you said, “I’m going to give it a go”?

    HAN: I was doing television and I wanted to direct more so I wanted to take a break from acting and direct more and then this film came along, which is Blindness quite some time ago and I had fun on that but it wasn’t enough to warrant my taking a break from directing or producing. So I did a couple other projects and then I did 3 Needles with Thom Fitzgerald and that film was shot in 3 different countries that really whetted my passion for acting and that was a few years ago. So it just came at the perfect time. I was thinking of making the move to Los Angeles at that time so it came at the most perfect time really. It was not an overnight process. It took 8 years I think.

    CS: And if you have success in this it will be overnight success. Where I’ve looked at your 20 year career and you’ve been doing this for lots of years.

    HAN: Yes.

    CS: I’m also looking at the way some films overseas play. A lot of times when American films get released here they will do OK but in the international market it does very well. You’ve come from a market in Singapore where there is a different sensibility when it comes to movies and theater and what have you ““ is it a different sort of theatrical language if I can use that coming to working within American boundaries? Are there basic differences between Asian films and American films?

    HAN: I think that there are there are some differences ““ some differences in story telling techniques ““ the way Asians and Americans express themselves so that effects the way our scripts are written as well and how our actors communicate their emotions to the audience too. There are some differences ““ yes.

    CS: Where did you go for 7 years since your 1998 debut? There is a big hole for 7 years. What happened?

    (Laughs)

    HAN: That’s when I was producing and directing. I had produced the Asian premiere of The Blue Room which was the play that got a lot of attention on the West End of Broadway because Nicole Kidman did that play. But we did it with a Singapore cast and I was producing a lot of plays which subsequently moved me to musical theatre and I was one of the producers of the musical adaptation of Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet. And had wonderful success in Singapore and Taiwan as well. So, those years were spent being on the other side of production.

    CS: Why did you go back? It seems like you have a lot of success doing that.

    HAN: Why did I go back to acting?

    CS: Yes.

    HAN: I don’t know. After working with Thom Fitsgerald and shooting in Taiwn for the most part with Lucy Liu, Sandra Oh, I just realized that my passion really was in acting because of the scope of films. Not just the skill of production, which is very exciting but it’s the reach of film. And as an actor, as a person who creates, you want whatever you create to reach an audience.

    CS: Now going back to your Dark Knight experience and being directed by Christopher Nolan. I won’t ask what it’s like to work with him because I think I know the answer to that, but I’m curious to know behind your eyes when he was directing things on the set, what did you take away from the way he manages the film set?

    HAN: I think Chris Nolan is the picture of grace under pressure. Watching him direct on set you would never know he was directing a $180 million movie. I never heard him raise his voice. He’s always very collected and he’s always really precise in his direction and instruction. So that’s one thing I learned that you can ““ you don’t have to be a jerk that you sometimes find in the theater ““ the directors who have very unique visions but at the same time behave in a way that might not be constructive for actors and production and the thing I took away from it is that you can be talented and have that vision and at the same time be the perfect gentleman. I think Chris Nolan was that.

    CS: That’s insightful. I think a lot of directors get a little taste of their own hype and you hear stories of some that like to yell and make actors go through 40-50 takes in order to do that.

    HAN: You probably know who those directors are as well.

    (Laughs)

    HAN: Yes, Chris definitely isn’t one of them.

    CS: Growing up, were you familiar with Batman? Is that the international appeal for a movie like this that it will do well in other markets because everyone knows who Batman is?

    HAN: Batman has a 70 year history if I’m not mistaken. I remember reading the comics when I was younger and I remember when the first Batman movie came out so I do remember the time ““ there are a lot of good comic book movies and some bad ones ““ that was also the time of Superman, Superman II, Batman and yes, I was very familiar with the movies and a big fan of the series. When I heard that the sequel to Batman Begins was going to be called The Dark Knight that secretly gave me goose bumps because that movie didn’t even have the name Batman in it and you will see why when you see the movie tonight and you will see why it’s called The Dark Knight, it resonates on so many levels that way.

    CS: And even on that level, the giddy schoolboy, did you have a chance to see Bale dressed up as Batman and was it neat on some level?

    HAN: Yes, it was. The first day on the set they flew me in from Los Angeles to Heathrow. I got off the plane, been traveling for 15 hours now and then I think one of the production assistants tells me Chris is ready to see me. I go to the set which is huge and the first thing in front of me, the first thing I see day one is Christian Bale in the Batman outfit. That was pretty amazing.

    CS: I know a lot of actors I know would say “It’s work”, “It’s a job” but that just has to be a thrill on some level.

    HAN: No. On every level.

    (Laughs)

    HAN: I’m not going to pretend to be too cool for school here”¦

    (Laughs)

    HAN: I really did get a big kick out of seeing that and working with Bale as well.

    CS: How was he? The guy is not out there a whole lot in public ““ kind of introspective ““ how was it being as an actor being on the set with him?

    HAN: Two aspects of the business ““ one is the job at hand and the job of the actor and the other aspect in this business is you are doing press conferences or doing interviews, like this, and I think with Bale, as reserved as he may be, I found working with him to be quite wonderful because I think he’s very generous as an actor ““ he gives us a lot to work with and I really enjoy working with him.

    CS: And now I see you have gone from one small film to another small film, with 2012..

    HAN: Yeah, a very small film…

    (Laughs)

    CS: Not a lot of people are going to be able to see it so good luck to you on that one ““ you are shooting in August for 2012? Does this mean a bigger part for you?

    HAN: It’s a very interesting movie and I think that I would describe it as an ensemble cast and I am more than happy with my part in it. It’s hard to ask an actor that question because it’s all objectivity with respect to the importance ““ my part, yes, it’s very, very important”¦.

    (Laughs)

    But I will reserve judgment on that and say I am happy to work with this group of actors. Moving from one excellent group of actors to another. Another pretty impressive budget. I mean, John Cusak, Woody Harrelson has been added to the cast ““ a lot of people whose work I love. So, I’m very excited about it.

    CS: I’m trying to get a handle on it ““ is it a bunch of eco-warriors to prevent disaster?

    HAN: It’s about the end of the world basically.

    CS: Oh, one of those…

    HAN: It’s about the end of the world as we know it. 2012 in the Mayan calendar represents the end of the world and basically this movie is about the apocalypse. So obviously I go from one quiet movie to another one.

    (Laughs)

    CS: Well sir, I don’t want to take up any more of your time but I have one more question for you. You’ve done a lot of theater, a lot of classical training which I respect, these movies aren’t going to win any independent spirit awards ““ when you look at what jobs come on the horizon are you all for throwing yourself at whatever comes your way or do you have a plan, a trajectory of where you want to be in five years?

    HAN: No, I don’t have a plan. Different kinds of movies satisfy different appetites in me. I think The Dark Knight is a very unique movie ““ much more than a comic book movie so in terms of that I think I approached The Dark Knight as I would a drama really ““ like I did 3 Needles. Now Blindness which I did was a small movie, is more film noir and I always enjoyed that type of film. In 2012, obviously, we know the movie is going to be balls-out excitement and action so that fulfills another perhaps boyhood fantasy of wanting to be in a movie like that. So they all satisfy me in different ways and I don’t have a plan so to speak, as an actor.

  • Toy Box: Holiday Gifts For The Collector!

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    Are you trying to find just the right goodie for your favorite pop culture fanatic, but can’t quite seem to find the perfect item? Then let’s see if I can help with a brief rundown of some of the best items currently available, in lots of price ranges.

    Let’s start with Indiana Jones. Here’s a license that languished for years, with nary a figure or bust to buy. That all changed this last year, and now you have more choices than most fans know what to do with. Let’s start with the best – and most expensive. Sideshow Collectibles recently started shipping their Indiana Jones Premium Format Figure, and fans are going nuts over it. Mine won’t be here til Thursday, but from the photos I’ve seen, it’s THE Indy to own. Unfortunately, at $280, it’s not cheap.

    Sideshow also produced perhaps the nicest sixth scale figure. Much more reasonable at about $90, and a bit cheaper at some online retailers, this is the gift for collectors that like to pose their figures.

    If posing isn’t their thing, then check out the Kotobukiya Indy and his dad, both in hard plastic. The Professor Jones Sr. is terrific, but the Indy isn’t quite as good of a head sculpt as the Sideshow products. These run about $85 each, at retailers like Alter Ego Comics.

    For those a bit more budget conscious, there’s a great option at many Blockbusters right now. The Indiana Jones DVD case, exclusive to their store, is still available at many of them but now on clearance as cheap as $20! This is a great item, and was overlooked by many collectors.

    Finally, if the person you’re buying for likes the unusual, check out the Mighty Muggs from Hasbro. This line has been discontinued, and the last two just started shipping from Entertainment Earth, where they are an exclusive. These exclusives are $34 for the pair, but the singles of the regular releases can be had for $10 each or less. And since this is the end of the line and the’ve produced less than 10, it should be easy for your collecting friend to finish off the series.

    Now let’s talk Star Wars, a license every geek loves. On the top end, Sideshow also produces some great sixth scale and premium format figures. Their Clone Wars General Obi-Wan Kenobiis one of the nicest they’ve ever produced, but you’ll need to look to retailers like Dark Shadow Collectibles, where they have the regular versionk for $81 and the SS exclusive for $125.

    Both Medicom and Kotobukiya also make some excellent sixth scale figures and statues, respectfully. Medicom’s troopers have been terrific, and Kotobukiya makes excellent statues of masked characters like Commander Bly. You can get the Kotobukiya statues at Things From Another World, where they are having a 50% off sale, making them fairly reasonable at around $40 – $50. The Medicom’s will cost you more, often $125 – $150, depending on the retailer. You can also try searching ebay for them.

    If your collector is more into the 3 3/4″ figures, check out the newly released and updated Millennium Falcon. This guy can be had for $15 – $150 at mass market retailers.

    At the low end, I’ll mention them again – Mighty Muggs. Hasbro is making them for the Star Wars license as well, and they have been very popular. You can pick up singles at stores like Target or Toys R Us for $10, and you can check Entertainment Earth to see what characters have been released.

    Ah, but what about the Dark Knight? The movie will be on lots of Christmas lists, but what if you want to do something different? Starting out at the high end are the Hot Toys sixth scale action figures. With Batman, Joker, Bank Robber Joker, Two-face, the Tumbler and Batpod all out or planned, it’s an impressive line up. But these figures will set you back $150 each at least, and the vehicles are higher than that. Check out retailers like Urban Collector or Showpiece Collectibles.

    On the lower end, if your collector has been getting the Movie Maniacs figures from Mattel, they might like the Batpod. At just $20, you can pick this guy up at most Targets, where the vehicle is an exclusive.

    Speaking of Batpods, one of the dvd releases today is the Batpod ‘dvd case’. This is a small display set with the Batpod in front (about the right scale for a 4″ figure) and the dvd behind it in a Bat symbol case. I picked mine up at Target for $47, and you should be able to find one at most major retailers.

    For the Marvel fan, Iron Man was this year’s big release. I have to go back to Hot Toys on this one, as they are producing three amazing sixth scale figures based on the movie versions of the MARK I, MARK II, and MARK III outfits. Again, these guys will run you $150 a pop, but they are sweet. The other downside is that it doesn’t look like they’ll ship before Christmas. Hit retailers like Alter Ego Comics, Urban Collector or Corner Store Comics.

    If the price doesn’t scare you, but you really need something for the Iron Man junkie for the holidays, check out the Kotobukiya fine art statue. You can pick it up at Showpiece Collectibles for about $150.

    In the lower end, the current Iron Man action figure line from Hasbro is one of the better movie related lines of the year. You can find the figures at any mass market store, and they run around $10 – $12 each.

    If none of that trips your trigger, I suggest hitting one of these excellent online stores, and do a little window shopping:

    Alter Ego Comics – all kinds of general goodies
    Andrew’s Toyz – lots of Star Wars collectibles
    CornerStoreComics – tons of geek items, for every price range
    Dark Shadow Collectibles – specialize in high end items
    Past Generation Toys – an online resource for lots of action figures from films like Indiana Jones and Batman
    Things From Another World – tons of comic shop items, from trade paper backs to collectibles
    Time and Space Toys – plenty of cartoon and Christmas collectibles, with a bend towards sci-fi and horror as well
    Urban-Collector – a great resource for busts, statues and high end figures
    Showpiece Collectibles – another great shop for high end items, particularly comic book related licenses
    Clark Toys – lots of sports and McFarlane figures and collectibles
    Circle Red – much like FYE, with collectibles alongside manga, anime and music

    There will certainly be plenty of great gifts available at all these shops, and the geek on your list will be thrilled on Christmas morning! Happy Holidays!

  • Trailer Park: SPECIAL Interview

    By Christopher Stipp

    The Archives, Right Here

    I’m awesome. I wrote a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.

    I remember seeing the trailer for SPECIAL almost three years ago.

    As you can see here, I was enamored with the premise and the promise for what it could be. Like many films with trailers that are seemingly on the horizon their release dates sometimes get pushed back and back until their very existence is only proved by a 2:29 preview.

    Many times, films that don’t hit their suggested release, only to resurface in the time of year when you see films dropped like detritus on the street, are the kinds of turkeys that deserved a quiet and silent death. When I heard SPECIAL was actually getting its debut, premiering not only in theaters but on HDNet and video-on-demand I had to admit that I was more than interested. This film surely had a story to tell and when I was able to see the film I was taken aback by not only its fascinating execution but that you had this seemingly no budget movie that had the kind of special effects that are usually reserved for films larger in scope. And that’s what’s so endearing about this movie: the characters, the sets, the story is steeped in averageness but when the super powers plot line kicks in you are thrust into a world that meshes the supernatural within it.

    I had the chance to talk to the film’s directorial/writing duo of Hal Haberman and Jeremy Passmore along with star Michael Rapaport.

    CS:  What has happened in 3 years?

