News in Film

The Runaways Review

Jeff Leins — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 01:24:36 +0000

A theme in The Runaways that rings true both about the band and the cast is this sense of surprise when people realize these young teenagers can really play. Maybe they showed up then to check out an all-girl band, or in this case actresses you may recognize from the Twilight series, but in watching them actually perform there is a realization that they’re the real deal. These aren’t just girls playing dress up.

Dakota Fanning gives the performance of her career as the feather-haired Cherie Currie, a 15-year-old thrust into the adult industry of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. Her transformation from a passive high school outcast to confused sex kitten is engaging, drawing you in with her intensity and wild child attitude before capturing your focus through the drama of her family strife and spiraling addiction.

Kristen Stewart embodies the black-clad Joan Jett, a tough-as-nails rebel with aspirations of a music career patterned after idols David Bowie and Suzi Quatro. Stewart’s awkward, lip-biting persona erodes as she straps on an electric guitar, shouts into a microphone, and struts with a punk chip on her shoulder.

The relationship between Jett and Curie is the heart of the film, as they first bond over a shared love for rock and later rely on each other as their lives turn upside down. Assembled by the eccentric manager Kim Fowley (an unbridled, creepy turn by Michael Shannon), the pair becomes two-fifths of the all-girl group in a rusty trailer parked where no one cares. He berates them into a growling force of female power and shoves them out to start a revolution.

However, the other Runaways fade into the background, underusing Scout Taylor-Compton as Lita Ford, Stella Maeve (Sandy West), and Alia Shawkat (Robin) as the story hits the usual notes of a musical biopic. Humble beginnings, sudden fame, backstage bouts, drug-induced decline, and bottomed-out consequences play out as expected.

The film seems self-aware, depicting how the band perfected their image first and everything else came later. In the same way, Floria Sigismondi’s film nails the retro wardrobe and fierce attitude before introducing thin character development and a familiar arc almost as an after thought.

The same can be said about the unapologetic sexual nature of the movie, which experiments with Jett and Curie’s connection in a drug-fueled lesbian liaison. At 15 and 16 years old, Curie was encouraged to flirt with a lustful public image and exploited as “jailbait.” Fanning’s matching age and skimpy outfits play on the same taboos. Even Stewart, whose reputation for chaste, forbidden love proceeds her, is seen coaxing orgasms from her female band members and locking lips with more than just Fanning.

Sigismondi’s The Runaways is an artful representation of the 70’s as much as a gritty rise and fall story about a pre-packaged group of social misfits. It captures the reckless temperament of youth at a time when music was splintering into a crude, in-your-face representation of a new generation still discovering sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. So what if it isn’t finely tuned? Put another dime in the jukebox, baby.

3.5 out of 5.

Official ‘Predators’ Trailer

Jeff Leins — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 23:26:42 +0000

20th Century Fox has released the first trailer for Predators, the sequel/reboot directed by Nimród Antal and produced by Robert Rodriguez. The plot centers on a group of Earth’s most dangerous killers transported to an unknown planet and hunted by a pack of predators. Adrien Brody, Topher Grace, Alice Braga, Laurence Fishburne, Walton Goggins, Danny Trejo, and Oleg Taktarov star in the movie.

What’s really great about this trailer is you don’t even see an actual predators until nearly the end of the minute and a half clip. You see the signature laser sight and hear the predator death rattle, but there are only glimpses of the alien menaces. This looks awesome and it will hopefully erase the bad taste left by those two AvP disasters.

Check out the trailer below or in high-resolution at IGN:

Also, if you missed it, here is the report from the South by Southwest Film Festival with more details on the “super predator” and other creatures. Predators is scheduled for July 7, 2010.

SXSW Interview: John C. Reilly, Jonah Hill

Jeff Leins — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 23:11:14 +0000

After the screening of the Duplass brothers’ Cyrus at the South by Southwest Film Festival, I had the unbelievable opportunity to sit down with John C. Reilly and Jonah Hill to talk about the film, Hill’s aspirations to become a director, and Reilly’s experience with working with world class filmmakers. (Speaking of which, check out the Cyrus interview with Mark and Jay Duplass.)

The conversation started before the two men could take a seat, so you’ll have to excuse the odd opening. It starts off with discussion about the Q&A at the festival premiere where audience questions ranged from relevant curiosity to awkward comments and awful time wasters like “Was the character Cyrus based on Cartman from South Park?” Really?

Again, this is a roundtable interview so most of the questions aren’t mine. I did, however, throw out a Zoolander sequel question at the end that I think pissed off Jonah Hill. Oh well, his Suburban almost ran me over the day before outside the hotel, so we’re even.

Jonah: How’re you guys doing today?

Very well, thanks. Still mad about that Q&A last night?

Hill: I wasn’t mad, I was totally joking. I figured it was best to call to light how uncomfortable it was than to just let it stew, you know? I’m not one to be dishonest in an uncomfortable situation. You know, I love this town so much. It’s my favorite city in the country, actually. So many great film fans, art fans, music fans… I was just a little let down by the quality of the people here and then the quality of the questions. I just… have a higher expectation for you Austin folks, you know? I love it here.

Reilly: Dude, don’t start picking fights with Austin. This is a great movie town. That was a great crowd last night. Believe me.

