FRED Entertainment

Tag: academy awards

  • Trailer Park: Michael Shannon of THE MISSING PERSON

    By Christopher Stipp

    The Archives, Right Here

    I was able to sit down for a couple of years and pump out a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.

    Check out my new column, This Week In Trailers, at SlashFilm.com and follow me on TWITTER under the name: Stipp

    Michael Shannon of THE MISSING PERSON – Interview

    It’s not every day when you are lucky enough to talk to an actor who was not only nominated for an Academy Award for his work in a film like REVOLUTIONARY ROAD, getting edged out by Heath Ledger for his role in THE DARK KNIGHT, but who was also in GROUNDHOG DAY. Honestly, between the former and the latter I am not sure what warrants more kudos but I do know that his work in the new film THE MISSING PERSON is one of the brightest spots in films for 2009.

    To talk with Michael is to really love the guy. He speaks with the kind of thoughtfulness and consideration you wish people in your everyday life would use and seems to exude the sense that he’s always observing, always taking in his surroundings. Being an Academy Award nominee ought to have put him in rarefied air but as he expresses below, he does look forward to the day when he can play a role where people aren’t instinctively afraid of him.  I floated the idea of a romantic comedy but I think we both agree that project might be a wee premature. Regardless of the personas he puts on like a finely tailored suit, Michael Shannon still is one to watch and in THE MISSING PERSON he is effortless in the way he navigates a film that showcases his best talents as an actor.

    THE MISSING PERSON is now showing.

    missing-poster1MICHAEL SHANNON: Hey Chris.

    CHRISTOPHER STIPP:  Hey Michael.

    SHANNON: How are you?

    CS:  I’m doing fine.  How is your press day going?

    SHANNON: Good.  We are having fun.

    CS:  Is this really a fun part of making a movie that you get to answer the same questions over and over again?

    SHANNON: You know, I don’t mind it.  It’s been a while since I made the movie so it’s fun to go back and think about it.

    CS:  How is that?  That it takes a while for a movie to get made and takes a little while for it to get out there ““ do you ever get anxious for people to see what you’ve done or are you kind of off doing your next thing once you’re done with a film?

    SHANNON: For me it’s like pushing a little boat onto the lake or something.  It sails away and you’re not sure if you are going to see it again.  You just move on and go onto the next thing.  A lot of actors won’t even watch their own movies.  I’m not of that school.  I actually try to enjoy watching the movie if, and when, it comes out because you work really hard on a movie and I like to see the end result.  But I certainly don’t wait around waiting for it to happen.  You have to go on and do the next thing.

    CS:  Getting the part seemed ““ just to read it on the surface seems like it was relatively easy.  You had a friend in Amy Ryan and she just happened to pull you along where you got to meet Noah.  Was the process just as smooth as the story makes it out to be?

    SHANNON: Well, I did a reading of it and reading are always kind of weird.  I don’t like doing a reading of a screenplay.  It’s such a visual medium.  We sat around and read it and it really read well.  The dialogue was cryptic and it was just a really fun night.  And I think Noah, for whatever reason after the reading, he just felt comfortable with me doing the part.  Obviously, at least at that time, he could have hired profile names for that part and it would have made it easier to finance and distribute but Noah doesn’t really care about any of that.  He goes with his gut.  He’s a very instinctual person.

    CS:  Yes.  I talked with him about the film and yes, he amazes me that someone like that can still survive in this business, where it’s not a commodity that can be packaged and bubble wrapped, it makes it a tough sell but it seemed like he still got on the film what he intended to have there with his script.

    SHANNON: In his own quiet way, he’s a real warrior.  He had to deal with a lot of uncertainty and doubt from a lot of people but he had a vision and held to it.  That’s why I’m so happy that this film is going to get a life.  If anyone deserves to have a film out there it’s him.

    CS:  It absolutely is and it was no hyperbole yesterday when I told him it was one of the better movies I’ve seen this year.  It’s wholly original, wholly it’s own, and you just unfortunately don’t get to see a lot of these films that aren’t spawned by a sequel, or prequel or reboot or rehash.

    shannon1SHANNON: Right.

    CS:  It must have been appealing to you as an actor to take something that was completely, start from scratch.