    HABERMAN/PASSMORE: What’s happened?  Not so much.  We got distribution coming out of Sundance and apparently there was some problems and it fell through and got lucky and Magnolia came along and now they are putting it out and in between I think we stopped hoping it would come out.  We just gave up hope on it.

    HABERMAN/PASSMORE: I didn’t.  But it was heartbreaking.  Tired of thinking of it all the time.  It was hard.

    HABERMAN/PASSMORE: That was the thing.  We came out of Sundance with distribution and then to lose it, it was heartbreaking and it took a long time for that to even happen.  It was like getting dumped by your girlfriend and you move on with your life and out of no where she comes back and says, “I changed my mind, I want to marry you.”

    HABERMAN/PASSMORE: And then she leaves you again.

    (Laughs)

    HABERMAN/PASSMORE: And then she comes back and says, “I won the lottery.  This time it’s real.”  It was weird.  It was just sort of odd to be doing it now but it’s also very nice because as Hal was just saying, Magnolia, the way they are putting it out, is much better than the way it would have originally.

    CS:  Yeah, it’s being released through pay-per-view and then on Mark Cuban’s HDNet movies.

    HABERMAN/PASSMORE:  I know I’ve had friends call me up and say, “I just watched your commercial which is on pay per view.” It’s kinda unbelievable.

    HABERMAN/PASSMORE: Secretly, there is this fear that it’s all going to fall apart.

    CS:  Michael, what brought you to the project in the first place?  These guys are really first time filmmakers, how did the script get into your hands?

    RAPAPORT: Oh, I got it from my manager who read it and liked it and he suggested I read it.  So I read it and then met with the guys.  It was pretty straight forward and pretty simple.  There wasn’t any interesting, fun story, it was just casting when it worked in a good way.

    CS:  What really spoke to you when you read the script?  What made this one stand out?

    RAPAPORT: I loved the way it was written.  I thought it was very elegantly written.  I love the character and the arch that he had and I was just able to relate to him in a bunch of different ways and I love that the story had humor in it.  I just liked the tone I imagined it would be.

    CS:  Hal and Jeremy, when you first came up with the idea of this, was it just one of you who came with it first and the other one helped develop it?  How did the process come about?

    HABERMAN/PASSMORE: We decided to make a low budget move together and bounced ideas around and when we came to this one, which was Jeremy’s, I just knew this is one we had to do.

    HABERMAN/PASSMORE: And at first I thought he was nuts because my first thought was like special effects.  I mean I’ve done stunts in my thesis film at film school and it was brutal.  I mean it was really hard to do it.  So my first thought was that it would be all stunts and special effects but then the second you have that thought you think, “Why not?”  I’ve never seen a low budget movie with a bunch of stunts and special effects.  Suddenly it was like, no body would be every crazy enough to make a super hero movie with no money, therefore, that is exactly what we should do.  That was the feeling of it.

    HABERMAN/PASSMORE: And we didn’t have to talk about it too long before we could imagine the character too and I think it was a character that we both related to and cared about on a lot of levels and that was the final nail in the coffin.

    HABERMAN/PASSMORE: It was just very universal.  This feeling of “Crap, my life isn’t what I thought it would be” and that desire for something more and like “When I was a little kid my mom said I could do anything” and I said, “What’s so special…and now I’m stuck in this job I don’t really like.” It’s just very universal.  Especially these days.  Those feelings are, often to take the edge off, a lot of people do turn to medication.  So it just felt universal and unique at the same time.

    CS:  Michael, when you were developing who this guy was, what did you want to make sure came through in the performance?

    RAPAPORT: I just wanted the character’s genuineness and his honesty and I wanted him ““ I knew the character was very emotional person, an emotional character, and I just wanted to just make every sort of beat he was going through make them clear and distinct and just very honest and relatable.  I wanted to make him relatable and human.  Which is really the thing we go for in every character but because of the way the script was written it was all kind of laid out there in my hands to just kind of bring it to life.

    CS:  Hal and Jeremy, the premise itself almost seems rather post modern considering the kind of year we’ve had this year with super heroes.

    (Laughs)

    HABERMAN/PASSMORE: Yeah. Are you talking about reality or just movies?

    CS:  I think the superhero genre in general this year.

    HABERMAN/PASSMORE: That’s what was funniest to us because the movie is really about a guy going crazy but within that we really tried to adhere structurally to the traditional super hero origin story which is not your normal three act structure.  It’s like the discovery of powers ends with I’m going to fight crime and it’s not really until halfway through the movie that the main villain is usually introduced.  So structurally we are in the drama genre but to us it was always about this guy we liked going crazy more than anything else.

    And we were always breaking with the genre too at some points.  Superheroes with dark undersides or superheroes with problems. There is something about the way we made this movie on such a low budget and in such a crazy direction that those movies feel like a whole different type of movie to me.  That don’t feel like anything that what we were doing because what we were doing ““ it just has a level of danger.

    As well, it’s a commentary on the superhero genre, the whole idea of a superhero, just that part of it, the genesis of the idea was just looking at the superheroes, the big ones, and realizing that you are reading Superman comic like it could just have easily been that he has a split personality.  The very idea that I’m this normal guy with this normal boring day job and then when no one is around and when no one is looking, suddenly I am invincible is completely nuts.  And so there was that aspect of deconstruction.  What if we just took that metaphor out and suddenly that’s your guy?

    He is crazy the way that psychosis manifests he thinks he has super powers.

    CS:  Was it always that intention to have him just devolve further and further into his own sense of what he thought this was?

    HABERMAN/PASSMORE: I think so.  I think once we realized we were making a movie about insanity, we realized that it was going to go as far as we could possibly take it.

    And there were so many things working together to push it in that direction.  Part of it was just the natural arc of the character.  Like you want to see him go from one extreme to the other and that necessitates that he has got to be so high on the drugs that he’s completely insane which means we kind of wanted the audience to feel insane and also tying into it was that we had this philosophy that we really wanted to make the movie unpredictable.

    All of that fused together to just make it to this point ““ we were half way, three quarters through the movie and it’s kind of like, it feels like, anything can happen.

    CS:  Right.  Exactly.  Michael, you ““ I don’t know if this is one of your most physical roles to date but there was obviously a lot of running, a lot of jumping, I can only assume that it wasn’t a huge budget, but how involved were you with everything that you were asked to do?

    RAPAPORT: Well, first of all this was a No Budget movie.  New category.  Not low budget ““ it’s Not Budget.

    (Laughs)

    I did as much as I could but I wasn’t going to try and hurt myself for bravery.  We had a great stunt guy and it was in the best interest of the film to let him do his thing.  He was the Rocky-ist stuntman.  He just kept going and was really fantastic.  His name was Brian Hite.  I didn’t try to do anything that would jeopardize me walking away the same way I walked in.  But there was a lot of running, some jumping, some wires and all this stuff but the real heavy stuff Brian did and it is a tribute to him and they way the guy shot the movie.  The way the shots were set up lent itself to make the stunts look as real and natural and as violent as they wound up doing.

    CS:  And I absolutely agree with you.  I think Hal and Jeremy did a wonderful job making it feel real.  Can you gentleman talk about the “no budget” angle?

    (Laughs)

    HABERMAN/PASSMORE: I think it worked in our favor a lot.  One we got lucky finding the right people to do it.  Brian is the only stuntman who would do the stunts with the authenticity that he did.

    And Nelson the cameraman, who’s perfect to shoot the movie, he’s happy to make it look realistic and lit it with fluorescents and no highlights ““ so it was a mix of what we were going for and what everyone was able to bring to us.

    There was a point where I worked with Brian on my student film and it was crazy.  It just had these brutal stunts.  We were talking to him and we’re like we were thinking we could do this with wires and kind of shoot the angles and he just looked at me like I let him down.  He was so disappointed, he was like, “No, we’re not going to do that.  If I want to get hit by a car, I want to get hit by a car.”  It was just so funny.  Of course, that’s what we wanted but didn’t want to injure the guy.

    CS:  Exactly.  But it’s something you can’t compare to other films with 10 times the budget.

    HABERMAN/PASSMORE: There was one night when we did a stunt”¦That he said it was the hardest stunt which was jumping off a roof and tackling someone.  He missed the first time and landed”¦He said  “Do you want me to do it again?” and I was very scared to.  So I said, “Dude, if you can do it again we should do it again.” And he did it.  It was amazing.

    HABERMAN/PASSMORE: But it was harrowing.  I was really kind of sick.  It was like, “I don’t want to be the guy who puts him in the hospital.”

    HABERMAN/PASSMORE: To a certain extent we had boxed ourselves into a corner because we felt like we wanted those stunts to play in a big static wide shot because it’s like you are looking at it and you know it’s real.  We didn’t fake it in the editing.  He really jumped off a roof and tackled that guy.  So on the one way it’s really brutal like a skateboarding video on the other hand it’s getting into a bit of a Keystone Cops kind of feel.

    HABERMAN/PASSMORE: On the third hand, that’s exactly how a superhero movie would not do it.

    HABERMAN/PASSMORE: Exactly.  It’s exactly what you wouldn’t do, so that’s exactly where we ended up going.

    CS:  I know my time is short but I definitely want to find out from all of you, now that it has taken years for this film to make the light of day, how do you look at this process and look at this film with regards to your faith in the process of making a movie?

    RAPAPORT: Aside from the distribution delay, it couldn’t have been any better.  It was a great experience.  Great, great, great experience for me.

    HABERMAN/PASSMORE:     I’m in the same boat.  To me it was empowering because we didn’t have any money and we just said we’re going to make a movie and go to Sundance and that’s exactly what we did.  So in the back of my mind I feel like I really want to make a movie but can’t because the problem is I really want to do one with more money.

    STIPP:  Has this movie been able to allow you to do that now that it’s out there?  Have those “in charge” taken notice?

    HABERMAN/PASSMORE:  Oh yeah.  They are pounding on the doors.

    (Laughs)

    HABERMAN/PASSMORE: It’s weird.  We don’t expect that at this point.  It’s just this movie is what it is and if people love it then that’s great and if they don’t, then oh well, but I don’t think we’re going to get to direct ROCKY VI.

    (Laughs)

    HABERMAN/PASSMORE: What’s actually kind of cool with this delayed release -  Coming out of Sundance I would have had my hopes so tied up into it, whereas now, I’m just really glad people are going to see it.  It’s really weird.  I’ll be in a meeting on something else and halfway through they’ll go “Wait a minute. You were one of the guys who did SPECIAL. I love that movie…” or something but they don’t even realize it because it’s been so long.

  • TV Or Not TV: The Holiday Special (12/8 – 12/14)

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    Welcome one and all to a Ho-Ho-Holiday special edition of TV or Not TV!

    This week here at TV or Not TV we’re kicking off what I hope becomes an annual tradition. This week we will be looking specifically at all of the Holiday TV offerings that are avaialble to you, the loyal television viewer.

    I’m sure each and every one of you reading this may have a certain TV special or movie that resides in your mind as the one that you identify with the holiday season. Maybe it is something you look forward to when it comes on the tube, maybe it is the movie you put on in order to get into the holiday spirit, maybe it is something you like to put on while you are making your Thanksgiving feast or decorating your tree. Whatever the TV special or movie is I’m sure, if you are like me, it is the one thing that you set time aside for to take your annual viewing in.

    For me these memories currently span close to four decades and each new gem for me has a place on my holiday shelf as I enjoy them all. Some of the movies you may not even think of as holiday films (the original Die Hard and Lethal Weapon are great examples) but during this time of year I love them all. I don’t need ABC Family’s 25 Days of to get me through the season because of how much is out there.

    It's a Wonderful LIfeOne of the movies that I always enjoy this time of year is the Frank Capra classic It’s a Wonderful Life. If you look at this film, as a whole, it is as much of a holiday film as the aforementioned Die Hard and Lethal Weapon are but because the films climax occurs on the eve of Christmas it has been widely adopted as one of the holiday staples. A copyright misunderstanding during the 1980’s also lead to the movie being played on numerous channels and numerous days during the holiday season, so much so that you could sometimes find it on more than one channel at the exact same time.

    Whether you think of It’s a Wonderful Life as a holiday classic or a great american film doesn’t matter. The film represents a lot of things that we can all appreciate. The movie tells us a story of a simple man, George Bailey. George has big dreams at the beginning of the film, dreams of travel before college to become an architect or engineer and designing big buildings or bridges, all themes that can be connected to a man making his mark on the world. During the course of the film, however, George has to set these dreams aside in order to keep the family business running and ensuring his little brother has a good life. He doesn’t  pursue his dreams, he lives his life and he makes sacrifices for the greater good while constantly facing off against Henry Potter, the stingy town tyrant who is determined to own the entire town.  After his Uncle Billy makes an absent minded mistake that can ruin the family business, George reflects that his life is a failure and is about to give it all up before his guardian angel Clarence intercedes. He gives George a glimpse at what the world would be like without him, giving him true perspective on all that he truly has (a new spin on the A Christmas Carol theme). In the end everyone in George’s life steps up to help him, just as he has helped them his entire life.

    I haven’t watched It’s a Wonderful Life this year, even though I have the DVD. Oddly enough just writing about it has the same effect on me as I hold back choking on emotional tears thinking of Sam Wainwright‘s telegram to George (I wasn’t kidding when I said I have a deep emotional connection to the film).  It never ceases to amaze me how a work of fiction can be soemthing that reminds us that just by being here we have an effect on the world around us, to show us that even just by doing our everyday jobs we still make a difference, and of course the reminder of how important friends and family are. All of these messages are nice to have in the face of the troubled times around us. This, if nothing else, shows why this movie is timeless.

    The good news is that even if It’s a Wonderful Life isn’t your cup of holiday tea I have plenty more for you take in during this week. Unfortunately I didn’t find any instances of Christmas Vacation or Scrooged this week, which are two of my holiday must haves. Those two exceptions aside, here’s what I have found to offer.

    MONDAY

    ABC – 8:00 PM: Once again ABC rolls out another one of the holiday classics with A Charlie Brown Christmas. Be sure to spot the commercial where they try to get you to buy the digitally re-mastered DVD of what you are watching for free.