Hill: No, I didn’t say the crowd…

Reilly: Do a couple screenings with really lame movies.

Hill: I have. I have before. I have. I thought the screening was great. I just thought some of the questions were not great, right?

Right. Yeah, it was really awkward.

Hill: Some of the questions were really dumb.

I thought you were quick on your feet with the questions.

Hill: Yeah, there were some really good questions too. John, I think, and Mark and Jay said some really interesting, intelligent things. I just thought some of the questions like… One question was like, “John, your shoes are really dirty in the movie, and your shoes are really clean now. So, like, what’s up with that?” And I was just like, “C’mon, guys. You have the filmmakers…” Forget me, or whatever, but you have John and the filmmakers here. Aren’t any of you interested in asking a real question about how they made the film or anything?

Reilly: You’re digging yourself deeper and deeper.

Hill: I’m not.

That was going to be my question, soo….

Reilly: There you go. That’s my addition. [Holds up a caricature he sketched on the notepad in front of him]

Hill: Is that Reba McEntire? [laughter]

Reilly: No, it’s me.

The filmmakers talked last night about one of the things they do where [the Duplass brothers] would walk away for 30 minutes at a time and discuss stuff. Can you guys talk as performers about disrupting momentum and what that did for you guys? Because they talk so much about being in the moment and then they…

Reilly: That wouldn’t really disrupt momentum. They would, uhh… You know, on any movie set there’s always time when you have to re-light or you have to… there’s plenty of departments and all the departments take all the time they need to do… Hair and make-up, or the costumes need to do this, or the lighting or the…

Hill: It was “in between” time already.

Reilly: Yeah. So like what they would do was take a moment to go synthesize what we just did and sort of strategize where they wanted to guide it next. Which is really good, you know? I think a lot of directors could benefit from a similar thing actually. A lot of times they just go, “We gotta make the day. We gotta make the day. Ahhhh.” You spend all this time leading up to this moment, you know, this sacred time when the camera is rolling. Why wouldn’t you spend that much time on that moment as you did about what color the walls in the room should be, you know?

Either of you guys watch playback at all?

Reilly: Not on this one. I didn’t see a single bit of it.

Hill: Yeah, the takes were like 40 minutes long, so it’s kind hard. It would have been a little disruptive to ask for playback, but I often do… especially in the broader comedies I’ve been in, I tend to want to watch a lot of playback because I want to know if I stemmed on something improvising and I want to know if it’s worth it to push that further in a later take or if certain jokes are working –

Reilly: It used to be you had dailies and you could go to dailies. That was for like my first thirty movies or something. There’s where you would kind of synthesize and kind of, “All right, this percentage of what I thought was coming across is coming across, or that’s too much or that’s too little.” But now, it’s very rare that anyone has daily screenings every day, so if you want to have a sense from an objective point of view what they shot looked like or how much is coming across you need to go look at the monitor. That said, those fucking things can waste a lot of time.

Hill: I think, personally, for me… The dailies for me I don’t watch anymore because it’s already done. The only reason I watch playback is not out of a narcissistic way to think, “Oh, I should be doing better” or whatever, or a fear of my performance. It’s just… I like to… it’s almost a mini screening. People are watching it and if it gets a big laugh you know something might be working. That’s for the more broad comedic films, I think. Personally.

You were talking last night about how this role was very restrained and you had to let the character develop on it’s own, instead of your super funny roles. Which role do you find more challenging in your career?

Hill: I think they’re both equally challenging. I think something I was saying last night rings very true to me when thinking about this kind of thing. I’m only know for one movie unless you’re a film aficionado. You’ve only seen me in Superbad probably if you’re just someone walking down the street. And in that movie it was appropriate to play a loud, obnoxious, cursing, stunted 17-year-old kid. I did what the director asked me to do, and I’m very proud of that of that movie. But because it’s the only thing I’ve done that most people know me from, people assume I’m like that or that’s my acting style. So for me it was just nice to show that I can do a far more restrained… just, person that’s completely different than the performance you most likely know me from.

I found with this one so much of the humor and the reveal and the darkness comes from in between silences. It’s kind of delivered and than it hits you afterwards. So… kind of talk about finding that tone or that balance for you guys, especially with the improv stuff… what was that like?

Reilly: Yeah, they caught a lot of moments of reaction shots of me in this movie. [makes a face to laughter] You just kind of see me processing stuff. Like the bathroom scene. This slow, “Okay…” You can almost hear me struggling to make it okay in my mind. Yeah, and you know… the improv stuff. People are really fascinated with that. We’ve been asked a lot of questions today about the improv. Like it’s this magical thing that actors do. “How is it? How do you do it?” Really, it just comes down to being honest, staying in the moment, and knowing the characters. It gets easier as you go on towards the end of the film it’s almost like you know exactly what to do. You don’t have to worry it too much.

Had you ever worked together or talked about it? Were you going through P.T. Anderson’s filmography and going, “Man, I really want to work with that John C. Reilly guy.”

Hill: Is that why we worked together?

Had you ever talked about it beforehand?

Reilly: Well, we did Walk Hard together. All though it was odd because you came in at the end as a ghost. So we met and I was a fan of Jonah’s from Superbad and the other stuff I’ve seen him in. I knew about the Duplass brothers through my wife, who is an independent film producer and she had been seeing these guys at film festivals. I had seen Puffy Chair way early on. She just kept saying, “These guys, you know, you gotta meet them. You’d do really well with them. They like to improvise.” And then I met Jonah and I found out that he was a huge fan of them independently. And then somehow the Duplass brothers found out about both of us being fans of theirs. So they wrote a script for both of us.