    SHANNON: There are two instances for me when I have just been blown away by reading the screenplay without even going into production or anything.  And this one, was one of them and the other was Shotgun Stories.  Both of them, just on the page, were very substantial and original and about something meaningful.  In a way, instead of Noah and Jeff Nichols from Shotgun Stories, there are some similarities.  They are both very quiet, very thoughtful and they are really two of my favorites.  I hope to work with Noah a lot more.  It’s hard to tell what his next move will be.  It’s hard for him in this business because he has some standards that he’s not going to let go of.  He’s also not a showy person by nature.

    CS:  Right.  I don’t see him directing the next installment of X-Men anytime soon.

    (Laughs)

    SHANNON: Exactly.

    CS:  The character for you was obviously on the page but you had to interpret it in your own way.  What did you see in this character?  What humanity did you bring to it off the page?  What did you see in it?

    SHANNON: To me it starts with 9/11.  It’s starts with a man who’s life was ruined on 9/11 and was not able to carry on, which is something that all identify with, at least in our imaginations, if we have not experienced it personally.  A huge sense of loss and a huge sense of giving up and at the beginning of the film he’s in this pit of darkness and despair and living in a haze of booze and cigarette smoke.  And Miss Charley comes to begin to pull him out of his funk because at the end of the day that’s the bottom line that 9/11 happened.  The world didn’t stop and we all had to figure out a way to deal with it and move on.  Noah is from New York, born and raised and 9/11 was a huge deal for him and I think in a lot of ways this is his way of trying to deal with it.

    CS:  In my notes I have that it doesn’t feel like a statement about 9/11 but just happens to be like a fact.  It’s not something that needs to have a spotlight shown on it.  It seems like it’s important to the character because that’s how he starts out.  That’s how we get to know him.  But it feels like something that has happened but nothing that needs any more context other than that.

    SHANNON: There certainly isn’t any moralizing going on.  It’s not like lessons being taught.  It’s just about the people.  It’s about John and the other missing person.  The person I’m trying to find.  It’s about the decisions that they make.  It’s not, will I be able to love again or feel again.

    CS:  It almost feels like, and not to be cliché about it, but he literally has nothing else to loose.  If any number of things could have been put in front of him to do that might have been slightly dangerous or some kind of thrill, he’s got to feel like there is nothing else there ““ just kind of numb to everything around him.  It’s interesting that he choose to couch this film sort of with a noir tinge and I can’t think of any recent films that want to try and marry the modern experience with noir but it fits right in.  How did he explain it to you?

    SHANNON:  Noah didn’t explain much of anything to me.  I think a lot of times the contract between an actor and director is basically if you are able to mesh them and give them the confidence that you will show up at a reasonable facsimile in their imagination, which I think I did at the meeting, they don’t really get in your face too much when you’re working.  For me, a film noir is dark, black.  I can’t think of an even that would make more sense to marry film noir than 9/11.  It seems almost a childlike simplistic marriage.  So I wasn’t very conscious of trying to act in any particular style.  But, I’m sure a lot of it comes from the subconscious.  We all like to play and pretend and this detective is an art type in our collective consciousness.  I can’t name any person that I’m trying to copy or emulate but I know it’s all in there and when I put that suit on and stumble around I’m just playing at the same icon that other people have played before me.

    shannon2CS:  But it’s not one we’ve seen in a long time.  At least if you were to open up the paper and look at the movie listings it’s not something that’s really in vogue to do.

    SHANNON: I guess there’s a risk of it seeming dated ““ if people can see something coming I guess they are more likely to find it distasteful.  It’s a hard thing to pull off without seeming like you are weeping about it.  So I guess that’s why I didn’t want to go back and watch any of the classic movies because I didn’t want to go back and then show up imitating someone.  I wanted to show up and be there and react.

    CS:  Was it a fluid process on the set?  This isn’t a Pearl Harbor, it wasn’t a mega production.  Is there an intimacy, to put it like that, when you are on a set this size that you don’t get on a major film set?

    SHANNON: Oh yes.  It was very intimate.  What I enjoyed about it was that it was hard.  There were long days.  We shot the movie very quickly.  We typically would do a couple, maybe three, scenes a day.  I was always working.  I wasn’t sitting around much which I enjoy.  I think it helps the film.  It’s a better atmosphere.  More conducive to good acting than sitting around for hours and hours doing nothing.