    DISNEY – 8:00 PM: Tim Allen has to find a wife in The Santa Clause 2. Their clever use of the Mrs. Clause still makes me chuckle, but Tim Allen in the fat makeup without the beard is just plain creepy.

    ABC FAMILY – 8:00 PM: Bad accents, bad acting and our introduction to Jake Lloyd are just a few of the horrors that make up Jingle All the Way. One redeaming quality is the late and great Phil Hartman‘s presence.

    CARTOON NETWORK – 8:00 PM: Just in time to get the song stuck in your head for a week is the cartoon special built around Grandma Got Runover by a Reindeer. If that doesn’t make you leary enough, there’s a character named I.M. Slime. Behold the creativity at work here!

    TUESDAY

    FOX – 8:00 PM: House tries to bring the holidays home with this episode titled Joy to the World. The critical case of the week is a girl that collapses during her high school Christmas program.

    FOOD – 8:00 PM: Enjoy two hours of food fun starting with Paula’s Cookie Swap (I thought this was like a key party with cookies, turns out I was wrong) followed by Dear Food Network: Holiday Family Traditions.

    WEDNESDAY

    NBC – 8:00 PM: Just when you thought your life wasn’t complete because you haven’t seen a CGI version of Danny Devito your cries were heard with the new animated special Little Spirit: Christmas in New York. I will say this, the combination of CGI rendered in the style of a traditional painting creates a very interesting aesthetic (even though everyone has a wrapped in plastic kind of sheen on them).

    ABC FAMILY – 8:00 PM: It’s Rankin/Bass night with Santa Clause is Comin’ to Town followed by the confusing Rudolph’s Shiny Year and Jack Frost.

    USA – 9:00 PM: If you didn’t catch the Monk holiday episode Mr. Monk and the Miracle you can watch this before the 10 PM showing of Elf.

    THURSDAY

    NBC – 8:00 – 10:00 PM: That’s right Comedy Done Right-ers, all of your comedies tonight have a holiday motif.

    HALLMARK – 9:00 PM: Even though it’s been on once a week since Thanksgiving, you can still catch a father/daughter trying to save their Christmas theme park from a land developer in Moonlight and Mistletoe.

    ABC Family – 9:00 PM: Some classics don’t need an update and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer & the Island of Misfit Toys is a great example of that. It’s interesting to see the Rankin/Bass characters rendered in CGI, but the novelty wears off quick. Your kids, however, are gonna love it.

    FRIDAY

    NBC – 8:00 PM: Greatest Holiday Moments is back with their hour long Songs of the Season Countdown.

    CBS – 8:00 PM: Faster than you can say Happy Birthday that lovable talking snowman is back for two hours with Frosty the Snowman and Frosty Returns. Stick around for both of those and you can even take in a Finnish Flying Squirel trying to teach Niko the reindeer how to fly in The Flight Before Christmas.

    AMC – 11:00 PM: Nothing says holiday fun more than hundreds of green menacing Gremlins tearing up your town on Christmas Eve.

    SATURDAY

    NBC – 8:00 PM: If you made it through the entire beginning of this column and it made you want to see It’s a Wonderful Life than you are in luck because it’s on tonight. I’ll be the guy that’s sobbing around 10:54 PM when they read that telegram. Sentimental HOGWASH!

    FOOD – 8:00 PM: It’s another holiday food block tonight with A Neely Family Holiday, Unwrapped: Holiday Treats, and The Secret Life of…: Christmas.

    TLC – 8:00 PM: If you want to be envious of other people’s holiday yard decorations (or feel good that yours are better than these) you can watch Crazy Christmas Lights.

    ABC – 9:00 PM: Ben Affleck tries to get to the root of his issues with commitment and the holidays while battling whits with Tony Soprano in Surviving Christmas.

    SUNDAY

    BRAVO – 9:30 AM: Snuggle up with your morning cup of coffee to watch Mel Gibson try to make a drug bust in a Christmas Tree Lot in Lethal Weapon. My favorite moment is when Gary Busey answers Scrooge on the television in the question of what day it is with, “It’s FU@#ING CHRISTMAS!” before destroying the TV in a hail of machine gun fire. Ahh, the holidays.

    MTV – 8:00 PM: If the CGI Danny Devito wasn’t enough for you than you can take in an animated version of Adam Sandler in Adam Sandler’s Eight Crazy Nights.

    HGTV – 8:00 PM: Relive magical moments like when as kids you watched the holiday display at Higbee’s with Holiday Windows 2008.

    FOX – 9:30 PM: It took a holiday edition to finally get me to mention American Dad, so that must say something. Stan, in pursuit of the perfect tree, meets an untimely end in the woods and fights the forces of good and evil in limbo.

    – Will Wilkins is a mean one, Mr. Grinch.

  • Holiday Havoc: Trailer Park – Denis Leary Interview

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    Some people hang the holly, others decorate the tree, and a few even terrorize the neighborhood with off-key caroling.

    Not us.

    Here at Quick Stop Entertainment, we’re celebrating the holiday season by giving a little something back to you, our readers (you know who you are).

    Every weekday leading up to the holiday break, we’ve got uber-exclusive gifts provided by a whole range of artists, actors, comedians, and studios. One a day, straight from them to you (and you can check out last year’s fun here).

    Ain’t that cool?

    Today, Quick Stop’s own Christopher Stipp brings us an interview with Denis Leary…

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    By Christopher Stipp

    The Archives, Right Here

    I’m awesome. I wrote a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.

    He just had to be sick of answering the question.

    As I read Denis Leary’s book WHY WE SUCK I remembered why I cannot suffer through a Dave Barry column. I’ve tried. I’ve had countless people try and recommend his musings as something worth reading but, let’s be honest, he’s basically a folksy Andy Rooney. Denis, though, gives you something to laugh at, not laugh with, and genuinely delivers on his promise at the outset of this book that there’s something offensive in it for everybody. Everybody. From opining on nicknames, that Mick Jagger’s “Nigger Lips” was apropos, to talking about the destructive nature of parents who toss their kids into acting at a young age, just read what his response would be if his own kids wanted to get into acting, Denis’ book is the one thing this year that has make me laugh out loud.

    A lot has been made of whether Denis’ act is just that, certainly his wife’s own outing of Denis as a genial family man who eschews the trappings of popularity and famousness, whether he’s act mirrored too much of Bill Hicks, but I frankly have felt Denis is a comedic powerhouse. I remember buying his first CD (remember when they came in longboxes?), watching every movie he put out (I’m still worked up over TWO IF BY SEA but he made up for it with THE REF) and being amazed by his television work on The Job and Rescue Me. Now, Rescue is bar none one my favorite shows on television and as well as it should be; it’s well acted, sharply written and it has genuine laughs. So, when it was time for this book to come out I was all over it. His writing is wicked funny, he has some really honest points about parenthood, celebrity and where else are you going to find a chapter entitled Matt Dillion is a Giant Fag? It was another one of these suggestively titled chapters, Autism Schmautism, that stirred a controversy when a paragraph was taken out of context and made its way into the irrelevant arena of people pontificating on nothing more than hearsay.

    We open the interview with us talking about the incident that seemed to be inescapable. The book is out now and comes recommended as the funniest thing you’ll read all year.

    CHRISTOPHER STIPP: Can you explain what happened with the recent flap about your chapter entitled Autism Schmautism? I read the chapter and if anyone possessed an ounce of reason they would see exactly what you were getting at. You absolutely were not belittling this condition.

    DENIS LEARY: It was a paragraph that was taken out of context by the New York Post and then raced across the Internet, so yes, people are led to believe that I was talking about actual parents of kids who have actual autism.

    I released a private statement by email to a lot of the parents that emailed me and I put a public statement out but I never apologized for what I wrote but I asked people to give me the benefit of the doubt and I apologized for the effect the released paragraph had on people because, look, I always answer to myself, my kids, and my wife but when it comes to comedy, there is no comedy in saying, which I never said, “there is no such thing as autism” or that “autism doesn’t exist.” I never said either one of those things although that was actually listed in many newspapers and on online.

    There is a ridiculous aspect to people in this country who are so desperate to explain away their kid’s bad behavior and their own bad parenting by getting low-level versions of autism diagnosis and that’s what I was talking about because in the same chapter the paragraph after the one that was quoted by the New York Post, I talk about ““ specifically, one autistic child that I’ve known for years and her parents struggle with it and again, I’m not a real doctor, I wouldn’t define autism but I like discussing it. I know people who have dealt with it and know how difficult it is. The idea that other people in America would actually seek Special Needs designation for their kids, to me, was ridiculous and that’s what I was going after. I’ve said it this morning and I’ve said it before. Publisher’s Weekly did a review of the book, they always do every review, and thank God they gave me a good one. They talk about the book and called it wildly entertaining and gave it 3 or 4 stars but that was a week before the New York Post thing and it just kind of struck me as odd that if they thought I was making fun of autistic children why didn’t they mention it because someone read the entire book?

    And so now it will be very difficult for people to ever realize what I was talking about and some people will never, ever buy the book but now that it’s my turn to speak I hope it’s obvious to people what my point of view was and that there is no comedy to be found in the other point of view. My point of view was, and by the way, there are people in the autism community that have been complaining about this issue for years which is where I became aware of it and came up with the idea to write about it. You know?

    CS: Right. It’s hilarious. It’s clear as day as what you are saying and shocking to me that people are coming out of the woodwork when in fact they probably haven’t read it or considered actually reading the whole thing.

    LEARY: I think what happens to a lot of people, and again, I don’t blame them is they saw this paragraph on the Internet and said, “What is wrong with this guy? Why is he making fun?” And once you start that fire, it’s a very difficult fire to put out. I had a lot of my friends who have kids with autism who were just banging the doors down saying they wanted to come out and speak on my behalf and I said you know what? “I don’t want you to do that. I didn’t ask you to give up your privacy and go out and defend me. I can do it myself.” I just hope that some of these people that ran down to the center of the village with a torch in their hands will be just as willing to read it and if they are wrong, turn around and say “You know what, I misjudged it” but I don’t hold any hope out for that happening. It’s not a great comparison but when they announced that Daniel Craig was going to be the new James Bond, everybody in the world went after that guy and once the fist movie came out everyone realized that he was an unbelievably great James Bond. Very few people took the time to say, “I was wrong about the James Bond guy.” The press doesn’t like to come out and say they were wrong basically.

    CS: And that’s funny you bring that that up. It leads right into something I was very surprised by, and really respect that you kind of went in thinking that Oprah was going to be a target, and ended up saying “You know what, I was wrong about that” and ended up genuinely enjoying the experience of delving into it further.

    LEARY: Hey man. I got to tell you I was hell bent for leather on her and every single thing I tried ended up falling apart and I end up with the complete opposite point of view. By the time I found out you could break your penis and that Oprah about 6,000 entries about what happens if you break your penis ““ I’m like, “Wait a minute. Why isn’t this stuff on SportsCenter? Oprah is in charge of our penis’s? What’s going on here?”

    (Laughs)

    CS: It raises some fundamental questions about the cult of personality that she’s developed.

    LEARY: I tell you something. There is a reason that she is elevated to the cosmos of television and the media because she has control of almost all the information you will ever need about anything. I’m telling you, if Jesus comes back tomorrow he’s going to be on Oprah. Forget Larry King, forget the Today Show. He’s going to be on Oprah and he’s going to be on Oprah for about an hour.

    (Laughs)

    CS: A couple of my favorite other chapters in this book was the combo of the “Self-Esteem This” and “Matt Dillon is a Giant Fag.” One of the reasons I responded so well to it, I believe, was when you and Lenny Clark were on local television during a Red Sox game. Mel Gibson was freshly put into rehab and the two of you were just riffing watching the Boston Red Sox. I think that those few minutes, after they made their way around the Internet, just proved everything that you were talking about with regard to tolerance and ignorance.

    LEARY: It was just one of those organic things that happened because we were talking about Kevin Youkilis and his nickname at the time was the Greek God of Walks. I was asking an honest question “Is he Greek or what is he?” and they started talking that he was Jewish and the next thing you knew we were talking about a couple Jewish players and there was a great play made by a Jewish player and it was the week that Mel Gibson ““ his anti-Jewish tirade. It was just one of those moments in time. I ended up writing a song called the Mel Gibson which we played at quite a few charity gigs after that. I don’t know, it was just kismet.

    CS: One thing I did pick up while doing some research was your mother’s influence. The conversations that you have within the book, it kind of took on a life of their own. How did that come about?

    LEARY: My mother has obviously been a big influence in my life and my brothers and sisters and everybody so I just thought if I’m going to be talking about raising kids in America and what I think is wrong with a lot of the ways in this country that we treat and raise kids, my mom is just, as I say in the book, there has never been a day that she has been on this earth that she isn’t who she is. She never drank. She never smoked. She was always at home. She was highly aware of everything that we did and if she wasn’t aware, when she found out you had to answer to her. So I think she’s just a really common sense woman and I wanted to put her take on America ““ she’s got a really great take on what it is to be an American because she came here as an illegal immigrant with nothing and she loves this country and is not afraid to express her opinions. She has been, because of me, been around some very famous people and she walks right up to famous people, whether is Conan or Bobby Orr or whoever ““ she says whatever is on her mind. We were at a charity event and Bobby Orr was there.

    My mother loves Bobby Orr.

    As a young hockey player he had a weird haircut and dressed a little down when everyone else would wear a suit. My mother walked up and said, “Why can’t you be a little more like Bobby Orr? Look at him. He’s got a short haircut. He doesn’t look like a slob.” We are just laughing our asses off because when somebody’s mother is talking to you, you feel like you are talking to the virgin mother. So I wanted to include her in the book so people could get a taste of what it was like around my house.

    CS: What separates this book apart from many other non-fiction narratives is that you have that sort of commentary but also that point of reflection. You talk about growing up and how your parents taught you to be centerted and grounded as you point a finger at those who want to coddle their brood to the detriment of knowing how life is really going to be like.