Oh, so they had you in mind when they wrote it?

Hill: I believe so, yeah.

Reilly: I think so. They told me they had me in mind, so…

You guys have both done theater work, right? I read you had done stuff in the beginning…

Hill: Yeah, I like… wrote for theater…

Any plans to do that ever again? Do you have any interest still in pursuing that? Differences in mediums?

Hill: I prefer film to theater. Uhh, for me theater was a way to have stuff that I’ve written performed immediately. Because I didn’t have a camera. I didn’t have lighting equipment. So for me it was fun for me to write something and then a week later get some friends and put it up and do it. But I like the process of making a film. I like getting to take things over and getting to perfect it, reshoot it, whatever. I like that. I love that. That’s my life.

Even more than that immediate…?

Hill: Yeah, I like to take a year and make it good. Then get the response from a crowd when I believe it’s perfect. You know? That’s me personally. Most people, most actors will disagree.

Reilly: I totally disagree with you. [laughter]

Yeah, I was going to say, you usually don’t hear that as an answer.

Hill: I love film. I’m a film fanatic. That’s why I do this, you know?

Reilly: I couldn’t see giving up either. I do a play every couple years and stay involved in theater in different ways on the smaller scale in Los Angeles. In one way the acting is the same thing. It’s just a different size room. You’re either speaking so that 400 people can hear you or you’re speaking so four people behind the camera can hear you. It’s a matter of scale, you know? But it’s kind of the same thing. You’re still sort of crossing through the looking glass and trying to suspend disbelief and become someone else. But I really like theater for the… I like the… ritual of it. I like the schedule of it. It builds you up like an athlete having to do that every day. There’s something really kind of spiritual about it, for me. Repeating this thing every day. These people coming to this dark place, and it’s almost like summoning something. It’s really fun.

If there was a director’s cut, and there was Cyrus one year later… what would happen to him?

[uncomfortable silence]

Reilly: He’d be a huge world music star…

Hill: I think more in film terms as a writer, I guess… the next logical step… like if it was a sequel? There would definitely be like they’re having a kid and then he has to go through the anxieties and fears of adding another child. Probably having another child. Maybe he’s become okay with John being in the mix, and then once a kid enters that element she literally has another son maybe? And that would probably be torturous for Cyrus. But I guess it would be way less for me to have a competition with me and a baby. That would be a lot less entertaining. A battle of wits with a one month old baby.

Jonah, I see that you’re doing a lot more writing and you said yourself you’re a film fanatic. Do you see yourself directing ever?

Hill: That’s my intention. Yeah. I would like… you know… I feel lucky and blessed to be doing what I’m doing now, but my intention completely is to become a director. That’s exactly what I want to do. And I think the more movies I do, the more I learn and the more great directors I get to work with the more I learn about how to do that. But that is my ultimate goal. 100%.

Do you want to do comedy? Kind of the same stuff you’ve been acting in?

Hill: I don’t know. I don’t want to define anything. Listen, Cyrus I wouldn’t call a classic comedy. I would call it a drama that’s really funny, I guess. I don’t know. Or a really funny drama. Or really dramatic comedy. I don’t know.

“Dramedy?”

Hill: I don’t like that term, but I guess that’s what you would classify it as. I like Robert Zemeckis as much as I like Paul Thomas Anderson, so I think… I love Back to the Future as much as I love Magnolia. I don’t want to ever say like, “I’m going to be this kind of director.” I think the coolest directors can just do any kind of movie. And when I write something that inspires me or I’m giving a script that inspires me that’s enough to want to spend two years of my life making it and telling that story, that’s the movie I’ll direct. If I’m lucky enough that someone will let me. But that’s definitely my intention in life.

John, last night you started to talk almost directly to filmmakers, so what I would want to ask is—

Reilly: I put myself on a skateboard. [Laughter as he holds up the caricature of himself with a tiny skateboard added to the bottom]

What would you say to novice directors given the opportunity to do what the Duplass brothers did being on a big studio set for the first time and with actors at a caliber that really hadn’t had before. I know it’s kind of a strange question, but what could you say to them?

Reilly: In terms of dealing with actors, or just the whole thing? I kind of said something last night in the Q&A about, you know, there’s so much kind of pre-production… There’s a lot of stuff that goes into making a movie that’s not about the artistic act of telling a story. There’s all this stuff that consumes your time and it can distract you from the main event, which is what happens when the actors start talking to each other and you start capturing the honest of that. That would be the focus to me if I was starting out. You gotta communicate and you got to be a good audience. You got to communicate with a lot of people, you know? Be an enthusiastic leader, you know? Exhibit the behavior you want everyone to have. The enthusiasm of Paul Thomas Anderson… He had directed a short film before, but he was so enthusiastic that it was completely contagious and it made everyone want to make a really great film. Because he was so excited. He was the youngest person on the set by a few years. He was like 23 or 24 years old on Sydney (or Hard Eight). Yeah, you know, it’s a big journey. It’s hard to talk generally about how to guide people through that. Actors just want someone who is a good audience. A lot of times you work with directors and it’s like “I just did this. I changed something that I was doing and no one noticed.” Then you get kind of discouraged like it doesn’t even matter. “I’ll just do the same thing again.” But if it’s someone behind the camera who is like… “Oh man. I saw when you… Yeah yeah, do that again!” Someone who is really engaged, then you’ve got someone to play with, you know? For a film actor, despite what you think of theater as a performer audience interaction. It’s also true on film sets.

