Tribeca Review: Zonad
By Marlow Stern
A crowd of Irish stargazers gathers one night in the tiny town of Ballymoran (rhymes with: “moron”). Suddenly, there’s a flash in the sky, followed by the town drunk hollering some nonsense about aliens, before being laughed off by the townspeople. Moments later, the Cassidy family – Dick (Geoff Minogue), Mary (Donna Dent), son Jimmy (Kevin Maher) and nubile daughter Jenny (Janice Byrne) – return home only to find a portly bloke in a skin-tight red vinyl suit and helmet unconscious on the floor and their home in shambles. The gullible clan – straight out of 1950s-era “Pleasantville” – believe the being to be none other than an extraterrestrial named ‘Zonad’ (Simon Delaney).
Co-directors (and brothers) John and Kieran Carney, working from their own screenplay, never make any secret of Zonad’s identity (he’s a fall-down drunk escapee from a rehab center costume party) or his intentions (to bed every schoolgirl – and cougar – nympho in town). Zonad gets so wrapped up in the welcome reception he gets from the simpleminded people of Ballymoran – free drinks at the local pub, sex with a different girl every night – that he forgets his fellow escapee/inmate (David Pearse), whom he left in the woods in a gorilla suit. But don’t fret; this lascivious charlatan will soon be fed his humble pie.
Before being seduced by Zonad, Jenny had pledged her “flower” to the ambiguously straight Guy (Rory Keenan) – and attractive, silver spoon-fed simpleton who, oblivious to Jenny’s sexual advances, shuns them in favor of rides on the “guycycle” and arched-eyebrow looks with his guyliner-sporting butler, Benson (David Murray). The duo soon band together with a few other locals to form an anti-Zonad posse. Their efforts prove extraneous when Zonad’s fellow escapee (Pearse) hobbles into the local vintage clothing store, eyes a blue latex jumpsuit and assumes the identity of Bonad, Zonad’s superior officer in the star fleet. The clueless Ballymoranians, of course, swallow the whole thing down like a tasty pint of Guinness (as is their wont). Bonad’s lays on his alien shtick even thicker than Zonad, and soon, Bonad supplants Zonad as the town demigod and is, well… living up to his name with all the local hussies, including Jenny. Everything comes to a head when the two frauds duke it out in a cocaine and booze-fueled boxing match, set to the opening theme of “Raging Bull.”
It’s hard to believe that this perverted, outlandish yarn comes (in part) from the same mind, John Carney’s, that birthed the naturalistic love story “Once.” Here, subtle grace has been replaced by flagrant fatuity, and, despite Delaney’s best efforts, a five-minute comedy sketch is stretched-out more than Zonad’s figure-hugging suit (the film was adapted from a 2003 short that was never released). The only likeness to that poignant Irish musical comes in the form of a pair of inspired musical numbers that bookend the film. And the only clue that all this ridiculousness take place in the present – and not in the 1950s, as ubiquitous naïveté suggests, is the mention of a stolen DVD player; a destination where, in all likelihood, you’ll one day get to see this film.
ZONAD still lacks a U.S. distributor.
Tags: john carney, kieran carney, marlow stern, once, simon delaney, zonad
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Tribeca Review: Please Give
By Marlow Stern
Whereas writer-director Nicole Holofcener’s last film, 2006’s “Friends with Money,” centered around a maid struggling to come to terms with her wealthy friends, her latest foray into the recession-plagued female psyche concerns an introverted mammogram technician, a reseller of second hand goods and the pesky Manhattan real estate market.
Sure, Holofcener may have a preoccupation with the corrupting influence of money, but the opening mammogram montage of “Please Give” – showcasing breasts of every shape, sag and size – offers a penetrating intro into the film’s intriguing commentary on the objectification of women in Hollywood (an issue Holofcener willingly subverts) and the perils of aging.
The characters that inhabit the world of “Please Give” rely not on the kindness of others, but rather on the pain and personal anguish of the infirm. The woman administering the mammograms is Rebecca (Rebecca Hall), an anomic – albeit attractive – woman whose blind devotion to her senile 91-year-old grandmother, Andra (Ann Morgan Guilbert), cripples any semblance of a social life. Rebecca refers to breasts as, “tubes of potential damage,” for starters. Andra’s apartment is owned by her next-door neighbors, married couple Kate (Catherine Keener) and Alex (Oliver Platt), who run a successful vintage furniture store. The dynamic duo specializes in purchasing the goods off the recently-deceased elderly at a bargain and reselling them for huge markups. They’re waiting for the old kook to croak so they can renovate/expand their already spacious Manhattan apartment – a predicament that makes their hallway run-ins with Rebecca a wee bit awkward.
Out of guilt, Kate invites Rebecca, her tanned sister Mary (Amanda Peet), a vain spa facialist who takes after her grandma, and the ornery Andra, over for supper with the family, which is rounded out by Kate and Alex’s 16-year-old daughter, Abby (Sarah Steele), who comes to the dinner table with her face obscured in underwear in an effort to hide a gigantic pimple. The dinner has unintended results for all parties involved and jump starts a story about human frustration, insecurity, and, in true Holofcener fashion, teeming with acerbic, witty dialogue.
“Please Give” marks Holofcener’s fourth collaboration with actress Catherine Keener, who usually serves as Holofcener’s mouthpiece in her films. In “Friends with Money,” Keener played a woman whose creative collaboration with her husband – the two are successful co-screenwriters – frustrates her. Here, she plays a woman struggling to come to grips with possessing monetary wealth, and the means by which she’s amassed it. Kate’s attempts to rid herself of the all-consuming guilt that her station provides – including a failed attempt at volunteer work, purchasing a grandma couch and doling out $20 bills to the homeless – results in some of the film’s most tragicomic scenarios.
Though Keener is the mouthpiece, it’s Rebecca Hall who is the film’s moral center and offers it’s finest performance. Rebecca’s character bears the least resemblance to a sitcom character type – unlike Platt’s midlife crisis-sufferer or Peet’s vainglorious, jealous wreck – instead offering a light journey from social awkwardness to awareness of life’s wonderful gifts.
The film, like all those in Holofcener’s canon, constructs a narrative around a series of playful vignettes exhibiting clashing personalities and worldviews. Though some may criticize this method for providing characters lacking the requisite depth, in places like Manhattan, sometimes that’s all you can afford.
PLEASE GIVE opens on April 30th in New York and Los Angeles.
Tags: amanda peet, catherine keener, marlow stern, nicole holofcener, please give, rebecca hall, tribeca film festival 2010
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Tribeca Interview: Rebecca Hall Talks Please Give!
By Marlow Stern
After making her feature film debut as the witty student activist – and object of James McAvoy’s affection – Rebecca Epstein, in the underrated coming-of-age comedy “Starter for Ten,” Rebecca Hall has achieved a strong acting reputation, attracting some of the film world’s finest directors.