    LEARY: There was no self-esteem crap. If you wanted to win a trophy, you actually had to win. If you wanted to learn how to hit a baseball you actually had to have a ball pitched at you and you had to hit it. There was no hitting it off a tee. It was just all that stuff ““ just common sense when raising kids. No one is going to hand you anything. You actually had to go out and get a job and earn it. There was no being spoiled around our house. You got one big present and one small present at Christmas time and got a cake on your birthday. You never felt like you weren’t loved. You always felt like you were loved but you were also accountable. You were accountable to your parents and the rest of the family. It’s the age old thing, if you got smacked by the nuns at school, there must have been a reason why you got smacked.

    CS: Exactly. You are obviously a celebrity and you’ve had your kids who are now are moving towards college years. What is it about our culture that every kid needs a trophy and every kid needs to feel entitled? Can you explain why or where this has all come from?

    LEARY: There has been a wave of parents who have kids but don’t necessarily want to spend time with their kids and selfishly they work on their career, and their free time, and their hobby. But the problem is when you have children, children do what they are supposed to do and take over your life. So what you do for a living, hopefully you like but whatever it is you do for a living, the money is for the children and whatever you do with your free time the children are the first thing that should come to mind; there are a lot of people in this country who have kids and that is not necessarily the truth. They put the kids in day care, not because they have to because both parents are working, but because they want to and they want to have their free time.

    You can’t have it both ways.

    That’s where a lot of these kids come up with self-esteem issues because the kids are never around their own parents and when the parents are around they feel they have to say yes because they are never around enough time with the kids and the next thing you know it’s the kids who think they can get away with everything because the parents never yell at them. To me it’s a pretty simple mathematical formula. We all know what the rules are and you are supposed to teach them to your kids and that produces a hopefully pretty productive citizen. You are not just supposed to hand the kid everything and tell them it’s OK to do anything they want and never learn to lose.

    Hey, losing sucks. So learn it really early so you never want to lose. If we didn’t have losing, we’d have two presidents right now. John McCain and Barack Obama. Doesn’t work.

    CS: Right. And that leads into your bit about celebrity culture. Shows like Sweet 16, celebrities like Anna Nicole Smith, somehow there is a subset of Americans who love to celebrity worship and dote on these people who don’t live by any sort of rules to begin with.

    LEARY: If Anna Nicole Smith gave us nothing she will, at least in my book literally and figuratively, be famous for having taken a narcotic lollipop out of the hands of sick children and turned it into an adult drug. Apparently, I think I say this in the book, she out Elvised Elvis. If Elvis knew there was such a thing as a narcotic lollipop, he would have tried desperately to live another 10 years so he could have had one in his mouth. I think not only is it amazing that she was sucking on narcotic lollipops, which they give kids who have cancer, but I’d like to name a band after Narcotic Lollipop. As a matter of fact, later today I’m doing the Daily Show and I’ve printed up a Narcotic Lollipop t-shirt that looks like a band shirt and I’m going to wear it on the Daily Show just to try and start a trend.

    (Laughs)

    CS: The book itself, the way it reads is great because it balances both your past growing up and your present with commenting on current events in popular culture and sociological issues that society is dealing with. When you were writing this was there any sort of overriding thing that you didn’t want to sound too preachy? How did you go about laying it all out by saying, “I want to make this fun and entertaining but I definitely want to get some things off my chest”?

    LEARY: Well I tried to be organic. As a comedian I’ve always tried to work ““ if I go on stage for half and hour or 40 minutes I talk things out in front of an audience. I might have 5 words written down on a piece of paper and that would mean 40 minutes of material for me. If the audience is good, I’ll just keep spinning through these ideas I have in my head. So in book form, I had to be sure I was formalizing things and some other things popped into my head as I was going. When I finally started to sit down to write it, it was during the screen writer’s strike, so I had three months to write it and I wrote it in order as I went so it just seemed to flow.

    CS: As you were writing it, were there some things that just didn’t make it into the book or was everything you wanted in this book?

    LEARY: No. I think there was a lot of stuff. I’m never satisfied with a project. Whether it’s a movie, or an episode of Rescue Me or whatever. I could always go back and add more but when I was done, I felt like, like my mother talking to Dr. Phil seemed like a great ending.

    CS: That was. It certainly wrapped up the book in a nice package. Looking at it now, was the experience at least a good one for you from a creative standpoint?

    LEARY: Yes. I loved it. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The process was difficult to get used to but once I got into it, I really enjoyed it.

    CS: If I had one more question…looking forward, now the book and with Rescue Me going back into production, how do you look at where you come from since starting eons ago in clubs and now being an established author, Emmy nominated television star? Is there anything left that you want to achieve? Some guys feel they have accomplished it all and just disappear, do you still have a fire to keep doing something else?

    LEARY: Yes, definitely. I don’t have that problem. I’ve got a couple ““ my hero has always been and especially once I’ve worked with him and picked his brain, I didn’t know anything about making movies or how to do it but Ted Demme was my partner in crime and his uncle Jonathan and Robert De Niro, in particular, were two guys very early in our careers who pulled us aside and said, “You guys need to start production companies and learn how to do this and this and this.” And I’m really glad I learned so I can self-generate. I had to learn how to act on film because I was a stage actor and comedian, I had to learn how to write and produce and when I worked with Bob and I was a huge fan of his and picked his brain I realize now that I watched that guy do his work as an actor and director and I got a couple projects in my back pocket.

    I always wanted to do a Rock “˜n Roll movie because I have a comedy band, but the guys who are in my comedy band are the same guys I was in a real band with when I was a teenager so I’ve always wanted to do a Rock “˜n Roll movie about a guy, like what if Mick Jagger or Sting or a guy like that hadn’t made it? I know a couple guys who are really talented rock guys but nobody knows. They are 50 years old and still do it for a living but they still have to hustle. So I always thought that that was an interesting idea to make a funny movie about a guy who was supposed to be Mick Jagger but didn’t get the break. So I have things like that. I have a gangster film I want to make, so I’ve got other stuff I want to do and I’ve been lucky enough to play dramatic roles and comedic rolls.

    Hey, I’ve worked with Dustin Hoffman, De Niro and Clint Eastwood. My old man would not have believed that I made it that far. So I’ve been to the top of the mountain as far as I’m concerned. Everything else from here on end is gravy. I got to do the George Carlin Mark Twain memorial tribute last Monday with Jon Stewart and Lewis Black and Jon and I were looking at each other and even called each other the next day and said, “This is ridiculous man. This is one of the guys that made us go into comedy and we are at his wake.”

    So, I’m not asking for anything else. I’m good where I am. I was supposed to be driving trucks.

    CS: Thank you, Denis, for your time. I’ve been a fan…

    LEARY: Yeah, well then tell Kevin Smith to put me in one of his fucking movies!

    (Laughs)

  • Toy Box: It’s the holiday season, time for Toys for Tots!

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    Every year at this time, I like to remind folks of my personal favority charity organization – Toys for Tots. In 1947, a woman named Diane Hicks had made a Raggedy Ann doll as a craft project, and decided that it should go to a less fortunate child at Christmas time. She asked her husband, Bill Hendricks, a major in the Marine Corp Reserves in Los Angeles, to find an agency that could deliver this toy appropriately. When he found that none existed, she suggested that he start one. That first year, he collected and distributed 5000 toys to needy children. And thus was born Toys for Tots. The program was so successful that in 1948, the Marine Corp adopted it and turned it nationwide. It’s been delivering on it’s goal to bring the joy of Christmas to America’s needy children ever since.

    This last year they started a new facet of the organization, the Literacy Program. They teamed up with The UPS Stores and Mail Boxes Etc to give people the opportunity to buy $1 donation cards that are then turned into books for deserving kids. This is a great continuation of their overall objective: to help needy children throughout the United States experience the joy of Christmas; to play an active role in the development of one of our nation’s most valuable natural resources – our children; to unite all members of local communities in a common cause for three months each year during the annual toy collection and distribution campaign; and to contribute to better communities in the future.

    Toys for Tots and the Marines help millions of children each year, even during this time of war deployment. In 2005, they delivered 18.5 million toys to over 7.5 million children, and I’m proud to say that each year I do what I can to help the cause, and I’d like you to consider giving back some of your love of toys to children that might not ever realize just how wonderful it can be.

    As adults collecting toys, we really have it made. We can eat our cake and have it too – we’re reliving the joy of our childhoods through our collecting habits of our old age. But there are lots of children out there who don’t have the kind of childhood we had – or the kind of childhood we wish we’d had. These children are less fortunate than we were, or at least most certainly less fortunate than we are now.

    So here’s your call to arms. You collect toys because of the love you developed for those silly playthings of your youth. By giving new, unopened toys to your local Toys for Tots campaigns, you can give other children the chance to develop that same bond, to have that special friend in Pooh or Tigger, or to learn just how much fun they can have with a couple G.I. Joes and an empty lot.

    When you see those toys on clearance, think about it. Is it really all that much to spend a little on bringing the joy to a child on Christmas morning? I’d think most of us would agree that helping kids is the greatest work we can do.

    To get further information on the program, and contact information for local coordinators, check the official web site. There will be drop off bins at many of your local stores, including Toys R Us again this year. Do what you can, even if it’s only a little – every bit helps.

  • TV Or Not TV: 12/1 – 12/7

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    Hell all and welcome to another edition of TV or Not TV.

    When I sit down to write this column every week I am, more often than not, doing it on a Sunday. With the best of intentions I start writing it mid-day and usually find myself, one way or another, still not submitting it far later than I should. I am telling you this because it has also given me a new perspective on quite a few television shows.

    Every week while I’m writing I inadvertently use a second monitor to watch streaming television shows from the network web sites. Today, as an example, I was able to finally get caught up on Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles.

    This show wasn’t one that fell off of my radar because of the quality of the show. There are only so many hours of television one man can watch and knowing that FOX has their shows online I watch what I can when I can. I’m very glad for this service because it turns out that, at least in my opinion, they’ve done very good things with TSCC. The first 8 episodes of the season were well structured, well written, and pretty darn entertaining. Elements from Season 1 have carried over to Season 2 and some of them have even been resolved. My only complaint with the show is the acting by the title character and the actor that plays her son, the future savior of humanity John Connor. Both actors seem to have taken the dark futures their characters are supposed to encounter and use that to always deliver dark and brooding performances that never really sell me on much.

    The shocking actor on the show is Brian Austin Green who plays Derek Reese. His performance is always spot on as a fighter from the future sent back to the past to aid his nephew in getting to where he needs to be to either stop the impending doom or act as humanities leader. He also plays very well against Summer Glau’s Cameron. Fan’s of the former FOX show Firefly had no doubt about her acting abilities and she does a very good job as the reprogrammed Terminator.

    The one thing that is bad about the show is that, admitedly, you can’t just drop in mid-season and know what is going on. The characters have now been on their journey for quite a few episodes, elements from past episodes continue to resurface, and with all the people dropping in from the future it can get a bit confusing. If you can find a way to get caught up to date I’d definitely recommend the show for your viewing time.

    Now let’s move on to what’s coming up this week.

    MONDAY

    ABC – 8:00 PM: There’s nothing wrong with the color setting of your TV, tonight ABC is going green but it has nothing to do with being eco-friendly. Tonight enjoy Shrek the Halls immediately followed by the classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Clearly ABC has bought the rights to just about every holiday special out there.

    FOX – 8:00 PM: I am always intruiged when the description of a show says “history changes when a Terminator is sent back to the wrong time.” I hope I get to hear someone say, “Cometh with me if thou doth wish to live.”

    ABC Family – 8:00 PM: Talk about crazy counter programming. ABC Family kicks off their 25 days of Christmas programming with the film version of the Grinch. You’d think they would at least put something else on tonight to not compete with their sister station. The ratings game shows no mercy.

    TUESDAY

    FX – 8:00 PM: The Punisher has now seen at least three movie incarnations. The first was played by Dolph Lundgren. This second feature film version features Thomas Jane as Frank Castle and John Travolta as the bad guy. I’ve never seen it and already I’m rooting for Travolta to get capped.

    ABC – 8:00 PM: If you’ve ever wondered about the early years of Kris Kringle and you love the Rankin/Bass classics then you need to watch Santa Claus is Coming to Town. How can you resist Paul Frees as the Burgermeister Meisterburger?

    NBC – 8:00 PM: This week’s episode of The Biggest Loser: Families combines two things I could care less about: a makeover in New York and the Tyra Banks Show.

    ABC – 9:00 PM: Tonight’s season premiere of According to Jim may be an even greater injustice knowing this show lives while Pushing Daisies is coming to an end.

    WEDNESDAY

    ABC – 8:00 PM: Speaking of Pushing Daisies, tonight Ned and Olive have to try to find out who killed a rival chef who was deep fried. It’s crispy good entertainment.

    CBS – 8:00 PM: Looks like ABC doesn’t own the rights to every holiday classic. Tonight that lovable light up fellah saves the misfit toys and Christmas on Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

    FX – 8:00 PM: Take one millionaire, give them the assignment of going into a small town undercover and aware money to the most deserving residents after living amongst them and you get Secret Millionaire.

    TNT – 8:00 PM: Try not to shoot your eye out kid while watching A Christmas Story.

    CBS – 10:00 PM: I must have lost my man card years ago because I’ve never actually seen the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. Will this be the year I break my no viewing streak? Probably not.

    THURSDAY

    DISNEY – 8:00 PM: Nothing looks creepier to me than the computer animation stylings of The Polar Express.

    NBC – 9:30 PM: Liz takes Jack to her high school reunion. This can’t end well.

    ABC – 10:00 PM: The Barbara Walters Special tonight has Barbara counts down the 10 most fascinating people of the past year. I’m not sure how I feel about Miley Cyrus or Rush Limbaugh being on the list, but I’ll probably still watch.

    FRIDAY

    As usual Friday is a massive dud filled night so here are the very weak suggestions I can make.