Thanks guys. Hey Jonah, are you doing Zoolander 2? Is it okay if I ask that real quick?

Hill: Oh, yeah. It’s something we’re talking about. It’s way more… They’re just writing it, I think.

Cool. Thanks.

Perlman, McGowan Join ‘Conan’ Cast

Jeff Leins — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 18:41:21 +0000

Ron Perlman, Rose McGowan, and Said Taghmaoui are in negotiations to join the cast of Nu Image/Millenium Films’ Conan, a reboot of the Cimmerian barbarian originally played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Jason Momoa is starring in the remake directed by Marcus Nispel.

According to NY Mag’s Vulture, Perlman, known for playing Hellboy, is replacing Mickey Rourke as Conan’s father, Corin, a supporting role in the sword-and-sandal epic due out sometime in 2011. Notably, Perlman also provided the voice of the title character in the long-delayed, animated Conan: Red Nails. Like father, like son.

Rourke opted to star in Tarsem’s War of the Gods instead, which conflicted with shooting Conan already underway in Bulgaria. It’s a smart move for the Oscar-nominated actor since, again, Corin is a small part. His murder at the start sets up Conan’s quest to avenge his father.

McGowan is playing an “evil half-human/half-witch” in the movie reports Variety and presumably connected to the main villain, warlord Khalar Singh, played by Avatar baddie Stephen Lang. This probably ruins any chance of the delayed Red Sonja remake happening since McGowan was set to star for producer Robert Rodriguez. At the very least it crushes any chance of the obvious crossover between the characters.

Also climbing aboard is Said Taghmaoui, known for recently portraying Breaker in G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra, plays the leader of a team of thieves who owes Conan his life after the warrior saves him. He becomes an ally, along with a royal bodyguard character named Tamara played by G.I. Joe’s Rachel Nichols.

SXSW ‘Cyrus’ Interview: Jay and Mark Duplass

Jeff Leins — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 03:54:43 +0000

After the screening of Cyrus at the South by Southwest Film Festival, I had the unique opportunity to sit down in a roundtable interview with the directors, Jay Duplass and Mark Duplass, to discuss their thoughts on the crowd’s reaction, how they worked with the actors and the studio, and their process in bringing the characters to life.

It was a great experience talking with the two talented and humble filmmakers, who have made such films as The Puffy Chair, Baghead, and the upcoming Jeff Who Lives at Home with Ed Helms and Jason Segel. Here’s what the Duplass brothers had to say about Cyrus, starring John C. Reilly, Jonah Hill, Marisa Tomei, Catherine Keener, and Matt Walsh.

(Admittedly, most of the questions weren’t mine. I personally wouldn’t start an interview with a question about incest. Look for my awkward one about parallel story elements though, and be sure to check back here in the coming days for my interview with John C. Reilly and Jonah Hill, as well as my review of the film.)

Did you guys run into… well, what kind of notes did you get back from the studio when you talked about how close you were going to get to referencing potential incest and going down that road…?

Mark: The incest thing never really came up. We were pretty much all on board that we wanted to make, you know, their relationship sort of emotionally and spiritually co-dependent, but you know we were never really interested in going too far with the sexual component.

Jay: We were willing to exploit the possibility of it. So people would be fired up, you know, and curious as to what exactly was going on.

Mark: Yeah, but we had a pretty good studio experience. Fox Searchlight is, you know, pretty much the right kind of place to go to make these kinds of movies. Or the only…

You talked a little bit last night [at the post-screening Q&A] about how you mostly don’t like to storyboard and you seemed to have adopted a sort of anti-Hollywood approach to filmmaking. Why do you think a lot of aspiring filmmakers coming out of film school don’t adopt a similar approach?

Mark: They might be. We don’t know.

Jay: Definitely some schools have certain filmmaking styles. Like, you can almost tell an NYU film when it comes out, you know? Um, but I think its just they’re teaching standard coverage and they’re teaching methods of storytelling. For me and Mark, it was just like… we tried those standard methods and we couldn’t come up with a good movie, honestly, in that generalized, or just like specified way of… these shots add up to this and this communicates that. Honestly, it wasn’t until we kind of made some mistakes and just sort of like… fostering interactions and filming them like documentarians that we were able to make something that we thought was good.

Can I ask you just about Marisa [Tomei]’s character, because I know you had mentioned [in the press notes] about writing women…

Mark: And you’re the only woman here… [laughter]

I write for women’s film critic circle, so I have to ask…

Mark and Jay: Perfect. Please do.

You made a joke about not writing that character well, and she does have such potential to be just this object. It could go… it’s a little bit dark. She really kind of, I would say, elevated it. Can you tell me how that worked? How that happened? When you sketched this character were you like, “Ok let’s see where this goes?’”