The British actress’s follow-up was 2006’s “The Prestige,” where she played wife to Christian Bale’s tortured magician in the Christopher Nolan (“Dark Knight”) film. Then, in 2008, she got her break as one of the leads in Woody Allen’s ménage-a-quatre “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.” Hall, playing a facsimile of her “Starter” character – Vicky, a practical PHD student in Catalan studies engaged to an unromantic partner – is the film’s moral high ground, and, despite Penelope Cruz stealing most of the film’s accolades as a fiery artist, Hall earned a great deal of critical praise, resulting in a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Musical/Comedy. She also appeared in Ron Howard’s award-winning ensemble drama “Frost/Nixon” that same year.
Hall is the daughter of renowned theatre director Peter Hall and opera singer Maria Ewing. Her professional stage debut came in 2002 when she starred as Vivie in her father’s production of “Mrs. Warren’s Profession” at the Strand Theatre in London. Critics raved of her turn and she took home the Ian Charleson Award, given to the best British stage actress under 30. She’s continued to act in theatre, appearing as Rosalind in “As You Like It,” Hermione in “The Winter’s Tale,” and many more.
From acclaimed New York filmmaker Nicole Holofcener (“Lovely and Amazing”), who has a penchant for actress-showcasing ensemble seriocomedies, Please Give features sisters Rebecca (Hall) and Mary (Amanda Peet), two opposites – similar to the Vicky/Cristina divide – who care for their elderly grandmother. Well, Rebecca, a mammogram technician, cares for her. The pair of sisters soon clash with a married couple (Catherine Keener and Oliver Platt) who specialize in reselling the used goods of recently deceased geriatrics.
MMM sat down with the talented actress Rebecca Hall to chat about the similarities between Woody Allen and Nicole Holofcener, her proclivity towards American roles, mammograms and her favorite things about NYC.
MANHATTAN MOVIE MAGAZINE: How were you approached to do this role and what was it about the script in general that made you want to do this film?
REBECCA HALL: Well, initially the fact that I was an admirer of Nicole’s [Holofcener] filmmaking and the fact that she writes incredibly subtle characters which gives you much more room for maneuvering and something to really flesh out and play with. I like playing ambiguity, I suppose. I like playing people who are complicated in ways that aren’t particularly obvious, a little bit opaque. I think that elusive quality in her writing appeals to me. She’s doesn’t write films about people who are particularly heroic. She doesn’t write films who are going to save the world from monsters or are particularly great or go through particularly dramatic events. That interests me because that’s life. So what you concentrate on as an actor are the details, the intricacies of day to day existence and then that relates to an audience on a grounded scale because it taps into a sort of common humanity.
MMM: How did you prepare for this role? Did you study mammograms?
HALL: Oh, I knew that was coming! [Laughs] You’re a courageous one. I did. I didn’t know an awful lot about mammograms. You don’t start having them until you’re a little bit older. I’d never had one and I didn’t know much about it. So I went to a mammogram unit. I went to the one that we filmed at and I sat with a nurse that works there for a day. I watched her perform the procedures and she taught me how to work the machinery. I learned about it. I think it’s sort of taboo especially in cinema to objectify any body part that’s usually eroticized and actually talk about it’s potential harm and it’s potential danger.
MANHATTAN MOVIE MAGAZINE: Do you think that occupation affected her dating life?
HALL: No. I think that the character affected her dating life. I think her choice of occupation is telling of, as a character, she does things in her life that give her an excuse to avoid living. That’s her big problem. A lot of people tend to see the film and think that my character is the moral high ground, the moral center of the film, and I think that’s true to an extent, but I don’t think that makes her necessarily healthy. I think that every character in this film, all of them, is dysfunctional in the sense that they give for the wrong reasons or they take advantage when they think they’re giving. I think that Rebecca is another example of that. She just does it in an inverse way, as in she uses looking after everyone and taking responsibility for everyone else as a way to avoid taking responsibility for herself or living her life in any kind of round, happy, healthy way.
MMM: She’s about the only character that doesn’t have any guilt. Is that right?
HALL: I think she does have guilt. I’d say that. I’m not wanting to make sort of massive psychological generalizations when I’m not remotely a psychiatrist but I’d say that anyone that has that level of, I suppose, abstinence –
MMM: What about her mother who committed suicide, did she have guilt over that?
HALL: Yeah. I think she does. I don’t think she has guilt that she’s conscious of but I think she carries an enormous amount of guilt because I don’t really believe that anyone that insecure…and she’s a person who has no idea who she is and isn’t really willing to find out at the beginning of the film. She’d rather disappear from any situation and someone who is that unsure of themselves and that insecure, probably on some level they retreat out of guilt. She doesn’t let herself be happy because she feels horrific about all sorts of things but I don’t think she’s conscious of it. So it wasn’t something that I consciously thought of in the playing of it.
MMM: Did you actually get a chance to sit with Nicole and give your input on this character and how you wanted her to be in the film?
HALL: I think that’s a process that happens and I think there’s always input. A character doesn’t exist in an actor’s imagination, nor does it exist on the page. It exists when the two things come together.
MMM: But you draw from things, I’m sure, right?
HALL: Yeah, absolutely, but I don’t think that I went to Nicole and said, ‘This is how I see her.’ I don’t think that I’m really an actor that makes decisions separate to the text, if you see what I mean. I’ve never quite understood that idea of saying, ‘I don’t believe that my character would say this.’ If a character says it then it’s your responsibility to find a reason why and that’s where the character comes from, those problems. The more of those moments where you go ‘I don’t understand why this is happening’ is the more that you develop the character that’s separate from yourself. That’s sort of how you form their personality, if that makes any sense at all. I’m completely waffling.
MMM: How did you approach the loving granddaughter aspect of it? Was there something in your own family that you could pull from?
HALL: Not really. I couldn’t relate to that, no. I couldn’t relate to it at all. I have no surprising grandparents. They were alive for a little bit when I was younger but I didn’t really know them. My family life is incredibly diverse and broad and I suppose, under some sort of umbrella term, bohemian. I don’t have a normal upbringing at all. So this is kind of an anathema to me but on some level everyone understands about those kinds of family relationships in some instinctive place. I don’t know how, but they do.
MMM: The two sisters are opposites except there are things that bond them and so they’re also similar in certain ways.
HALL: I think that they’re both suffering from the same issues of growing up without strong parental figures and dealing with a lack of love and a lot of isolation. And it’s two perfect examples of how people react to that kind of situation. Either people introvert or they extrovert and you’ve got both examples in the same family.
MMM: So many people in America might be surprised that you’re English. Of the roles you’re being offered at this point, are they fifty/fifty British and American roles?
HALL: They’re one hundred percent. I’ve yet to play a Brit. No, I have.
MMM: I saw the “Red Riding” trilogy and that was excellent.
HALL: Which was also an accent as well. I was just playing a thick Yorkshire. That’s not my normal [accent].
MMM: “Starter for Ten?”
HALL: “Starter for Ten” was the one standing and “Prestige,” actually. I was English in “The Prestige” as well.
MMM: Why do you think you’re getting so many scripts for American roles?