    ABC – 8:00 PM: If you don’t get ABC Family or you didn’t watch it Monday night you can watch Jim Carrey under tons of makeup in Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

    NBC – 8:00 PM: If you are exteremely busy and worried about catching your favorite holiday show or flick you can check out Greatest Holiday Moments: TV & Film Countdown.

    TNT – 8:00 PM: Once upon a time Whitney Houston was a star and Kevin Costner was considered a romantic lead as can be seen in The Guardian. The schmaltzy song thankfully doesn’t show up until the end.

    FX – 9:00 PM: Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis decide to take the year off from Christmas after their daughter decides not to come home for the holidays in Christmas with the Cranks.

    SATURDAY

    Saturday, as usual, follows Friday’s suit. Here is my attempt at polishing a turd.

    NBC – 8:00 PM: If you’ve been watching Crusoe than you might want to know that it’s now on a new night.

    OXYGEN – 8:00 PM: Is You’ve Got Mail a clever romantic comedy or a feature length commercail for AOL and Starbucks.

    G4 – 8:00 PM: Oh man, for once I may have a real reason to tune in to G4. Pee-wee’s Big Adventure is followed by Real Genius. Both movies are ones I fondly remember from my teenage years and the latter is a less serious Val Kilmer. Hey, at least he isn’t the voice of a car on a lame action show.

    SUNDAY

    TNT – 8:00 PM: The Librarian is back in Curse of the Judas Chalice. Nothing says action like Noah Wyle and this time he’s saving the world from vampires in New Orleans.

    E! – 8:00 PM: Save the cheerleader, save the… oh, wait… sorry. I saw Hayden Panettiere and got confused. This is actually Bring it On: All or Nothing. WIthout seeing it, I’m goin gto chose nothing.

    HBO – 9:00 PM: I don’t know what is creepier, the content of the four part mini-series House of Saddam or the eerie portrayal of the former tyrant by Igal Naor.

    TNT – 10:00 PM: Timothy Hutton stars as the leader of a modern day group of Robin Hoods who get payback for the victims of the rich and corrupt. He’ll always be Turk182 to me but I’ll still give it a shot.

    – Will Wilkins feels like he is still in a turkey coma.

  • Trailer Park: The Turkey Trots

    By Christopher Stipp

    The Archives, Right Here

    I’m awesome. I wrote a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.

    Boy, oh boy, how long has it been since we last connected? A while, I know

    One of the things that has been keeping me busy as of late has been a spate of genuinely interesting opportunities to talk to people I would have never otherwise been able to chat up for a bit. From TIMECRIMES (o LOS CRONOCRIMENS for the Spanish language readers out there) director/writer Nacho Vigalondo, ELTON JOHN: TANTRUMS AND TIARAS director David Furnish (his partner), the directorial team behind SPECIAL along with Michael Rapaport, asshole extraordinaire Denis Leary about his new book Why We Suck, director Danny Boyle about SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE (easily the best film I’ve seen all year) and then capped it off with a chat with director Darren Aronofsky about THE WRESTLER (a movie that earns every moment, every emotion). Now, with regard to Darren, there was a little matter of a lunch that brought out a wide array of inconsequential information, as it relates to THE WRESTLER, but when I get to that piece in a couple of weeks I’ll explain how, between mouthfuls of salami and spinach and artichoke dip, I heard a little bit about his feelings on the handling of THE FOUNTAIN DVD and an array of tidbits I would never of thought to as during our interview. (The lunch was wicked good…)

    Now, it is that time of year when mens thoughts turn to turkey and, as I have been doing every single year (or close to it), I hope each one of you dust off your copy of PLANES, TRAINS AND AUTOMOBILES to watch during Thanksgiving. I have had it up to here about people talking of their greatest Christmas films (we all know if it ain’t A CHRISTMAS STORY you ain’t shit) but you ask someone to rattle off their favorite Thanksgiving movie all of a sudden their lips don’t flap as quickly.

    One of the more delightful additions to the John Hughes canon there isn’t a whole lot you can say negatively against PLANES, TRAINS.

    Regarding one of the the truly remarkable things about this film I would have to point to John Candy’s performance as the reason why this is a perennial classic. His comedy is thankfully not family friendly, he is actually allowed to be a guy you don’t laugh at but laugh with as he takes Steve Martin’s sanity down to nothing. And Steve Martin deserves the kind of credit that he no longer gets from me or a lot of people who could say he’s traded every ounce of comedic goodwill and invested it in Disney/PINK PANTHER pabulum. It’s one of those films that no matter where you catch it as its playing on television you can watch it midstream and love it. Do yourself and family a favor, watch this one on Thursday and know that you’re seeing is the demise of not only one man but of the other man’s edge.

    Another option available to you if that tryptophan hasn’t finished you off is to turn into IFC FREE (VOD) at midnight on Thursday for your chance to see a hilarious and introspective look at goth culture in GOTH CRUISE. The premise makes you think this is completely made up and/or a set up but this film takes you on the 4th Annual Goth Cruise where 150 British and American Goths sail around the Caribbean for five days. During this cruise they have a masquerade ball, a charity art auction and oodles of other activities that you or I would want to participate in should we find ourselves a Royal Caribbean looking to sip a Mai Tai or a pina colada.

    The film is a hoot. Flat out this will be the most intriguing thing you will watch all week if for no other reason than it gives you a good appreciation for the sub-culture that has for a long time been relegated to the confines of people who wear blood red crushed velvet and do nothing but listen to Siouxsie Sioux. Turns out, a lot of these people enjoy goth culture and indulge themselves in it when they can and not necessarily on a full-time basis.

    What’s even more interesting is that, as you watch this film unravel, you notice that there is a line of demarcation between those who are American goths and those who are British goths. Both groups have 90% of the things they hold dear in common but they diverge where they come down on how they express their goth-ness. Americans, loud and outspoken as we are with our emotions, don’t think that way when it comes to expressing it on film. In a recent article she wrote for the Huffington Post director Jeanie Finlay talked about the differences a little more with regard to the cultural divide between what one fears of being perceived as and what one does without regard to the opinions of others when it comes to their goth indulgences.

    One of the reasons why I asked to look further into this sub-culture and got a screener of this film was that every year when I go to Comic-Con I see people who are willing to let their freak flag fly and it fills me with an inexorable amount of happiness to see these individuals in GOTH CRUISE do the same with the kind of aplomb I see every summer.

    To some degree a lot will be made to look at these cruisers as somehow funny looking or bizarre but to me this film was yet another entry into a film series that show people who ensconce themselves in dress up and camaraderie with other like-minded individuals is a liberating to some degree. It’s heartening to know these people are out there, human beings who want to spend their time with other human beings, making the world a little darker, and crushed velvety, place. You will not be disappointed.

    And, speaking of being devoid of disappointment, have any of you heard about the released WRESTLER trailer? If you haven’t already checked it out I would recommend you view this thing and really pay attention to what is going on in this thing.

    It kills me, genuinely, that I can’t talk at all about this film for many weeks but thankfully I didn’t see this trailer before seeing it. There is something about not knowing a crumb about a movie before going in and it was a delight to witness this film without any preconceptions.

    The reason why I would urge you to see this trailer is that it is simply succinct and leaves you not knowing exactly what is going on. The music, the mood, the glimpses of what Mickey is getting a dump truck worth of praise for, it’s all there.

    Now, while I can’t say a word I can say that one of the more fascinating effects this movie will hopefully have is that it doesn’t really hit you right away. It lingers for a bit and you slowly come to feel the one question that I posed to Darren: Where did The Ram end and Mickey Rourke begin? It’s just too good.

    And now, what would your Thanksgiving be like without some Ray Schillaci action? This week’s entry into his Worth Revisiting series has him catching up with Montana Wildhack. Not sure who that is? Confused? Read on and be ignorant no more..

    Montana Wildhack and Other Wonderful Oddities

    In 1972, my parents asked me what I would like to see on my 16th birthday. Growing up as the kid with unusual taste in cinema, I found an art house film that was playing in a limited engagement in Westwood (a once “hot spot” in L.A. to hang out in the 70’s). Critics praised the little film. The story sounded originally wild; a man becomes unstuck in time, bouncing from his involvement in WWII to his ridiculously “Leave it to Beaver” life to being abducted by aliens for observance and procreation with a softcore porn star, Montana Wildhack!

    If that was not enough to spark my interest – the young starlet playing the softcore porn queen was none other than Valerie Perrine, who was naked nearly throughout her screen time. My teenage hormones were kicking into overdrive. There was no way I was going to wait another year before I caught it at a revival theater and I had no shame duping my unsuspecting parents into taking me.

    What neither of us realized is that “Slaughterhouse-Five” was a brilliant piece of work that just had the added attraction of two of the best breasts ever to grace the screen. Valerie Perrine would go on to be the first actress to bare her beauties on national TV with the debut of Bruce Jay Friedman’s “Steambath” starring Bill Bixby (Hulk fame) and Kenneth Mars (the crazed Nazi playwright in Brook’s The Producers). She then went on to co-star with Dustin Hoffman in “Lenny” not only baring her breasts but also committing to a very racy (at the time) lesbian scene. Ms Perrine went on to be nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress for that amazing and touching performance. There was always a sweet earthiness that followed her performances that captivated the audience. But later she ended up in a few turkeys and eventually played a third banana (as opposed to second banana) comic relief in the Christopher Reeve “Superman” movies. One cannot help but wonder what happened to such a talent. The same could be said for everyone else who was associated with Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse-Five”.

    Director, George Roy Hill would go on to direct “The Sting,” but eventually peter out after that. The supporting cast didn’t even have a chance to really break out, remaining in thankless supporting roles that would never do them the justice of the talent they once displayed in Vonnegut’s, near-impossible-to-translate-to-film, tale. Yes, I can go on about the picture perfect cinematography, the haunting score, insightful dialogue and so much more ““ including an unnerving and unforgettable performance by Ron Leibman as Paul Lazzaro, the chip-on-his-shoulder narcissistic lunatic who maintains a list of everyone that has ever wronged him and vows lethal vindication while following our lead character, Billy Pilgrim, from WWII, the concentrations camps to the last breath Billy takes on Earth.

    There are so many gem moments in this movie and yet one would think that it sounds like a jumbled mess when jumping back and forth in time. But George Roy Hill is in perfect form making sense of it all while capturing the lunacy of an out-of-whacked Norman Rockwell existence and matching it with the horrors of Nazi Germany. The juxtaposition is amazing. Billy Pilgrim’s journey is touching, funny, frightening and thought provoking all at once.

    Billy, Michael Sacks in a remarkably sensitive portrayal, begins as an old man relaying his life to us. His children see him as a frail, confused man and just want the best for their father. Billy is at first accepting of his plight of never knowing where he may end up or not remembering with only an occasional hint of what’s to come. He bounces through time like a ping-pong ball across a table never landing in he same exact spot and sometimes spinning wildly out of control throwing us off, but always engaging us. We travel with him to the 30’s, all the way to the 60’s and onto the planet Tralfamadore in no particular order. One moment Billy could be asking for a kiss from Ms Wildhack with her pendulum-like breasts swinging in his face, the next he’s suddenly in a snow covered field hiding from the Nazi’s with his partner freaking out over Billy’s behavior (asking for a kiss). Billy’s experiences during WWII are just as captivating as his relationship with his overbearing and over weight wife who insistently promises Billy she has a new reason to lose the weight every time he’s made her happy. It’s priceless. The only down sides to the film as a whole are the makeup and special effects which were limited to not only the film’s budget, but also to the era as well. This can easily be overlooked ““ like that terrible suitcase in the “Dead Zone” that represented the final button to be pushed the event of a nuclear war. Everything else in “Dead Zone” was picture perfect ““ so one could forgive it and we do the same with Slaughterhouse-Five.

    Universal released a bare-bones DVD version of this fantastic film and one can only hope that somebody in the company get some smarts and give us a little more on a Blu-Ray edition. This is a must for sci-fi fans and required viewing by anybody that has a love for good strong, creative filmmaking/storytelling. For a true eclectic experience rent or buy this forgotten gem.

  • Trailer Park: KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN DVD Giveaway

    By Christopher Stipp

    The Archives, Right Here

    I’m awesome. I wrote a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.

    I’ll go on record as saying this probably the first time I’ve given away a movie that gave William Hurt an Academy Award and was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay in 1985. I do realize the median age of some people who read this and know many of you were barely getting a grasp on the English language when this film was making waves.

    Suffice to say there is nothing that can be put into meanigful explanation as to why this film works as well as it does when you consider the subject matter. The movie is grippingly intense, made on the kind of budget you would usually reserve for art house indies nowadays and made quite a stir when it was released.

    I’ve got 4 to give away and, with regard to winning one, all I need to know is whether you’ve seen it or not. That’s it. Hopefully I’ll be able to give a couple to those of you who loved it a long time ago and a couple to those who need to see it for the first time. Shoot me a line at Christopher_Stipp@Yahoo.com.

    For you newbies who need an explanation of the film here it is:

    The film tells of the political prisoner Valentin Arregui (Raul Julia) and effeminate homosexual and statutory rapist Luis Molina (William Hurt). They share a Brazilian prison cell.

    Molina passes the time by recounting memories from one of his favorite films, a wartime romantic thriller that’s also a Nazi propaganda film. He weaves the characters into a narrative meant to comfort Arregui and distract him from the harsh realities of political imprisonment and the separation from the woman he cares about.

    Arregui allows Molina to penetrate some of his defensive self and opens up. An unlikely friendship develops between the two prisoners: the dreamer and the political activist.

    As the story develops, it’s clear that Arregui is being poisoned by his jailers to force him to reveal what he knows. Molina, it seems, may also have ulterior motives.

  • Trailer Park: HELLBOY II DVD Giveaway

    By Christopher Stipp

    The Archives, Right Here

    I’m awesome. I wrote a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.