Mark: We were really concerned because that character’s the cuckold, and you know whenever you’re playing a character who is not aware of things going on around you. It’s very… you’re on that slippery slope to just becoming a dufus, not interesting character. So one of the main reasons we cast Marisa is we knew immediately she’s shrewd, she’s intelligent, she’s also really really strong. So we knew she would have opinions about what it should be. And admittedly, Jay and I are really good with story and plotting, but not so great with like female dialogue all the time. Really getting into the nuance and the intricacies of what would make a woman in that situation tick. And Marisa is very into ownership of her character and she was like, “Great. These lines really function and I’m going to re-say it like this and make it better.” And we’re like, “Absolutely, go do it.” So, she has a strength to her that basically guaranteed that character wouldn’t recede into the background.

So what’s the year been like for you [Mark], going into acting in a hit indie film that you didn’t direct to being in a hit cable television series and now potentially directing a hit movie for Fox Searchlight? What’s kind of been the differences going through the past year?

Mark: Just terrible. [laughter] Just… it’s just awful. Um… well, Jay and I are always working on a shit ton of projects and that’s basically… for better or for worse we’re kind of workaholics. We’re kind of driven to do a lot of things. So, I’m acting in some things, and Jay and I produced a couple of movies this year that have been around. It’s been really fun for us as we’ve sort of dipped our toe in the Hollywood world with Cyrus and some other movies that we’re working on. It’s been cool to keep being involved with these, in some cases, little, tiny movies, which is how we started making movies. Um, I think it’s healthy to just remember… like, if you get burned out ever to remember why you started making these movies and being around your family and friends. Just making movies from the heart.

Was it hard while you were filming Humpday, or anything else, trying to stay away from, “Oh, we should shoot this shot that way?”

Mark: To not be a director, essentially? Not really, because when I’m on a set as an actor I just kinda try to like just be an actor and that’s why I’m there. If I wanted to direct another movie, then Jay and I would direct another movie. The fun of it is you get to like, show up, be creative, and then you go home and you go to sleep. You don’t worry about how to put it together. So, that’s the draw, really.

The two of you obviously stuck to your editing style and shooting technique, what can you say to filmmakers about creating that style and sticking to your guns when getting into the studio system?

Jay: Yeah, I mean. The reason why… It’s kind of a tricky question because first off, if you’re an upcoming filmmaker and you haven’t established… found your voice yet. I think the most important thing is to not stick to what you think your style should be. You should try a lot of different things and get to the point where you feel like you’ve stumbled upon something that you uniquely have to offer the world. That’s pretty much our job as artists is to find that thing and then to give it everybody else. But once you do find it, and I think Mark and I did find it on our earlier films… We had to be really clear on what we thought we had to offer, and that was a sense of reality. That was achieved through improvisation, and it was achieved through not only improvisation but filming that in a documentary style. So we’re not bringing the actors to the camera, we’re actually bringing the camera to the actors. These are all things that we just did instinctively and it evolved over time. But it was something we had to learn how to articulate and to express not in a like, “Fuck you, we’re going to do what we wanna do because we’re awesome but more of like a–”

Mark: Even though we really think that. Obviously. [laughter]

Jay: But we definitely… We wanted to learn how to really articulate that to studios and crew members. Mark and I came up making movies in a cave basically together, and speaking telepathically to each other. We had to learn how to communicate with all the powers that be.

Can I ask you… You’re talking about finding this voice… Because these characters are… It is raw and vulnerable. You talked about making bad movies that are kind of not as true to who… Because you kind of write what you know, but then you write what you really know. Was that scary? Because you’re putting that out there, and it’s that more vulnerable, more embarrassing. Does that come from a personal place?

Jay: It does come from personal places.

Mark: The more personal the better for us. We’re not worried about putting that stuff out there. I’m fine with it, and the actors we chose were. I mean like John. “Hey, I look like Shrek.” He’s like, you know… he’ll say it. He doesn’t care. It requires people who are really self aware, and they’re fine to kind of put themselves up on screen and let people laugh with them. Our thing is we love these characters and we’re not making fun of them. We love the lovable losers and it’s a different thing, “Ha ha, look at those guys.” It’s more like, “Wow, these are really odd, special strange people trying to make a there way in the world.” And they do a lot of funny shit, but in the end, you know, there’s some emotional stuff to it too. I’m all about exploiting all that stuff that comes from my life.

What are your box office expectations for this film?

Mark: We thought Avatar did okay. [laughter] So, you know, in the ideal world… I don’t know, we’re going to platform release it. We’ve watched Fox Searchlight do this, and we’d love to be success in the way that Sideways. I guess Juno was somewhat of a fluke in some ways with what happened to that movie. Puffy Chair made $200,000 in the movie theaters, guys.

Jay: Yeah, that was big.

Mark: We’re looked to uhh… double that. We’re not sure.

Jay: Well, let’s seem humble. Two sixty. Two seventy.

Can you guys talk a little about the screening last night, because the way that the humor unfolds there’s some pretty uncomfortable parts. You have to really trust that the audience is going to go places with it. I heard some people talking about it behind me that said they laughed at some places because of the way that the crowd was reacting. Whereas if they were watching it at home by themselves, they may not find it as funny.

Jay: Very common.

How do you think it played last night, and did it hit the beats you wanted it to hit?

Mark: Last night was more laughs than we even hoped to get. It was explosive.

Compared to Sundance?