    CS:  I know that this question seems sort of far off field but looking to see how you got your start with Ground Hog Day and I lived in Illinois and actually visited the set when I was still in high school.  Just as an idea or a thought, Amy has been in the office and your roles as of late has been quite heavy and dramatic, any romantic comedies coming out of you any time soon?

    SHANNON: I don’t know.  It’s a hard time in the business in general.  There’s not a lot of people making big risks right now.  I got real close on a James Brooks film actually.  I was in a callback and it went through my mind while l was auditioning that this would really surprise people.  This would be the thing that would dispel all these lines of thoughts that I’m some crazy guy.

    (Laughs)

    And I think because I had that thought consciously, it made me very nervous and wasn’t able to audition well enough to get the part.  So, it’s kind of like, I don’t know, maybe I need to go to a sport psychologist or something to fix the pitcher that can’t throw his curve ball anymore because he’s so worried about it getting knocked out of the park.

    But, I don’t want to spend my whole life playing people that other people are scared of.  The thing is, John is a funny guy and a sweet guy.  He certainly ends up being sweet and funny with Miss Charley and he gets his stuff together in the end and stops drinking so I think it’s kind of uplifting in a way, this film.

    CS:  It absolutely is and I know my time is done but it is a great film that showcases what you are really capable of doing and your whole body of work does that and I really do hope that it opens the eyes to some people who might see you now in a more kind light.

    SHANNON: Thank you Chris, I really appreciate that.

  • Backlash: Best Picture? Hardly.

    backlash-header.jpg

    The Oscars are coming, whether we like it (or care) or not. The disappointment felt by fans and the event’s organizers over the snub of The Dark Knight has finally died down and the campaigning has hit the home stretch, even if the economy has subdued the usual onslaught of in-your-face begging this time around (thank God).

    I never subscribed to the notion that The Dark Knight had to get the big nominations to vindicate it as a good film or to somehow make the Oscars relevant to current audiences. But the films that were nominated were one of the weakest sets of nominees in recent history. Be that as it may, I do think I have figured out the logic – instead of giving us a film to root for in The Dark Knight, the Academy has given us something better; a film to root against.

    I am speaking, of course, of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, one of the most excruciating 3 hours you’ll ever spend in a theater and I’m counting watching uncensored footage of Nazi war atrocities. Based on a story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the movie follows in the tradition of films like The Bridges of Madison County in that you could probably read the original story enough times to memorize it in the time it takes to get to the final reel. The Academy saw fit to give this cinematic forced march 13 nominations, the most of any film in the mix this year. The only choice that could have possibly been a bigger slap in the face to any other potential nominee would have been to nominate the mini-series masquerading as theatrical film, Australia. Thankfully, there’s a cash crisis at the moment which means there isn’t enough money in Hollywood to buy that thing an Oscar, even if they did manage to slap in one of the film’s stars as host this year.

    Back to the crapfest at hand. I’m on record as saying that I think Brad Pitt is a good actor and he’s definitely worthy of an Oscar. Having said that, I have an aversion bordering upon hive inducing allergy towards obvious Oscar-bait and Benjamin Button is one of those films that is the awards equivalent to dynamite fishing. There’s not a person involved with the project that didn’t sign on because they thought it would be a ‘marquee’ film. It’s not that I object to artistic films, it’s that I object to films that could have been artistic and even good, only to see them become bloated, overbearing, ponderous wastes of celluloid and worse, the viewer’s time. Pitt’s been on this track for a while now – just take a look at the equally long, ponderous but definitely more entertaining Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Lesson learned in that film: don’t let an up and coming actor steal the spotlight in your Oscar-bait. Not a problem with Benjamin Button.

    The first time I sat through the film, it was like being slowly beaten to death by a mob of dwarves wielding NERF bats. After seeing that it was getting some buzz, I tried getting through it again, in case I somehow “just didn’t get it”.

    This time, it was like the dwarves had ditched the foam weapons and had instead resorted to punching me in the groin.

    Wearing gauntlets.

    With spikes.

    By the midway point, I was about ready to gouge my own eyes out using the scoop from the over priced nachos. I am now fairly convinced that I didn’t “miss” anything and that the film just sucks.