    Through the powers that be I have been given 5 copies of Guillermo del Toro’s actioneer HELLBOY 2 to give away on DVD. Those of you who have seen it know how well Guillermo has made a sequel that doesn’t feel like a cash-in and has every bit of oomph of its predecesor. The film is flat out fun and visually dazzling. It’s worthy of any fan’s collection and, coincidently enough, makes a great stocking stuffer come this Christmas. (Or, maybe you’re a greedy kind of person and want this magic all for yourself. I can respect that.)

    As always, the level of difficulty of getting a copy of this is quite high: Send me your name to Christopher_Stipp@yahoo.com

    (And, if you’ve won any previous DVD giveaways in the past month, sit on your hands. Seriously. Not everyone else is addicted to on-line contests like you…)

    For those who need some background here is the official synopsis:

    With a signature blend of action, humor and character-based spectacle, the saga of the world’s toughest, kitten-loving hero from Hell continues to unfold in Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Bigger muscle, badder weapons and more ungodly villains arrive in an epic vision of imagination from Oscar®-nominated director Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy).

    After an ancient truce existing between humankind and the invisible realm of the fantastic is broken, hell on Earth is ready to erupt. A ruthless leader who treads the world above and the one below defies his bloodline and awakens an unstoppable army of creatures. Now, it’s up to the planet’s toughest, roughest superhero to battle the merciless dictator and his marauders. He may be red. He may be horned. He may be misunderstood. But when you need the job done right, it’s time to call in Hellboy (Ron Perlman).

    Along with his expanding team in the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense – pyrokinetic girlfriend Liz (Selma Blair), aquatic empath Abe (Doug Jones) and protoplasmic mystic Johann – the BPRD will travel between the surface strata and the unseen magical one, where creatures of fantasy become corporeal. And Hellboy, a creature of two worlds who’s accepted by neither, must choose between the life he knows and an unknown destiny that beckons him.

  • TV Or Not TV: 11/24 – 11/30

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    Welcome to another edition of TV or Not TV where I am sad for The Pie Maker.

    As I mentioned a few weeks ago it is the time for shows to be judged by their presenters and they either get to continue on or they fall by the schedule wayside. We, the viewers, do not actually get to decide on the fates of these shows (except with our viewing habits as reported by the all-mysterious Nielsen ratings system). That decision, for right or wrong, is made by those in charge of the networks.

    I’m sad this week to learn that one of the more enjoyable and original shows is falling in a trifecta of cancellations (or non-order of new episodes) over at ABC. Pushing Daisies, along with it’s Wednesday night companions Eli Stone and Dirty, Sexy, Money, hasn’t been given a pickup. The network has no interest in new episodes, so the 13 that have been produced will potentially be the last new episodes that we will ever see. Those of you that have been fans of the show about a Pie Maker with the ability to bring those back from the dead with the touch of his finger will also be upset to know that episode 13 will end on a cliff hanger leaving us with a lingering question mark that may never have an answer.

    I’ve never actually followed the ratings for Pushing Daisies so I don’t know how it performed before the Writer’s Strike occurred. I do know that that Pushing Daisies was critically acclaimed (which oddly enough in television isn’t always a good thing) and that the show felt like it had good momentum before the abrupt halt it had to endure last year. I’m left wondering if its ratings sag has anything to do with the strike. Had it been to long for the audience of the show to remember (or even care) about it anymore? Was some of the magic lost in that downtime? All of these are questions without answers, of course, but that nagging feeling in the back of my head makes me believe that there is a connection.

    The passing of Pushing Daisies is once again another painful reminder that creator Bryan Fuller just can’t seem to catch a break. His first original venture about a woman receiving messages from inanimate objects was the short lived Wonder Falls which was critically acclaimed and didn’t complete its first season. The Showtime original Dead Like Me was another great show, critically adored and completed only two short seasons. All of his shows have unique and extremely entertaining concepts, superb writing, and all never seem to last long enough. Here is hoping that this at least means he can return to Heroes now and try to fix that damned show.

    My apologies to fans of Eli Stone and DSM for not going in to more detail as I only sampled either of these shows. I can simply say that to see an entire scheduled night of television go is quite a shock to the TV viewing system.

    NBC once again also proves itself to be the network that can’t give a show a chance to prove itself. The incredibly well made and compelling My Own Worst Enemy has also not been given a pick up, along with the returning Lipstick Jungle. Having only watched the former I can say that I’m shocked that the show isn’t getting a season to prove itself. This is a condition I feel that the sagging lead in of Heroes (as well as the cost to make the show) are coming heavily in to play.

    I’m sure that before we know it more shows will continue to fall. We have a whole slew of mid-season replacements on the way as well as the “winter” schedule shows due in January. As always, stay tuned.

    If you are one of the five people that actually read this column then you will pick up on the fact that at least two shows from last week are appearing again this week? What I do isn’t a perfect science and sometimes the wires can get crossed. Last week they got completely jumbled. My apologies to the confusion it may have caused.

    Now it is time to take a look at the shows that are still with us.

    MONDAY

    NBC ““ 8:00 PM: Last week we found out that Chuck‘s ex-girlfriend is actually the enemy, too bad Chuck doesn’t know it yet. He will within 42 broadcast minutes.

    FOX ““ 9:00 PM: Last week on Prison Break they spent the entire show breaking in to a high tech room to get at this Scyla thing. This week presumably they get it, but since we’re only half way through the season you can put even money on the fact that it all doesn’t just go off without a hitch (betrayal is a comin’).

    NBC ““ 9:00 PM: So you know how all this Heroes stuff happened with an eclipse? Well, amazingly enough another is happening and things get screwed up more than me writing last week’s column.

    TUESDAY

    NBC ““ 8:00 PM: Jerry Rice and Steve Young show up on The Biggest Loser: Families to put the players through NFL style workouts. I swear I’ve had nightmares about this EXACT same thing.

    ABC ““ 8:00 PM: Nothing says loving like A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. I haven’t seen this one in years and I just can’t wait to see it.

    FOX ““ 9:00 PM: A man on Fringe is so convinced he is being attacked by butterflies (you read that right) that he leaps from a window to escape them (seriously, butterflies?).

    WEDNESDAY

    NBC ““ 8:00 PM: Not since Sonny & Cher or Donnie & Marie have we seen a really good variety show. Rosie O’Donell hopes to change that tonight with Rosie Live! Good luck Ro, I’m rooting for you.

    ABC ““ 8:00 PM: As mentioned above there are a limited number of Pushing Daisies left so you may want to enjoy tonight’s episode. Stephen Root is on one again so it can’t be all that bad.

    THURSDAY

    NBC ““ 9:00 AM: If you’ve really needed a David Archuleta fix than you will want to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

    FOX ““ 8:00 PM: FOX’s answer to what to show on TV when no one is really watching is the Adam Sandler movie Click.

    NBC ““ 8:00 PM: I think I like NBC’s decision to air one of the best super-hero movies ever: The Incredibles.

    FRIDAY

    SCIFI ““ 8:00 AM: Wondering what to do for the next 24 hours? How about watching a Mork & Mindy marathon that pretty much covers the entire series run? Nanu!

    USA ““ 8:00 ““ 10:00 PM: It’s the day after Thanksgiving so naturally the Christmas things need to be brought out. Tonight special holiday editions of Monk and Psych give us our season’s greetings.

    FX ““ 8:00 PM: Here’s something I never thought I’d see, a Wayans brothers marathon. If you can stomach Little Man than your constitution is sturdy enough to handle White Chicks.

    SATURDAY

    TBS ““ 9:00 PM: Wow, I wasn’t aware this was officially variety show week. This night it’s Ellen’s Even Bigger, Really Big Show.

    USA ““ 9:00 PM: The movie Elf is one of my all-time holiday favorites. I know, it feels kind of wrong to put it up there with A Christmas Story but it is just good wholesome fun.

    SUNDAY

    ABC ““ 9:00 PM: It’s the post-fire episode of Desperate Housewives. Now we know who the crazy blonde guy is out for, but what is the REAL reason he’s after him?

    MTV ““ 10:00 PM: You might be surprised by Britney: For the Record as this 90 minutes is nothing at all like the last semi-reality show we saw her in. This one may have you actually feeling sorry for her.

    COMEDY ““ 10:00 PM: It’s a night of Kat Williams with The Pimp Chronicles Pt. 1 and American Hustle: The Movie.

    TNT ““ 10:30 PM: If you are like me you probably couldn’t muster the desire to buy or rent Lost Boys: The Tribe. If you have TNT you only have to endure commercials to sit through it. Don’t worry, I’ll be with you in spirit as I sit through this too.

    – Will Wilkins is counting down to turkey.

  • Trailer Park: TWILIGHT Interview

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    By Christopher Stipp

    The Archives, Right Here

    I’m awesome. I wrote a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.

    Does anyone have any idea how much people are willing to do anything to get close to those involved in TWILIGHT?

    Stores have been shut down, cops have been called in, teenage girls are crying at the mere mention of Robert Pattinson’s name, crowds have not packed and swelled malls to the kind of degree not seen since the last Menudo tour circa 1985 and some of those involved could not be more laid back and chill about it all.

    Edi Gathegi who plays Laurent, Rachelle Lefevre who plays Victoria and Taylor Lautner who plays Jacob Black could not have been more removed or reflective on the entire experience. They look at it with a bit of comedy, genuine amazement and are sanguine about how they feel towards any subsequent sequels.

    When I met them at the Valley Ho in Scottsdale, Arizona the film was about 2 weeks away from dropping, they were slated for an appearance at the local Scottsdale Fashion Square Mall where 750 teenagers paid $30 a pop for a t-shirt and a ticket that would allow them to get close enough for a photo and autograph. And I understand that. I won’t make fun of these people, although it’s awfully tempting when you see some of the nutters in line, but the real sports are the actors who put on a smiley face and braved the insanity.

    Note bene: This interview was conducted before me even seeing a frame of film or even reading a page of Arizona native Meyer’s book. So, keep your snarky comments to yourself. We join this interview with Rachelle and I talking, oddly enough, about how I once came from Chicago…

    RACHELLE LEFEVRE: You are? I’m a Bears fan.

    CHRISTOPHER STIPP: Nice. Cubs fan?

    LEFEVRE: No. Not a baseball person.

    CS: Then I’m done with you for the rest of the interview.

    LEFEVRE: Hey, I’m from Montreal, OK and I was an Expo’s fan until the 1994 strike ruined us on our way to win a World Series and we’ve never recovered and then we lost our team because Jeffrey Loria, who’s an American, bought up the team and sold it off for parts like it was art. So I do not watch baseball anymore. I am scared for life.

    EDI GATHEGI: That was the Expo’s?

    LEFEVRE: Yea. Hard to respect the team that played the second half of their last season in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

    CS: Regarding the film I know Pattinson is making an appearance in Chicago tonight, actually, and there are cops are being brought in to get ready

    LEFEVRE: They canceled the event in San Francisco.

    CS: I heard that. Did you guys know going in what you were getting yourselves into?

    TAYLOR LAUTNER: No, not really. The first time we realized the potential of this thing I think was ComiCon and our first night in Seattle was a pretty big taste of ComiCon again. I definitely was not expecting anything near what it was and they were just great. The fans are very supportive and we are very lucky to have them.

    GATHEGI: They are about as enthusiastic as you can get right up to the brink before they start breaking each others noses.

    LAUTNER: Exactly.

    (Laughs)

    GATHEGI: I think I lost a little bit of hearing though all that stuff.

    CS: I was actually there at ComiCon during all that. I only had a baseline understanding of the book series because Stephenie Miller is from here. I knew she was a local author but I had no idea that young girls, young people, really have attached themselves to this book series. As you guys were doing the film, what did you come to understand why young people are so connected to the story?

    GATHEGI: I think there are a lot of questions that come up when you are in high school and are a young adult. There’s a lot of teen angst, forbidden love, like the whole Romeo and Juliet story, she can’t really be with him because they are different species but they’ve fallen in love with each other and what do…does she want to turn, live the rest of her life as a vampire… and I think Stephenie does a wonderful job painting these characters in such a truthful and honest way.

    She does.

    She sets up our world as we know it. It’s our world and then she starts to justify or asks all the questions of how vampires could possibly exist in our world the way we would naturally. And then she has an answer for each question and you think, oh my god, this is a world that could possibly exist.

    LEFEVRE: Totally plausible.

    GATHEGI: Totally plausible. And I think people are rooting for their relationship as they read and it’s just so interesting and intense, it’s engaging and a pretty easy read so people fly though the book and attach themselves pretty quickly.

    CS: A lot has been made of vampires lately. True Blood on HBO has gone gangbusters. People love a good vampire story. Why? I think was fascinated just as a boy growing up with vampires in general, but it seems to be when you do the property right as in True Blood right now, TWILIGHT, from what everyone is saying…If you look at it from the right way it could just be huge. Why do people gravitate to vampires the way they do?

    LEFEVRE: We’ve been talking amongst ourselves about this too and there is certainly something that there are certain genre’s that just appeal to us for certain reasons at certain times and so vampires have always been around, they just keep coming in an out of fashion.

    But we are fascinated by one monster group at a time it seems in the zeitgeist. The thing that strikes me now about the vampire methodology, like True Blood and in Stephenie’s books, the genre, the methodology is being turned on it’s head. From what I’ve seen of True Blood it seems that Alan Ball is using it. It’s almost politically subversive. He’s using it to make arguments about the nature of humanity in a really interesting way about the nature of prejudice and it’s like he’s posited them as this minority group facing human challenges, which I find really interesting and the thing I find that I love about what Stephenie does is that it’s such an incredible metaphor for particularly at a young age but also like the Romeo and Juliet thing, for something that stands between two people being together.

    Whether that’s species in this case, or a class system, or whether it’s different religions, there a million reasons still today why we can’t all just be one group and so it highlights our differences in an extraordinary way. So, I think that’s one of the fascinations in society right now, why vampires are big. It allows us to ask those questions in a way that’s harmless because we are not asking about ourselves, we are asking about a hypothetical world. Sorry, I just rambled.

    (Laughs)

    CS: You’re right. I think we’re done here.