Mark: Even more than Sundance. It was probably our best screening we’ve ever had of any movie. But, you know, that being said… If you do watch our movies at home, and we found this with The Puffy Chair, they play much more as dramas. There’s this thing we noticed that we call permission to laugh. When something uncomfortable is happening, you’re not sure whether you should… “Can I laugh? Is this okay?” When you’re in a big movie theater with a thousand people, it only takes one person to laugh and everyone can jump on board. But when you’re watching it at home with your girlfriend or your boyfriend or your wife or whatever, and one of the other people aren’t laughing… you don’t want to be the first one to laugh because you think you might be doing something inappropriate. They tend to be a little more comedic in the theater because of that.

That scene where Jonah is screaming at him through the door and it’s cathartic for him. And it was funny.

Mark: It’s funny, yeah. We love that. It’s intense. It’s a really cool element.

Jay: Comedy from pain is what we feel like we’re doing. It’s like you’re identifying with your darkest moments. You’re–

Mark: Realizing you sometimes look stupid doing those things. But that’s okay.

Jay: It’s a great thing to do, yeah.

There was a co-dependency obviously between the two main characters. When was it… where in the process did it come in that there would be a dependency between John [C. Reilly] and Jamie [Catherine Keener's character]?

Jay: Mmmhmm…

Was that written or was that organic?

Jay: We originally had like… John had a friend at work. That he was talking to and there was a certain point that we realized–

Mark: It was your idea.

Jay: Yes… I came up with that one. We just, you know, it was a certain time we realized “Oh we should combine them” and make them like best of friends. It kind of took the whole tragic comedy thing to a whole new level that he was best friends with his ex-wife. And it was like really sweet too. We didn’t even realize there was some parallels. Co-dependency parallels. But it was just… It’s interesting because we used to think of back row structures when we would try and make movies. This was in our early 20’s and we were making bad movies. But now we just think instinctively what we want to see next. “Wouldn’t it just be better and more interesting if John’s best friend is his ex-wife?” And you guys are the ones who tell us that there’s—

Mark: This cool intellectual parallel.

Jay: Right, exactly. Yes!

Mark: We’re better when we’re instinctual because we can talk ourselves into and out of anything when we’re in the intellectual space. It’s better to just trust the instincts. At least for us. But… you make us sound smart. I appreciate that. Thank you.

Do you consider this film pushing along with the mumblecore movement?

Mark: Pushing along? What do you mean by that? Being a part of it?

I don’t know, you guys are just sort of at the forefront of it all. And then the big photo shoot in the New Yorker. Do you feel like this continues it on?

Mark: I don’t know. We’ve never really felt like… part of a movement per say. I mean in the early 2000’s there was a group of people making some similar movies based on, honestly, the technology that allowed that. But it’s so many people are making movies and low budget in that sphere now. It’s almost hard to see what mumblecore is now. I think it served a purpose at a time. But I think our movies are pretty heavily plotted in a lot of ways, and we don’t encourage mumbling anymore. We kind of see this as progression for what we want to be seeing in cinema. We don’t really think too much about whether it’s a part of something or not.

What’s the most difficult aspect of working closely as brothers?

Mark: Honestly, it’s just like a plus for us. Making a movie is just so goddamn hard. It takes every ounce of your being and I don’t really know… I don’t think we could do it solo. We’re already… the type of filming we do we have to reevaluate what’s happening the every single moment on set, in editorial, and it’s just a constant reevaluation.

Jay: It’s exhausting and you need. Two heads are better than one.

Mark: We’re not making storyboards. We’re making the movie on set and in post. In the moment. So it’s helpful to have the buddy system, if you will.

There’s a lot of talk about your style and how it’s improv with the actors. Is there any specific scene in Cyrus that was a majority improv or nuggets of dialogue maybe that you really like that went definitely away from the script?

Jay: I’d say the scene with Jonah and Marisa towards the end of the film. When they’re sort of leveling with each other about the nuts and bolts about what their relationship is really about. It’s one of these scenes, because we shot the movie in script order, that when we got there… I think it went down in like two or three takes. And they went real time. I was just sitting there floating back and forth, and they were just discussing it. Hashing it out and having these really intense emotional things that really didn’t have to plan. It was pretty off book. I mean, they hit some of the key beats obviously that Mark and I wanted them to do, but the way that it came out and unfolded was very natural and very personal. It really looked and felt like two people who had been living together for twenty years just trying to figure that shit out, you know?

Thanks guys.

Phillippe, Tatum Up for ‘Captain America’ Too

Jeff Leins — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:22:36 +0000

Last month director Joe Johnston said he hoped to announce the lead actor for Captain America by March 1st, which was two and a half weeks ago. I’m certainly not holding him to that date, but the search is only expanding at this point. Just pick someone already…

Ryan Phillippe and Channing Tatum have apparently been added to the mix, which basically throws out previous talk of discovering an “unknown” to fill the stars and stripes costume for the comic book movie originally was intended to shoot at the end of June. The two Stop-Loss stars are surprising names to say the least, especially if Marvel is still only offering the measly $300,000 and a contract that would lock the eventual name into a nine picture deal.