HALL: It’s a combination of things. It’s a combination of where there’s stuff being made, first off, frankly. And also, American culture interests me. I’m not totally alien. I have a foot in both countries, so to speak. My mother is American. My mom is from Detroit originally and I grew up with a lot of American culture. I think that everyone in the world has. I think especially with stories from New York. There’s something about the iconography of New York, which has a global appeal. I always wanted to be in films about New York and was interested in films telling good stories and if they are American then that’s the way they are.
MMM: What’s your favorite part about New York?
HALL: My favorite part of New York is the walking. You can walk everywhere and everything is right there and you can get wheat-free pizza at three in morning.
MMM: Nicole bares many similarities with Woody Allen –
HALL: She’s small. She’s Jewish. She wears glasses.
MMM: Can you talk about how their directorial styles compare?
HALL: I don’t quite know why I have a sort of resistance to compare them. I think it’s probably out of respect for both of them separately and having actually genuinely had very different experiences. I think it’s impossible to come across a filmmaker today who makes films about New York that does not get compared to Woody Allen because New York culture is so pervasive and he put a stamp on it. I also don’t think that it’s possible to find a filmmaker that’s not been influenced by him. But as to whether they’re similar, I think she has her own voice. I do. I think she’s got her own way of doing things. The one way in which I would make comparisons is that they make films about life, about small aspects of life. They don’t tell great big stories. They talk about people and characters.
PLEASE GIVE opens on April 30th in New York and Los Angeles.
Tags: interview, marlow stern, please give, rebecca hall, tribeca film festival 2010
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SUNDANCE TWENTYTEN: The Wrap-Up!
By Marlow Stern
The gifting suites and lounges have reverted to art galleries; tinted-windowed Honda’s sped off into the sunset; and Park City’s Main Street is devoid of women in obnoxiously conspicuous fur costumes. It’s a ghost town.
Yes, the snowy 2010 Sundance Film Festival has come and gone. Running from January 21 to 31, the premier independent film festival on the planet – dubbed ‘Sundance Twentyten’ – boasted 113 feature-length films representing 36 different countries and 44 first-time filmmakers.
Debra Granik’s “Winter’s Bone” was the fest’s big winner, taking home the U.S. Dramatic Competition’s Grand Jury Prize as well as the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award. Granik’s film weaves the tale of a teenage girl living in a remote, impoverished region of the Ozark Mountains who faces violent relatives in a quest to track down her drug-dealing father.
The U.S. Documentary Competition topper was “Restrepo,” a raw war documentary following a platoon of soldiers during their 15-month deployment in Afghanistan. Directed by Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington, the film created major buzz following its premiere screening on Sundance’s opening night.
John Cooper’s appointment as Director of the Sundance Film Festival was a key factor in many of this year’s changes. Former Sundance Film Festival Director Geoffrey Gilmore, who headed the fest for nearly two decades, moved on to head the Tribeca Film Festival. In past years, you would walk out of certain films and wonder not just how they found their way into one of the world’s most prestigious film festival’s, but how they even got made in the first place. At Sundance Twentyten, there were less of these unfortunate outliers and the overall quality of the non-Indiewood flicks was noticeably stronger.
As with every film festival, there were several recurring themes during this year’s Sundance. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as expected, made their presence known. In addition to the aforementioned “Restrepo,” there was the doc “The Pat Tillman Story” chronicling the death of the former Texas Ranger/NFL player. “Tillman’s” U.S. distribution was acquired by the Weinstein Co. The predictably grim “The Dry Land” starred and was produced by “Ugly Betty’s” America Ferrera and concerns her husband returning from Iraq totally PTSD’d out. It’s a more indie “Brothers,” minus the flashy stars and incestuous relationships. Ryan Reynolds starrer “Buried” [pictured below] concerns a U.S. citizen working as a contract driver in Iraq who, following an attack on his convoy, suddenly awakens to find himself buried alive inside a coffin with nothing more than a lighter, a cell phone and a hazy memory of how he got there.
Another topic that loomed large over the festival was the economic recession. Mediocre ensemble drama “The Company Men” [pictured below], helmed by “E.R.” creator John Wells, was billed pre-fest as “Up in the Air” meets “Traffic.” Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones, Chris Cooper, Kevin Costner, Rosemarie DeWitt and Maria Bello topline the film, but the corporate downsizing-themed pic is a ‘made for television’ bore that offers little to no insight into the economic crisis, as well as a host of one-note performances from the otherwise talented cast. The only people who escape with their reputations fully intact are Rosemarie DeWitt as Affleck’s doting wife, and Chris Cooper as a severely depressed corporate downsizee. Mat Whitecross and Michael Winterbottom’s documentary “The Shock Doctrine,” based on Naomi Klein’s best selling book, chronicles the rise of disaster capitalism and the effect it has had on the world over the past 50 years.
As far as acquisitions are concerned, gone are the days of the $15 million pickups like “Little Miss Sunshine,” however, unlike last year, 2010 marked a major improvement in acquisitions during the festival. The most notable ones were “The Kids Are All Right,” a film by Lisa Chodolenko (“Laurel Canyon”) about a lesbian couple (Annette Bening and Julianne Moore) who have two kids conceived by artificial insemination. The kids grow up and try to reconnect with their birth father, played by Mark Ruffalo. The film sparked a bidding war among several companies, and was eventually acquired by Focus Features for $5 million. The aforementioned Ryan Reynolds-starrer “Buried,” shot from a first-person P.O.V. inside a casket, went to Lionsgate for $3.2 million. Hanover House acquired the rights to craptastic filmmaker Joel Schumacher’s latest crapfest “Twelve” for $2 million. The film had an awful reception, and was probably only acquired because of its star cast, including: “Gossip Girl’s” Chace Crawford, 50 Cent, Rory Culkin, Emma Roberts and Kiefer Sutherland narrating. Prizewinner “Winter’s Bone” found a home at Roadside Attractions, while the Ryan Gosling/Michelle Williams relationship drama “Blue Valentine” went to Weinstein Co. One of the festival’s biggest buzz films was the documentary “Catfish.” The film follows Nev, a 24-year-old New York-based photographer, who is contacted by Abby, an eight-year-old girl from rural Michigan, via MySpace seeking permission to paint one of his photographs. When he receives her remarkable painting, Nev begins a friendship and correspondence with Abby’s family, including a budding romance with her attractive older sister, Megan. Strangeness ensues. The film was picked up by Rogue Pictures a few days after the festival wrapped.
Now to the fun stuff…
My buddy Josh and I arrived in Park City the morning of Thursday, January 21 – the first day of the festival. We checked into our condo at the Lodge at Mountain Village, a part of the Park City Mountain Resort. If you ever wish to go to Sundance – it’s an amazing deal. For a little over $300/night, you get a spacious two-bedroom condo, two-floor condo with a full kitchen and huge living room equipped with a flat screen TV. The couch pulls out into another bed so you could easily sleep 3-5 people.