    GATHEGI: [Pointing at Taylor] He’s got nothing to contribute on the subject because he will be a werewolf.

    LEFEVRE: Why do we love werewolves so much?

    LAUTNER: Because they’re hot.

    (Laughs)

    GATHEGI: Literally. 180 degrees.

    CS: Well, to that point, Taylor and Edi, what did you bring to your own parts? You are asked to play a werewolf and vampire, respectively, and you are asked to step into these roles acting in disguise. You are essentially playing a werewolf and vampire for a vast majority of your screen time without ever brandishing scary teeth, hair all over your body…

    GATHEGI: Stephenie does a lot of the work for us with the rules of her methodology ““ there are no fangs, there are no garlic, no crosses. We go out in the daytime, but just can’t be seen in the direct sun or our skin will glitter. It doesn’t hurt us. It’s not like we have to be in a coffin during the day so a lot of the work is done for us and for me I just thought what would it be like to not ever sleep? What would it be like if I didn’t have to breathe? Like those simple things we do without thinking.

    A vampire has to consciously think to blink. Because humans blink naturally. Vampires don’t have to. So to appear human, vampires have to think about those things. So for me it was the stiller I could be, the more undead I would be. So it was an exercise in the economy in movement. I almost needed to do less. But it was serious concentration. Then on top of that not to play vampire, I play this character, this being that was once human and what were his interests when he was human and what are they now that he turned? I thought it would be interesting if he was a contemporary of some great figure in the 1700’s when he was turned and I picked St. George, this Renaissance man. He was a fencer, a very regal character and I thought what if they were friends so that gave him his gate so then I just added vampire on top of that.

    LAUTNER: It’s hard because I haven’t been transformed into a werewolf yet. I transform in the middle of the second book in the series. So, basically all I had to do is pretend which isn’t hard to have a huge crush on Kristin Stewart.

    (Laughs)

    That’s pretty much all I had to do because Jacob and Bella used to be very good friends when they were young and it’s the first time they’ve seen in other in quite a while when she moves back to Forks. He instantly has huge crush on her and cannot leave her alone, so that’s basically all I had to bring to life for Twilight.

    CS: The production itself, they say it wasn’t intentionally done to have a woman director, a woman writer, but in the notes I’ve been reading, it kind of was. Was it irrelevant by the time you guys were producing it or, for lack of a better term, did it feel like it had a woman’s touch?

    LAUTNER: I think for Katherine it doesn’t have to do anything whatsoever. Katherine has just shown in her past, with 13 and Lords of Dogtown and now this she is a professional at relating to the young. She has so much energy she is infectious. She brings the best out of us. She has such a creative imagination and that’s what Twilight needs is to take this book that is in words and bring it to life visually for the fans so they can see on the big screen what been on their minds the whole time they’ve been reading the story. I just think Katherine was the best choice we could have chosen do direct it.

    LEFEVRE: And her history is a production designer and so she does have exactly that. She does have an appreciation for the visual. And this was a world that was so specific on the page and needed to be brought to life exactly as it was written and needed somebody who could read the book and the script and have that intense visual. I don’t know. Maybe a female made a difference there ““ maybe having a female imagination helped in the visualizing.

    GATHEGI: We have good imaginations too.

    LEFEVRE: You do??? Someone told me you think also. Is that true?

    (Laughs)

    CS: Everyone says you can get though this in a week but one page in her book and one page in a script, you have X number of pages have to cut. As well, some people got on this film without seeing a script, they just latched on to it. Can you tell me a little bit about A) Did you see the script before you came on and then B) What was important to Stephenie in your characters that she wanted to be sure she got in within the running time of the movie?

    GATHEGI: I’ll try to go fast. I did not see a script when I auditioned. I just saw the sides ““ which is a scene that my character was in and I was not into it because I could tell it was an other worldly project and that was not my thing.

    I’m really not a vampire fan.

    When I met Katherine and had a great audition with Katherine I wanted to work with her and when I found out they wanted me to play the part then I picked up the books and I went, now this is not your traditional vampire story. She’s turned it upside down. This is an amazing story. It’s a romance set in the world of vampires. I absolutely want to be a part of this. I’m in love with this. What was the second part of the question?

    CS: What she wanted to retain?

    GATHEGI: And like you said, it was a 500 page book condensed into a two hour movie so I think for our characters, the nomads, we are the antagonists. There is no movie without conflict and I think that we’re not introduced in the book until page 300’s so in the movie for dramatic purposes I think it was important that they showed we exist before we exist in the books so the impending doom is there kind of a parallel story with the love story so you know there are some things about to go down.

    LEFEVRE: I think it’s exactly the story of the book just condensed. Whatever is different is only different for the purposes of time. For the purposes of condensing the story. There is nothing that I can think of that is really far away from what Stephenie wrote. It’s all Stephenie’s stuff. And if it is contorted in any way in order to make it fit into a two hour movie, it’s still Stephenie’s world and still things she wrote, they are just condensed or rearranged slightly.

    GATHEGI: And I’ll add to that condensed or rearranged slightly ““ if anything is different it’s movie making. It’s not a perfect science. There are certain things like locations and budgetary things and the sun is shining so you literally have to move the location, so maybe differences in that way but other than that, the attempt and the success of the attempt is very good.

    CS: {To Taylor] Did you read the script?

    LAUTNER: No, I didn’t. Just the sides. What I actually did, Jacob’s character basically just gets introduced in Twilight and develops later in the series but what they did for my audition process is take just in quotes from the second and third books and made it into sides and it was very interesting for me and I knew immediately, I love intimate relationships between boy and girl, I’ve always been a romance fan so I loved the sides, loved the writing, hadn’t read the books yet and as soon as I got cast in the film, that is when I read the books and the script.

    CS: And now looking at this not just as a book, or a movie, you are looking at two or three, are you comfortable to signing your self on this trilogy? Any reservations about going on to do more?

    LEFEVRE: I had no reservations before I signed on. I read the first book right before my audition and read the other two before I was cast and I read the script before I agreed to do it but having read all three books and knowing that someone had chosen Katherine, it could have gone one of two ways. They could have gotten a director who was an action person for all the action sequences and the chase stuff, and they could have gone with somebody who was really great with that and had experience doing that and then just allowed them to do the romance story. But they didn’t. They went the other way. They knew that Katherine would be able to pull off the action stuff and gave her an amazing – Andy who was our stunt coordinator and second unit director was an incredible ““ so they made a great team in the two of them so they let Katherine really do what she does best is really have organic behavior and an intense story from young actors. So knowing they had made that choice, I trusted Summit implicitly with the series so for that reason there were no hesitations for me. The story was great and they picked Katherine.

    GATHEGI: And I can speak for them we would all love to do the subsequent films if there are any but there aren’t any right now. We’re going to see what happens in a week and a half.

    LEFEVRE: And we’re always the last to know anyway. The actors. Last on the phone chain.

    CS: The Internet seems to always know first.

    (Laughs)

  • Opinion In A Haystack: Buck Shots

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    A recurring series of columns celebrating forgotten, underappreciated, or down right hilarious moments of interest from a confusing variety of films.

    The definition of the “Money Shot” according to Wikipedia is a provocative, sensational, or memorable sequence in a film, on which the film’s commercial performance is perceived to depend. You are probably familiar with it yourself, most notably for its pornographic definition. I will not be focusing exactly on “Money Shots,” because the moments that will be provided are, more often then not, extremely cheap and unintentionally gut busting. Since my focus here will be on a low-budget oeuvre, I have decided to call them “Buck Shots” instead. These are moments on which a film’s cheese-factor is based, often underlining the tone of the entire production and providing the viewer with the opposite effect intended.

    My personnal path crossed with the existence of most of these wonderfully derelict moments because I managed a “mom and pop” video store for the better part of half a decade and “clerked” there as well. It was the glorius type of video outlet which had 25 years worth of VHS rentals accumulated within its long and many isles”¦plus the biggest porn room in town!

    My co-workers, my friends, and I were often obsessed with cheesey cinema, especially the culture of completely forgotten 80’s sci-fi, action, and horror titles released during VHS-mania. There were literally thousands of films that even cinephiles like us had never heard of, with the longest, cliché’ taglines ever concieved stamped right on the cover. We would each often indulge in the cornecopia of forgotten shlock, and play the most reprehensible, hilarious, or disgusting moments during our shifts. However, due to the fact that 90% of these films were downright unwatchable, we would usually only share the “Buck Shots” and never the film, sparing everyone else from the painful, elongated running times. Hence I wish to do that same for you.

    This entry into Buck Shots: ASIAN COPS AND HEAD/AUTOMOTIVE TRAUMA

    Collision Course (1989) ““ PAT MORITA’S JUMP KICK

    Tag Lines:

    • “The only thing stopping these two cops from solving the crime of the century… is each other.”
    • “Not So Much A Lethal Weapon, More Of A Liability!”
    • “With two cops like this someone’s going to die laughing!”

    The first and only thing I would ever say to Jay Leno upon meeting him is “I loved you in Collision Course!” Not sure if that will anger or annoy him, but I’m betting on the former. Directed by Lewis Teague, also the director of the “blah” Romancing the Stone sequel Jewel of the Nile, this much forgotten piece of late 80’s comedy action is not completely worthless. The cast includes the two notable leads, Chris Sarandon (of Fright Night and Princess Bride fame) and the creepy Tom Noonan (Monster Squad, Robocop 2, Last Action Hero, Manhunter.) And no, this has nothing to do with the Crocodile Hunter.

    I am probably alone, but I would easily prefer watching this Asian Guy/American Guy buddy movie over any of the Rush Hours or Shanghai Noons“¦in fact this film did the Asian-American Buddy drinking scene before and better then Shanghai Noon. I have actually sat through this film more then once since obtaining a VHS copy off eBay circa 1996 and can honestly say that few film moments have struck me as hard or as funny then the one below. Like most of the clips I will post here, describing this one with mere words is only doing you, and it, a disservice”¦enjoy:

    Low Blow (1986) ““ LEO FONG SLOWLY ATTACKS A CAR FILLED WITH BAD GUYS

    Taglines:

    • “The deadliest weapon is still your fist.”
    • “When the odds are against you…hit hard, hit first, and hit with a low blow.”

    In Low Blow we have the famous 70’s and 80’s martial arts actor Leo Fong playing detective Joe Wong, whose character is on a mission to save a kidnapped girl from a religious cult. It also has Tae-Bo legend Billy Blanks in it as well, and don’t worry I plan to cover some of his “amazing” movies eventually, as I own several (yes, Billy Blanks has movies.) A warning should be given that if your interest is at all peaked from these clips, please note that if you look up Low Blow on Google you will get more then your fair share of gay porn results, I found this out the hard way. Now I don’t exactly know who that guy with the abnormally large fist on the box cover is, but I’m guessing it’s just a random graphic, since it’s not Detective Wong or the evil cult leader.

    This clip needs to be described, only because in text form it almost sounds more ridiculous then the real thing. If you want to watch it fresh, skip this and go to the video below. In this two minute snippet we see Detective Wong chase three “bad guys” to their getaway car. Watch as he runs up to the vehicle, lifts the hood without a single problem, pulls out an apparently crucial part of the engine, flaunts and wiggles it to the bad guys inside the car, whilst they writhe and scream like babies. He then proceeds, WITH A SMILE, to take a plank of wood and joyfully smash in all the windows and dent the body. Meanwhile the evil dudes inside the car scream and moan as if being attacked, while fully NOT taking the several and very lengthy chances to EXIT THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE CAR. Leo Fong then runs AWAY from the car, puts on safety goggles and picks up the conveniently placed round saw and begins to slowly cut off the roof. When finished, he simply lifts the roof off the car and LETS THE BAD GUYS RUN AWAY!!! All of this is of course taking place while a loop of 80’s synth-music repeats constantly (as it does through the rest of the movie.) It’s pure genius on so many levels. If you doubt for one second that what I just described is 100% true”¦just watch:

    Low Blow (1986) ““ THE FACE CAKE!

    This clip takes place a tad later in the film, I believe as Detective Wong infiltrates the cult fortress (or the cult’s suburban house.) Wong slowly walks down a corridor (OF EVIL!) and is attacked by a henchman, one that was apparently involved in the elaborate and sluggish car attack earlier as he states “Got you now Chinaman! I think you owe me a car!” Now, the unnecessary racial slur aside, what I’ve always wondered was, was this henchman in the car or did he just own it and get really pissed when he found out what happened?

    Because all we are dealing with here is master shots and poorly lit shots, it is hard to make out who exactly this henchman is. Leo Fong flips him on his back and then, well, he kills him by smashing his skull in”¦yet in the universe of Low Blow all henchmen’s biological material is made of birthday cake. They don’t allude to it much in the narrative, but it obviously true. See:

    Ok, that is all for this first entry of BUCK SHOTS”¦I have a whole gaggle of clips that will keep coming your way. Thanks for reading!

  • Trailer Park: EXCLUSIVE MILK Screening In Phoenix

    By Christopher Stipp

    The Archives, Right Here

    I’m awesome. I wrote a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.

    How many people are coming back for the Thanksgiving holiday early next week and want to see a possible Oscar contender slug it out on the screen as he fights ignorance, intolerance and homophobia? Well then I have a deal for you…

    Gus Van Sant’s film that chronicles the election of California’s first openly gay official opens December 5th but you can see it early if you drop me a line at Christopher_Stipp@Yahoo.com. The screening is this Tuesday night, the 25th, at the Scottsdale Camelview at 7 p.m. and if you shoot me your name and address you are in the race to get in. It’s as easy as that.

    The official synopsis follows…

    His life changed history. His courage changed lives. In 1977, Harvey Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, becoming the first openly gay man to be voted into public office in America.

    His victory was not just a victory for gay rights; he forged coalitions across the political spectrum. From senior citizens to union workers, Harvey Milk changed the very nature of what it means to be a fighter for human rights and became, before his untimely death in 1978, a hero for all Americans. Sean Penn stars as Harvey Milk under the direction of Gus Van Sant in Milk, filmed on location in San Francisco from an original screenplay by Dustin Lance Black, and produced by Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen. Milk charts the last eight years of Harvey Milk’s life. While living in New York City, he turns 40.