Attending the South by Southwest Film Festival for the MacGruber premiere, Phillippe confirmed rumors to HitFix and MTV that he is joining the list of contenders for the superhero role. At 35, Phillippe is not old by any means, but his consideration means Marvel may be expanding their search after initially looking at a list of young actors ranging from 23 to 30. He may have fallen from his earlier leading man status, but he was pretty damn funny in MacGruber.

Deadline says Tatum has been approached and is “definitely in the mix.” Marvel has not made an offer and it’s unclear if the G.I. Joe star would need to do a screen test like the other candidates. The only thing I’ve liked him in was A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints. Otherwise, Tatum still remains unproven as a leading man.

“The Office” star John Krasinski is out of the running along with a few others, leaving Wilson Bethel (”Generation Kill”), Mike Vogel (Cloverfield), Garrett Hedlund (Tron Legacy), and Chris Evans (Fantastic Four) still floating around the project.

Meanwhile, Marvel is also looking for the female lead and are looking at Keira Knightley, Alice Eve, and Emily Blunt, who are all British actresses. Blunt was up for the Black Widow role in Marvel’s Iron Man 2, but had to withdraw due to scheduling conflicts.

Hugo Weaving is in negotiations to play Red Skull, Captain America’s Nazi nemesis in the July 22, 2011 release.

Summit Aims High for ‘Breaking Dawn’ Director

Jeff Leins — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 20:27:14 +0000

Summit Entertainment is aiming incredibly high in their search for a director to helm Breaking Dawn, the fourth and final novel in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series.

Among the filmmakers on their wish list for the series conclusion are Oscar-nominated talents Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation), Gus Van Sant (Milk), and Bill Condon (Dreamgirls). Only Van Sant’s representatives confirmed to EW he was approached about the possibility.

The position remains open until franchise screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg can deliver an outline or draft of the screenplay to the studio, who refused to comment on continuing negotiations.

It’s cute of Summit to think they could land an auteur at that level. Judging by their artistic output and busy schedules, all three are very unlikely to accept the pressures and constraints of working on the hit franchise, especially when the studio and Meyer will call most of the shots from start to finish. I suppose the same could be said about Eclipse filmmaker David Slade before he accepted the paycheck, but he ultimately lost final cut and whatever control he might have had when Summit brought in their own editor to complete the third installment. This list is wishful thinking at best.

Reports have indicated Summit plans to split the 756-page novel in two separate films to be shot back-to-back in mid-October. Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, and Taylor Lautner are expected to return, but as of last month the studio was still hashing out the contracts necessary for an additional film. Both Stewart and Pattinson received $7.5 million to appear in The Twilight Saga: Eclipse and Lautner recently received the same amount to star in Universal’s Stretch Armstrong, making him the highest-paid teenager in Hollywood.

As for the plot, fans should start preparing themselves for changes to their beloved story. The generally chaste, PG-13 concepts take a turn towards controversial when Edward and Bells consummate their nuptials with a honeymoon romp that leaves her pregnant with a half-human/half-vampire fetus (which may or may not be CGI). There’s also an abortion discussion, a C-section with teeth, numerous unfilmable telepathic conversations, and Jacob imprints (falls in love) with the infant.

SXSW: Tony Review

Jeff Leins — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 06:01:01 +0000

Tony, the directorial debut of British writer/director Gerard Johnson, is an unnerving, bleak, and low key character study on the disconnected life of a serial killer.

With all their grimy, low-budget production values, Johnson’s cameras peer into the dodgy daily activities of Tony, an unemployed, mustachioed loner with a strong affection for violent action flicks and a complete lack of social skills. You’d almost feel sorry for the man if he didn’t ooze a scuzzy, uncomfortable aura wherever he trudged, which can only be attributed the leering of actor Peter Ferdinando.

Generally ignored by the public, Tony forces human interaction by striking up conversations with uninterested parties on the street, sharing his awkward company with drug dealers and prostitutes, and murdering unsuspecting visitors before positioning them around his flat. The telegraphed death scenes are brutal, as a fumbling Tony purposefully takes care of business with a vacant expression drawn across his face.

Tonally, Tony strikes a horrific chord, but there’s little in the way of insight, backstory, or progression to make the character anything more than a stranger you’ll want to avoid.

2 out of 5.

TonytheMovie.com

SXSW: ‘Kick-Ass’ Panel, Press Conference

Jeff Leins — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 21:55:21 +0000

At the South by Southwest Film Festival and Conference, I had the opportunity to sit in on the post-screening panel and hotel press conference following the opening night and premiere of Kick-Ass. Due to technical difficulties I wasn’t able to record audio, but I’ve compiled my thoughts on the events below:

Director Matthew Vaughn and the charismatic comic book writer Mark Millar fielded most of the questions, which tended to be about how this sort of violent, post-modern superhero movie came together. In his thick Scottish accent, Millar explained how he originally pitched the idea to Vaughn in a long phone call and how that conversation spawned a series of organic collaborations as the comic and the movie came together nearly simultaneously (which might explain the divergence in the film’s third act).

No studio wanted to make the film — at least not the R-rated adaptation Vaughn was interested in — so he found independent financing through trusted investors and support from Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment in just a week. Only later, after a raucous Comic-Con presentation, did a bidding war ensue and Lionsgate come on board.

The panel expects a backlash from self-righteous parents and family-oriented organizations, but stressed the MPAA rating and the obvious opt-in reality of paying the see the movie or not.