Since I wasn’t aware of whether or not I could pull off the trip to Sundance financially until the eleventh hour, we didn’t have press/media passes. But I prefer to attend the public screenings anyway with actual audiences (as opposed to a group of aging, muted, cynical film journos). So, pass-less and relatively ticket-less, we queued up to see the opening evening premiere of “Howl” [pictured below], a buzzed-about film about the Allen Ginsburg obscenity trial starring James Franco as the celebrated beat poet. After waiting almost four hours on the wait-list line, they kindly let us know that NO ONE would be getting a wait-list ticket.
Depressed and tired, I decided to camp out at the Sundance box office overnight to ensure not getting screwed over on the waitlist line on Friday. For those not in the know, the ticket-buying situation at Sundance is a travishamockery. You register on the festival website and are given a random (usually shitty) time to purchase tickets online. So, if you’re screwed with your purchasing start time, you’re usually forced to queue up on the waitlist line between 2-4 hours before the start of a film at Sundance to guarantee yourself a waitlist ticket. However, every evening during the festival at 7 or 8 p.m. they post a list of available tickets for each film for the following morning when the box office opens at 8 a.m. It’s usually wise to camp out by the Main Street box office or arrive at 4 a.m. and wait, because then you’re all set with your tickets for the day and don’t have to queue 2-4 hours for each film. I ended up scoring tickets to buzzed-about documentary “Catfish,” the premiere of “Hesher,” starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Natalie Portman, road comedy “Douchebag” (mostly for the title), the midnight screening of “Tucker and Dale vs. Evil,” a horror-comedy about rednecks hunted by rich college kids (a play on “Deliverance”), and tix to the aforementioned corporate downsizing ensemble drama “The Company Men.”
“Catfish” was very compelling, and takes you on twists and turns you don’t see coming.
“Douchebag” was a decent road comedy about, well, a douchebag (played by Andrew Dickler), who, on the verge of getting married to the lovely Steph (Marguerite Moreau), insists he escort his awkward younger brother (Ben York Jones) on a hunt to track down his fifth grade girlfriend/love of his life. The film is most notable for the effective, low-key soundtrack, some sharply-written scenes between the two brothers, and Andrew Dickler’s magnetic performance as the bearded, pretentious, hypocritical vegan.
“Hesher” [picture below], which stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the titular pyromaniac outcast who shacks up with a trouble child following a tragedy, was a disappointment. Boasting a huge cast, including “The Office’s” Rainn Wilson as the child’s depressed father, Piper Laurie as the grandmother, and Natalie Portman as a random shopgirl who bonds with the child, it’s a very cloying and awkwardly-pitched movie that is only slightly redeemed by it’s denouement. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is great as usual as the anarchic loner, and you can tell he had a lot of fun filming it, but Natalie Portman’s character is narratively pointless and the film fails to fully immerse you in it’s melancholy world.
“Tucker and Dale vs. Evil” is a fairly humorous comedy of errors about a group of dumb rednecks on a fishing excursion who are mistakenly preyed upon by a group of revenge-hungry, preppy college kids. The Murphy’s Law approach works for a little, as college kid after college kid meets their accidental demise, but gets very repetitive as the blood-splattered film chugs along. Still, if you’re flipping around the movie channels late one night, it would be a fun watch.
Friday was movie day. Saturday was for partying.
The day began with drinks. My buddy Josh and I arrived at the VILLAGE AT THE YARD gifting lounge and entered the bar area at 11 a.m. We ordered Red Bull & vodkas, to which the bartender replied, “Congratulations, you’re the first person to drink today.” I guzzled two, and followed it up with a delicious Caesar salad and chicken sandwich at the T-Mobile Diner.
Back to business. A screening of “The Runaways” [picture below], a fast and solid rock ‘n roll flick about the titular 70s punk/glam rock outfit comprised mainly of Joan Jett and Cherie Currie – and starring Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning, respectively. The film is mainly about Cherie Currie, and drags a bit towards the end, but Kristen Stewart’s non-“Twilight” body of work has been impressive. She pulls off the badass rocker shtick with flying colors, and I thought her performance in last year’s “Adventureland” was Golden Globe nomination-worthy. Next up was “Cyrus,” the first studio film – Fox Searchlight, to be exact – by mumblecore filmmaking duo Mark and Jay Duplass. The film stars Jonah Hill as a strange child whose umbilical cord is still basically attached to his single mom, played by Marisa Tomei (he still lives with her and sleeps in her bed). She begins to seriously date a man, played by John C. Reilly, and all matters of awkward hilarity ensues between the Oedipal son and the Shrek-a-like paramour. The film is a big laugher and I’m anxious to see what the directing brothers, who made their filmmaking debut at the 2005 Sundance Film Fest with “The Puffy Chair,” come up with next.
After movie #2, I stopped by the ALIVE! VIP LUXURY ECO-LOUNGE to get a free massage – really hit the spot – and check out the nature-friendly products offered. The early morning Red Bull & vodkas proved to be a terrible idea, as my energy level gradually sank over the course of the afternoon. Took a nap back at the condo, and then we went out to the SPIN party at the LUXURY LOUNGE preceding a JOAN JETT concert at HARRY O’S on Park City’s Main Street. The Joan Jett & the Blackhearts concert was packed to the nines and just fantastic. I never realized how many hits Jett has and her energy was off the charts. The party was to promote “The Runaways,” and stars Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning embraced Jett onstage prior to the encore.
Then, we headed to the AT&T HOUSE OF HYPE to check out JOHN LEGEND & THE ROOTS play together. It was a star-fucking extravaganza replete with a Queen (Latifah), the richest man on the planet (Bill Gates) and a gaggle of model-types. I will admit, I’ve knocked John Legend in the past, having always viewed him as an effete crooner with a girly fanbase. Was I wrong. Legend is a fantastic live performer with a strong, soulful voice, and, with instrumental accompaniment courtesy of the always-stellar Roots, it made for a fantastic show. When you can get Bill Gates to do a tipsy rendition of ‘the Macarena,’ you know you’ve brought the thunder.
Sunday, January 24, was our final one Sundancing. Half-asleep, I stumbled to a 9:15 a.m. screening of “Jack Goes Boating” [picture below], Philip Seymour Hoffman’s adaptation of the off-Broadway play by Bob Glaudini (which he also starred in). The film tells the tale of the forlorn Jack (Hoffman), a limo driver into Rastafarian music who finds love with the delicate Connie (Amy Ryan) over a Manhattan winter. Meanwhile, Jack and Connie’s mutual friends, the married couple Clyde (John Ortiz) and Lucy (Daphne Rubin-Vega), are on the down slope of their relationship. The film features heartfelt performances by all involved, a mature hand by Hoffman in his directorial debut, and a stellar soundtrack with songs from indie rock stalwarts like Grizzly Bear and Fleet Foxes. It was one of my favorite films of the fest, and will be released by Overture sometime in the fall. The rest of the day was spent relaxing, grabbing swag at the Village at the Yard suites for my little sister, conducting interviews, and screening “Night Catches Us.” Written and directed by Tanya Hamilton, the film is set in 1976 race-torn Philadelphia, and involves complex political and emotional issues brought to the fore when a young man (Anthony Mackie), returns to his old neighborhood during the Black Power/Panther movement. Backed by talented supporting actors Kerry Washington, “The Wire’s” Jamie Hector and The Roots frontman Tariq Trotter, it’s a heavy-handed letdown that the always-brilliant Mackie, who recently starred in “The Hurt Locker,” can’t quite salvage.