    Of course, the one flaw in the logic of having something to root against is that there has to be something you’d rather see win. While I’d like to see just about any film win that isn’t Benjamin Button, I can’t say that any of the other nominees really scream that they deserve the award, either. Frost / Nixon is good if only to prove once again that the best actors to portray Richard Nixon on film originate from outside the United States. Sorry, Rich Little – looks like other people are finally pushing their way into material that has been exclusively yours since sometime during the Carter administration. Milk, with Sean Penn’s critically acclaimed (for good reason) performance as San Francisco’s slain gay rights pioneer, Harvey Milk, is good but not Best Picture good.

    The Reader, you ask? Oh, for fuck’s sake, let’s get over this wave of trying to find some kind of sympathy for those poor, misunderstood Nazis, already. They were fucking Nazis! There’s a reason the word “Nazi” has become shorthand for “evil, villainous prick”. I don’t care if we do get to see Kate Winslett’s boobies (like we haven’t seen those before), I’ve now had enough of this little genre that has helped bring us overblown bullshit like Valkyrie and manipulative crap like The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Yeah, I know, the world isn’t all black and white. I don’t believe anybody ever got up every day and told themselves “damn, I’m evil” in the mirror (except, possibly, Dick Cheney). But let’s put things in perspective before we find ourselves in the middle of a screening for a warm, fuzzy retelling of the life of Hitler. The reason Nazis make great recurring villains in popular entertainment is because they were some of the most horrible, scum-sucking human beings to ever cast a shadow on the face of the Earth. They earned that horrible distinction and it’s gonna stick to ’em like stink on shit for eternity. So, no, I won’t be casting a vote for The Reader. Sorry, Kate, maybe next year.

    Which pretty much leaves us with Slumdog Millionaire. Is it Best Picture good, either? Uhm, well, no. Is it a better film than Frost / Nixon or Milk? I can’t really say that, either. What I can say is that it isn’t like watching a dramatized version of a History Channel documentary, which earns it a few extra points in my book. It holds together well, travels at a better pace than the other two films and is just a little more watchable. Plus, it has a cool, Bollywood-esque number at the end that would have only helped any of the other films nominated this year. But this is a long way from being a film that people behind the big broadcast would have liked to promote as a ‘popular favorite’.

    Of course, this will be a different kind of Oscar ceremony by the Academy’s own admission. A more “intimate” (read: cheaply produced) ceremony with supposed new twists. Okay, this isn’t an episode of Law & Order, it’s an awards ceremony, people. About the only major change you could make that would make anybody give a damn would be a new rule that states winners must be present to win. To make things even more interesting would be the way the award would then be given to a nominee who is present: an all out fight to the death with the last one standing coming away with the Oscar. Just think of how much the audience would hope the winner for Best Supporting Actress couldn’t make the ceremony so Hugh Jackman could ask the stage hands to drop the cage and roll out the pudding vat. Not only that but it stands to open up the categories for other artists in the future. Anything short of that is just a cheat to the viewers.

    The Academy Awards will be presented live on Sunday, February 22nd. Place your bets now.

  • Backlash: The Bat-Oscars

    backlash-header.jpg

    Are the Oscars As We Know Them Doomed? We Can Only Hope….

    As the entire world seems to pause for a moment for the Inauguration of President Barack Obama, some of regular life goes on, even in Fantasy Land, better known as Hollywood, USA. The Motion Picture Academy announces their nominees for the Oscars this week and with nothing better to do than talk out their collective asses, a fair portion of the entertainment media are squawking about whether or not the awards can survive if they don’t crown a ‘popular’ film Best Picture (read: Batman: The Dark Knight).

    There’s some logic to the argument if you look at the awards in a purely television special / ratings extravaganza event. Last year’s Oscar telecast was one of the lowest rated in years and some attribute that to a lack of a popular choice among the moviegoing public, something for them to ‘root for’, as though this were a NASCAR race. I’m sure the network would love for there to be a choice like The Dark Knight among the Best Picture nominees on Thursday and they might get their wish. Fact is, Christopher Nolan made a pretty good film in a year when some of the most interesting films to come out of Hollywood were in genres traditionally ignored by the Academy. Filmmakers have finally figured out that viewers can take their heroes with some flaws, something comic readers have been able to handle since the 1960’s. The heroes of Iron Man and The Dark Knight appeal to the general public in a time when the world is viewed in ever-darkening shades of gray, making those films as relevant as any to hit screens in recent years. If Warners can manage to not completely fuck up Watchmen (which I still have my doubts about), it might even be in this conversation a year from now. But to actually state that not nominating a film like Dark Knight for Best Picture could signal the end of the Oscars as we know it is such a complete load of bullshit that you could smell the odor in Australia.