Aaron Johnson, the British-born actor who played Dave Lizewski/Kick-Ass, was selected by Vaughn after hundreds of auditions and on the last day before the schedule would have to be delayed six months in search of the right actor. The team insisted on the proper age for the part and had originally wanted an American, but Johnson fooled them with a spot-on accent. Only after his screen test did he reveal his English origins. At the panels Johnson was quiet, leaning into the microphone to comment that his wet suit costume was “revealing” and “sweaty,” but helped him get into character as a teen crime fighter.

The panel members poked fun at Christopher Mintz-Plasse, who beamed a “happy to be here” smile even through the playful jabs from his colleagues. ”My seven year old fits in his costume,” quipped Vaughn at the panel. In Kick-Ass: Creating the Comic, Making the Movie, Millar admitted to calling him “McLovin’” for the first six weeks, but was pleased Mintz-Plasse would be playing another iconic character as Red Mist, a 17-year-old sidekick to Kick-Ass and scion to Frank D’Amico’s shady business. Mintz-Plasse auditioned for the main character, but they felt he might be too funny and was later cast in the supporting role instead. He was quick to point out he would be returning for the inevitable sequel.

While McLovin’ took his lumps, Vaughn protected 14-year-old actress Chloe Moretz like a father-figure, sitting next to her at both events and chiming in if she needed help on an answer. The filmmaker even corrected her grammar once as Moretz started a sentence about her violent character Hit Girl.

The pint-sized assassin’s foul-mouthed one-liners and brutal, bloody scenes are the highlight of the R-rated release, but provide many of the reasons why the teenage Moretz technically isn’t allowed to see her own movie. Judging by her nonchalant attitude and the rest of the panel’s general apathy towards the oh-so-offensive material, I’m sure she’ll sneak a peek or two.

Wise beyond her years, Moretz was articulate and grounded about the extensive, physical fight training she endured after being cast as Mindy Macready/Hit Girl. After her audition, Millar described Moretz in the book as a “tiny, female Joe Pesci” and likened her character to Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver. She certainly seems poised for stardom, but in the meantime she wants a purple Ducati in Kick-Ass 2.

Moretz said it was “amazing” working with Nicolas Cage, a self-proclaimed comic book fanboy himself and the other half of the film’s heart as Damon Macready/Big Daddy. While he wasn’t present for the screening and press coverage (he’s shooting another movie), the panel discussed his campy, staccato speech pattern as Cage’s homage to Adam West, the original Batman.

We also heard from John Romita Jr., who drew the original comic and provided drawings of the gangsters for Big Daddy’s wall of revenge. Like the others, he was genuinely excited about the project, calling it the “best thing he’s ever done.” Romita only seemed hesitant (and appalled) when Millar started suggesting the villain would be called “the C word” in the sequel. For a panel that had just finished saying, “Well, they’re only words” to the movie’s language, most seemed squeamish about the expletive. Moretz simply made a face.

SXSW: ‘Predators’ Peek Details, Video, Images

Jeff Leins — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 06:24:09 +0000

At the South by Southwest Film Festival, just an hour after the conclusion of opening film Kick-Ass, lines literally curved around the block in downtown Austin for the first look at Predators. The city’s own Robert Rodriguez, who produced the film partially shot here, took the stage with director Nimród Antal to unveil the first look at the July 2010 release.

Unfortunately I was one of the people turned away once the theater packed to capacity — it was worth it for Kick-Ass — so I can’t bring you first-hand account of the screening and Q&A, but a few others have shared their thoughts. I’ve pieced together those tidbits and what I know from reading the script and hearing Rodriguez speak at a genre panel the following afternoon:

Rodriguez said the idea for this sequel came from the script he wrote for Fox in 1996 between directing gigs. It was originally intended as the third installment to the franchise starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, but negotiations fell through with the future governor and the concept was shelved for approximately 15 years.

After the awful Alien vs. Predator movies, the studio came to Rodriguez with the idea of rebooting the series and told him they were going to base it on his idea, so the script was retooled — Alex Litvak and Michael Finch contributed rewrites — into a plot about a group of Earth’s most dangerous killers transported to a planet and hunted by multiple predators.

Adrien Brody, Topher Grace, Alice Braga, Laurence Fishburne, Walton Goggins, Danny Trejo, Oleg Taktarov and Mahershalalhashbaz Ali star in the film.

The creative team introduced a new set of predators, including “superpredators” (they’re exactly how they sound), airborne creatures, Falconer predators, and a pack of predator dogs (see concept image below). The tribe from the 1987 original plays a small part in this film, but as Rodriguez described it, “the old style is the 8 track version while the new ones are iPods.” They did, however, stick to practical, man-in-suit effects rather than CG renderings of the iconic characters created by the late Stan Winston.

The movie will definitely be rated “R” promised Antal and Rodriguez, whose footage ended with the title “Predators” fading into just the single letter. The pair also said they have no intention to convert it to 3D, which is a relief considering the current Hollywood trend to rush it in post-production. Both seemed interested in making another sequel if this is successful.

This isn’t the full footage seen at the festival, but here’s a sneak peek from the movie’s official website:

Concept images of the Predator Hounds and a shot of the super predator “Mr. Black”

Sources: Collider, Heat Vision Blog, Bloody-Disgusting, LA Times