Following the screening, we ate dinner and watched some NFL playoff football – my New York Jets losing to the Colts and the Vikings losing in overtime to the Saints – and then I had to head to Salt Lake City airport for a redeye flight back home. Exhausted. Can’t wait to navigate through the hordes of film fanatics on Main Street [picture below] next year!
Tags: parties, sundance 2010, winners
Posted in Festivals, Interviews | 4 Comments »
James McAvoy Visits The Last Station!
By Marlow Stern
With his baby blue eyes, boyish looks and Scottish brogue, it was only a matter of time before James McAvoy would break into the higher ranks of Hollywood stardom.
As a young Glaswegian lad, McAvoy briefly considered entering the Catholic priesthood before ultimately graduating from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. After appearing in a few minor films and BBC series’, he got a break, landing a supporting role in Steven Spielberg’s HBO TV miniseries “Band of Brothers.” For several years after, McAvoy popped up in bit film and TV roles across the Atlantic, appearing in the acclaimed BBC miniseries “State of Play,” and as Paul Bettany’s obnoxious brother Carl Colt in the 2003 rom-com “Wimbledon.” He garnered indie acclaim as a quadriplegic in 2004’s “Rory O’Shea Was Here,” which made its stateside debut at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival.
Things began to really happen for McAvoy when, in 2005, he landed the supporting role of the polite Faun, Mr. Tumnus, in the blockbuster film adaptation of C.S. Lewis’s “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.” He also had his first leading role as a college student participating on a game show in the critically hailed comedy “Starter for Ten.” The next year, McAvoy’s star rose higher, starring opposite Forest Whitaker in “The Last King of Scotland.” The biopic of Ugandan despot Idi Amin would garner Whitaker an Oscar for Best Actor.
McAvoy cemented his status as a highly talented screen actor with the role of star-crossed lover Robbie Turner in Joe Wright’s 2007 period epic “Atonement.” Starring opposite Keira Knightley, McAvoy was honored with a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a Drama. And 2008’s “Wanted,” a bullet-riddled summer blockbuster about a fraternity of assassins, earned over $340 million worldwide, turning McAvoy into a box office viable leading man.
Directed by Michael Hoffman (“One Fine Day”), McAvoy’s latest film is a far cry from “Wanted.” The independent film, entitled The Last Station, is a period pic of author Leo Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer), exploring his turbulent final year and his troubled marriage to Sofya (Helen Mirren). McAvoy plays Valentin Bulgakov, a naive private secretary sent by Tolstoy’s trust follower, Vladimir Chertkov (Paul Giamatti), to work for Tolstoy.
MMM sat down with the charming James McAvoy to chat about his Tolstoy biopic, how he chooses his roles, his upcoming Robert Redford-directed Lincoln assassination drama and the crap his mates give him for his various roles (*cough* Mr. Tumnus).
MANHATTAN MOVIE MAGAZINE: You said that you had an interesting line to walk with this character.
JAMES MCAVOY: Yeah, I suppose I did. He’s that guy, that figure, that you kind of project onto a little bit, so you need to leave enough space for the audience to get inside, but you also need to do something as well. But also, between just the comedy and the drama, which I think everybody had to walk that line, that’s one that’s always enjoyable to balance and risk falling off.
MMM: He’s so naïve yet we have to see him grow by the end of it.
MCAVOY: Hopefully. My favorite movies and my favorite stories are ones where people change because it’s about things happening and changing that’s interesting in stories, I think. You need to have one character who’s got a definite moral view or a definite opinion or a definite haircut at least by the end of the movie. And I always look for a bit of character arc, progression change; even “Wanted” had one.
MMM: Were you a fan of Tolstoy?
MCAVOY: I’d be lying if I said that I was actually a humongous Tolstoy fan. I never got through “War and Peace” when I read it. I got nearly to the end, but I read it because I thought I should not because I wanted to. I think I’m probably finally ready to read it maybe in five years and get to the end. But what I didn’t know was all about his political and spiritual sort of leadership that came after his fictional writings. It was such an eye opener also to learn that my country, Scotland, had the largest concentration of Tolstoy communes outside of Russia. We got him in Scotland; we really dug him in Scotland it seems. So hopefully something on a subconscious genetic level made me love him.
MMM: Your wife was also in this movie. What was that like being on set together?
MCAVOY: We’ve done it before. We met on a tv show so it nothing new; it was nice to be together. We didn’t actually work with each other that much which allowed us to accept the job together. If we had lots and lots and lots of scenes with each other that could maybe get difficult. But we didn’t actually do that much acting together so it was nice.
MMM: With a role like this where the source material, or the back material is so dense and there’s so much of it, how do you go about preparing for this role? Obviously you didn’t go back and read “War and Peace” or go through any of that, so how do you get into the skin of this guy?
MCAVOY: I think it would have been a total waste of time for me to go and read “War and Peace” as preparation for this film. It wouldn’t have been a waste of time; it would have been time spent reading an excellent book obviously. However, this was about a different time in his life, and the main source of information was unparalleled in anything I’ve ever had as an actor, it was incredible. I had a direct link to exactly what my guy thought; he was a real person and in the film we show that he kept 5,000 diaries. He did keep a lot of diaries so I know how he felt went Countess Sofya Tolstoy climbed along the balcony because 10 minutes after it happened he wrote down how it made him feel. I’ve never had that kind of connection to a character before; it almost made it too easy. I’m really just trying to execute well what he says he felt, but my imagination doesn’t have to been engaged to connect to all that, not to say that I didn’t use my imagination. It was lovely to have that direct link to somebody, and I don’t think I’ve played anybody who existed before. This might be the first time I’ve played somebody real, and to have that link is amazing.
MMM: Can we go back to something you said about Tolstoy and the connection to Scottish people? What is that?
MCAVOY: No idea. But I do know that we are both from very cold countries; maybe that’s something. And we have a left-wing leaning country that leads to Socialism and socialist democracy. We were a socially democratic country forever. Up until Thatcher came in really we were quite a Socialist democratic country. But before that I think Scottish people were quite up for Communism at one point. And whilst Tolstoy wasn’t a Communist I think it’s what really laid the blocks and sort of helped cultivate an environment in which Communism could be born. We really liked that, I think; the idea that somebody was saying the land doesn’t belong to the English, the land belongs to you, it belongs to nobody but everybody. That was hugely interesting to Scottish people, Irish people, Welsh people; anybody who was part of a union that they didn’t want to be part of.
MMM: Now that you’ve gotten to play a real person who actually existed and were able to see exactly how he felt and act that out directly, how do you like being able to do that as opposed to playing a fictional character?