    It has also been something of a banner year for the much-maligned (usually with good reason) Animated Feature Film (or, as I like to call it, “The Oscar We Just Give to Pixar Every Year They Release a Film”). Pixar, as usual, made a good showing, this time with Wall-E and proved once again that the important part of any film, animated or otherwise, is a good script. For that reason, Wall-E is even being mentioned as a potential nominee in some of the non-traditional categories for animated films, such as Best Screenplay and even as a possible longshot for Best Picture. Disney, long absent from any conversation concerning a good animated feature that wasn’t co-produced with the aforementioned Pixar, managed to release Bolt, a film that looked a whole lot like it escaped from Pixar (in some respects, that’s just what it did). Even some of the releases geared straight for the kid market weren’t as mind numbing as they’ve been in the past. Just as a bit of full disclosure, I have actively voted against some Pixar films in the past when I’ve thought another film deserved the honor more, which is why the critic’s group I was a member of at the time gave the award to Wallace & Gromit over Cars. There will be a year when an animated feature is in the mix for Best Picture but this won’t be that year. The year it does happen, that film will have to defend itself against some pretty good animated films that came before it.

    First of all, the argument that the nomination & win of a “populist” film would be some sort of groundbreaking event is not only inaccurate, it’s ignorant. Titanic was a massively popular film, the highest grossing film of all time to date (Dark Knight currently sits at number two) and it took home the Best Picture award that year. So there’s the ‘blockbuster’ argument cut off at the knees. You can’t even make the ‘fantasy film’ argument any more since Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King made a pretty good showing that year, including taking that Best Picture statuette home to Hobbiton. Previously, high grossing science fiction or fantasy films would be thrown the bone of a nomination without a snowball’s chance in hell of winning. Films like Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark and others really just took a spot away from films that might have had a slim chance of winning Best Picture. The way the Academy is structured now, any SF / fantasy film that is good enough to get a nomination in the Best Picture category has as good a chance to win as any other film that’s nominated.

    Which brings us back to The Dark Knight. I can’t remember a year when everyone from the film fans to us blowhards in the media haven’t carped on and on about how lousy the films were all year, only to be faced with a pretty tough decision when comes time to vote for the various awards. This year is no exception, with some really good films being considered as the nominations are being made. Gran Torino is possibly one of the best films Clint Eastwood has ever made. Slumdog Millionaire is this year’s “out of nowhere” film that is not only an art house choice but popular with general audiences that have seen the film. There are far more than five films that can be mentioned in this conversation but only five will be nominated. To say that Dark Knight should only be considered because of its popularity is the traditional slap in the face that these kinds of films almost always get from the ‘traditional’ press and members of the Academy who rely on the DVD screeners because their iron lungs won’t fit into the theaters. Thankfully, those contingents have been getting marginalized as time goes on, partially due to the internet but also because so many of the ‘old guard’ are either passing away or have figured out that a fantasy film no longer involves Buster Crabbe and might really be worth watching, even if the great-grandkids have a picture from the film on their lunch box or have downloaded it to their iPhone.

    The Dark Knight won’t be any kind of ‘hero’ to the Oscars regardless of whether it gets a Best Picture nomination or not and it shouldn’t be. The history of the Academy Awards is full of Best Picture winners that are little more than cheap rentals (if you can find them on video at all) while the runners up have gone on to become cherished classics of the medium. I have no doubt that, a decade from now, Dark Knight will be remembered and viewed a lot more than most of the films in the Oscar discussion this year. But the Oscars shouldn’t be about what film will be best remembered a decade from now but what the voters believe is the best film now. And that’s the way it should be, regardless of ratings or any other external influence. Of course, it won’t be that way, it probably hasn’t been for a whole lot of years and may never be that way again but we can all hope.

    –KJB