    Looking for more purpose, Milk and his lover Scott Smith (James Franco) relocate to San Francisco, where they found a small business, Castro Camera, in the heart of a working-class neighborhood. With his beloved Castro neighborhood and beautiful city empowering him, Milk surprises Scott and himself by becoming an outspoken agent for change. With vitalizing support from Scott and from new friends like young activist Cleve Jones (Emile Hirsch), Milk plunges headfirst into the choppy waters of politics. Bolstering his public profile with humor, Milk’s actions speak even louder than his gift-of-gab words. When Milk is elected supervisor for the newly zoned District 5, he tries to coordinate his efforts with those of another newly elected supervisor, Dan White (Josh Brolin). But as White and Milk’s political agendas increasingly diverge, their personal destinies tragically converge. Milk’s platform was and is one of hope ““ a hero’s legacy that resonates in the here and now.

  • Trailer Park: TWILIGHT Review

    By Christopher Stipp

    The Archives, Right Here

    I’m awesome. I wrote a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.

    I thought of all the different ways to review this movie and none of them seemed to be the right way to do it.

    You see, the overriding emphasis on what I want to get across about TWILIGHT is that this film was for sure, absolutely, positively not made for me. I am a 33 year old male who hasn’t read any of the books written by Arizona native Stephenie Meyer and have no inclination to read the series based on a vampire and his human ward/lady friend. But that’s alright, I would come to feel by the end of this movie, because of one fact alone: this is show business and this film is in the business of appealing to young ladies. It does it so well, in fact, that I dare say this should be the one movie on prepubescents’ lips come Monday morning as the one film that has defined their year.

    For the rest of us, however, this movie isn’t completely awful. Lord knows that the dialog is pretty bad, the characterization of our human love interest is beyond hackneyed and has been done before in countless other angst-y teenagers who hate life and whose parents just “don’t understand them” to say nothing of Bella Swan’s (Kristen Stewart) weirdly distant father who only adds to the movie’s forced narrative that this is, at its heart, a movie about teenage alienation. Like I said, it’s been done before in countless ways before in a lot better films. However, what I can say, like Edward tells Bella at the film’s prom scene that this all a rite of passage she deserves and needs to be a part of, is that this film is for the ladies.

    This movie is going to be the gateway drug (and, really, everyone out there who will find themselves sitting in the theater as Edward (Robert Pattinson) tells Bella that she’s his brand of heroin try not to completely fall out of your seat as your belly ripples with the giggles that are sure to ensue) for many disenfranchised teenage girls who don’t have a voice in the current cinema climate.

    The story of a young Bella who leaves the sunny and sandy shores of Scottsdale for the wet confines of Washington state, adjusting to life in a new high school and finding the boy of her dreams, only to find out he’s a member of the undead, is a relatively innocuous one. What we have here is a fairly basic flicks that has a shroud of vampirism tossed over it. And you know what? It’s a hoot. It’s a genuinely interesting film as we progress deeper into Meyer’s mythos, finding out what this brand of vampire is capable of doing, how they live, what makes them special, what threatens their existence, etc… It’s the exploration of these smaller bits that elevates this film from just being a shoddily produced cash-in.

    However, there are elements in the movie that would tell you otherwise.

    The wire work, effects and anything else that required even the slightest bit of modern 21st century technology to enhance was abhorrent. There are moments, for example in the penultimate fight sequence (and a sequence that answers the question of What would James Dean look like if he were in a roughshod martial arts film?)  between Edward and bad-boy James (Cam Gigandet) was nothing if but a comedic romp into bad action blocking. As well, Taylor Lautner’s performance as Jacob Black gets my Anthony Hopkins Award for racial blurring as that poor kid must have been given the C. Thomas Howell SOUL MAN treatment with enough self-tanner to make his olive skin turn a deep rusty hue in order to be the Native American representative of the werewolves. The aforementioned dialogue gets really, really bad at times and there’s even the sense that the players in this movie weren’t really given the ability to take Meyers’ work any higher than teenage melodrama. It’s more like a pilot for the CW at certain points in this film. And I cannot stress enough the grating attitude that Bella seems to carry with her throughout the film. My main issue with this is if you create a protagonist who is so easily pained with her own life that she projects it whenever possible how could anyone else, besides teenagers whose sole sphere of experience spans life in only two insular stages: inside of school and outside of school, identify with this woman? The answer, if you’re following close enough, is that you’re not. This book, this film, this series, speaks to some elusive trigger mechanism in young teenage ladies and it’s clear to anyone looking at the screen that unless you shop at Hollister or Hot Topic there’s not much you’re going to get out of this.

    There are  other members of the film, though, who actually do contribute to this film and elevate it just a little bit more than just a campy excuse to be doused in white flower. Peter Facinelli is one such actor and, to be quite honest, surprised me. His delivery isn’t stiff. He doesn’t lower his head and look forward to talk like some members of his vampy family. He speaks normally and acts, literally, as if he’s a vampire but just happens to live in a human’s world. Dare I say it I would have rather followed his story more than I wanted to follow everyone else’s. Rachelle Lefevre, one of the other “bad” vampires of this film, is a delight. She’s actually quite alluring and plays her role in a way that makes you feel a) like she could treat your neck like a piece of skirt steak and you would let her willingly and b) she is able to project a hint of evil without being obnoxious.

    In all, TWILIGHT is going to make millions off the backs of young girls who have been in need of a DARK KNIGHT for themselves. Honestly, I couldn’t be happier for them. This film does not try to be all things to all people, it does not want me to like it nor does it try too hard to, it hits the right emotional notes of those in its targeted sights and there is no way you could walk out of that film thinking that there is no way an audience could love that film because when you consider that in the land of show business this is one property that knows its market.

  • Toy Box: Indiana Jones Chief Temple Guard Action Figure

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    In future times, when today’s action figure collectors are living together at the only rest home that will take them, sharing their stories of days gone by, much discussion will center around the Hasbro Indiana Jones action figure line of 2008, and the mistakes that doomed it to failure.

    In case you hadn’t heard, the Temple of Doom wave will most likely be the last to see retail daylight, and even that wave has been harder to find than an honest man in politics. Many others were shown, and the diehard fan’s obsession was fueled, but these things will not come to pass. The whys are many. Collectors will cite the over production of the first couple waves, with their lame Mutts, poor paint jobs, and weak quality control. Average parents will point out a lackluster fourth movie that failed to drive kid’s interest to the overall franchise. And I’m sure Hasbro will point out that Indy had to battle against a crowded summer of high performing blockbusters like Iron Man and Wall-E, and the weakening economy that’s drying up the action figure market. And of course, Bakugan is kicking everyone’s ass.

    Despite the reasons, the effects are here. Finding the Temple of Doom wave – which includes a new Indy, Willie, Short Round, Molan Ram, a Temple Guard, and the Chief Temple Guard – has been the quest of collectors for several weeks now. If you’re lucky, you may find them at a Meijers or a Kroger. If not, you’ll pay through the nose on Ebay or from your local scalper.

    I’ve managed to snag a few, although both Indy and Willie remain on my hunt list. I’ll check out the Chief Temple Guard tonight, and much of what I say about him translates to the rest of this wave as well. If you have any questions, drop me an email at mwc@mwctoys.com, or visit my site at Michael’s Review of the Week – Captain Toy.

    Indiana Jones Temple of Doom wave – Chief Temple Guard

    Temple of Doom used to be my least favorite Indiana Jones movie. That was of course until this summer and the release of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. TOD has it’s issues, but they are nothing compared to the stinker that is KOTCS. But no matter how badly George and Stephen treat their poor Indy, I still buy all the figures. And while TOD might not be the best of the movies, it certainly has some of the coolest looking villains.

    You’ll remember the Temple Guard Chief. He’s the big ugly dude that likes beating the kids in the mine, and who pays for it in a rather brutal and nasty death. Your trivia of the day – this character was played by the English actor Pat Roach, who also played the German Mechanic in Raiders of the Lost Ark and a Gestapo solider in Last Crusade, making him the only other actor (other than Ford of course) to play in all three original films.

    Packaging – ***1/2
    I’ve liked the small packages all along, with their retro feel and general Indy branding. The shape of the bubbles do make them a bit difficult to store for the MOCers, but they hold up surprisingly well to basic shelf wear.

    Sculpting – ***1/2
    I suspect that had earlier waves been sculpted this well, they would have sold much better. If it weren’t for one issue, I would have gone full four stars here.

    The head sculpt might only be 3/4″ from tip of beard to top of turban, but you can clearly see Pat Roach’s character in there. The fine detail work on the beard is excellent for this scale, and the folds and layers of the turban look very realistic.

    The body work is general top notch as well. The torso was probably intended for the German Mechanic as well, since the belts and accoutrements you see are all glued on separately. He stands about 4 1/4″, slightly above the other figures in the line, fitting in pretty well scale wise.

    My only problem with this category is in the figure’s ability to stand. I always include that concept with the sculpt, rather than the articulation – you might think otherwise. I had a mighty tough time getting this guy to stand on his own, although it is possible with the right combination of the ankles, knees, hips and feet. This is due in large part to his very small feet, which make it tough to get the high center of gravity just right.

    Paint – ***
    The worst aspect of the early waves of Indy figures was the sloppy paint. It looks like Hasbro got those issues resolved just in time to cancel the line.

    Many of the pieces are cast in the appropriate color, like the arms, torso, legs, etc. You can tell by the slightly glossy plastic look to these parts that they were not painted separately. This works fine for me, particularly since the colors from one plastic piece to another remain consistent.

    There are small details that are added, however, including things like the eyes, teeth, and small spots on the outfit. There’s a bit more slop here than would be perfect (especially under the glaring eye of the camera – in person it’s not as noticable), particularly around the red and black on the sash/belt. But it’s a huge improvement over the early waves, and indicates that Hasbro could get it right given time. Unfortunately, they didn’t have as much time as they needed.

    Articulation – ***1/2
    Considering the scale, this boss baddie has an impressive number of useful joints.

    There’s a ball jointed neck, but the ball is so far up his head that it operates pretty much like a cut joint. The shoulders are ball jointed too, but they have an excellent range of movement, and take full advantage of their ballish nature. The arms also have a cut joint above the elbow, a pin joint at the elbow, and a cut wrist joint. That’s a lot of arm articulation for this size figure!

    The waist is also cut, and he has the standard T hips. The knees are ball joints though (or peg/post as I like to call them), allowing the lower leg to move forward and back as well as giving it the ability to turn. There’s this same sort of peg/post joint at the ankle too, and it’s a good thing since without the mobility in the ankle, you’d have a tough time keeping him standing.

    Accessories – ***1/2
    Often, the accessories get dumped to keep the price down. That’s not the case here.

    All the Indy 3 3/4″ figures have come with a special accessory – a treasure of sorts. This relic comes in a cardbard crate, along with a small sticker. If you collected six of the stickers and sent them in, you could get the mail away Crystal Skull skeleton. The artifact that comes with the Chief Temple Guard is a Spartan helmet, made from soft rubber. The helmet is quite large for this scale, and actually fits in better with a figure in the 6 – 7″ scale. In fact, you could put it with your Disney Indiana Jones, and it would fit in great.

    The Chief also comes with three of his own goodies. There’s the cat-o-nine-tails style whip that he used on the kids/slaves, as well as a long, curved saber. This sword can fit inside a loop that is sculpted on his belt. Finally, there’s his unique dagger, which he can hold in his hand, or it can be sheathed in a loop on his chest.

    Three film appropriate accessories along with the relic make for a much better Accessories score than we usually see in this scale, at least in the current market.

    Fun Factor – ****
    Great looking figure with solid articulation, a nice group of accessories, and the ability to stand off against a key hero – how much more fun can any one action figure be? Collectors may find themselves drawn more to Willie (another great sculpt and paint), but the kids are going to be attracted to the bad guys to give Indy someone to smack around. I suppose Willie or Short Round could serve that purpose too, but then there’d be that whole series of parent/teacher conferences you’d have to attend.

    Value – ***
    Some retailers have dropped the price of their Indy figures as low as $5, although most places are still in that $7 range. That’s a pretty average price for a 3 3/4″ figure, but most don’t have this number of accessories, or this level of articulation, making this a better than average value.

    Of course, finding this guy (or any of the TOD wave) at retail is the far bigger issue than paying seven bills for him.

    Things to Watch Out For –
    It’s unlikely you’ll get a ton of choices when picking up this figure, so looking for the best paint is probably a moot point. Thankfully, the paint has been great on all the ones I’ve seen.

    Overall – ***1/2
    The sad, unfortunate truth is that this entire wave, from the new Indy to Short Round, is a big improvement over past waves. It looks like Hasbro was just getting it right when they had to stop. And collectors (including me) will be whining about never getting a Toht for years to come.

    If you do see this wave, and you or someone you know is interested in them, I’d grab them. While I have my fingers crossed that there are crates of these sitting in some warehouse, it is likely that it’s the same warehouse from Raiders, and those crates will never be seen or heard from again. Hey, there’s an idea for George – Indy 5: Indiana Jones and the Quest for the TOD wave. It couldn’t be any worse than KOTCS.

    Where to Buy –
    As I said earlier, these are mighty tough to come by. Krogers (yes, the grocery store) had some when the DVD was released, and Meijers has stocked them off and on. They’ve trickled in to some other mass retailers, but not in any real numbers yet. You can find them online, but you’ll pay quite a premium. I suspect we’ll see these dumped at some retailer like Big Lots eventually.

    Related Links –
    I’ve covered a TON of Indy merchandise at mwctoys.com, but let’s just stick with the 3 3/4″ line for now.

    – I had a guest review of this entire TOD wave, as well as another guest review on various figures from the earlier waves.

    – I covered the Swordsman, Indy and Marion in one review, as well as several of the deluxe two packs.