MCAVOY: It wasn’t that different. The only difference was I had this link to how he felt, but other than that it wasn’t that different. You’re playing scenes that actually happened, but whether we’re playing them exactly how they happened or not we’ll never know. So you’re still imagining, you’re still engaging your imagination completely. The only thing is, sometimes I suppose when you play a real person you are bound by reality, although sometimes that’s a very freeing thing. But maybe you can’t make some bigger dramatic choices that a story maybe could use to make it more interesting. But playing Valentin, he was so strange anyway. The guy did sneeze when he was nervous, like hugely. It sounds like a kind of Draconian device but it is true. So he was kind of an odd fish and I didn’t really feel constricted at all. But I imagine you can feel constricted by reality sometimes.
MMM: Is that the first character you’ve ever played where every time a specific emotion came over you that you had a physical action that you had to do?
MCAVOY: I’ve played a character with a very bad stammer and a kind of tick, and that was sometimes else that was physicalized. Tension wasn’t internalized, it wasn’t about film acting as we are told it should be about – internalizing it – it was about overtly communicating how you feel. “I’m nervous, I’m trying not to show you, but I’m going to spray you with nerves through my nose. You can’t hide it, and I really really liked being overt.
MMM: One of the adjectives I hear most applied to you in every role you do is “everyman,” even when you’re playing a badass action hero. Do you find yourself pigeonholed in that? Do you want to play some evil one-dimensional bad guy some day?
MCAVOY: Totally, of course I do. But no, I don’t feel pigeonholed. Getting to play “everyman,” that’s great, that’s wonderful, I think. You get great parts.
MMM: Or is it just that there’s something in the quality of your acting or the way you approach your roles that adds sympathy?
MCAVOY: I don’t know really. Maybe. I think I just look at the script and see what the story needs and try and do it. And if the story needs an everyman that you can understand and sympathize with I try and get your sympathy.
MMM: Is that what you gravitate towards?
MCAVOY: I’ve said this so many times I’m boring myself, but the last three films I did – “The Conspirator,” “Wanted,” and “The Last Station” – I gravitated towards them and I chose to do those films. Everything before that I was at the mercy of fate as to whether I got it, and as much as I’m glad that I did those films I just did them because I got offered them and they were the best of the bunch. I haven’t structured my career, it’s been really lucky, and now I’m starting to structure my career. But I really just did whatever I got, so maybe they gravitated to my ability.
MMM: If you play a two-dimensional villain next you can ask Paul for advice on moustache twirling.
MCAVOY: Nice. I just did a film in which I had a big old beard in it, and for period it would have been correct for me to have a nice bit of twirl. I was so keen to have a nice twirly moustache; I was gutted I couldn’t have one.
MMM: Did you have a game plan when you started?
MCAVOY: My game plan was entirely based around dealing with rejection and being cool with it, and preparing myself for mass rejection. I was bitterly told that I probably wouldn’t work that much because most actors don’t and I was just lucky that it didn’t turn out that way for me. One of the things that really helped me out is when I left drama school there were hardly any actors under the age of 25 in Scotland. They thought, “Look at Ewan McGregor; I’m off to London and Hollywood to go make it too.” So there was a dearth of young leads in Scottish theater, so a couple of mates and I cleaned up for a whole year and a half. And it really set me on the path. I don’t know if it’s because they all went “Look at Ewan McGregor, I’m going to do what he’s doing,” but I think it might have been. I didn’t get all the Scottish actors under 25 together and go, “Why did you leave? Tell me, I’m interested; it’s like a fucking wasteland out there with no actors,” but that’s my imagining anyway.
MMM: What does the period nature of the film add to it for you? The costumes, the setting…
MCAVOY: It gives it an extra element of interest I think. But for me and my attraction to do the thing, it’s not because it’s period it was just because it’s a cracking story, that was the main thing. The period thing is just being true to the man’s story and to everybody’s story. But I do like it, I do enjoy it. I don’t go out and go, “Yes, what’s the next period film that I’m going to do? Find me another period film please.” If I read a contemporary piece and it’s not as good as the costume drama piece then I’ll do the costume drama piece.
MMM: It seems like the costumes would be kind of uncomfortable.
MCAVOY: No; they were cracking. I like wearing costumes and all that. Quite often you’ll find they’re tight, but it just helps your posture, it helps your performance. Sometimes you feel a bit bound in in some of the outfits, especially in the first half of Valentin’s journey, and then we loosened him up a little bit. We actually made him go quite far and he put on peasant garb, which I thought was quite nice because it was slightly patronizing; this total upper-middle-class dude walking around dressed like a peasant. And then towards the end of the film he kind of comes back to your half and half hybrid, sort of like peasant-chic but still could make it in middle-class Moscow. You can tell stories through costumes as well.
MMM: Did you find that it’s a real love story? And if so, could you imagine a love like that, like the way she loved him?
MCAVOY: The way that Sofya loved Tolstoy? It’s a story about love but I don’t know if it’s a love story; I kind of think of love stories as people getting together. I think this is an examination about a particular marriage as well, and maybe a discussion about a particular marriage, because you’re seeing one love story right at its end and another love story right at its beginning. I bet you theirs was just as passionate as the two young ones. It’s also about two people that grew apart and grew in different directions. I don’t know what the film is saying about marriage really, but if you don’t evolve together you’re going to give yourself nightmares.
MMM: Could you relate to that type of relationship? The wife was totally in love with him, even when everything was gone.
MCAVOY: Could I relate to it? Could I see myself loving somebody who would completely disappear from my life? I don’t know; I don’t think so, I don’t think I could. But also, the other thing is that she was completely tied to him. She wasn’t just in his throw because she loved him, she was tied to him. She couldn’t do anything; she couldn’t divorce him, and she was also worried that her family was going to get left with nothing. And her family definitely would get left with nothing if she left or committed suicide or did anything. I don’t know what the equivalent would be for an aristocratic lady in Russia at the time would be to seek separation. She had to stick with him to the bitter end to see if she could get something. I don’t think it was just love that kept them together, but I think there were still elements of connection, there must have been. And we show them a lot and we dwell on that. But she was bound to him completely.
MMM: There is the scene that Tolstoy recorded his voice. Was any of the audio material available for you guys to listen to?
MCAVOY: Yeah we listened to it on gramophone; it was incredible. His voice really was wonderful the first time that we heard it, and Michael left it to play it to us until we were rolling. To have that almost physical connection, actually it is a physical connection because even to hear something is a physical connection because it’s vibrating in your eardrums, it’s making you physically react, and it was really powerful. I don’t know what he was saying though; it’s all in Russian.
MMM: Have you finished filming “The Conspirator”?
MCAVOY: Yes; I finished a couple of weeks ago.
MMM: What was it like working with Robert Redford?
MCAVOY: He’s great; he’s really, really good. A really nice guy as well. He makes you call him Bob. Justin Long kept calling him Mr. Redford and he was like, “Call me Bob,” and Justin would just keep on going, “I don’t think I can.”
MMM: What else have you got coming out?
MCAVOY: Nothing else coming out. I’m about to go do a film called “I’m with Cancer,” and that’s getting started in February, during the winter Olympics, which is a bold stroke.
MMM: I keep hearing rumors of them bringing Wesley Gibson [“Wanted”] back to life, or wanting to.
MCAVOY: Yeah there are rumors. I don’t know any of it. I got a phone call from [Timur, “Wanted” director] just after New Year’s Eve passed and that was it. He didn’t even talk to me about the film, he just said, “I’ll talk to you in a couple of weeks about the film,” so god knows what’s happening.
MMM: How do you stay grounded?
MCAVOY: I don’t feel like what I do would ask me to not be. Actually, sometimes it does. Dame Helen was saying something the other day about how when you talk about yourself all the time in these situations you can become quite boring because you think you’re fascinating and you’re so used to talking about yourself that even with your partner, even with your friends you’re still in the same mode; let’s talk about me because that’s what I’ve been doing for 10 days. That’s the only threat, is doing press sometimes can make you a bit self-obsessed because your job is to be analytic and people are analyzing you all the time. But honestly, I’m getting used to that and I don’t think it has that much of an effect. You just need to watch that you don’t become the center of your own little film.
MMM: How do you balance the big films, like “Wanted,” with something that’s a little bit smaller, like this?
MCAVOY: I don’t even have to balance it, that is what gives you the balance. Life is a scale. [laughter] It’s just so desirable to do something massive after you’ve done smaller things, and then to go back to doing something small, and then maybe hopefully one day do something massive again. You just keep mixing it up. And honestly, just go with what you think is a nice character and a good script. Even with “Wanted,” people kind of question me when I say it, but I really liked the character. I thought the character progression was great; a nice workout for an actor.
MMM: And that was a surprise. That wasn’t cut out to be a big film; it was a little thing that all of a sudden took off.
MCAVOY: I don’t really know why; I think it was just a combination of factors really. Not that it redefined the parameters of action movies or anything like that, but it had a different eye to it and that’s because Timur Bekmambetov is slight mental. And he’s also got quite a Russian sense of humor, even though he’s from Kazakhstan, he spent most of his time in Russia. He’s a got a different sense of humor that infused the film and we all bought into that. And also I think it’s funny; violent as hell but I thought it was still funny.
MMM: Are there any social causes that you’re really passionate about, and if so, why?
MCAVOY: I kind of work with the Red Cross in Uganda. But the main reason that I’m passionate about one particular country is because I spent time in Uganda and I had an amazing time there, and it’s a cliché thing to say but it’s true; I had my eyes opened to things I didn’t understand beforehand. So I feel a debt to that country because it’s given me a big step up in my career, telling one of their stories [“The Last King of Scotland]. So I work with the Red Cross in Uganda and I work with an amazing organization called Retrack that works not only in Uganda now, it’s now spread to Kenya and Ethiopia as well. They basically re-house street kids and sometimes, if they can, get them back with their larger families if their parents aren’t there anymore. And they do a lot of soccer and aid with them as well and basically try and keep them off the streets. A lot of kids that come from the countryside end up in the city basically fighting for their lives every single day.
MMM: You’ve played a variety of roles. Is there a genre that you prefer?
MCAVOY: I always like doing comedy; I really like doing comedy. I don’t think I’ve done too much of it, but to make people laugh is the best thing an actor can do I think. To make them cry and all that is good too, but it’s not as good as making them laugh. Comedians are the best.
MMM: Do you find it hard to do comedy?
MCAVOY: It is hard. But it depends, it’s like anything. If you’ve got a part that suits you it’s not hard, or it’s not as hard. But it can be a nightmare, it can be very hard. I like the pursuit of the gag as well, I like the pursuit of the moment where you go, “I think we just made something funny,” even if it’s not overt. And also it’s quantifiable; you can identify it when it works or not. When a movie’s a drama story you can sit in an audience and go, “I don’t know if they’re actually getting it or liking it.” But if it’s a comedy that either laugh or they don’t, and you know. So it’s quite nice to be able to identify a success or a failure.
MMM: When you go home and you see your friends that you went to school with or that you grew up with, do they give you crap about being in a videogame, because “Wanted” became a videogame? With all your success to they help keep you grounded by giving you crap about it?
MCAVOY: Yeah. I’ve got three or four really good friends back home who give me a lot of shit, and thank god for that. But actually nobody gave me any crap for the videogame. In fact, I don’t think anybody knows there’s a videogame; I don’t think anybody bought it. I don’t know if it’s any good or not. He asked me to voice my character which I didn’t do so they hired somebody to do an impression of me; it was hilarious.
MMM: If they give you crap about your career how do they feel about you playing Mr. Tumnes?
MCAVOY: Oh man, that never ended. When one of my friends saw that he phoned me up at 3 o’clock in the morning (I was in another country) just to rip me about it. The guy was in fits of hysterics; he walked out of the cinema halfway through the film just to tell me I looked like a dick. Hey, I like it, but it wasn’t really his genre.
THE LAST STATION opens on December 12th in select theaters nationwide.
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Ben Affleck & Rosemarie DeWitt Talk THE COMPANY MEN!
By Marlow Stern
The film directorial debut of E.R. creator John Wells, The Company Men studies the effects of corporate downsizing on middle-class families in rural Boston suburbs. The story centers on a year in the life of three men, played by Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones and Chris Cooper, trying to survive unemployment. Ben Affleck’s character is offered a job installing drywall by his blue collar brother-in-law, played by Kevin Costner. Affleck’s wife is played by Rosemarie DeWitt (Rachel Getting Married), and the film also features supporting roles by Maria Bello and Craig T. Nelson and lensing by famed cinematographer Roger Deakins.
In years past, it would’ve been rare for a film with such a star-studded cast and timely subject matter – even in the wake of Reitman/Clooney’s Up in the Air – to have to go to the 2010 Sundance Film Festival seeking distribution, but such is that state of the independent film industry.
The film’s stars Ben Affleck and Rosemarie DeWitt sat down with MMM to chat about their downsizing drama The Company Men, the downsizing of independent film distributors, their own ‘getting fired’ tales and their intriguing upcoming film projects, including Ben Affleck’s sophomore directorial effort, the gritty police drama The Town, starring Affleck, Jon Hamm, Rebecca Hall, Jeremy Renner, Chris Cooper and Blake Lively, and Rosemarie DeWitt’s upcoming romantic drama Earthbound alongside Michelle Williams and Gael Garcia Bernal.
MANHATTAN MOVIE MAGAZINE: You both must have lost jobs at some point in your lives, right?
BEN AFFLECK: I did lose jobs. Nothing on the scale of what happened to the folks in this movie or people in the real world who’ve worked for twenty years. I lost jobs when I was a kid. I got fired from a movie theater when I was 17 and got fired from a restaurant when I was 19.
MMM: Why did you get fired?
AFFLECK: I was late a couple times at the movie theater and one time at the restaurant. My manager at the restaurant was like a vindictive marijuana dealer that wanted to hire one of his friends who was also selling marijuana, and he fired me.
ROSEMARIE DEWITT: Not yet! I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. I think I’ve had a harder time getting jobs then losing them, so maybe that’s what it was.
MMM: When you’re an actor is there that constant anxiety of what your next role’s going to be?
AFFLECK: I think being an actor or being in the arts – whether it’s dance, a painter, etc. – is a different way of making a living than regular, corporate America, where you have a contract that says, “I’m going to do this sort of job, and it may not be creatively fulfilling, but at least the job will be there for me. I’ll go to work every day from 9-5, punch the clock.” In the arts, you don’t have that same deal but you get to do, I think, more interesting stuff. But, a job’s a job. You have one audition, you may get that part, and then you have no guarantee that you’ll work again for the rest of your life. There’s no guarantee that anyone will buy your paintings, that you’ll get hired as a dancer or that anyone will buy your music and that’s really scary. The one thing about the arts is you internalize that reality, and you learn it.
MMM: What are your thoughts on the state of the film industry? It’s experienced a great deal of downsizing itself with all the studio reshuffling and closings of independent studios.
AFFLECK: I think it’s having a really dramatic effect on the industry. The arms of studios who previously made movies like this and movies you’ll see out at Sundance have all basically closed. The conventional wisdom is that those kinds of movies can’t make money, or they’re at least not worth enough money to be financed within a studio system. There’s still Fox Searchlight. Miramax is greatly diminished.
DEWITT: I feel like it’s going to affect the storytelling, too. I keep reading scripts that feel like they were meant to be big studio movies but they’re going to be made on a little budget. It’s sort of like the intention of what it came out of is different, and it feels awkward. There’s nothing wrong with it, it’s just, as an actor, like putting your foot into a shoe that doesn’t fit. You see these big production values but you know it’s going to be made on a much lesser scale, and possibly a much lesser story.
AFFLECK: I watched “To Kill a Mockingbird” the other night, and it occurred to me that it would be a Sundance movie right now. That’s not the type of movie that people would be willing to make today on a studio level. I ran into Harvey Weinstein the other night and I had the same kind of question that you had. I asked him, “Why aren’t people making as many of these kinds of movies?” And he said, “It’s hard to make money because the DVD market has been cut back so dramatically. You basically make half as much money on DVDs now so the profit margins are less, and people are going to less movies like this in theaters. Without studios making movies like the ones you’ll see here, Sundance is basically the only venue making interesting, different kinds of American cinema. And the studios themselves are making a very narrow brand of movies. I like studio movies, but there needs to be other kinds of movies too.
DEWITT: And people were really depressed after “Avatar,” because they couldn’t get back to Pandora. [Laughs]
MMM: Ben, the fact that “State of Play” didn’t connect with audiences… how did that effect you? And what did that say about the studio system?
AFFLECK: I just wept. [Laughs] Universal had a tough time there. They had some struggles and eventually “shuffled” management. I liked the movie. I think the movie was pretty good, got good reviews and, for whatever reason, it didn’t do so well. It’s hard to know. Movies are interesting because you judge success and failure of a movie based on what kinds of standards you put on them. A movie succeeds at Sundance if it costs $5 million to make and does $20 million. But if it costs $100 million then it certainly has to make a lot more than that. I’m not sure how much “State of Play” cost, but it may have been a victim of undue expectations in some ways. And audiences just haven’t been going to see dramas a lot in the last couple of years. I thought “The Road” was a great movie. “The Road’s” made eight million bucks! I think audiences go in cycles and I think dramas are due for a comeback.
MMM: Ben, you’re from Boston. The film takes place in Boston. Was it a more personal experience for you?
AFFLECK: It made it very easy to prepare and much more specific, which was great. I went to Framingham – I actually know some people from that area – and it keyed into it in a really specific way. It made it really easy for me to contextualize and understand the story and add detail to it than if it was in Milwaukee, because I just wouldn’t have known the lay of the land as well. And I was really happy because a lot of Boston stories – “Good Will Hunting” is certainly one of them – show that Boston is salty and Irish and that’s all it is. That’s the cliché of Boston right now – not that it isn’t Irish or urban in parts, but some people think that’s all you ever see in Boston. Regular, suburban middle-class – [Route] 128 – is really what’s going on there, and I really liked that that’s what was presented. It’s not a bunch of guys whipping out knives on each other all the time.
MMM: You guys made a very believable squabbling couple.
DEWITT: We were squabbling! [Laughs] No, we weren’t. We had a good time. It was one of those ones where it seemed more useful to goof around in between and hear each other’s rhythms, as opposed to rehearse it.
AFFLECK: It’s hard to just show up with someone you don’t know and your characters have this whole history and life together—
DEWITT: —It’s such an interesting pressure for actors. It’s gotta be believable and there’s no way to do that, necessarily, it just comes together.
MMM: Could you guys talk about your respective upcoming projects? Ben, you’ve been directing and starring in “The Town,” and Rosemarie, you just signed up for a cool-sounding movie…
DEWITT: “Earthbound!” Yeah. Kate Hudson’s character gets cancer and it’s a love story between her and Gael Garcia Bernal. It’s sort of this young woman’s struggle about having to learn to love somebody.
MMM: Any more “Mad Men?”
DEWITT: I don’t know! There’s plenty more of the 60s to go, so I’d love to see Midge return in some go-go boots!
AFFLECK: I just finished shooting “The Town” at the end of November and I’m editing now. It’s really exciting. I’m just starting to look at all the footage and go through it. I’ll probably have a cut sometime at the end of March.
MMM: You really lucked out casting Jeremy Renner, didn’t you?
AFFLECK: I did! I knew he was great, but he did kind of blow up as soon as I put him in the movie. He was in “Assassination of Jesse James” with my brother Casey, and somebody was like, “He’s got this Iraq movie coming out and it’s going to be really good,” and I was like, “Well, nobody sees Iraq war movies.” And then I saw it, and I was like, “You are really good in this movie!” And it was successful beyond what I thought. I lucked out with Jeremy Renner in a major way.
MMM: Are you and Matt ever going to work together again? There’s always chatter…
AFFLECK: We’re in the process of setting up a production company together. It’s not finalize, so I can’t give you any details. That may in fact happen now, which is cool. Both of us are kind of slowing down a little bit on craziness because of kids and stuff. Matt also never stops acting. He’s just non-stop. [Laughs]
MMM: Since you’re a family man now, how did that inform this family-oriented role?
AFFLECK: Yeah. Obviously, having a marriage – I think it would be very hard for me to play somebody in a real marriage or a real relationship without having one, or being in one and understanding it. When I was younger and not understanding what that was about, it would’ve been difficult for me to understand the pressures, the nuances, the love, the whole thing. That’s what I liked about this couple and this movie – they seemed real to me. It wasn’t easy, but it wasn’t bickering… It was just real.
MMM: It’s no “Chasing Amy.”
AFFLECK: [Laughs] Yeah, it’s no “Chasing Amy” for sure. We didn’t try to have a three-way with Tommy! [Laughs]
THE COMPANY MEN premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and is currently seeking a distributor.
Tags: ben affleck, rosemarie dewitt, sundance 2010, the company men
Posted in Festivals, Interviews | 3 Comments »
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